the huntress 04 - eternal magic (20 page)

I climbed into the small chamber on the left and pressed my back against a side wall so that I wouldn’t block the shaft of light.

A few moments later, a sharp beam of warm yellow light stretched across the floor, reaching from the passageway toward the back room. 

It was a magical experience, watching something that had been the peak holy experience for a group of people long dead.

The golden light stretched farther, reaching for the back wall, and I could imagine Aidan and Claire casting enormous fireballs, with Nix, Del, and Connor holding up three massive mirrors to strengthen the light and send it this way.

I held my breath as the beam of light reached for the wall. When it finally hit the bottom, it illuminated a carving of concentric circles. 

Magic swelled, ancient and powerful. It made the hair on my arms stand up and my breath catch in my chest. The wall glowed as more magic swirled in the air and coalesced into the form of a person.

The figure was featureless and slender, though it seemed to be female. 

The seer.

“Hi,” I said, then felt quite stupid. But what else was I going to say?
Good morning, Madame Seer?

Her form became clearer, glowing golden and bright. Her face looked young, no older than me, but she gave the impression of age and wisdom.

“Cassiopeia McFane. Cassiopeia Clereaux.” Her voice sounded like the wind and ocean and birds, unlike any human’s voice I’d ever heard. And her magic smelled like springtime, flowers and grass and a cool breeze.

“Both work.”

“I have been waiting for you.” Though she didn’t speak English, I understood her.

I grinned. “You didn’t exactly make it easy for me to get in and chat.”

She smiled. “But you got in all the same.”

“Hard to keep me out of a temple I want to get into.”

“I imagine so.” She turned and looked around the temple. “But this temple is special. You are here amongst your ancestors.”

“It’s pretty cool.” Cool? Who said cool to an ancient seer spirit who was probably also their great grandma one thousand times back? Hang on.
Was
she related to me? “Are you my great grandmother, times a million?”

“I am not. But I am of your family, somewhere down the line.”

“Which is why I had to come here for answers?”

“Our magic is old and great. You must come to the source for the answers you seek.”

“About my powers. What was my root power? Where did it go when I pushed it toward Del? How do I get it back? How do I get rid of the Nullifier’s power?”

“That is a lot of questions.” She smiled. “But they are all connected. I have some answers. The rest are at the Black Fort. You will be able to unlock what you seek there with the help of your
deirfiúr
.”

“But how?”

“That is for you to find out. I do not know how to unlock the secrets of the Black Fort. It was built after my time.” She knelt and picked up a thin ring made of twisted golden wire, then handed it to me. “Take this. It is enchanted to help you focus your magic.”

Focusing and using the Nullifier’s new power had been one of my problems. I took the ring and put it on, surprised to feel that it fit perfectly on my middle finger. But my magic didn’t feel any different.

“It was left here thousands of years ago,” she said. “Intended for you.”

“Wow.” I shivered at the idea of one of my ancestors enchanting the ring and leaving it for me. 

“But I can get my power back, right?” I needed an answer to that question more than any other.

“Yes.”

My shoulders loosened. As long as that was true, I could face what came at me.

“The Triumvirate will help you with your coming task,” she said. “It is the source of your magic and your strength. Rely on them when times are hard.”

“What does that mean? What are we supposed to do?”

“A great battle is coming. You three will have a role to play if the light is to succeed.”

“Victor Orriodor.”

“He is part of it.”

“There’s more?” Of course there was. And of course she spoke in the usual seer language. All twisty and random. Like how Victor Orriodor’s seer had spoken. “A couple weeks ago, another seer spoke about me. He called me ‘the Gifted
.
’
Does that have anything to do with my root power?”

She nodded. “It could. Your root power is one of a kind. It is linked to your role in the Triumvirate.”

“But I represent
power
in the Triumvirate, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Doesn’t it? Along with life and death, magic is the other leg of the tripod that supports the world we all know.”

Power-fueled magic. “So I have more power than others?”

“Power everlasting. Power eternal.”

Everlasting? Like the Energizer Bunny, just going and going and going?

“Am I a magical battery?” I asked. 

“I do not know what that is.”

Of course not. The most advanced technology she’d known was fire.

“My root power is the ability to never run out of magical energy,” I guessed. No wonder Victor Orriodor had tried to steal it all those years ago.
That
was a valuable power. “I could fuel a million spells without growing weak.”

“Yes, precisely. Though it would take practice to control that much magic. You would still become physically exhausted by the strain. But with practice—years of it—you could become the most powerful magical force in history.”

Whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

“So where did it go? How do I get it back?”

“It went into Del.”

“But she can’t feel it inside herself.” Had she lost it somehow?

“She cannot access it, though she does have it within her. If you were not linked by the Triumvirate, she may have lost it forever. She was able to save it for you.”

 “And I can get it back from her?” Hope—real, solid, tangible hope—filled my chest. This was something I could work with.

“Yes. If everything goes well, you can get it back. But you must unlock it within her.”

“How?”

“At the Black Fort. That is a sacred place for the Triumvirate. The magic there will help you.”

“Okay.” My mind raced with the questions I had for her. So many. “But how do I use my magic if I still have the Nullifier’s power dampening my own? And what about the great battle you spoke of? How will Del, Nix, and I win?”

“You start by getting your power back. Then you each have a role to play.” The golden glow that formed her body flickered. She looked at her hand. “I am running out of time.”

“No! You haven’t answered my questions.”

“I have answered the most important. The one that I have been waiting to answer. And I have given you the ring that has been waiting for you. You have the tools to get your power back. The rest is up to you.”

The rest seemed like a lot. “Please stay. What can I do to make you stay? Do you need more light?” 

I prayed Aidan and Claire had enough juice left to keep their flame going.

“There is nothing you can do. I must go.” She faded, her body becoming a transparent cream color rather than a glimmering gold.

I reached out for her, but it was too late. 

She faded away.

Damn.
I turned to go, my mind in a daze, then stopped short. 

A tribute. I needed to leave a tribute. Wasn’t that what my ancestors had done, here in this temple? They’d left the ring for me, but the stone basin in her room was full of gifts. Just because I had the answers I sought didn’t mean I shouldn’t leave one.

I shrugged out of my jacket—one of my favorites that had cost an arm and a leg—and laid it in the basin.

“Thank you.” I touched the basin one last time, feeling connected to her and my past, before turning and walking out.

I shivered as I made my way through the narrow passage. When I reached the exit, I had to shield my eyes against the massive flame Aidan and Claire had created. Huge mirrors were set up behind it, directing the light into the passage.

Not a bad solstice. 

“Cass.” Aidan’s voice sounded relieved.

The flame died suddenly, and Nix, Del, and Connor slowly lowered the mirrors to the ground.

“Did it work?” Del asked.

“Yes.” I fingered the ring that I wore on my right hand. I finally fully understood my root power and had an idea about how to get it back. “But we have a long way to go.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I dropped down onto the grass inside the wall at the Black Fort. Aidan landed next to me, followed by Nix, Del, Claire, and Connor. The sun hung low in the sky, ready to set.

We’d gone straight from the passage tomb to Aidan’s place, grabbed our stuff, then taken his plane to Inismor. On the way, I’d told them what I’d learned. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised we’re back here,” I said.

“This place is important.” Nix looked around, thoughtfulness in her gaze. “It makes sense that it’ll help us transfer your magic back to you.”

Aidan squeezed my shoulder, and I leaned into him.

“I wish I knew what to do.” I started across the grass toward the stone circle, my gaze riveted to the statues.

The seer had had faith in my ability to figure this out, but it seemed a lot harder than breaking into a temple. If my mom showed up again with directions, that would be one thing. But I doubted we’d get that lucky. 

I stopped in the middle of the stone circle, facing the statues with the other standing stones at my back. “I don’t understand how I’m supposed to use my power once I get it back. If I still have the Nullifier’s gift, won’t it crush it?”

“Or the other way around,” Aidan said. “Your own magic could overpower the Nullifier’s.”

Hope made my heart feel light. “You’re right.”

“We just need to figure out how I can give your power back to you.” Del paced around the statues, eyeing them up and down. She stopped in front of hers, gazing up at it. “I sure do look creepy.”

I looked closely at her statue. She was right. The skeletal thinness of her statue gave it an eerie look. 

“I think it’s symbolic,” I said, hoping to make her feel better.

“Yeah, symbolically ugly.”

“I won’t brag that I get to be Snow White.” Nix petted the head of the deer next to her own statue. “Now how to convince these guys to clean my house…”

I grinned as I walked around my statue, but it didn’t take long for the grin to fade. There was nothing obvious about it. No lever, no place to lay a tribute, no patterns or inscriptions. Just statues, simply carved and elegant.

Del touched her statue. It glowed brightly with white light, which flowed to Del and lit her from within.

“Holy shit.” Nix’s wide gaze went from Del to her own statue. She removed her hand from the deer’s head where it had been resting and touched her own statue. It glowed with a golden light. Like with Del, it flowed from the statue to Nix, lighting her up from within until she shone like a golden beacon. 

The light then traveled over to Del until they were linked by a glowing wire of light. A pair.

“Wow,” Del said. “We should have touched these earlier.”

I touched my statue. I felt the pulse of magic, but my skin didn’t glow like theirs had. No glowing golden wire connected me to them. I stepped back, frustration beating at my chest with tiny fists. “Why won’t it work for me?”

“Do you feel a connection to it when you touch it?” Del asked. 

“I feel magic, but I don’t know if it’s a connection.”

Del removed her hand from her statue. She stopped glowing and the golden light that connected her to Nix faded. She approached my statue and touched it, then frowned. 

“My magic links with the magic in my statue,” Del said. “But when I touch yours, I feel like I’m blocked.”

“You both have your magic, but I don’t have mine. So maybe my statue doesn’t recognize me,” I said. It sounded weird to say that a statue didn’t recognize me, but this was a powerful magical place. Normal rules didn’t apply here.

“Only you should be able to access your statue’s power,” Nix said. “So it’s probably protecting itself.”

“Oh,” I murmured, understanding suddenly hitting me. I had to nullify the protection charm that was on the statue. Then I could make the connection. But could I? It’d been so difficult to nullify Aidan’s flame last night, and this was so much bigger.

I shoved up the sleeve of Aidan’s jacket, which he’d loaned me after I’d left mine at the passage tomb, then pulled off the golden cuff and set it on the grass.

The ancient ring that the seer had given me suddenly glowed warm on my finger. I glanced down at it. I felt different. More peaceful or more in control. Maybe both. Like the ring could finally work now that I wasn’t wearing the dampening charm, and it was helping to calm the magic fighting within me.

Suddenly, I felt like I could do it. I’d practiced, but the ring from my ancestors would help me.

“You’ve still been wearing that dampening charm?” Nix asked.

I shrugged. “Yeah. But I’m starting to think some people are right.” I glanced at Aidan, who smiled slightly. “It’s a safety blanket against my unwillingness to accept change.”