At the kiss of dawn in the sky, the four Cravens standing around the dug-up pit of bones, the slapping steps grow closer.
My toes are sunken into the dirt. Dark lines cut across my nails, and I make a mental note to book a pedicure and wear closed-toe shoes today if Abigail doesn’t have the time to tend to me.
The footsteps shift from slapping on pavers to muffled thuds on mounds of dug-up dirt.
Frost spreads through my chest.
I ache to shut my eyes.
But that’s not allowed.
I force them to stay open, fixed on the bones sticking out of the earth, like teeth from gums.
A heartbeat passes, then the heap is thrown into the pit.
It thuds, hard—and I feel it in my bones.
My throat thickens, as it always does at this part.
The bag is soaked with crimson under the faint light. The material is so dark that if the light didn’t catch it at that exact angle, I wouldn’t notice the sheen of blood on the silk.
But I do.
My mouth clamps shut—and I bite down on my lips.
I don’t ask what’s in the bag.
I never do.
I tell myself it is an animal.
The servants leave the way they came. For the sound of their footsteps softening into eventual silence, we stand—we wait.
The quiet drapes over us once more, and the moment it does, movement ripples over the circle.
One by one, the others reach into the deep pockets of their robes and draw out blades—but I don’t.
Long daggers glint blended metal. The blades are split down the middle, one edge silver, the other gold, like prongs.
The sun is still rising from the horizon. The light is growing, spreading over the sky.
Father doesn’t waste a beat.
The tips of the split blades dip into his flesh.
I watch the dig, the bend of his skin as it fights the pressure—and loses the battle.
Blood spills.
Crimson streams over the edges of his forearm.
Mother is next.
Once her blood spills into the pit, Oliver digs the prong-blade into his own forearm.
Standing here at the edge, my feet sinking into soil, my face hidden by the drawn hood, I can only wait.
The ritual doesn’t want my blood.
