Sweat, blood, and tears saturated the space around me, and beyond it was a wall of fire.
Something roared at the other end of the battlefield. I pushed my way toward it. Blades shone in the sun, chopping and slicing. Blood sprayed me. Human bones, free of flesh, splintered in front of me, transforming into powder.
If only I could get to higher ground . . .
The combatants parted. A hill of corpses rose before me. I climbed it, scrambling over the bodies sticky with drying blood. Almost there. Almost.
I climbed to the top. In the distance a golden chariot tore through the fighters. Father . . . Another roar came, low and terrible, like nothing I’d ever heard before. I turned and saw two eyes, brilliant amber and burning, staring at me from the darkness rising over the melee. A dark shape swooped on my right side on two big wings. It looked vaguely familiar, almost as if . . .
Fire drowned everything, its heat scorching me.
The light vanished, and the wall reappeared. Sienna was still.
I waited.
Nobody said anything.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s all I could see.”
“So, a big battle, blood, flames, human bones, and everyone burning?”
She nodded.
“That explains nothing.”
Sienna spread her arms.
“Is there a prophecy?”
“Nothing came to me.”
Bullshit. There was always a prophecy. “I want my money back,” I said.
“You didn’t pay us anything, ingrate,” Maria told me.
“This is not helpful.”
“Sorry,” Sienna said. “It’s not an exact science. If I get something else, I’ll let you know.”
I really wanted to bump my head against something hard, but nothing was around.
“My father is mobilizing his forces. He might be moving forward with his invasion plans.”
Evdokia stopped knitting. “How sure are you?”
“It’s been reported by both Pack scouts and ours. How are you coming along with the White Warlock?”
Sienna scooted in her seat.
Evdokia pursed her lips. “There are complications,” she said.
“There can’t be complications. You promised me you’d do this ritual. He isn’t killing my son or my husband. If he invades, and I have to kill myself, I want to be sure it isn’t for nothing. Do I need to go down there and talk to this Warlock myself?”
“No!” Evdokia and Sienna said in the same voice.
“Why not?” They were hiding something.
“This is witch business,” Evdokia said. “If you blunder in there waving your sword around, you’ll spoil everything. We promised you the ritual and we’ll deliver. When have I ever not delivered, Katya?”
The Russian name came out. Oh boy. “I just want to make sure that if worse comes to worst, I don’t die for nothing.”
“We’ll handle it,” Sienna told me.
Maria cackled. The other two witches looked at her.
She hacked and spat on the floor. “Evil scum you are. Evil scum you’ll always be. I hope you all die in a fire.”
Evdokia heaved a sigh.
“Awesome,” I said. “Good chat. Thank you for the productive meeting. Looking forward to our next one.”
“One other thing,” Evdokia said. “Some knights from the Order asked to speak to us.”
“Local?”
“No, from out of town.”
Knight-abettor Norwood got around. “They’re trying to remove Nick Feldman from his position as the head of the chapter. He keeps pointing out that I exist, and they don’t like it.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Sienna promised.
I turned and walked back out of the tortoise. Outside, the air tasted fresh and sweet. The trees shimmered in the twilight breeze as the sky cooled after the burn of sunset. Lightning bugs flew here and there, tiny points of light in the indigo air.
Roman thrust himself in front of me. “You’re planning to kill yourself?”
Crap. Me and my big mouth. “No.”
“Explain.”
I sighed. “My father is susceptible to witch magic. It’s older even than him, primitive in a way but very powerful. Erra told me that the hardest opponent he ever faced, outside of the war that killed most of our family, was a witch, and that woman almost killed him. The plan is to gather the Covens together on the battlefield and perform a ritual, which would channel their combined power into a single person. I can’t be that person. First, I’m not trained enough. Second, the point person in this scenario acts like a prism, concentrating and directing the power outward. I’m a lousy prism. My body just hoards all of the magic.”
“Let me guess,” he said, his voice dry. “The White Warlock is a good prism?”
“The best they know. The plan is to talk her into it. Except your mom and the other witches have been trying and haven’t gotten anywhere.”
“You and your father are bound. If they kill him, you’ll die, too,” Roman said. “This is a stupid plan.”
“The witches aren’t trying to kill him. They are trying to put him to sleep. If everything works as intended, Roland will fall asleep on the battlefield and hopefully sleep for decades or longer. They did it to Merlin. He is still somewhere out there, sleeping.”
Roman thought about it. “Okay. Explain the killing-yourself part.”
“The Covens’ power might not be enough. My dad is very strong. If he isn’t going down, I may have to kill him myself or at least weaken him enough for the spell to take over. There are consequences to that.”
Roman shook his staff at me. “I repeat, this is a stupid plan!” The raven at the top of the staff opened its wooden beak and screeched at me.
“Did you know that when you’re mad, your Russian accent disappears?”
“This is idiotic. You have a husband and a son. You’re not killing your dad and dying because of it. I forbid it.”
“Okay, Your Holiness.”
“I’m serious. Death is forever. I know. My god is the Lord of Nav.”
“There might not be any other way,” I said gently. “If I knew with one hundred percent certainty that killing myself would kill my father, I would do it without hesitation. You’re right. I have a husband and a son, and I want them both to live long happy lives, even if it’s without me. But my dad is a lot older and more powerful than I am. If I just kill myself, he still might survive. With the witches’ power upgrade, at least we stand a better chance of taking him down.”
“No. I won’t stand for it.”
I reached out and patted his arm. “Thank you for being my friend.”
“Does Curran know?”
“No, and you’re not going to tell him. This is the plan of last resort. If you tell him, he’ll do something stupid to prevent me from entering that battlefield, and I’m our best chance at counteracting my father. If I’m not fighting, I’ll definitely have to kill myself.”
He snarled something under his breath. The wooden raven screeched.
“I have an idea. What if instead of being mad and siccing your bird on me, you help me?”
“Help you do what?”
“I need to talk to the Druids about the Picts.”
“What do Picts have to do with anything?”
I explained the box and the symbol. He huffed. “Fine. Tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
I turned to walk away.
“Kate,” he called.
I turned around.
“You’re my friend. I don’t have a lot of friends because of what I do. Every time my god calls to me, I bargain with him to keep people I don’t know alive. ‘What if we kill just five people? What if we make it three? If we do it this way, perhaps we won’t have to kill anyone.’ I fight for their lives. And here you are, not even trying. There has to be another way, you hear me? Find another way.”
“I’ll try,” I told him.
“You do that.”
* * *
? ? ?
THE MAGIC CRASHED on my way home. No new vehicles sat in the driveway and nobody came to the door. Curran usually heard me before I even pulled into the driveway.
I let myself inside. Curran did say he would buy a new car today. He might have gotten held up.
“Hello?” I called. “Anybody home?”