It’s about time I connect with the source of all this, the architect of my entire current mess—or at least try to.
And I don’t have long. We don’t know when the next attack might come.
The air grows colder as I hurry beneath the wrought-iron archway, the familiar scent of damp earth and decaying leaves filling my lungs. Headstones, some so old the names have been worn away by centuries of rain, stand in silent, orderly rows. Though this isn’t a place of grief, of course. It’s a battery.Or supposed to be.A barracks for a currently-damaged army of spirits.
I find my grandmother’s stone and kneel before it, the dampness of the ground seeping through the knees of my jeans.
“You did this,” I whisper, the words barely a breath in the stillness. “You sent me to him…youbound me to him. And now… I’m supposed to channel an Ide with foreign magic burning in my veins.”
I pull a small silver blade from my boot and slice the tip of my thumb, a familiar sting. I watch as a single, perfect bead of blood wells up, then press my thumb to the cold stone, smearing the blood over her name.
“Talk to me,” I plead, my voice raw. “Why did you tell me to drink from him? What do you know about this bond?”
I close my eyes, reaching out with my senses, searching forthat familiar, formidable presence in the spiritual ether.Esther Esme Salem. I push past the low hum of any lesser spirits, seeking that one, sharp, commanding voice.
But there’s nothing.
The connection is dead. A void where her powerful presence should be. It’s like screaming into an empty room. The grid may be feeding, but for some reason my link to its most powerful spirit is still down. A cold knot tightens in my stomach.I’m alone in this. Not that I’m sure I can even fully trust what she tells me now…
“I told you it was a bad idea.”
I open my eyes. Brynn stands a few feet away, her arms wrapped around herself, her expression clouded with worry.
“Spying on me now?” I ask, wiping my bloody thumb on my jeans.
“You’re not exactly subtle when you’re brooding,” she says, stepping closer. “I figured you’d end up here.” She looks at Esther’s headstone, then at me. “Anything?”
I shake my head, the frustration bitter in my mouth. “She’s silent.”
“Maybe she’s finally realized the mess she’s made,” Brynn mutters. She sits on the edge of a nearby stone sarcophagus.
“Told me what was a bad idea?” I ask.
“About the trials, Esme… I can’t believe you’re seriously doing them.”
I exhale. “It’s a weapon. The only sure one we have that might be big enough.”
“A weapon we can’t aim,” she adds. “An Ide isn’t a spirit you can just command, like you’re used to. We don’t know if it will even be Dominic Merlin as we know him… I can’t help thinking that there has to be another?—”
The air between us shimmers, and the next thing I know, Helena is before us.
But she’s not the calm, clearspirit we saw in Draethys. Her spectral form is a staticky, unstable projection, twitching and convulsing—her long hair scattered—almost looking like she’s being electrocuted.
“Helena!” Brynn gasps, scrambling to her feet.
“Listen…” Helena’s voice is a distorted shriek.
“What’s happening to you?” I ask, taking a step forward.
“No time!” she rasps, her form flickering violently. “The bond… is incomplete… a half-formed weapon…” She looks directly at me, her deep-pool eyes wide with a desperate, frantic urgency. “It needs… a catalyst… a merging…”
She suddenly jerks backward, as if yanked by some powerful force, and she screams, a sound that is both silent and deafening in my mind. She seems to fight against it, her entire form vibrating.
“The ritual—” she forces the words out as if each one is a monumental effort, “—must be consummated! Flesh to flesh… soul to soul. Light and darkness… must bond… fully. The dragon and the darkblood... become one. No hesitation. No doubt. There is no other path, Esme!”
Then she is sucked backward into a swirling vortex of nothingness, her silent, screaming face the last thing we see before she vanishes.
The air snaps back to stillness, the silence absolute.
