I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly, six figures appear on the edges of the circle. They’re dressed in red robes and raise their hands, chanting.
It’s the first families!
“We have come, great one!” Sinclair yells. The snake whips around to face him.
“Come for our legacy, our power!” Bernadette cries. “We have come for what Azarian promised us.”
The snake looks around, holding each one in its gaze.
“Enter,” it hisses.
Part of me wants to warn them, but I know it won’t do any good—and an even bigger part of me wants to see them get what they deserve.
The six of them don’t even get a chance to fear their own deaths. They simply evaporate.
The snake laughs. I consider the fact that we can hear it a very bad sign, as if it’s truly grounding itself in the world. Some of our soldiers try to rush in, and they turn into ash on the wind.
“What can we do?” Brad croaks, still sitting on the ground.
“Nothing,” Rex answers. “Absolutely nothing.”
“What are they even doing?” Shawn asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
The girls raise their hands, the pure white glow dancing on their fingertips. The snake gets bigger and more solid as it absorbs more people, and the circle of heat widens, forcing us back even further.
“It’s happening,” I gasp. “It’s getting free, expanding itself!”
Light streaks between the four lunas, but it isn’t white, but a sickly, disgusting yellow. Red light spreads around their feet, burrowing into the earth and holding them in place. None of the girls looks scared or in pain, but I can feel the conflict of energies within the circle, and it’s pretty obvious who’s winning.
“Now!” a scream rings out from the woods nearby.
Suddenly, the circle is surrounded by women in gray robes. Their clothes get scorched, but they push inwards, raising their hands. White light pours from their fingers, stretching up to the massive cloud of flame growing above our heads.
The snake screams, writhing as the strands of white light wrap around the massive head of the tower, and it begins to shrink.
Lines of light travel from the witches, joining up to the lunas inside the circle. The yellow and red light darkens as the white light grows.
“I killed you!” the snake screams, focusing on an incredibly tall, thin woman with white hair. “How many times do I have to kill you!”
“This time, it’s my turn, Sakesh,” she whispers, but her words are heard all the way around the circle as if her voice is a completely different frequency. “This is for my sisters, and every life you’ve ever taken.”
She raises her hands, the light from her fingers getting brighter. All the witches begin to chant, and a low, throbbing hum sounds in the earth beneath us. The lines of light get stronger, thicker, binding all the women together and strangling the great tree of fire.
“Close!” the woman yells, and the great web of lines begins to shrink.
It’s a net!
Sakesh roars, writhing and twisting on the stalk, unable to travel up or down because of the white lights. Fire pours from its throat towards the woman, and even though her face blisters and her hair gets singed, she doesn’t move an inch.
“It’s not over!” Sakesh roars, and red-hot fire pours upwards from the center of the stone, completely engulfing Grace and the other lunas.
Chapter 28 - Grace
I am flame.
