Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(31)

The last time I had gone to water, my father’s voice had called me to the ritual. Today there was nothing but the sleet that fell with that erratic shushing sound, and the sight and feel and . . . oh, the taste of magic on the air. Magic had a hint of sweetness and a hint of bitter, like dark chocolate. I liked it. The magic of the smoke wrapped around the shadow within me, as if tying itself in place.

The magic smoke loosened, as if I had been contained in a balloon, its sweet bitterness trapped, and the balloon was unknotted so the taste could escape. Not an image that actually made sense, except to the peyote dreams. But the pressure of it lessened except where it lay tightly wrapped against the shadow on my soul.

I opened my eyes. I was alone beneath the canvas tent, the green pine branches that had formed the protective circle removed and placed in a pile. Uni lisi was standing in the sleet, her back to me, her skin hanging and wrinkled, so very unlike the drugged vision of the old woman and her magic. She walked past the swirling, muddy bayou, the water so cloudy that a sixteen-foot-long alligator could be inches below the surface and I’d not have seen it. Aggie followed behind her and I followed them through the muck beside the bayou and down into a small pond. It was outside the current of moving water, and it was clear to the leaf-coated bottom. It was also free of alligators. I stepped into the pond after them. The water was warmer than the air, its bottom thick with the slime of the rotting vegetation.

I could hear the murmurs of the other two as they prayed and dipped beneath the water. I moved to the side and softly said words I hadn’t planned to say. “Creator God, I seek clarity of mind, wisdom, strength in battle.” I bent my knees and sank beneath the water. My hair caught in the current of my own movement and brushed my body. I stood, sleet peppering my head. “Adonai, I seek understanding of the scarlet motes that move throughout me, magic not of my making, but somehow merged with my soul.” I sank again beneath the water. I came back up. “El Shaddai, I seek to be enough, to do enough, to sacrifice enough, to save my friends and my family, as you are enough to succor the world.” I dropped beneath the water. Something touched me as I moved, long and linear and sharp on one end. A stick, I hoped, not the claw of some creature testing my flesh. But I didn’t look and it floated to the bottom.

“Redeemer, I seek purity of heart, purity of mind, purity of soul, and, if not freedom from the darkness that is tied to my soul, then acceptance of it.” I dropped again and rose again. And this time when I opened my mouth, I started to cry, throat tight, tears streaming down my face, so hot against the plink of sleet. “To the spirit of my own uni lisi. I seek . . .” My breath juddered in my chest, as new understanding bloomed open inside me. “To forgive you. To forgive what you made of me. To forgive that you taught me to kill. That you pushed me into the storm as we-sa and abandoned me. That at every part of my life, you neglected or abused my soul, my spirit. My own lack of forgiveness until this time has allowed the dark shadow to find a home in my heart and to have power over my spirit.” I dunked myself. I stayed deep this time, letting the water carry away the pain that I never even knew was there. The pain of betrayal and abandonment. I felt something detach from my chest and slide away. The magic had wrapped the darkness. Waiting for me to understand. Waiting for me to release it.

I hadn’t had to cut the darkness away. Or give it away. Or hope that God would wrench it from me. I just had to let it go. There was an empty place there now, a hole in my soul, waiting for me to fill it. I stood. When the black water drained away enough to speak, I said, “To Elisi.” I sobbed, choking, and had to stop until I could breathe again, this time talking to my mother, so very long ago. “I forgive myself for not being strong enough or old enough or war woman enough to stop the men who hurt you.”

I slid under the water and back up. “To the spirit of my father, Edoda. I forgive myself for the torture of your killer. For the vow I made in your blood. I was a child. But I knew what I did. I knew. And though I am fiercely”—I grated out the word—“glad of their deaths, I have carried the pain of the vengeance for all these years. And I am forgiven.” I slid beneath the water once more and stood. Opened my eyes.

The magic synesthesia was gone, the fog just fog, the water just water, my breath just breath. I felt clean and free inside as I stood in the small black-water pond. I knew the water was not really as warm as I perceived it. I was hypothermic. But again, I didn’t care.

I gripped the hand that appeared before my face and let Aggie One Feather pull me to the bank. She was stronger than she looked. But then her magic had shown me that about both of them, their strengths and their mighty power, and their terrible purpose.

We dressed under the tent, my flesh ashen with cold. The strange burned and scarred places were gone, as if I had never been hit by lightning. Shifting shape hadn’t healed me. But facing my own dark demons had.

We dragged the tent down and set it under the trees far above the waterline. The rain put out the fire even as we worked to gather up all our belongings, but I still used the small shovel to toss mud over the smoking coals. Together we walked back to the car and got inside. Aggie turned the heater on high and we drove away.

We were nearly back to the small house that the two women shared when Aggie One Feather said, “You must take your family and make them your own. Claim them, according to your clan, according to the Cherokee Constitution and the old ways. This will give you strength within your own heart and at your own hearth.”