This just got so much worse.
“Fuck…” Elyssara murmurs.
Marin’s fist pounds against the table. “Well fucking get her to change her mind. We cannot have the witches fighting alongside Ilyra and my godsdamned mother!”
Seren begins to pace around the room, mind racing, steps frantic.
“We need to come together. All of us,” she murmurs, voice quiet but certain, almost rambling. “We need a conclave. We need everyone in the same room. No secrets. No kingdoms. No masks.”
Seren’s hands drag through her hair, honey-brown eyes darting around like a woman possessed.
She strides across the room, closing the gap between her and Saana. “Assuming this is your home… do you have a necklace? A pendant? Some sort of jewelry I can use to contact you with?”
Elyssara watches in confusion. Seren’s mind going faster than anyone else’s.
Saana pulls out a chain with a gold ring threaded through it from beneath her rust tunic.
“Will this do?” Saana asks.
Seren only nods.
“And you?” she asks Marin.
Marin pulls out the same chain and gold ring.
Their marriage rings.
Seren nods, eyes searching the room for… something.
A small spoon sits atop the kitchen bench and Seren reaches for it, shrugging her shoulders, and holding the spoon in her palm.
She closes her eyes.
Her head drops back for just a moment, and when she brings it back to center, her eyes spring open, and staring back at the room are pools of endless, cavernous black.
Golden threads weave through jewelry, Elyssara’s amulet, and the spoon in Seren’s palm. The threads of magic unspool from Seren’s hands like cosmic lassos, and loop through the items until they’re bound together.
A thin thread stretches between the women, a line of communication opening between them all from within. Like a new channel opening between their minds.
The ink in Seren’s eyes clears, dissolving from her irises.
The women just stare.
“If you need to communicate, hold the jewelry, speak to each other in your mind,” Seren explains, voice almost bored. Like she didn’t just create a communication channel.
Marin’s face twists in confusion. “And the spoon?”
Seren smiles innocently. “Oh. I lost my amulet in The Perils, and thought the spoon would do as a replacement.” She giggles, an old version of herself surfacing, and Elyssara can’t deny that she likes it.
Elyssara snorts a laugh, but more questions surface.
The Perils?
She files it away to ask later.
The air of confidence settles back over Seren. “I have an assignment with the witches. I’m going to get clarity on the alliance, and then… I’ll set up the conclave between us all. We need to get in the same room and figure out what in the fucking Stars is going on. And how we’re going to stop it.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Doesn’t wait for Marin to agree or Saana to nod. No, she assumes with great, earned confidence, that her plan is the one that will work.
