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With the sun still shining, she walked from the cottage to the bay. She understood the spell now, and her part in it. And she trusted the coven Tarryn and Keegan had chosen to hold strong.
She spotted the children she thought of as the Gang of Six playing their game with a red ball and sticks in a fallow field and a doe with her shaggy-coated fawn slipping into the trees. On the ledge of the mountain above, Trolls trooped home after a day of mining.
At a near cottage, crystals and bells glimmered on trees in anticipation of Yule.
Ordinary things, she thought, on a brisk December afternoon.
But what they would do on the beach near the lap of the bay wouldn’t be ordinary.
With the breeze streaming through her hair, Marg stepped up beside Breen and waited.
“This is for you,” Tarryn told Marg, and Keegan nodded.
“This is for you.”
With a nod of her own, Marg took another step forward.
“I thank you for lending your power and your faith, bringing your light here to strike against the dark. This Daughter of the Fey is precious to all, but more to me as the daughter of my son. I’m grateful to you, all who stand here.”
Rowan from the Capital stepped forward. “We are seven, and we are one in this.”
Each in turn did and said the same. And each set the candle they held on the shale beach to form a circle.
They cast the circle, calling on the Guardians of the East, West, North, and South. As they ringed inside it, the candles flamed on. As they flamed on, Breen felt the power in her, around her, begin to beat.
Keegan laid a stone in the center. “And here the stone, brought from the deep caves and sacred to the Troll tribe. An offering of strength.”
Tarryn set a cauldron of hammered copper on the stone.
“And here the cauldron forged by their tribe for use in high ritual. An offering of purpose.”
Harken placed three white crystals and a handful of faerie dust on the stone beside the cauldron. “And here the dust and crystals, given by the Sidhe, offerings of light.”
“And here a bough of pine and acorns three from the Quiet Wood and the Elfin tribe. An offering of life.” Rowan placed them.
“And here the feathers and the fur, given by the Were tribe. An offering of spirit.”
“And here three shells, and the pearls from within them, precious to the tribe of Mer.” Tarryn placed them. “An offering of faith.”
Once again, Keegan stepped forward, and placed a red stone. “Andhere a dragon’s heart, placed here by my hand as rider. An offering of loyalty.”
“And here,” the seven said together, “we, of the Wise, offer the power, sacred and precious, given us to bind all together. An offer of unity.”
As Breen stepped forward, it pulsed on her skin, pulsed under it, what rose within the circle.
“I am the Daughter of the Fey, Daughter of man, Daughter of gods. I am of Talamh and the bridge to the world beyond it. I am a child and a servant of the light. Under the light, I ask for protection against the dark magicks conjured against me by one who corrupts the craft and gift. I ask not for my own life but for all, that I may fight back against the dark and bring peace to the worlds. If this is my place, my purpose, my destiny, I join, one of seven, seven into one, to cast this spell.”
As she spoke, the stone beneath the cauldron turned to flame.
The wind rose, whirling around her, but the flame stone and the candles burned bright.
“Gods of the light,” Marg called out, “witness our faith, one of seven, seven in one, so what we do here cannot be undone.”
“Not by magicks born in the dark.” Without hesitation, Tarryn reached into the flame to take an offering from the stone and lift it into the cauldron.
“Not by any who bear Odran’s mark.” Keegan did the same.
And each in turn spoke the words and reached into the fire.
