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“We’re in the Covenstead,” I said, recognizing the hall finally from the one time I had visited on Vera’s grand adventure. There, at the end of the mirrored hallway, were the double doors with the sign of the Triple Goddess emblazoned with gold above them, two crescent moons flanking a full moon.
I cursed our bad luck in my mind. Escaping my grandmother’s manor was one thing, but getting out of the Covenstead alive would be significantly more difficult. There would be witches everywhere, several probably prepared to die to protect their Crone. I glanced up at Carnon, but he didn’t meet my gaze, too focused on playing his part and taking inventory of our surroundings to quell my rising panic.
Focus, Elara, I told myself, willing a calm, simmering fire into my veins. I took a breath, trying to clear my mind of panic and focus on the task ahead. I knew I could perform the magic. I just had to get the timing right, and hope that Carnon wasn’t too drained to do his part.
We were dragged, chains clanking, behind my grandmother, who threw open the double doors of the Covenstead to a room of hushed, whispering voices. They quieted as we entered, my grandmother’s obedient, reverent audience.
“Sisters,” intoned my grandmother, her voice magically magnified to fill the chamber as we were pushed forward, the dais I had seen a witch die upon glowing with candlelight. A bowed figure was huddled there, flanked by two other witches, her hands bound with rope before her. As we came closer, I could see that the pinkie finger of one hand was missing. Mama. For a moment I imagined her blood spilling there, and my simmering fire slipped as an icy crack of panic seized my heart.
Focus.
I began, casting the circle and the pentagram in my mind’s eye, silently lighting the imaginary candles and invoking each element in turn.
“See what I have brought today for your judgment,” my grandmother continued. She either didn’t notice my silent focus, or didn’t care as we climbed the dais steps. “Two traitors, and the Demon King himself, along with his pet.”
A gasp went up from the crowd as Carnon and I were dragged before them, Akela staying as close to me as the flanking witches would allow. She would kill us all, I realized, or kill them one by one until I agreed to do whatever it was she wanted me to do.
“Mama,” I whispered, straining for her. She looked up, face bruised and tear-stained, and eyes wide. She shook her head, a warning to stay quiet.
My grandmother raised her hands for silence, and the room quieted. I could barely see anything in the dim light of the room, but I caught a glimpse of panicked eyes in a warm, brown face near the dais. Vera.
“My granddaughter has been misled by her wicked mother, and hoodwinked by the Demon King into believing lies,” my grandmother continued.
“That’s not true—” a hand clasped over my mouth, my shout of protest stifled by one of the witches. I bit down hard, tasting blood, and the witch yelped, pulling her hand away.
“Silence, Elara,” my grandmother hissed, turning to give me a look that warned of violence. I tried to reply, to snap at her, but no sound came, my voice an empty breath of air like it had been stolen away. Ithadbeen stolen, I realized. She had used my blood against me. To control me.
I closed my mouth, glaring daggers at my grandmother as she turned back to the crowd.
“But we must show her the truth,” my grandmother said, gesturing to me. I saw how she would paint this. Blame my mother for my treachery so that she could mold me into what she wanted me to be. I wouldn’t let her. “We must show her how she has been so misled.” With a snap of her fingers, the chains binding Carnon unraveled and pulled, lifting him by his wrists until he was strung up above the dais. He roared as the chains went taut, pulling at his arms painfully, his legs kicking fruitlessly in the air.
“Your Crone lies,” he roared, the accusation stifled in a cry of agony. His mouth opened again, but no sound came out, and I realized my grandmother must have stolen his voice too. Panic gripped me. He looked eerily like the card Brigid had shown me, the hanged man, the symbol of sacrifice. I took a breath and vowed that Carnon would not be a sacrifice for me. Not today, and not ever.
“My dear granddaughter,” my grandmother said, giving me a look of such false sympathy and love that my gut churned. “Let me reveal this demon’s lies.”
With a flick of her hand and a whispered incantation, for truth, I realized, Carnon began to change. His back arched against the forced transformation as legs became a sweeping serpent’s tail, scales glowing gold at his waist and tapering up his sides. His eyes grew more slitted, his forked tongue lashing out in an agonized silent scream. He was screaming. I was screaming too, as pain, my mate’s pain, wracked my body. And it was nearly enough to break me.
Focus.
I bowed, taking a shaking breath as I pushed the pain away and began repeating the incantation, forcing my will into every imagined element and candle and part of the spell.
“Look,” shouted my grandmother as the crowd of witches, the entire coven, gasped and screamed at the revelation of the Demon King’s bestial form. “Look at him and tell me, Elara. You have one chance, only one, to answer. Do you wish to save your mother and join your sisters, to return to me and have all forgiven, or would you prefer to tie yourself to this monster? To sacrifice everything forthat?”
I looked up at my mate, his beautiful scales dull in the flickering candlelight, his claw-tipped fingers splayed in agony, and his breathing harsh and ragged as he looked down at me in pain and panic.Do it now,his eyes said. My mother knelt below him, her own eyes filled with terror. She shook her head again, a silent command to let her go. To run and leave her.
I looked up at my grandmother, opening my mouth, then closing it again when I realized I still had no voice. My grandmother cupped my face, her hands ice cold as she gave me a look that others might believe to be loving, but I knew was filled with malice.
“Your choice, my dear,” she said. “Your sisters, or the Demon King?”
With a rasping voice, I said as loudly as I could, “I choose my mate.”
In an instant, the chains holding us broke, the unlocking spell I had been working in my mind willed to life by a desperate panicked push of my mind. Carnon landed with a thump, roaring as he wreathed the dais in flames and shadow, trapping us there with my grandmother and her guards. The room erupted in screams of terror and scraping of chairs as witches ran, fleeing the terrible power and wrath of the Demon King.
“No,” my grandmother screamed, whirling away into shadow as I pushed my withering magic out toward the witches on the dais. It was so damned slow, the iron having drained me, making my magic weak. I caught one of the witches but missed the other, watching the one I held crumble to dust as Carnon caught the other in bands of darkness. He threw the witch hard across the room, where she landed with a sickening crack.
When I stood upright, I stilled, my grandmother was standing behind my mother, a knife to her throat. Carnon was focused on keeping that wall of death raging around us, his arms trembling as he strained against the exhaustion from the iron. He was injured, blood blooming on the tunic above his scaly tail. His power would be gone soon, I realized. Without mortal dreams to replenish it, he had been weakened to the point of exhaustion, and I would soon follow. We had to get my mother and ourselves out and we had to do it now.
“Let us go,” I shouted, willing my magic to creep slowly, so damn slowly, toward my grandmother. “Let us go, and you can live. You can keep this cursed place. Just let us leave.”
