AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Luke raises an eyebrow.
“Lochkelvin water, Lochkelvin stone. Rory. His blood. Lochkelvin…” I freeze, my heart suddenly beating faster. “Connections to Lochkelvin: connections toRory.” I bolt upright, struck by the logic — if it is logic, though I suppose it makes a fuzzy kind of sense in my too-tired brain. I find myself rooting around in the stones, selecting whichever one appeals to me the most, though in all honesty I know it doesn’t matter. Luke lifts himself onto his elbows, gazing at me partly in intrigue, partly as though I’ve lost my mind.
I grab a vibrant violet stone and clutch it tight inside my hand, rushing out from the confines of our boat-shield and over to the edge of the loch.
Luke gapes at me as I leave. “Wha—?”
“Lochkelvin water, Lochkelvin stone.Rory. A connection to Lochkelvin through Rory.I’mthe connection,” I say all this in a furious babble, hoping to the goddess I’m right and that this isn’t a wildly presumptuous stab in the dark from my ego. “I didn’t complete the ritual last year. I have to be the one who throws the stone. It’s what Rory said — redo what was supposed to happen. Fix this. Make it work.”
As the stone soars from my fingertips, I realize with an innate sense of relief that I’m right. The violet stone arcs into the air and plummets, splashless, into the depths of the cerulean loch, and in a glorious sweep of energy that rocks through me, the underfoot carpet of colored stones dim their lights and become normal.
Luke crawls back, his face slack with wonder at the sight of the lights of thousands of stones spreading into ordinary gray. It should be depressing and miserable, as lights dim one by one, but sheer relief floods my veins as though I’ve somehow gathered all the swirling energy from the stones and encased it within myself. My heart pounds with electric joy. I pick up a boring gray stone and slip it into the pocket of my blazer. A receipt.
Still, the loch runs cerulean behind us.
“And this?” Luke asks me in an almost reverent tone as he approaches the edge. “It’s still glowing.”
I hold my hand against my mouth, concentrating. The loch answers to me. It calls to me.
It’s strange but I feel connected to the elements of Lochkelvin in a way that means I know I’m right before I even speak.
“I only opened the gateway,” I murmur, breathless with understanding. “Butyouwere chosen. We need to make an offering.”
Luke casts me an inscrutable gaze as he considers. “Something like what?”
“Something meaningful. Something important.”
“An offering?” He sounds skeptical but I nod. “That’s not part of the ritual.”
“It is,” I say, knowing it to be true. “I feel it.”
“I don’t have anything on m— wait.” He turns, his gaze falling onto the lopsided rowboat — and the gold crown glinting in the background. “No. It’s too much.”
I keep my mouth shut, but Luke glances over at me as though in need of advice.
“It can’t be the crown.”
“It’s not your real crown,” I point out, but it doesn’t do anything to alleviate Luke’s fears. “It’s just a piece of metal.”
“You know that’s not true. It’s asymbol. The same symbol as my actual crown. Offering it up as part of some ritual is…” He shakes his head. “This isn’t a game — it’s my life. Who knows what could happen?”
Worry blasts from every pore in Luke’s tired face. But I know, and I believe Luke does too: the crown is the best we’ve got.
“You already did it once, remember? That speech we recorded in Edinburgh. That was you giving up the crown.”
“Only because I didn’t know maniacs were waiting in the wings to wear it as a party hat.” He grows quiet. “I don’t like this.”
I glance at his blazer, where Danny’s small gold crown badge is pinned to his lapel. I nod at it. “That one, then.”
“Jessa… it’s still a crown.”
“I thought you wanted to give it up.”
“I’mcompelledto. It doesn’t mean I’m sacking off the crown and giving my best wishes to the idiot worse than me who’s going to wear it because of a political coup.”
Both of us stare at the glowing flow of water. And then slowly, silently, Luke seems to sag. He slips across to the place where his gold crown lies nestled between the plain gray stones.
“As soon as there were men on Earth, they made sure to distinguish which one was leader.”
