The naked young women breathed heavily in their deep drugged sleep, but they would awaken soon, and Victoria had many preparations to make.
Copying what she had memorized in the ancient book and what she had drawn on her scrap of paper for absolute certainty, Victoria scribed a complex spell-form on the ground, etching out the angles and curves of symbols in a long-forgotten language so that the pattern surrounded her acolytes. They were her seeds now; they were the start of new life, the power of which could not be measured.
But there was a cost—there was always a cost. Life required life. Blood required blood.
Victoria shuddered as she finished the pattern, telling herself repeatedly that the benefit was worth the cost. The fecundity spell left no doubt: these three droplets of life would unleash a vivifying downpour. They would restore this verdant valley and heal the wound in the world.
But, oh, Audrey, Laurel, and Sage …
Victoria paused to suck in a long shaking breath, and then she let herself sob. Tears flowed down her cheeks. But it had to be done.
When she looked up many minutes later, Victoria saw that the three acolytes had awakened, sooner than expected. Their eyes were still groggy and confused, but the spell required that they had to be conscious, had to be willing. They had already given Victoria their permission.
“What are you doing?” asked Laurel. “What’s happening?”
“You’re saving us all.” With tears pouring down her face, the matronly woman took the knife from her wadded dress and knelt beside the first acolyte.
Sage’s eyes went wide, and she squirmed in fear as Victoria drew the razor edge across her throat, spilling a river of blood down her neck and over the swell of her perfect breasts. Her heart kept pumping, gushing out her life’s blood onto the achingly sterile ground.
“I’m sorry,” Victoria said as she moved to Audrey. Gathering the girl’s long dark hair in one hand, she pulled back Audrey’s head and slashed her throat.
Laurel looked up at her in defiance, her jaws clenched. She struggled against the leather bonds for just a moment, but her shoulders slumped as she felt her two companions sag in death against her, still bubbling blood across the ground. In a quavering voice, Laurel said, “Tell me it is necessary.”
“There is no other way,” Victoria answered.
Then Laurel lifted her chin, and Victoria slashed for the third and final time.
When the girls had finished their long wet dying, Victoria wailed with grief. These had been like her daughters, her perfect followers … and she’d killed them. But she had done it to bring life.
Now, Victoria worked the spell. The restoration magic unleashed a flood of fecundity strong enough to bring back the forests, the meadows, the grassy plains, the croplands.
Rich blood poured out of the three sacrifices, and Victoria spoke the incantation that she had so perfectly memorized and practiced. The blood flowed like runnels of melted candle wax into the spell-forms she had etched there. The liquid glowed a deep red like lava … and then the blood changed, darkened, freshened. It turned green and bright as it seeped into the devastated soil, which began to awaken.
Tiny shoots appeared in the brown dust; blades of grass, wide-leaved weeds, tangled green branches, bushes, and flowers sprang up.
Victoria stood back and gasped in wonder. The Eldertree sapling grew upward and outward, and more branches unfurled as it rose taller and spread itself. Ferns uncurled like bullwhips and expanded into fanlike fronds. Colorful mushrooms boiled out of the ground, swelled, and burst in an eruption of spores that led to another generation of furiously growing fungi. The ground simmered and crackled as it awakened.
Newborn insects scuttled around, and the night was abuzz with flying creatures—moths with bright feathery wings, beetles with iridescent carapaces.
Victoria stepped back and listened to the rush of life. Inhaling deeply, she smelled moisture, pollen, the perfume of flowers, the resinous scent of fresh trees, the waxy green aroma of leaves. Vines scrambled out of the ground like serpents, following the lines of spilled blood. Roots expanded and thrashed, knitting the broken soil together, raising woody stems and bunches of leaves. Tendrils coiled around the bloodstained bodies of the sacrifices, engulfing the three young women as fertilizer, as trophies.
Victoria stared around herself with wonder. She had never felt so much life before, and she had created this! She had sparked this rebirth. Her rejuvenation spell was powerful enough to overwhelm the damage done by the Lifedrinker.
The verdant forest seemed manic, exploding with life, desperate to reclaim lost territory. Victoria stepped back, proud of what she had done. The scholars at Cliffwall would see the rebirth here, and they would know that Victoria was responsible for it. She stood there naked and pleased, satisfied with her accomplishment. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh of gratitude.
Something seized her ankle. Her eyes flew open and she saw a writhing vine coiling upward, touching her calf. With the speed of a striking viper, it wrapped around her knee and held tight.
She cried out and tried to pull back, but the vine was as unyielding as an iron spring. It tugged in response, dragging her back. Ferns uncurled, bowing over her, closing in. Branches extended toward her, and she struggled to push them away. A curling twig caught her wrist. Vines erupted from the ground, like a swarm of thrashing tentacles that seized her legs. More writhed up to encircle her waist and then tightened.
Victoria screamed and tried to pull away. Roots grabbed her feet, anchoring her. “No! I didn’t—!”
As she shouted, a leafy branch thrust into her mouth and pushed into her throat. She gagged and coughed. Fresh green fronds wrapped around her eyes, blindfolding her. She thrashed her head from side to side, choking.
Tendrils thrust into her nostrils, growing deep into her head, while others poked into her ears and explored deeper. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Victoria fought as the vines squeezed tighter.
Then, like the arms of a mighty muscled warrior, the vines pulled her legs apart. She writhed, twisting her hips in a desperate attempt to get away. She felt another vine rising up along her legs, gliding against the side of her thigh, then, with only the slightest hesitation, it plunged between her legs and thrust upward, swelling there, filling her.
The agony throughout her body lasted a long, long time, before the tendrils finally pierced her brain, and her soul was swallowed up in a green darkness.
CHAPTER 59
As Cliffwall stirred with morning activity, Nicci awoke with the taste of blood in her mouth, a delicious coppery flavor that felt warm and hot, but soon faded with the dream memory. She blinked and sat up.
Thistle was beside her, shaking her shoulders. “I was worried about you. You were sleeping so deeply.”
Nicci brushed a hand over her eyes, stretched her arms. Her body felt strange. “I am awake now.”