I catch her wrist in my hand as her face falls. “Yes. Please.” I’m begging. I don’t care.
She bites her lip. Studies me for a beat.
Then she rolls her eyes. “Your bonded spoke with me about his god a bit ago. About choices.” She sighs. “I didn’t choose to be a priestess, you know.”
My brows pull inward and I flick a look at Otto before refocusing on Cornelia. In the orange firelight, I see her eyes go glassy.
“My mother was the priestess before me. She died, and I had been trained to take up her mantle, and so I became it. And I’mgoodat it, aren’t I?”
“I think so. Though I am biased, given that you are the only priestess I can truly stand.”
Her lips crack in a smile, but her eyes are still sheened with emotion. “I don’t truly know what I would have chosen if I wouldn’t have done this, and it isn’t as though I don’tenjoywhat I do. But what could I have been if I hadn’t been pushed into this destiny?”
Her words are such an echo of the thoughts I’d had with Perchta that a shiver rushes over me, keeps me silent.
Do we all fear the same things? Do we all hope for the same release? To make our own choices. To befree.
Cornelia shrugs again and wipes the back of her hand on her cheek. “So then, to learn I could be destined to bond with Alois—”
“It isn’t destiny,” I say. “It’s a choice.”
“You know as well as I that Philomena and Rochus would not see it that way. The whole of the Well will hear of what happened and think that this means Perchta hasdestinedAlois and me to be together. Which…sours it, if I’m being honest. Don’t we have a choice in the matter? What if we don’t want this?”
“You do want him.” I stop. Frown. “Don’t you?”
She bites her lip. “But is that only because we were fated to this? Is that only because we were set on this course by the goddesses?”
“You are a priestess—shouldn’t this be comforting to you?”
Cornelia huffs a little, rolls her eyes at herself. “It should be. Shouldn’t it? And yet, I can’t help but wish that we were all on more equal footing. That the goddesses had less control over our paths than we have given them.”
“Careful, Nelly,” I say, half light, half quaking. “You’re awfully close to blasphemy.”
“If I were a Catholic, maybe.” She nods at Otto, who has convincedBrigitta to stay, and is now kneeling across the fire from us, talking into it, trying to contact Liesel. “Despite what Rochus and Philomena think, I believe in asking questions. And I’m wondering now what our world would look like if—ugh, I’m not sure what I’m asking. I just hate the idea that anything that might come from Alois and me could be because of an outside force, not because we bothwantit.”
“Witch and warrior,” I whisper absently. “It’s one of the best ways to protect our people. One of our greatest defenses.”
Cornelia grunts softly in her throat. “I should be honored then, to be so used.” She flinches, looks at me. “I didn’t mean—”
I wave it off. “I know what you mean. But it is yet another rule the goddesses imposed on us. You’re right to question it. What if we didn’t need bonded pairs? What if we could do so, but only if wechoseto, not because we needed it? What if magic was that for everyone—not something accessed through rituals or only because of our bloodline, but because you simplychoseto use it?”
“Wild magic,” Cornelia whispers.
My instinct is still to deny it. But I force myself to nod.
There are limitations, of course. Wild magic is far from perfect. Only so much can be stored in one body, and when it’s low, refilling it is a long process.
I trace the edge of the bandage around my chest. But I’m breathless, suddenly. All the thoughts that have been clogging up my head are too close to fitting together, to spilling out, and Cornelia looks at me strangely.
“I had not thought that big,” she says softly. “But…we have gotten this stone to keep it safe from Dieter. Haven’t we? Not for any other purpose?”
I pull my knees tighter to my chest, my wound burning. My bodyremembers the feel of shaking uncontrollably and I shudder in the echo of those vibrations. “Of course.”
“Of course.” She hums again. Jostles me again. “It is a miracle of miracles that the Mother let you out of the tomb alive, Friederike Kirch.”
She has no idea how right she is.
But Perchta did let me out. Even knowing all these thoughts thundering around in my brain.
