The Coven (Coven of Bones, #1)(44)
They didn’t, but for the strongest amongst us, the light breeze that blew against my face was a mockery of what it should have been.
The powers Charlotte had granted to the Covenant faded along with the rest of them. So what did they hope to gain by turning their backs on our ways?
A few of the Grays lifted her casket with the air, lowering her into the hole in the ground that would become her unwilling tomb. Her prison in the afterlife.
I closed my eyes and swore to find a way to make it right. I’d free her when I could. I glanced around the cemetery grounds, studying each grave marker with a new horror dawning on me.
I’d free them all.
22
WILLOW
I waved my hand in front of the Tribunal doors, smiling slightly when the mechanisms shifted and allowed me to part them. The Covenant may not allow a witch to take her place on the council that ruled our people until she completed her education, but that didn’t mean the magic here did not recognize me for what I was.
More than one of those empty seats belonged to me.
I stepped through the doors as they spread, moving to the room where the Tribunal convened when they had matters to discuss. It was empty save for Susannah and George, standing at the center of the circle and discussing something quietly.
“Willow,” George said, his voice far more polite than the scathing scowl I imagined Susannah leveled me with. “Is everything all right?”
“No. Everything is far from all right,” I snapped. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides, unable to contain the fury even as I knew this topic wasn’t one I could approach with anger. Far too much was riding on making them understand.
He sighed, hanging his skull forward for a moment as he shoved his finger bones into the pockets of his black robe. “Your mother taught you the old ways of burial, I presume?” he asked, but Susannah ignored the conversation in favor of repositioning herself. She didn’t go to her throne, but moved until she stood in front of the dais, with the threat of it in the background.
As if it meant a fucking thing to me. I’d burn it to ash before I allowed her to continue to corrupt the witches of Crystal Hollow.
“George, will you give me a moment alone with my granddaughter?” she asked.
The other member of the Covenant nodded, slipping through the doors to their private space within the school.
“You’re missing a few greats before that granddaughter,” I said, my lips twisting with disgust. There was no remorse upon her face, not even a hint of an apology for what she’d done to that witch.
For what she’d taken from her.
“It hardly matters when you and I are all that remain. We are not as distant as most in our circumstance would be,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her as she studied me.
“I am glad of that distance. It shames me to have any relation to you at all. What you’re doing—”
“Is for the good of the Coven,” she said, tipping her head to the side. It was eerie how her bones could convey so much emotion. If she had skin, I could just imagine her upper lip curling in disgust. “Something I would not expect someone your age to understand.”
“How could this be for the good of the Coven? The earth is dying around you, and you’re too stupid to see it! If that is happening to the earth, imagine what is happening to the crystals? To the stars and the air around us? All of those things need offerings. They need our bodies to be returned to them when we die. You’re weakening the very people Charlotte Hecate tasked you with protecting at all costs,” I said, snapping as my eyes burned with unshed tears.
As much as I hated to cry when I was sad, the rage cries were the absolute worst. They hinted at what I assumed some perceived as weakness, when all I wanted was to commit murder.
Her chest sagged as she took a step toward me. One of those boned hands raised, touching the side of my face and cupping my cheek in a moment of appalling affection.
“You are so young. You don’t understand the ways of the world yet, Willow. Let me guide you.”
I laughed, taking a step back. “I will never be like you. I won’t turn my back on the way magic is meant to be used the way you have.”
She let her hand drop, clasping it in front of her once again. “Without the Hecate line, the Vessels have far more power than they should. We have no way to kill them, while the witches of the Coven are very mortal. They live and they die, and as we saw with the young witch last night, they’re very capable of being murdered.”
“But what does that have to do with starving the source? What can you possibly hope to achieve by making the witches weaker?” I asked, my frustration rising as I stared at her.
“As we weaken, so do they. They feed on us. The source sustains their vessels, but they can’t access it directly. They can only touch the magic through our blood, Willow. If we no longer have that magic in our blood, then there is nothing to keep them alive,” she said, and her bones clacked together as she shifted her hands. Her jaw spread in what I thought was meant to be a smile.
“But we’ll no longer have magic,” I whispered, stumbling back a step as her words reached me, as they penetrated the haze of my anger.
“Some of us will. Vessels are forbidden from feeding on the Tribunal. They practice the old ways in secret, to keep the masses from accessing the source so efficiently. The Tribunal remains strong because they must, and when the time comes, we will bring in a new era of witches. We will make a new bargain if we must. One that does not involve those parasites who survive off our suffering,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice.