“Because I am already dead,” Rhiannon said, brushing my hand off. “I have no blood in me to give. Believe that I would take this from you if I could, my child.”
“Belis.” I turned towards her. Her face might have been carved from the same marble as the stone. “Be sensible, there’ll be another way to solve this!”
“How?” she asked. “You and I are the only two living mortals in Annwn. We can’t bring more in and we can’t get out. This is the only way.”
“But you’ll die,” I said.
“Then I’ll stay here in Annwn, except it will be safe enough that I’ll be able to find peace eventually. It’s not so bad. I’d rather live in the mortal world but I’d only be coming down here a little earlier than scheduled. I should have died at the battle on Watling Street. Maybe this is the best thing.”
“You won’t necessarily die,” Rhiannon interrupted. “It will take a lot of blood and I can’t guarantee you’ll survive. You’ve got a chance, maybe one in ten. If you survive it there’ll be no more magic in you, though, it will go into the spell.”
Belis smiled at me. “You see, one in ten. That’s better odds than a battle, and magic has brought me nothing but trouble. I am happy to give it up.”
My chest felt like it was burning, bursting with fire. “I don’twant you to do this. I want you to live, to come back to the mortal world with me and save your sister. Remember that farm in the north I was going to find? You were going to come and stay with me. I can’t do it on my own.” I ducked my head down to hide the stinging tears that came unbidden.
“I think you can do anything, Mallt Nightshade,” Belis said. “I wish I could be there to help you do it.”
She moved closer and tilted up my chin so that I was forced to meet her eyes. They seemed even brighter than ever in the gloom of the shadow.
“I’ve failed to do the right thing so many times already, Mallt. I failed my sister, failed my mother. Before we came here, I already wanted to die. This would have been no sacrifice. Now…” she paused, and I felt my heart cracking open in my chest, “now I have something I want to live for, someone. I want that farm in the north, too. I swear I’ll try to hold on but if I don’t, promise me that you’ll try to save Cati for me. Take her somewhere safe. Promise me?”
I nodded, almost blinded by the tears that spilled down my cheeks. She smiled at me and turned away. I gasped for breath, fighting a losing battle for control of my face. I wanted to be strong, as strong as Belis. That was all I could do for her now.
Rhiannon cleared her throat. “Are you ready?”
Belis drew back her arm and offered Rhiannon a knife. “Yes. Try not to kill me if you can.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I lurched forward, wanting to say something, but I couldn’t find the words. I felt the panic bubbling up in me just as it had beside the water barrel our first day in Annwn but this time Belis wasn’t there to calm me down.
Rhiannon took the knife, pressing it into the freckled skin of Belis’s wrist. She muttered something under her breath and pushed down, splitting the skin and neatly severing the vein.
Belis clenched her jaw, trying not to wince as the blood began dribbling into the carved channels of the rock. Rhiannon positioned her hand in the centre and then let go, allowing the bloodto drain freely. She stepped back and began chanting, singing in the oldest language I remembered, an ancient form of Brittonic.
I hovered at the edge of the rock, watching as the blood spiralled out, flowing along the interlocking lines of the carved knot, then trickled down further, branching like tree roots through the earth, red lines breaking through the ground and down into the waters that still surrounded us. The new capillaries of blood went further, rising up the sides of the valley and into the sky, like inverted lightning.
It should have looked terrifying but instead the blood glowed softly, the red light a hearth fire to keep the whole world warm, like a womb cradling an unborn child. Except this fire was burning Belis for fuel. She was a mother who would die in the birthing.
Belis staggered, her face pale. I rushed forward, looping a hand around her waist to hold her up. I remembered how she had carried me through the ash, holding me at my weakest. I wanted to do more to help her but all I could do was pray for Rhiannon to hurry, to finish the spell before the last of Belis’s lifeblood leached into the earth.
The old queen lifted her hands to the air, calling the fractal lines of blood back towards her so that we were trapped within a scarlet torus, flowing in an unending circle of blood and magic and song. The spell built to a crescendo and I felt Belis sag, unconscious in my arms. I wanted to yank her still bleeding wrist from the stone but I dared not. Dared not risk ruining this one chance she was giving her life for.
Rhiannon stopped singing and the torus exploded, shattering into red crystals that flew out then fell like rain. The marble slab, now dyed a gleaming ruby-red, glowed and sank into the ground. The central circle grew, expanding until it was wider than the slab, eating at the ground beneath us. Rhiannon, Belis and I were left floating in the air. The yawning gap below us kept growing until it was the size of the entire island. Ash began to tumble down the slopes, then the cliffs themselves were tumbling, falling into the void. More and more of the rot wassucked down, hideous shapes half glimpsed through the mist, straightening and reforming into human bodies.
Belis moaned and I tore my eyes away from the spell to look at her. Her skin was milk-white, blood still dripping from her wrist. I grabbed the cut and clapped my hand over it, applying pressure to stop the flow of blood. I remembered the fae-woven fabric of my tunic and tore off a strip, binding the wound as tightly as I could.
“Hang on, Belis,” I whispered.
When I looked back down the void was pulsing as the entirety of the fractured realm was pulled back in and then shifted and the lost part of Annwn started to back. There was a second flash of blinding light and Belis was ripped away from me as the circle shut and I fell backwards through the air.
Chapter 16
Iwoke with a jolt, still feeling the echoes of the magic thrumming through me. I tried to sit up but my limbs still felt weak. I rolled over and crawled onto my knees. The landscape had changed utterly. The piles of ash had vanished, revealing fields of bronze grass that waved in a breeze that had only the faintest taste of sulphur. The few trees within sight were still upended, but birds were already beginning to return to them, nesting in the mess of roots and singing out at the lapis-blue sky. The bones of theshadowbittenhad gone; in their place lay sleeping mortals. I staggered up and looked around for Belis.
She lay flat on her back beside the stone slab. I rushed towards her, tripped over and crawled to her side. Her hair waved delicately in the wind, and she looked pale as death. I felt my heart almost stop beating. If this had killed her, how could I go on?
“Is she all right?” asked Rhiannon from behind me. The old queen sounded exhausted.
