“Now,” he said quietly. Connley heard him and stepped inside the circle.
Only the three of them attended this predawn witchery, and Connley solely because he’d insisted: I am as involved as you, and I am your other heart. Without me not all of your spirit will be there.
Ban found it unbearably sentimental, until he saw the mutual intensity in the eyes of husband and wife, and realized they both believed, completely.
What would such a partnership be like, he wondered, and then caught a fleeting memory—Elia’s hands holding his own, tiny moonlights dancing between and around their fingers.
Glancing up at the fading stars, the wizard knew it was time. Ban stripped himself of clothes and shoes before stepping into the circle. Wafts of thistle smoke and rose teased his shoulders as he crouched at a pan of orange mud from the iron marsh and drew words onto his chest and stomach, and his power rune at his forehead, heart, and genitals. He coated his forearms with the mud, and when he said Shield me, the mud dried in a quick snap, to near ceramic hardness and hot against his skin.
At a tearing sound, Ban looked up to see Regan reclined against the granite, and her husband kneeling beside her, using a small dagger to cut into the front of her shift. He sliced it open from the center of her breasts to the low mound at her groin. Parting the pale linen, Connley kissed his wife’s soft belly, then left his hand there as he kissed her between the breasts and again on her mouth.
Ban joined them at Regan’s feet while Connley moved to her head, and he handed the lady the bowl of her womb blood. She set it on her belly, fingers curled around the rim. Her chest rose and fell slowly and evenly.
The duke met Ban’s gaze, asking silently again his earlier question. Will this hurt her?
Two hours ago, when they left the Keep, Ban had answered, “I don’t know. It is not designed to cause harm, but there is wildness in the roots of Innis Lear, and the spirits we call will not be concerned with safety.”
“If it hurts Regan, I will hurt you,” Connley had promised, simple and calm.
Ban then replied, “If it hurts her, I will already be hurt.”
That had seemed to console the duke, though he watched Regan now with a hovering possessiveness.
Overhead, the stars had gone pale in the cool purple sky, and the moon hung behind Ban, its pregnant lower edge just kissing the horizon. Exactly right for beginning.
From a small basket at Regan’s feet, Ban took three long primary feathers, tawny and pale, from the wings of a ghost owl. He lifted them in the air, and in the language of trees called the name of the bird, taught to him very reluctantly by a cranky old oak at the edge of the forest.
Regan added her voice to Ban’s, and then Connley did, too, his unpracticed tree tongue sure enough for their work.
The three named the owl again and again, growing louder as they drove the word higher into the sky. Nine times and nine again, then finally at the end of a third cycle, they fell silent.
Ban closed his eyes to listen.
Wind whispered around them, and the fire snapped happily, reaching with tiny sparks up at the sky.
There: the high, hissing screech of the owl.
Ban got to his feet and spread his arms so the feathers caught the wind. Here, he called in the language of trees. Here we are, old ghost.
It swept down, silent and pale, its luminescent creamy underside feathers presenting like a shard of moonlight against the sky. The owl circled, and Ban called its name again. Regan put her fingers in the bowl of blood and then used the drops to trace the bird’s name against her sternum, while her husband panted in silence, excited and afraid.
Opening its tiny pink beak, the owl screeched again, showing Ban the dark maw of its gullet. Then it flared its wings and stretched out feathery long legs, talons flexed.
“Brace yourself,” Ban murmured, just before the owl landed against Regan’s belly, flapping its long, soundless wings for balance.
Regan squeaked in pain, but did not move, even as the talons clutched into her flesh and the bowl of blood rocked. Connley grasped her arms.
A gift for you, Ban said to the owl, holding its gaze: deep black eyes against a heart-shaped white face. Its tawny shoulders melted creamier down its back and along its wings, a splash of brown scattered down its underside.
The owl made a softer sound, a clicking trill, and walked to the bowl of blood.
It lowered its white head and tipped its beak into the bowl.
Fire bind us.
The moment the owl touched the blood, Ban whispered the words, making the line of their burning circle flare a brighter white; along the lines of sand and char, higher flames burst like tiny yellow autumn leaves, wavering in a breeze.
The owl shrieked and launched forward, batting the bowl away with its wings. Blood splattered across its white face, and across one elegant wing; blood slid in a branching line down Regan’s hip and ribs.
Ban reached out and grasped the owl’s torso between both hands, even as it slashed at him with its talons. He commanded, Be still, ghost owl, and said its name again.
The charge rang against the walls of the diamond, and the fire shrieked its own wild laughter. Regan sat, pressing hands to her bloody stomach, against both freshly dripping blood and that previously wrung from her cold womb. Her husband put the small dagger into her hand and pushed Regan to her feet.
In Ban’s arms, the owl settled, wings limp, talons flexed but still. Its eyes hooked on his own, black and starry.
Regan joined Ban, slid one hand around his, and then firmly pierced the dagger through the owl’s back.
Its wings spread in a beautiful arc, and blood dripped down its tail.
“Now, while it still lives,” Ban said. He held one wing, and Connley took the other in firm hands. The duke’s face was paler than normal, too, drawn with temper and concern. The men held the owl up by the wings, and Regan grasped its head, then cut free its perfect black eyes.
Ban led Connley as they lowered the owl, carefully, respectfully, to the earth as it died.
The lady walked to the granite slope, gory eyes in her palm. As her wizard and her husband watched, Regan set the dagger upon the stone, and then one by one, put the eyes in her mouth and swallowed them whole.
She knelt, back bent, head low so her loose curls fell all around her arms, hiding her face. The sun pressed up in the east, sending a ray of gold across the horizon, and the half-moon blinked, overcome. Wind nudged them all, waving hands through the fading fires of their diamond.
Hurry now, the wind said, and Ban knew if Regan saw nothing before the orb of the sun lifted itself completely over the earth, she never would.
Connley stepped closer, and Ban grabbed his forearm. Though the duke cast him an angry look, this was Ban’s power. He was the wizard, and his word ruled the moment.
A gasp from Regan, and both men jolted forward but stopped themselves. Her hands flattened against the gray, speckled granite, and blood dripped once off her chin. It was all they could see, but her hair shook and her shoulders trembled. She moaned softly and high, bending over herself. Words in the language of trees fell from her lips, but Ban could not understand them; they were too quiet, too jumbled and full of teeth.
Ban’s heart raced, loud enough to make a language of its own.
The fire blew out, though there was no wind remaining.
And Regan suddenly rose, threw out her arms like wings, and screamed at the bright morning sky.
Connley broke then, rushing to his wife. “Regan, Regan,” he said, and dragged her off the stone altar, holding her about the waist as she twisted and cried. Tears pink with blood marred her cheeks, and she gouged her temples with her nails. Blood colored her bottom lip.