“No.” Roiven grins and lets go of me. “Then let’s go. I don’t want to be the reason my wife is late.” He turns and walks down the ramp ahead of me. I follow, and Roiven opens the door to the room where the Coven of Ancients meets.
I step through slowly, my breath catching. It’s brighter in here than the hall. A dozen lanterns hang off the limbs of the great gnarled tree that fills the room, glazing the branches in light and casting strange twisting shadows on the floor.
And in front of us, in a large semi-circle, wait nine witches, dressed in their finest. Roiven strides past me to join them, making ten, all that remains of the coven after the fight with the Hellions. And I, the eleventh, slow and pause before them. Aria hands Roiven an unlit pillar candle, like the others are all holding, and he turns to face me. His expression is as serious and somber as the rest of them.
There’s a long moment of silence. Finally, the witch in the wheeled chair begins to speak.
“Long ago, when plague and pestilence threatened these lands, the first ancient, the gold dragon Eaanu, forged a bond with the witch Orelaya,” she says. Her voice sounds distant and a shiver runs down my spine. “The bond they forged made these lands safe and ensured both the witches and the ancients could continue to prosper.”
She falls silent. Torain looks up from the floor and fixes me with his green eyes.
“Over the generations,” he says, “our people have faced many threats, and so have the ancients. But we honor that first bond, and the pacts made by Eaanu and Orelaya. What was once a single bond is now a coven. What was once a single witch tonight becomes eleven, sworn to honor the ancients, to honor each other, and to protect this land—forallits inhabitants.”
My eyes roam the group of them as Torain falls silent. Aria speaks next, her eyes smiling at me.
“A bond, once forged, cannot be severed,” Aria says. “A pact, once vowed, cannot be broken. All those who have joined the coven, since Orelaya’s time, have spoken pacts. And now, tonight, we call on you to speak them, Caiteven, sea-witch, Hafgúa’s bonded, Queen by right of the ancient’s choice. Will you answer?”
I gulp, nod, and clear my throat.
“I will.”
“Then approach, and seal each pact with your power.”
I start on the right of the group, opposite from Roiven, my heart pounding in my chest. Avreen stands there. Tonight the warrior isn’t wearing armor. Instead, she’s wearing a black dress that clings and drapes, swirling like her shadows do whenever she moves.
I draw a deep breath and nod to her in greeting. Avreen’s face tells me nothing. She peers into my eyes, then holds her candle up.
“To speak truthfully and act fearlessly in matters of the coven.”
I reach out and summon a tiny flame to light the candle with. The edge of Avreen’s mouth tilts up in a hint of a smile, and I move to the next witch.
“To use violence only as an ends to peace,” Torain says. That one might be hard, with how I was brought up, but I don’t disagree with it. I nod, reach forward, and summon a single spark to catch the candle’s wick. It burns.
“To be just and merciful,” the next witch says. I hope I can do that, but it doesn’t feel as easy as making a promise. I light the candle anyways, because I’m willing to fight for it.
“To honor and follow the decisions of the coven.”
“To vote with the good of all in mind, not just the good of self.”
On and on I move down the line, lighting each candle as each new pact binds me to these people, and this place, that I have already come to love. Before I know it I’ve nearly reached the end.
“To protect and care for yourself as fiercely as you do for therest of us,” Aria whispers. I smile back, feeling sheepish, and reach out to light the candle.
And then I’m at the end of the line, and the last one is Roiven. He offers his candle to me.
“To believe in this place and these people,” he says. It’s the same thing he asked me to do at Aveinor, before he took me down to see the village. I’ve never heard a simpler request. I reach forward and touch a finger to his candle, then draw my hand back as a flame flickers to life there. Roiven smiles, and for a moment the whole room brightens.
I gasp as a thousand voices fill my head. For a dizzying second I can feel everything, everyone; all the heartbeats on this island, the dragons above us, the bright specks of life coursing through the Wild Seas like stars in the sky. Eternity stretches in every direction but it is always rooted in the now, the here, and then it’s gone, and I’m just Cai, my head spinning with the momentary view I had of how vast and beautiful this world really is.
The rest of the coven blow their candles out simultaneously, and then suddenly I’m being crushed in an embrace, first Roiven, then Aria, then the others, all pressing around me and welcoming me into their fold.
I am, truly, one of them. Whether I believe I have any right to be the Queen of them or not, I am at the very least a member of the coven.
“Must we continue here, or can we join the feast?” Torain asks, and Roiven punches him lightly on the arm.
“There’s a feast?” I ask, baffled, because being welcomed by this group was already more than I could have imagined. I was ready to give up the Empire even if there was no home waiting for me on the other side, but now I don’t just have Roiven and Hafgúa. I have a family.
“Of course there’s a feast,” Aria says, slinging an arm around my shoulder. “We usually use the caldera, but tonight it’s on thesouth shore, so your large friend can join us if he wants to. I’m feeling tired. Can wepleaseall use the lift?”
