Holda?I dare to ask.What happened?
She is silent a moment, a thoughtful, tense stillness that seeps over me.
You are bound to Otto, and yet—Holda stops, sounds frustrated by confusion.This magic is old and powerful. I will follow these lines and figure out what has happened.
Cornelia pushes me an arm’s length back and keeps looking at me how she did after Otto drank the potion. Studious. Frowning, a line between her brows.
“I don’t know,” she finally says, an echo of Holda’s frustration.
“You don’t know?” Otto has his arm around my waist, keeping me up. “I’m still alive, so I’d say it did work. How can you not know?”
One hand lifts, Cornelia’s fingers tugging at something invisible just beside my head. “The magic is there. You are connected. But—something—”
“Didn’t work,” I finish.
Cornelia squints. “I can’t see it. The magic is murky. I’ve never seen a bonding ceremony performed before. I have no experience with this type of magic other than in stories. So maybe—” She drops her hand with a scowl. “Maybe this is how it works? The magic merely takes a day or two to truly coalesce? Because itdidconnect you. It’s almost like there’s something blocking it from fully taking effect, like oil mixed in with water—not truly together, but not apart.”
My body goes cold. The brands ache, burn, itch—
But I don’t say what I’m thinking.
I can’t.
Can’t even begin to consider the fact that whatever magic my brother worked on me in Baden-Baden, when I was at his mercy, blocked any chance of me bonding with Otto.
I should feel horrified by this. And I am—Dieter’s invasiveness keeps finding new ways to torment me.
But this also means that Ottocan’tbe a part of whatever crusade I have to enact on behalf of Holda.
That…might be the only way I can keep him safe.
But if Otto and I are not bonded—if the potion failed, if the ceremony failed—then Rochus and Philomena will have further cause to bar me from the council and any chance I have at enacting change.
Will this mantle be removed from my shoulders?
I am ripped in two. Half with relief, that maybe I won’t have to be a champion, won’t have to endanger Otto even more and take up the task of undoing centuries of prejudice and belief. Half with…regret. And that regret pierces me in an unexpected burst, that any part of me could look at the possibility of being free of this responsibility and not be elated.
I don’t want this burden.
Do I?
Beyond where we linger, the celebration is in full swing, music filling the soft forest. I remember the sight of the Origin Tree, the immensity of this symbol of magic that haunted my dreams and has, for so long, been the constant in our lives.
Holda doesn’t just want me to undo the way witches perform magic.
She wants me to show theworldthe truth in our power. That we can help non-magical people instead of being feared by them; that our magiccan be used for their good too. That the ways we perform spells will not harm them. Like the people of Baden-Baden, who accepted us with thanks and joy. Like the people of Trier, who still may be trapped under whatever controlling doctrine the hexenjägers adhere to, even without my brother at their helm.
The Origin Tree is both a symbol of hope and a symbol of shackles, and I could change it all.
But can I do all that without Otto?
His grip on me is still tight, reassuring and resolute. Cornelia continues studying me, and Otto just waits by us, patient as ever, effortlessly embodying why he’s a warrior. Why he’smywarrior. Because he’sthis, so easily, so naturally.
I’m still the champion of a goddess without him. I’m still bound to Holda, if not to Otto. But I’ll have been a failure at the bonding ceremony, and Philomena and Rochus will dismiss any suggestions I try to make because of my proven weakness here. Whatever change Holda asks of me will have to come with struggle and fight andwar, because I’ll be demanding new beliefs be accepted without any authority to enact them.
A bubbling sensation puddles in my gut. The need to—tolaugh.
Here I have a way out of what’s been terrorizing me for so long, and I’m trying to think of ways to follow it through anyway?
