The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [42]
“Oh, I’m a very peculiar witch. You probably shouldn’t even be talking to me. No doubt it’s causing all sorts of irreparable damage.”
Now his lips curled into a smirk. “Good.”
Lirith’s gaze moved to the window; the first stars were just beginning to appear.
“It’s all right. I know you’ve got your little meeting to go to, so you might as well leave. She always leaves me.”
All traces of the smile fled his expression; his face was a pale, grim oval floating in the gloom. Lirith thought about it only a moment, then moved closer to him and laid her hands on his shoulders. He was slight for a young man of sixteen winters, and they were very nearly the same height, so that she could gaze into his green eyes.
“Listen to me, Lord Teravian. You must believe me when I tell you that I know what it is to be left behind. But in the years since, I have learned something I very much wish I had known at the time, and that I will tell you now. Although others may abandon you, you must never abandon yourself. Do you understand?”
He said nothing, but it seemed his gaze grew thoughtful. Lirith would have to hope it was enough. She let go of his shoulders.
“I must go now—to my little meeting, as you call it. But I will come speak to you again. I promise.”
He shook his head, not gazing at her, but into the shadows still. “No, you’re wrong. You’ll be going soon.”
A cool breath touched Lirith’s skin. “What do you mean?”
Teravian only shrugged, then the young prince turned and walked down the corridor, his black hair and clothes melding with the darkness.
Minutes later, Lirith stepped, breathless, through a braided arch of branches and into the tree-lined temple deep in the gardens of Ar-tolor. Globes of witchfire hung from high branches, filling the glen with green light. Through the moving screen of leaves above, Lirith just caught the silver crescent of the horned moon, sinking toward the invisible horizon.
Two hundred witches—the youngest on the right, the eldest on the left—faced the marble rostrum at the far end of the temple. It looked as if Lirith was the last to arrive. On the rostrum stood three figures, one clad in white, one clad in green, and one in ash-gray. The woman in green was speaking.
“—and in our weaving, a common Pattern shall come into being.” Ivalaine’s voice rose on the air. “A Pattern into which all threads shall be bound, and which shall serve as our guide in the coming moons. So in the name of all goddesses, let our threads be spun together this night.”
Lirith breathed a sigh. She had missed the coven’s opening incant, but the weaving had not yet begun. That was a blessing from Sia. Surely Ivalaine would not have failed to notice if Lirith’s thread had been missing from the Pattern. And it was more than that. The Pattern was what bound all the Witches together, what elevated them from a disparate band of hedgewives and village healers into a union of true power. Lirith did not wish to be left out of that circle.
On the rostrum, Ivalaine nodded to Aryn and Senrael, and the two stepped forward. Aryn carried a small bundle wrapped in black cloth, and Senrael held a silver bowl in gnarled hands. Together, Maiden, Matron, and Crone would speak the High Incant before the Pattern was woven. Doing her best to avoid notice, Lirith started moving through the crowd as quickly as she could.
“Do not think we fail to see what you are doing,” a hard voice rang out.
Lirith went rigid. Had her tardiness been noticed? However, none of the witches gazed at her; all of them stared forward, their expressions ones of shock—and interest.
A tall witch, sharply elegant in her green robe, had stepped close to the rostrum. She was half-turned to the side, as if she addressed the gathering as much as the queen. Lirith could just make out the proud angle of her cheekbones. Her red-gold hair was woven with green gems.
As she had at the last meeting, Ivalaine appeared unshaken by the interruption. Her icy eyes were tinted by the light of the witchfire, turning them the color of a cold,