It took everything in me not to allow it to erupt like a volcano, spraying rock and molten lava over the surface of the earth. Using my magic felt more like taking a tiny breath after years of suffocation than trying to reach for anything. It was always there.
Always waiting.
The doors to the inner Tribunal room were open wide, and I forced my chin just the slightest bit higher as I drew in that breath. Air filled my lungs, the scent of the stone surrounding me washing over me and calling to that Green magic of the Madizza line. I answered the call, feeling the hair on my arms rise as my magic awakened from the miniature slumber I kept it in.
Thorne stiffened at my side, the slightest hitch in his next step alerting me to the fact that he felt it. I squeezed his arm lightly as I glanced up at him from the corner of my eye, his steely eyes darkening as he recovered and strode forward.
If I had to face the Covenant, if I had to stare into the empty, hollow bones of the beings who had made my mother’s life such a misery that she fled the only home she’d ever known, I would do it with her magic coating my skin.
With her death, I’d inherited all of it until my brother came of age and some of it passed onto him. Susannah Madizza might have been the greatest witch of her age, but the power that had made her so was no longer hers to command.
It was mine.
We stepped through the magical barrier that waited just inside the Tribunal room, keeping what was spoken within a secret from any who might have snuck into the entryway. It sunk into my chest as I passed through, formed from a representative of each of the original houses. Only the Madizza and Hecate lines were missing, but that barrier seemed to recognize something within me. It lingered, holding me trapped in the center as it swirled around me. At my side, I was vaguely aware of Thorne stepping through, of him tugging at my arm as if he could pull me along with him.
I held his gaze as I raised my free hand, turning my palm to face the sky. The shimmering, translucent power of the barrier washed over my bare skin, sliding beneath my nails deep enough to draw a single drop of blood. I let out a startled gasp as it pulled from that spot.
Red floated amidst the barrier, intertwining with the shimmering mist. There was a flash of light as it released my hand finally, spitting me out the other side. I caught myself on my next step, only stumbling for a brief moment as Thorne tightened his grip on my arm and offered me an odd sort of support.
I couldn’t resist the slightest urge to lean into him as I clenched my free hand into a fist, hoping that whatever the barrier had sensed, the magic hadn’t revealed it to any of the witches staring back at me. Thorne guided me to the center of the circle, passing between the gap in two of the chairs. They were each marked with symbols of their house, the witch perched within wearing robes the color of their magic.
Two of the chairs were empty. A quick glance at the Hecate throne revealed twisted black iron carved into elaborate spires of darkness. At the top of the throne rested a single skull forged in iron, the bones of a spine sliding down the center and skeletal arms draped over the top.
I didn’t allow my gaze to linger as I moved it to the other empty throne. Where Hecate’s seat on the Tribunal had been crafted from darkness itself, the Madizza throne was formed from vines that still moved. They lived where it was not possible, sprouting through cracks in the foundation to form the empty seat of my ancestors.
At the top of the throne, a single rose bloomed back to life as I watched. Whereas before, it had been nothing but a withered husk, the petals spread wide, and color returned. Red tipped in black, as if the edges were tainted by death itself.
We stopped in the center of the circle, and it was only then that I turned my stare toward the two figures waiting on the small dais. The cloaks that covered their forms were black, an affront to the memory of the Hecate line. The forms were near identical, and I knew it was because there was nothing but bones left beneath them. The Covenant had no flesh to cover their skeletons after centuries of life after death, and anything that had made them human was long gone.
They swept their hoods back in unison, revealing the skeletal faces within. Susannah Madizza and George Collins rested upon their gilded thrones, with their necks crooked to the side as the only indication of how they’d died.
“I present Miss Willow Madizza to the Covenant,” Thorne said at my side.
I didn’t allow my stare to break from the figure staring back at me, from the intense, eyeless gaze of my ancestor upon me. She searched my face, probing for any sort of information she could glean as her skeletal fingers grasped the arm of her throne. She pushed to her feet, walking forward as the bones of her feet tapped against the floor with a lightness that shouldn’t have been possible.