The force of that realization nearly knocked me over.
“Breathe, Rayanne. Just breathe.” Deirdre cupped my face, her smile kind once again. Her eyes twinkled, shining with something that looked a lot like pride. “It’s true. You are one of the four Silversbane witches of prophecy. The Shadowborn. That is what the Tarot was trying to tell you.”
“But… I have sisters?” My eyes misted, my heart hammering inside.
“Three of them. You were separated from each other when your parents died, adopted into different homes in an effort to protect you from those who sought to kill you.”
Separated.
Sisters.
Parents died.
Adopted.
Kill you.
The words were coming at me so fast, I couldn’t even grab onto any of them, let alone make sense of everything Deirdre was telling me. I closed my eyes, sucking in a deep breath of warm Vegas air.
Focus, Gray. Focus.
“I was practically still a baby when I was adopted,” I said, opening my eyes. “Why would someone kill babies? We couldn’t have had much power back then, even together.”
“As the witches foretold to unite the covens under a single banner, you had immense power. Just byexisting, you were a threat to anyone who benefited from keeping witches subjugated. We reasoned—”
“We?”
“My coven. You four were in my care after your parents died. We knew you would be hunted, especially as you came into your powers. Together, you’d be so impossibly strong, so clearly the witches of prophecy, we wouldn’t be able to hide you. But we thought if you were raised in separate homes, there was a chance you might survive. As long as you didn’t reunite, the prophecy could not be set in motion.”
“But we were sisters! And we never had a chance to know each other!”
Sympathy and sorrow filled her eyes. “I regret that. Truly. But understand, Rayanne. If you’d been allowed to stay together, you never would’ve survived.”
“And now? What happens next? Where are they? How can I find them?”
“Now it’s out of my hands, and in the hands of fate. It seems the time of the prophecy is upon us. There is no way to stop the wheel of time, and no way to prevent you from reconnecting with your sisters. They will be called to you through the blood spell to contact the souls of your ancestors. Whether you want this or not, Rayanne, the fourwillreunite. And you will lead them.”
An image flickered through my mind—the three women I’d seen in my dream, all dressed in white, carrying their silver swords. The muscular blonde. The dark-haired girl with a braid wrapped around her head. The one with a shaved head, dressed in a hospital gown—the only one who’d sparked any sense of familiarity.
Their images sharpened in my mind.
“Yes,” Deirdre said softly, undoubtedly reading the imprints from my nightmares. “Those were your sisters. Their essences are reaching out to you. Consciously or not—they, too, sense that the time has come.”
“Why does one of them feel so familiar to me?” I asked. “I don’t think I recognize her, but there’s something… I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Serena,” Deirdre said. “She’s the first born.”
The first born. The oldest. My big sister. I have a big sister.
Hope flamed in my chest.
“She’s familiar to because you… you’ve already met her.”
“Serena?” I scanned my memory, but couldn’t recall a single person I’d ever met with that name.
“You know her under her adopted name.” My grandmother met my eyes, her own cold and steely, unwavering in their brutal honesty even as my heart threatened to burst.
For so long, the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister was Sophie. As far as I was concerned, shewasmy sister, blood or not. When I lost her, I lost a piece of my heart I’d never get back. I lost Sophie as a person, as a friend. I lost her light, her magic, her laughter, her love. But I’d also lost the chance to be a sister. To have that bond with another woman. I’d grieved it, just as I’d grieved Sophie herself.
