Year One (Chronicles of The One #1)(62)

What lay ahead was cold and dark and deliberate.

“Dark.” Lana’s murmur echoed his thoughts. “Max, what dark ritual would have done this?”

“We don’t know enough. We don’t even know enough about what’s changed in us, what’s growing in us. But someone knows about the black, and twisting the Craft to the dark.”

“Out of sight of the house, but still, too close.” She felt her skin shudder as they approached the circle.

Rough stones laid in a perfect circle, as if set on a line drawn by a compass. Within it the ground was spread black and slick as tar. And that, too, was spread in a perfect circle, without a trace of the snow that had fallen on its surface or the stones around it.

“I … Do you smell blood?”

“Yes.” He kept her hand firmly in his.

“Do you think this was a blood sacrifice?”

“Yes. But for what purpose? For what power? Lana!” He tried to jerk her back, but she had crouched, reached out, touched a stone.

It jolted through her, that dark, grasping power. It stung her fingers, even through gloves. And in its flash, she saw blood pour into the circle, heard a voice raised in triumph call out.

“A deer. A young deer. Its throat slit.” She turned into Max’s arms when he yanked her away. “I could see it, and the way the blood pooled into the circle. Then the fire—ice-cold, consuming all. I heard…”

“What?” He held her more tightly as she burrowed against him. “What did you hear?”

“I couldn’t really understand it—it was like a roar more than a voice. But it called for Eris.”

“Goddess of strife. We need to try to purify it. The ritual’s done, and we can’t turn that back. But this thing still has power.”

“And it’s pulling power, I think. Or will, in the dark.”

He opened the pack they’d filled with items from their supplies. Three white candles, his athame, a small container of salt, a handful of crystals.

“I don’t know if it’s enough, if we’re enough.”

“We’ve done pretty well so far,” he reminded her.

He set the candles in the snow outside the circle while Lana scattered the crystals between their points.

“We don’t know what to say.” Still, she poured salt into his palm, then into her own.

“I think we need to call on powers of the light, ask for their help in basic purification.”

“This isn’t basic.”

As she spoke, she heard the cries, looked up.

Crows circled in the hard winter sky. Something pulsed inside her that was both fear and knowledge.

“I dreamt of crows, do you see them? A murder of crows come to gloat, come to feed.”

“Lana—”

“Light the candles white and bright, and their flames will turn this right. Spark the crystals, clean and pure, and their power will endure. Call to the north, the south, the east, the west, unite and from evil power we wrest.”

The wind whipped as she spoke, sending her hair flying. Her eyes went opaque as she turned to him, lifting her arms.

“Call!”

He felt her power—the sudden flash of it—burn into him. Lifted his athame. North, south, east, west.

Above them, the crows screamed. Around them, the air pulsed.

Eddie came on the run, breathless, a hand pressed to his healing wound. “Holy fuck.”

“Candles light.” Lana held out a hand, and the three candles flamed. “Crystals spark.” She threw it out again, and the crystals glowed as if lit from within.

“Here is light against the dark.” Bending, she picked up a burning candle. “Take one.”

“But I’m not—”

“Take one,” she ordered Eddie again. “You’re a child of humanity. You’re of the light. Light burns through the dark.” She tossed her candle into the circle. The ground rose up, writhed.

With a shaking hand, Eddie threw in his. Blood bubbled to the surface, fouling the air. Max tossed in his.

“And here is faith against fear.” Lana scooped up the crystals burning against the snow, poured them in.

Smoke billowed.

With an audible swallow, Eddie plucked crystals from the ground, dropped them in. Then Max.

“It fights, it seethes, it snarls, and its creatures scream for blood. It will have blood, both good and ill. But it will never win. Now salt to smother what evil sought to free.”

She stepped over, poured some into Eddie’s hand.

“As I will.” She threw salt into the pit. “As you will,” she said to Eddie. “As we will.” She looked at Max. “So mote it be.”

Three scant handfuls of salt expanded and spread over the black in a white layer. Thunder shuddered from the sky, from under the earth. Then the circle filled with a white flash.

When it faded, the ground inside the stone lay bare, its scarred earth quiet. Overhead a single cardinal winged, and vanished scarlet, into the forest.

“It wasn’t me, exactly,” Lana managed.

“It was you.” Max strode to her, pulling her close. “I felt you. I felt you in me, over me. Everywhere. Power awakened.”

She shook her head, but didn’t know how to explain. Now that what had risen in her had ebbed, she couldn’t see any answers.