Page 146 of Bound By Fury

For the Water.

And the Earth.

Fire and Air.

Bound by fury, they withstood the flames of our sacrifice, no fire hot enough to melt away their skin.

They chanted a prayer passed down from when our grandmothers weren’t yet free.

I could feel everything my sisters felt, see what they saw.

When the men held up their daggered crosses, we turned our powers against them.

I feasted on the fear that shone in their eyes as the Twelve’s feet lifted from the ground. As they rose above. As they took flight like the Cardinals who will surely come just as the Daughter foresaw.

One by one the Twelve used their powers to control the rope, to string it up themselves. But first they made sure to cover their faces, to show every single one of those men what was coming for them.

As they swung, I dug my bare toes in the earth.

When I closed my eyes, I saw stars.

I begged. I begged and begged.

Lightning shot straight through their bodies then, a beam of stark-white starlight that pierced through the clouds and smoke.

When it was done, I was hideously empty, and the new Twelve were dead.

But the bargain had been struck.

Now I can’t close my eyes without seeing them there. Bodies flashing in the camera lights. ’Cause white folk can’t resist the allure of Black suffering.

I know they’ll take credit for this in some way.

How sad the hunters must have felt to know there would be no blood spilled. No fruit to suck on. No magic to consume for their own.

You cannot cull what you cannot kill. And you cannot kill what is already dead.

For my baby, and her baby, and her baby, and her baby.

Because in exchange for twelve lives, no Lee Valley Witch will wield her power until the final Cardinal ascends, bringing forth the prophecy and ushering in the Great War.

Twelve lives for peace, no matter how temporary. Twelve lives to bring forth the power of the Cardinals. Twelve lines of ancestral magic to shroud the Celestial Cusp, to hide the lines from sinister creatures, ill-intentioned monsters, and shadow ilk hell-bent on destroying all that stands in their way.

That is, until the last Cardinal meets their catalyst.

When she comes, they will feel it. The wrath of us. The fury we’ve cast into the very soil we bled and cried upon.

When she comes, the combined power of the Four will unearth this ancient magic, will complete the rule of threes. They will balance the scales once and for all.

But even this doesn’t come without a cost.

As the magic left us, we felt it. The all-consuming absence of the thrumming, humming static in our veins. A hollow agony that will surely haunt us and the four generations to follow.

Let them believe the white man done it, strung us up among the southern trees.

Let them taste the smell of our burning flesh.

Let them pull at the blood-soaked roots and dig for something they’ll never find.