by Kelley Grant
The twins grinned at each other as Aaron nodded in satisfaction. As Zara bumped her head against Tori’s waist looking pleased with herself, Tori was satisfied she had the right people on her side.
CHAPTER 12
The Chosen and their Guardians were gathered in the Obsidian Temple. All the feli had chosen to join them, including a wild feli who had shown up and attached himself to Palou.
“The feli augment our power, but they also shield us from excess energy that might backlash,” Alannah told Sulis. “I’m guessing that’s why every pair of Guardian and Chosen have a feli.”
Amon had called them to the temple today and stated that Alannah had learned enough and it was time to actually try joining the deities with the One.
“I know you’ve been teaching Alannah the final words of power in the joining ceremony,” Clay said to Amon. “But what mandala does Ava use? It would make her feel better if she could practice it before we do the actual ceremony.”
“The mandala for the joining is fluid,” Amon said. “It is expected that the Loom and the Weaver will know how to set the pattern.” He looked doubtfully over at Ava, who had Nuisance on her lap and looked terrified at the thought, and then over at Sanuri, who was wandering around, touching the statues of the deities. “The words Alannah and I speak are specific, as is the power needed to invoke the One and allow the joining to happen. I have been training Alannah in the ritual. But the pattern set by the Loom matches the energy of the deities. Ava should know in her heart how to chalk the lines.”
Sulis glanced over at Alannah, who looked a little smug. Amon was still a haughty jerk, but less offensive and more reverential to Alannah.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ava said, looking panicked. “Clay teaches me set patterns. I can’t come up with them on my own!”
“Nonsense,” Clay said soothingly. He knelt down beside her. “I’m the one who has been holding you back! When Sanuri sits down in your patterns, you improvise and draw a new pattern around her. When a crack or rock gets in your way, you find a way to create around it.” He lifted her chin when she looked down. “You are more talented than I, my young friend, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Let the student outstrip the teacher.”
Ava smiled up at him as he held out his hand. She let him lift her to her feet. They walked over to the statues, and Clay put an arm around her shoulders.
“So, what do we do first?” Clay asked.
Sanuri wandered over and placed her hand on Parasu’s figure. “This,” she said.
They looked over at Amon, who shrugged. “Seems as good a place to start as any,” he said.
They stared at the statue. Parasu was a thin, long figure with a painfully resigned expression.
Ava gulped and stepped up, looking at the figure and then at the Altar of the One.
“So,” she said hesitantly. “Am I supposed to include only Parasu and the Altar of the One in my mandala if we are focusing on Parasu?”
Amon looked puzzled. “In the main joining ritual, all the deities are woven together at once,” he said. “So the mandala encompasses all of them.”
“So should we try joining them all at once?” Sulis asked. “Will the ritual only work if all are woven into the One at the same time?”
“No!” Sanuri said, her face drawn in a scowl. “This!”
Sulis looked at Alannah, who was focused on the girl.
“Is she channeling the One?” Sulis asked.
Alannah nodded slowly. “I think so,” she said. “I feel something connecting to her, similar to what I feel when Yaslin connects to me and the One.”
Clay heaved a sigh. “So, one at a time it is,” he said. “To be honest, that is easier. We can practice handling more energy before we have the full energy of the deities here and have to weave four at once.”
“I do wish this would have been done before I came,” Amon said, fretfully.
“How could we know the ritual,” Grandmother said acerbically, “since the Descendants have been keeping it from us all these years?”
He didn’t answer and they all turned to watch Ava circle the statues. She glanced over at the group, looking lost.
“Come, come,” Sanuri sang. She grabbed Ava’s hand and sat. Ava sat with her and Sanuri grabbed her other hand. They closed their eyes. Sanuri hummed a tune that seemed familiar, but Sulis couldn’t place it.
“Oh my,” Alannah breathed softly.
“That’s interesting,” Lasha whispered.
Sulis closed her eyes, looking for what they were sensing. She could feel energy swirling, but not as obviously as they saw it.
“What?” she whispered.
“There’s all kinds of energy being exchanged,” Alannah said softly. “It’s like the two are connecting more deeply. I see many colors. I think Sanuri is weaving their energy together, so the One can direct Ava through her. Or maybe so Ava can sense the deity’s connection to the One better? I don’t know exactly what is happening.”
They stayed like that for a half sandglass, motionless, eyes closed.
Then Ava opened her eyes. She looked dazed.
Sanuri giggled and Ava looked at her and grinned, then stood. She grabbed her box of colored chalks and knelt on the black floor, at the midpoint between the Altar of the One and Parasu’s statue. She chalked lines, intently. Sulis could feel energy corresponding with the colors she chalked and wondered if she was chalking a visual cue for Sulis, who could not see energy colors, or if it helped her focus.
“Unusual,” Clay whispered to Sulis. “She always starts from the outside and works her way in, so the lines are even. This time it is reversed.”
“Does this mean I have to dance from the inside out?” Sulis asked.
“I don’t know,” Clay said. “Everything we’ve done before was theoretical, practice. This is real. We are breaking new ground. You’ll have to see how it feels when she is finished, and decide with Master Anchee on a starting point.”
“The colors are incredible,” Lasha said.
“So you can see them, too,” Sulis said sourly. “All I see are pale chalk lines.”
“Extend your senses,” Grandmother chided her. “Then you will understand.”
Sulis closed her eyes, and the sensation of the energy nearly knocked her over. Each chakra felt strong. Alannah put a hand on her arm, and she could see the vibrant colors as well. And in the center of each line of energy a link, leading to . . .
“She’s tying Sanuri into the mandala,” Sulis whispered.
Alannah nodded. “Do you see what Sanuri is doing?” she asked.
Sanuri was standing beside the Altar of the One, her hands and cheek resting against the orb in the center. She looked restful, happy. Sulis closed her eyes and Sanuri glowed white, pulsing with the same energy as the orb.
“She connects with the One,” Clay said. “And Ava lays a path from the deity to her and the orb.”
The mandala was oblong, not the perfect circle Sulis was used to dancing. The altar was on one end and Parasu on the other. She paced along the outer edge, feeling the energy and trying to figure out how to dance it. She found Anchee doing the same thing.
“Do we even need to dance it?” she asked him. “It feels powerful without us adding to it.”
Anchee nodded. He pointed to the outer edge, which Ava was still chalking. “If this is similar to other wards of power, she’ll need to add a layer on the outside of Parasu to enclose him in the mandala, so we can collect his energy and dance around him. You will dance the lines of the mandala and enhance the energy, drawing Parasu’s power from the statue. You will direct his power to me and I will expand it. I will give the energy to your grandmother and she will capture all that energy and spin it to the Weaver, who will weave it together with the One’s energy. Alannah will speak the words of invocation, and the One will draw that energy into
himself.”
“And that will empty the statue?” Sulis asked. “What will be left?”
“I don’t know,” Anchee said. He looked past Sulis and sucked in a worried breath. Sulis turned. Ava was standing, chalk in hand, but swaying on her feet.
Dani supported her, his arms around her, steadying her. Sulis could feel him sending the girl energy. Ava smiled up at her Guardian, and then her eyes fell on the knife in the sleeve by his side. She grabbed his knife and drew it, and Sulis groaned.
But Ava turned to her drawing, walking to the Altar of the One. Sanuri smiled and held her palm up. Ava pricked her palm gently, and then slashed her own. She clasped her hand to Sanuri’s, smearing their palms together, and then pressed her palm against the altar. There was a hint of dark energy where she pressed it. Then she dragged her hand along a line she’d drawn from the altar to Parasu. Sulis winced in sympathy as the girl dragged her wound on the stone of the floor. There were only trace amounts of blood, but Sulis could feel the dark energy rolling off the line, linking the altar, Parasu’s statue and Sanuri even more deeply. She went to the line on the other side of the mandala, and did the same, enclosing the center with blood magic.
Clay leaned in to say in Sulis’s ear, “So, learning blood magic from Aryn was part of the One’s plan,” he said. “When will I learn to have faith in his guiding hand?”
When Ava finished the line, she handed the dagger back to Dani, and then turned and chalked more lines, this time fully around the altar and Parasu, as Master Anchee had predicted.
When she was done, Ava closed her eyes, checking the design’s energy. She opened her eyes and rechalked two lines more deeply. She stepped back again, and then went to her pillow and sat, closing her eyes. Her face was weary as Nuisance bumped his head under her chin and lay across her lap.
“Good!” Sanuri chortled. She carefully stepped over the lines, going to Grandmother. She pressed her bloody hand to Grandmother’s lips and Grandmother jerked away, startled. She grimaced, licked her lips, and swallowed, creating a blood connection to Sanuri.
“I would rather have cut my palm than swallowed blood,” Grandmother complained, and Sanuri doubled over with laughter.
“This is where we begin,” Master Anchee said. “Joisha, are you ready?”
Grandmother took a final lap around, examining the mandala, and nodded.
“Alannah?” Master Anchee asked.
Alannah positioned herself outside of the Altar of the One, Yaslin beside her. She nodded, her face serene.
Sulis took a deep breath.
“Do we need to exchange blood?” she asked Master Anchee nervously.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “All we need is an energetic connection to each other, which we’ve already formed through practice.” He grinned. “That is the theory. But most of my theories have been turned upside down today. Sanuri is not cutting us and pressing our bloody hands together, so I think we are safe.”
Master Anchee pointed to an energetic line. “I believe that is our start point. We will wind around the circle, like it is a labyrinth. The end point will put you behind the Altar of the One and me behind Parasu.”
As Master Anchee walked her though the pose changes on each flow of energy, Sulis’s confidence waned.
She stood outside the mandala as Master Anchee circled around and Grandmother took her position outside. Sulis was worried that Sanuri would get in the way, but the girl climbed onto the altar and sat on the orb as the Guardians gathered outside the circle—close enough to give energy but not be in the way. Sulis glanced at the doorway, wondering if a girl sitting on their sacred altar would scandalize the guards, but they faced away, guarding the door against intruders. Sulis had a sudden fear that they should be guarding the altars against the Chosen. None of them knew what would happen in this ceremony, especially if one of them made a mistake.
“I can’t do this,” Sulis whispered, unable to bring herself to step into the mandala. “I always mess it up. I’ll smear a chalk line, and that’ll be it.”
“Nonsense,” Ashraf said, kissing the top of her head. “Take a deep breath in. It has been many ten-days since you smeared a single line. Our Nasifel clan will tell tales of your magnificence. Focus on your breath. That will calm you, guide you.”
Sulis took emotional as well as physical strength from his embrace, and then looked across the oblong space at Master Anchee. He was speaking with Lasha, who nodded earnestly. They clasped hands once, and then broke apart. Lasha took a few steps back, and Ashraf did the same. Alta stalked over to Lasha and nudged her hand, sitting at her side. Sulis glanced back and found that Djinn was seated beside Ashraf, staring unblinkingly at her. She looked around the circle. Yaslin stood with Alannah, well behind Sanuri, outside the circle. Clay stood at the edge, by Parasu’s statue, watching with interest.
Sulis stepped carefully over the chalk lines into the center and stood facing the Altar of the One. Master Anchee stood at her back, facing Parasu. This would be the only time he would face away from her. His focus would be on mirroring her movements. Though they had discussed what to flow to, it was up to Sulis to keep the energy rising out of the pattern.
“Calming ritual,” Master Anchee said softly.
Sulis closed her eyes. As they breathed and moved their arms in the calming ritual, energy stirred around her—more than she’d ever felt in this place with so little green life energy to draw on. This ritual was drawing energy not only from what was around them, but also out of the Altar of the One. There was resistance, the essence of Parasu resisting the pull to join with the One’s energy.
Sulis noticed her thoughts drawing her away from the breath, from the ritual, and acknowledged them, releasing them. She opened her eyes to begin the dance, but everything distracted her. The feel of the energy was more intense if she closed her eyes. Sulis made the choice to dance with her eyes closed, moving by the feel of the energy. It didn’t matter if she could not see the chalk lines—she felt where they were. Master Anchee would have to see to mirror her, but she could close her eyes.
Sulis was moving before she realized it, flowing with precision. It felt right to start with a slant fly position and dance to sparrow’s tail. The energy line flared as she did, and she watched it flare more as Master Anchee followed a second behind. Moving from sparrow to warrior pose, she stepped into a third chakra space and she exalted the warrior, pointing her hand at the sky as the energy channeled through her core, through her heart. Each step was placed with precision, yet the energy flowed from her arms, her heart. The energy around her grew more and more intense as she flowed. Several times the energy was not correct to fill the space with the pose they’d decided on, and Sulis struck the correct pose instead. Master Anchee did not hesitate, trusting her intuition and following her so quickly she could feel the crackle of energy between them.
The air became thick inside the mandala. Sulis could feel herself drawing energy from Ashraf to help her body keep moving. Sulis and Anchee danced farther away from each other as they spiraled to the outer edges. The energy was so raw that it was pushing them apart. Now they were skirting the black blood line, which pulsed with energy like a beating heart.
Sulis was gasping as she entered the final pose, kneeling behind the Altar of the One, her forehead on the earth in a bow and prostration.
Sulis opened her eyes and looked up as she heard giggling. Sanuri was seated on the Altar of the One, above Sulis, her face alight with joy. She made intricate motions with her hands as though drawing rope in and knotting it. Grandmother still spiraled around the mandala and her whirlwind siphoned in the masses of energy raised by Sulis and Anchee. She spun it, twisting it like fibers of silk, and gave it to Sanuri, who somehow knotted the fibers of energy together into a continuous whole.
Sulis was afraid to move, to disturb that fragile weave, so she knelt as Sanuri completed the knot and tied it t
o the blood line with a flare of light and heat that was seen and felt.
As Sulis blinked, Alannah stepped into the mandala beside Sulis and placed her hands on the orb.
She chanted, low and deep. Sulis did not recognize the language, but the orb glowed brighter, and Sulis could feel the knotted energy being drawn in by the One. It felt like a tug-of-war—the One pulling, the deity resisting.
“Ahmatora!” Alannah cried.
The orb flared, and the One’s presence reached out through the woven link. The deity tried to pull away, but the knots were too tight—it and the One were woven together. When the One’s essence touched Parasu, a feeling of relief, of release occurred. A sense of wonder and adoration rose in Sulis as the trapped core of the deity reached for the One, longing for reunion. Sulis reached for that reunion as well, feeling that longing.
Clay gave a great shout, clapping his hands and startling her away from the energy.
“Do not follow the energy to the One,” he shouted at the Chosen. “It will kill you!”
The orb flared again as deity and the One reunited. Then everything went still.
Sulis collapsed on the floor, breathing hard. She was shocked that she’d come so close to following the weaving to the One, to killing herself. She pushed herself up to her knees, and then staggered to her feet, looking around.
Most of the Chosen were sitting, stunned, around the mandala, barely stirring. Palou knelt by Grandmother, tending to her. Only Clay, Amon, and Alannah looked untouched by the ritual. Clay was studying Parasu’s statue, a frown on his face.
Amon stared openmouthed at Sanuri, who giggled and put her arms around Alannah’s neck as Alannah picked her up and carried her out of the pattern.
Master Anchee levered himself to one knee, looking unsteady and exhausted. He tried to stand and swayed toward Parasu’s statue.
“Careful,” Clay warned, jerking forward. “Don’t touch . . . No!”