Not giving herself time to say otherwise, Sol nodded.
As if Erriadin itself responded, a soft patter of rain began around them.
First, Sawyer sliced a thin slit along her palm with her iron dagger. She then held it over the obsidian chalice, and her blood slowly dripped into it, the sound merging with the rainfall. “Emberdon, hear me as your daughter,” Sawyer began, closing her eyes. She let out a breath. "Use me, Sawyerlyn Semmena Yarrow, as your vessel to bless my kin.” As her name left her lips, her blood began to vaporize into golden shimmers. She looked to Sol. “Say your name.”
For a second, Sol hesitated. Not due to lack of trust, for once. But due to the finality of the situation. There was no going back once she told them. She would break the one rule her mother left her.
“S...Soleil,” she said. She held her cousin’s gaze. "Soleil Monserrat Yarrow.”
As soon as Sol uttered her name, the rain stopped. The wind halted, the birds stopped their songs. It was as if the world took an inhale and held it. Sol did as well.
Especially as absolutely nothing happened.
Sawyer took her hand and gently cut along her palm to match her own wound, then joined their hands to hover over the chalice. Her cousin’s blood had been dripping gold before, but as soon as it mixed with Sol’s, the magic seemed to recoil.
No one spoke. For a second, they all just watched the chalice. Sol didn’t know what to expect, but it hadn’t been the stillness that transpired.
Then, she heard it.
Like that day so long ago when they confirmed her lineage in that ancient conference room, voices filled her head. She braced her free hand on the table as her temples tightened.
“Soleil Monserrat, you lie,” the voices chanted over and over in her mind in an unsettling crescendo, growing angrier and louder with each passing second. “Soleil, speak your proper name.”
Sol tore her hand from Sawyer’s and grabbed her head in agony as an incessant ache spread from her forehead down to her shoulders.
“Sol.” Cas instantly grabbed her elbow to steady her as Nina stepped closer.
“Soleil of the Yarrow clan, tell us your full name.” The voices ebbed and echoed with relentless fury.
Sol groaned as she sank to her knees.
“What are they saying, Sol?” Sawyer rounded the table and knelt beside her.
Soleil Soleil Soleil.
Sol knelt all the way forward and pressed her forehead to the ground, aching for the cool stone to calm the throbbing.
“Sawyer, close the ritual,” Nina ordered. “Now.”
Sol vaguely heard her Court call her and murmur other things through the haze that clouded her thoughts. It wasn’t until a dampcloth was pressed to her bleeding palm that the voices halted.
Life and rain resumed beyond the temple, and Sol released her held breath as well. She slumped to the ground, completely drained of all energy and motivation to stand.
Cas carefully lifted her head off the ground and held her shoulders. “What did they say, Sol?”
She closed her eyes and muttered, “That I was lying.”
A beat of silence.
“That you were lying?” Sawyer asked.
“To speak my proper name.”
Tentatively, Sol sat up and leaned against the table stand.
Nina frowned. “Why would they say that?”
“Your full name, paternal included, is irrelevant. You should only require the Yarrow, since it’s the oldest bloodline.” Alix added, running a hand through his hair. He knelt beside Cas. “The other original bloodlines that predate the Yarrows were all annihilated throughout the years.”
