“That’s about the only thing that makes sense at the moment,” I uttered beneath my breath. “What do I do to let the land know I’m willing to meld with it?”
“You remember how it felt to merge with the land?” Nodding, I felt my face tightening with pain. I remembered merging with each elemental. I also recalled not surviving a few of them. “It will be a lot like that, then the peace shall come.”
“How do the elements work? Because they taught me, they belonged to Hecate, but I know they don’t. Much of what I was taught was altered, or rewritten to change everything to fit her views.”
Scylla smiled, nodding her head subtly. “You’re correct. The elements belong to the Nine Realms and are mana. They’re not magic. Witches cannot harness, nor house mana. Therefore, when Aurora asked you to retrieve it, she knew you would be the only one who could take it as well as hold it. Though, I did find watching her attempt to hold the sliver you’d handed her, humorous. Of course, the land took it back rather violently from her.” Her tone conveyed disapproval, which was understandable. “You mustn’t trust her, Aria. She is of the same cloth that her mother was cut from.”
“I know that now,” I admitted.
“This will hurt for a while.”
“I’m not afraid of pain.” I wasn’t. Pain was an old bedfellow. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time before I’d felt some source of pain churning through my system. “Can you tell me what it will feel like?”
“I could, but I won’t. Besides, what I endured won’t be the same as what you’ll soon feel. Everyone’s experience is unique. I can tell you I won’t abandon you, though.” I found comfort in the knowledge that at least I wouldn’t be going through this alone. “First, the pool will bless you for your rebirth. The altar will begin your transformation. It isn’t something that happens overnight. Gradually, over time, you’ll begin to evolve. Normally, you’d have been blessed in the pool at birth, but distance was an issue. Also, it’s hard for the dead to speak to the living. It takes me months to consume enough mana to return from the afterlife.”
She climbed from the pool, then knelt beside it, placing her hands on her knees. As she spoke in an ancient language, the water began to spin around me. Lines of bright, glittering, golden hues slid up my arms, then twirled around them. Peering down, I frowned at the runes painting my breasts, marring the unkindness beneath them on my sternum. Below it, the circular design I’d placed on myself to ensure only Knox could father my children refused to allow any of the amber runes to even get near it, which forced a smile on my lips.
The water continually churned, glowing brighter until it hurt to continue staring at it. Using my forearm to shield my eyes, I frowned as a humming noise began inside the chamber. The ladies who’d followed her into death were using singing bowls to send soft vibrations throughout the room. It continued growing louder until I felt the compulsion to cover my ears from the humming. A moment before I would have, the water stopped as quickly as it had begun.
“Climb out of the pool so that you can lie on the altar. It is blessed by Freyja, who promised to hold her daughters during their darkest hours. I was born on the same altar. It’s also where I honored the arrangement, which we’d brokered to secure the future in the Nine Realms.”
The altar was ivory, with delicate runes carved into the base. Antlers littered the surrounding ground, and their tips glowed with small, swaying flames. In the trees around the altar, swords had been forcefully driven through the trunks and sap flooded the earthen floor. A skull with antlers wrapped in startlingly green vines with flowers adorning them sat at the head of the smooth, ivory slab. At the foot of the slab, there was a burner for the incense, which was filling the air with bergamot and sage.
My heartbeat was erratic as I walked, utterly naked, toward where the altar waited. The sound of it thundering in my ears was deafening as the handmaidens chanted, honoring my sacrifice. I’d like to say I didn’t want to tuck tail and run like a bitch, but that would be a lie. I feared what was about to unfold. Not for the reasons a sane person would, of course. I knew I had to reach for my birthright in order to face Hecate. I had come here for that very reason.
I couldn’t escape the prophecy I’d been born to bring about. Hecate was a poison upon the land, one which needed to be eradicated. I think I’d always known this was my destiny, even when I’d refused to acknowledge the signs or sensations flowing through me.
I’d been a child back then. The land had warned me of what would become of it should I fail to reach for the power it offered. Back then, I had reached for it, but it had been terrifying. As I’d gotten older, I’d allowed myself to feel the raw, unfiltered power slithering through my veins, but I’d never spoken of it to anyone—ever. I’d known it wasn’t normal to pull from a land I’d never been in before. Even without the original families in Haven Falls opening the portal, I felt the call of the realms beckoning me home.
Once, Aurora had spoken of sensing a great, untapped power source in front of me, and the land had recoiled from her as if her presence offended it. I’d returned to hiding in the corners, listening to the magic as it told me of the land I’d been forged from. As if they had cut me from the rocks and sculpted me to life by the essence of the world. I’d felt the rocky shores of Norvalla with my fingertips. Danced through the barren land of the Kingdom of Fire, uncaring that the skeletal remains swayed with me. On the highest peak of the Dark Mountains, I’d felt the wind beating against my cheeks as I soared through the breeze, sailing over the great white oak trees.
“Aria,” Scylla whispered.
I lifted watery eyes to hers as I realized I’d never been alone. It wasn’t the land who’d been beside me, though.
“It was you,” I cried as tears broke free, rolling down my cheeks. “You were with me.”
“Of course I was with you. I’ve always been with you, Aria Primrose. As Aurora and Freya tried to end your life, I kept your soul protected. They may have taken away your life briefly, but you were reborn as something else. Something stronger than what I returned as upon my death, even. Every morning after they’d attempted to extinguish your flame, the sun bathed your cold, lifeless body on that altar, and that spark rekindled stronger than before. You were so beautiful. Neither Aurora nor Freya noticed the speckles of gold shimmering in your pretty turquoise eyes. Lost in their need for power, they failed to see the phoenix peering back at them. The land allowed me to remain with you until you entered the Nine Realms, and your journey to heal it began.”
“You could’ve stopped the pain they forced me to endure.” I hated that she’d been privy to every sick and twisted thing they’d put me through. “You could’ve told me Aurora was my mother and allowed the torture to continue.”
“What would it have changed?”
“I don’t know. I might have understood why I had to endure hell at the hands of those I loved? Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so much betrayal when it happened.” Chewing my lip, I released it with a popping sound. “I could have tried to get back here sooner. Instead, I’d endured hell as I walked alone down a dark, dreary path of isolation.”