“Hush, you two,” Lady Keating commanded. She had replaced the knife on the cloth and taken up the silk cord and the sword. Doireann ambled over and picked up the drum.
Waning moon? Pen felt a brief surprise rise through her dreamy serenity, then sink back down into slumber. The ritual in the grimoire had specifically called for a full moon, but Lady Keating surely must know what she was doing. She waited by the silver moon-dish until Lady Keating and Doireann had joined her and placed the sword and the drum on the grass behind them.
Lady Keating lifted her hand. The coil of cord dangled from it. She stepped forward and looped it around Pen’s waist. “Here is the Maiden,” she murmured, then stooped and picked up the sword. “Penelope, give me your hand.”
Pen held her hand out. Lady Keating took it firmly in hers and, before Pen could react, ran the heel of it across the sword’s blade.
“Oh!” Pen gasped as a thread of pain ran up her arm. A thin line of blood welled up from the sword’s cut. Lady Keating set down the sword and pressed Pen’s hand to the cord until several inches of it were stained dark with her blood.
“Very good, my child.” Lady Keating lifted her hand and blew gently across the cut. It vanished, though the pain lingered a few seconds longer.
She turned to Doireann and repeated the procedure, wrapping the cord around her in the Mother’s name and marking it with her blood. When she had completed the same steps on herself, she brought the ends of the cord together and knotted them. “And here the Crone. Now we are complete and triple-bound: bound by our womanhood, bound by your image, and bound by blood.” She smiled a small, private smile at Pen.
“Bound by blood?” Doireann’s startled reaction could even be felt through the cord that tied them together. “But how—I thought that Niall—”
Lady Keating’s lips tightened. She tugged gently on the bloodstained cord. “Bound by this,” she said. “Now please stop interrupting.”
Doireann stared at her for a moment, and even through her blanket of calm acceptance Pen felt how the air suddenly quivered with tension between them. Lady Keating returned her daughter’s stare, her face expressionless, until Doireann looked down.
“Very well,” Lady Keating said, exhaling. “May we proceed?”
Still looking at her bare feet, Doireann nodded.
Lady Keating held out her hands. “Tonight we will be raising a very large and very powerful circle, and adding to it the power we have already summoned and put in the stones. It will require your absolute concentration and your absolute obedience to my word if we want to avoid letting this power loose on the countryside. Do you understand me?”
Pen took her hand. “Yes.”
“Good.” Lady Keating smiled at her. “Tonight we will also begin a little differently.” She took Doireann’s hand—did Doireann seem to hesitate before letting her grasp it?—closed her eyes, and began a low, rhythmic chant.
“Hear me calling, O my Goddess, your handmaid calls unto you. Join us this night and bless our labors, smile on them and make them fruitful. Lend to us your limitless power so that we may succeed and know truly your gracious might. I, your handmaid, ask this of you. Triple Goddess, threefold strong, as three we call out to you. Come to us, be in us, fill us with your glorious power.”
Pen closed her eyes and relaxed into the slow cadence of her words, letting them hold her up like an invisible scaffold. There must have been something else in that mead, or perhaps it was just that it came from the fairy world, because she felt as if she were slipping into oblivion . . . or at least parts of her were—the outside parts, the mundane parts, the layers of Pen that knew how to make small talk with dowagers in ballrooms and how to order a proper dinner for twenty and how to write polite notes to hostesses after a party. What was left was the Pen who gloried in the night air on her bare arms, the Pen who had levitated with rapture during her visit to the stone circle, the Pen who could now sense the power humming in the stones around them, slumbering but slowly waking at Lady Keating’s call—
“Penelope, my dearest child, will you begin the circle?” Lady Keating asked quietly.
Had her words been spoken aloud, or sounded only in Pen’s mind?
Did it matter?
Pen took a deep breath, reached inside her as Lady Keating . . . as Mother had taught her, and lifted forth a circle of power, like a golden, glowing, perfect flower. She held it with her mind, stroking it, whispering to it, encouraging it, then released it to Doireann. As she did, she felt Lady Keating’s hand tremble in hers and opened her eyes. Lady Keating was staring at her with an expression of fierce, burning joy, and Pen knew she was pleased.
After a while, she lost count of how many times they passed the circle among themselves, adding to it with each passage. More often than they had before, that was all she knew for sure. But somehow the weight and magnitude of it was no longer a burden; she felt as if she could stand here until they’d raised a circle large enough to cover all of county Cork, spitting gold and blue sparks and glowing like an aurora. The stones around them had given up their stored power to it as if it were a magnet, but Pen had begun to feel as if they too were passing and augmenting it, as well as containing it. Was that why it was less burdensome tonight? Did the stones support the circle so that the three of them could dedicate all their energy to increasing it?
“Enough,” Lady Keating commanded. Pen felt her release the circle, felt it waver and then settle into the stones, waiting. She sighed and let her shoulders slump. No wonder Lady Keating had suggested she rest today; the stones might support the circle, but they didn’t support her.
“Here. We have a moment before the moon is in position.” Lady Keating was unstopping a silver flask. She held it out to Doireann, who refused it wordlessly, but Pen nodded and took it.
The flask contained more of the mead she had drunk before, honeyed and cool as she tipped it down her throat, and the tiredness she’d felt receded into calm. She blinked up at the sky as she drank; while she had been lost in the circle raising, the moon had risen until it was nearly overhead. It seemed to waver as she gazed at it, as if she were looking at it through water, and she realized that she was seeing it through the magic energy they had raised. “I can actually see our circle,” she marveled to Doireann. “It looks like a veil, fluttering on a breeze.”
Doireann didn’t answer or even look up. Instead she bent and retrieved the drum that lay in the grass behind her and started to beat a rhythm on it with her fingers, two slow beats followed by three slightly more rapid ones: thump, thump, thump-thump-thump; thump, thump, thump-thump-thump. A shiver ran down Pen’s spine, not of cold but of anticipation. The time had come. They were going to begin the draiocht.
Lady Keating handed her the silver sword. Pen held it tightly, tip pointing toward the moon as Lady Keating had directed her earlier that day.
“Your strength is the newest and freshest,” she had said, holding Pen’s hands and gazing into her eyes. “I will need you to bear the sword and focus into it the circle magic we have raised as I say the words of the draiocht. You will become the sword, my tool to carry out the draiocht. It will require your complete surrender to my will . . . no, to our will. Do you understand? It will be hard work, harder by far than raising the circle. When it is done, you will be empty and weak. But you will also be ready to accept and be accepted by the Goddess, who will be pleased by the offering of your power in the draiocht and will return it to you threefold. Then you will be hers.”
Hers. Pen took a breath and relaxed into the beat of Doireann’s drum just as she had relaxed into Lady Keating’s chant. Thump. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. What a somber sound. It sounded more like a funeral march than a magical invocation. She felt a tugging on the cord that still bound them as Lady Keating shifted, spreading her feet slightly as if she prepared for some physical task. Then she raised her hands to the moon and spoke in a loud, commanding voice.
“Twice three years, and twice three years, and twice three yea
rs again, but no more will you have in the light of the sun. For now the gateway between the worlds is opening, and it opens for thee.”
Twice three years again . . . that added up to eighteen. Eighteen years only in the light of the sun. What did that mean? But now was not the time to stop Lady Keating to ask questions.
“Go you quiet into the dark, where a gray hand will close your eyes and muffle your ears, so that you no longer hear and see the world of the living.”
Pen stirred, even while carefully keeping the sword pointed properly at the moon. Lady Keating’s words sounded as funereal as the drum did. How was this going to bring Niall and the Duke of Cumberland together?
“Penelope.” It was quietly spoken, but Pen understood. She had given her word to obey Lady Keating. It was time to stop woolgathering and concentrate on bringing the power of their circle into the sword. She would pretend it was a sponge, thirsty for magic. The sword began to throb slightly in her hands, in time to Doireann’s drumming.
Lady Keating was swaying, her hands delineating odd patterns in the air before her. “Now your steps falter, and your shoulders bow, and your face is turned toward the dark at the end of your journey. The Goddess awaits thee, and will take up your soul from your body so that you will sleep the dreamless sleep of death.”
Death? A chill ran over Pen, this time born of cold. It felt as if the temperature around them had dropped twenty degrees. Even the sword suddenly felt icy in her hands as their circle power flowed into it, was sucked into it at a pace so rapid that she could hardly hold it. Lady Keating was shaping the magic with her words, shaping it into something cold and black and deadly. For the first time, Pen felt afraid. Something was happening here that she did not understand. Swords and darkness and death—
“It comes closer, ever closer, the silver sword that will cut the thread of your life, and you will bow to it, for it will not be turned aside.”
Had Doireann begun to play more loudly, to match the growing volume of Lady Keating’s voice? Or was it to compete with the rushing wind that had sprung up within the stones, born of the swirling power overhead? Pen’s arms were shaking, but now it felt as if the sword had turned to ice and welded itself to her hands. The circle power still flowed into it, and now it felt as though a whirlwind hovered at the sword’s point. The length of the blade glowed with a cold silver light.
“So I say this unto you: take Death’s hand, and go with Death into the dark land. Leave you now this mortal coil and your earthly throne—”
Pen gaped at her. Your earthly throne? Had she heard Lady Keating correctly? “I don’t think—” she tried to say through a mouth grown dry with shock. Her feeble protest was drowned out by a shout from somewhere outside the stone circle.
It hadn’t been Doireann’s drum that she had heard. It was the frantic beat of a horse’s hooves as it pounded up the hill toward them.
“Pen!” Niall’s voice shouted.
Lady Keating’s hands fell to her sides. “Niall!”
Pen nearly cried out as well. Hadn’t he gone back to Cork after their disastrous conversation the other night in her room? What was he doing, barging into a ritual like this?
Niall flung himself off his horse and darted between the stones toward them. The sight of the glowing sword in her hands stopped him for a second; she saw him look up at it in consternation, then shake himself and press forward, fists clenched.
“That’s enough, Mother. Pen’s not going to do any more of your work,” he said in a low, steady voice. “I won’t let her. She’s coming with me back to—”
“No, she’s not.” Lady Keating’s face looked pinched and angry. “Why didn’t I just put you on a boat to London before I left Cork? I don’t need you interfering right now, you foolish boy. You’ll take your proper place as son of the king, like it or not!”
She swung one hand in a sweeping gesture. Niall staggered back as if blown by a wind, then toppled, striking the ground with a painfully loud thud. Beyond the circle she heard his horse whinny in terror and gallop off down the hill.
“Niall,” Pen whispered as she stared at his unmoving form. Good God, was he all right? But the sword in her hands seemed to have pinned her to the ground so that she could not go to him.
Lady Keating turned back to them. “He’ll be all right,” she said quickly. “I just stunned him. The draiocht is nearly completed. Doireann, the drum! Penelope, my dearest one, when I say the word, point the sword to the east, and then we will be done.”
Doireann resumed the somber thump, thump, thump-thump-thump, her mouth a thin line under hooded eyes. Pen looked from her to the glowing sword she still held aloft in aching arms, and then at Lady Keating.
“Take Death’s hand. Leave your earthly throne. You’ll take your place as son of the king . . . son of the king . . . the king.”
Lady Keating’s voice echoed in her head, then mixed with Niall’s: She needs your magic. . . . She’s using you. . . .
Niall hadn’t been lying to her.
“Penelope?” Lady Keating called. “Are you ready?”
Pen took a deep breath. “No,” she said.
“What is wrong? Was it Niall? I’m sorry he interrupted us. Do you need a moment to collect yourse—”
“I said no. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Lady Keating looked at her. “My child,” she said kindly. “We have come this far in the draiocht, and it must be completed. If Niall had not been stupid enough to interrupt us, we would have been done by now. We are all tired, but I know you are strong enough to finish. Now, then—Hear me, O—”
“You don’t understand. I just can’t do this. I didn’t realize before how you’d planned to help Niall.” She looked up at the sword again and shook her head. “I cannot harm the queen.”
Lady Keating considered her. “Don’t be foolish, Penelope. What could the queen’s death matter to you? She’s just a girl, as likely as not to die in childbirth in another few years once she marries, just as her cousin did. The Duke of Cumberland is a strong, healthy man, far more suited to wearing the crown. And might I also remind you, child, that you have given me your obedience? I offered to teach you the ways of the Goddess, and you consented. I asked for your help, and you said you would give it. I told you that tonight I required your complete surrender to my will, and you willingly surrendered it to me. Willingly.”
Her voice was quiet and reasonable. Pen almost wished she would shout and rave at her instead. “I know I did. But I can’t do this. The queen is my friend. My sister saved her from a magic attack last year, and I helped her. I helped save her once . . . and now I am bound to save her again.”
Lady Keating had gone still. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because . . . oh, because I was ashamed that I hadn’t done more to help last year because I wasn’t good enough. I don’t like to remember when I was . . . when I was weak and ignorant. I didn’t want you to know.” The silver light of the sword grew hazy and indistinct for a moment, but she couldn’t put it down to rub the tears from her eyes. Oh, this was hard, far worse than last year when she had refused to give Michael Carrighar her power. It had been easy to refuse the man who’d kidnapped Ally . . . but this was the woman she’d come to love and admire over the last months, the woman who had brought her to the Goddess and called her daughter.
Lady Keating was silent for a moment. “Penelope,” she finally said, “that was another girl in London last year. It isn’t who you are now. You, weak and ignorant? Not anymore. Look at yourself—you’re like the moon, fading all the stars around her into oblivion. Nor are you bound to that queen anymore—you’ve pledged yourself to the Goddess. She expects your service.”
“What?” Doireann dropped her drum.
“I know I have.” Pen stared up at the sword she still gripped. Her arms had mercifully gone numb, and it felt as if it were the sword that was holding her up and not the other way around. “I love the Goddess. But I love the queen too. Can I not serve b
oth?”
“You, serve a mere mortal?” Lady Keating laughed and shook her head. “Penelope, my dearest Penelope, you are more queen than that chit on the throne could ever be. As a Banmhaor Bande, you will be a queen amongst witches—and, like me, the most powerful one.”
“Mother, what are you saying?” Doireann asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Lady Keating ignored her. “Ever since we met, I have marveled at how alike you and I are, even down to our names. Down to our very names, my dear! Could there have possibly been a clearer sign that we were meant to find each other? I look at you and I can see myself so clearly. I had that same hunger for power and mastery, to be the strongest and the best above all. When I look at you, it is like looking in a mirror.”
Pen fought to close her eyes. Just what was it that Lady Keating saw inside her? Was that what she truly wanted, in her inmost heart? Absolute power? To be a queen among witches?
No, no! said a small, shocked voice inside her. She wasn’t ambitious or power-hungry. Not at all.
Not ambitious? said another voice from even deeper within. So why had she come to Ireland to study magic, then? Why hadn’t she been content to study with Persy back in England?
Because doing that would have been acknowledging that her sister was and always would be the better witch . . . and she couldn’t do that. It had taken Persy saving them all last year to make her realize that she envied Persy’s strength and wanted to prove her own magic to be as good . . . or better.
“I have watched you work hard here with me, and it has been like my past has come back to me.” Lady Keating’s voice was low and passionate. “Only now I can help make this new me even stronger and better. Can you imagine what we could accomplish together, you and I? With power like ours combined, we could own Ireland if we wanted to. If you stay here with me, you will become as great as I, perhaps greater someday. Don’t you see that it’s almost in your grasp? Help me now—give me your power for this draiocht.”
Betraying Season Page 27