“If you do this, I will sacrifice my gifts of empathy and seeing auras, as well as my gift of communicating with animals.”
She paused and reconsidered.
“I would miss conversation with animals, and it is the gift I enjoy the most and am willing to sacrifice to you so that Lord Chedworth can be freed. I also give you the gift of empathy, but I also understand if you wish that I retain it as punishment for what I have done. If you free him, and I continue to feel the emotions of others, I promise to never again try to mask it. But will live with it as a consequence for the earlier spell.”
Antonia had thought she’d been prepared, but nothing was coming out as it should.
“If you wish to take all magical gifts from me, I willingly relinquish them all to you. I am but your servant. All I wish for is that Lord Chedworth is freed from the beast that lies within, even if you decide that I must sacrifice my life.” She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. She was asking much of the goddess, which meant she truly did need to be willing to sacrifice everything.
“I thank you for granting me an audience and hearing my petition, and accepting my sacrifice, and thus with those who honor you, your holy goddess, bountiful spirit.”
Antonia blew out a sigh and let her shoulders drop, then glanced out over the water just as the sun dropped beyond the horizon.
There was not anything else she could do. Either Gaia granted her request and accepted her sacrifice, or she didn’t.
Their answers would come at midnight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You are coming with me. You are the only magical male in the house.”
“Where are we going?” Amcaster asked.
“To the garden and the magical circle,” Philip answered.
When his brother stepped into the room, he insisted that he come too, as well as Orion, Pierce, Cassian and Damon. None of them were magical, but all but one of their mothers were and hopefully that was good enough.
They shared confused looks but followed him.
“What is needed for a sacrifice to Gaia?” he demanded.
“I do not know,” Amcaster answered.
“Grains and fruits as a gift, the sacrifice must be personal and important,” Damon answered. As he was raising witches, he probably knew more than the rest of them.
“Wait for me here.” Philip then ran out of the garden and into the fields where he pulled wheat from the ground, then returned to the orchard where he gathered apples then hurried back to the circle.
“What is this about, Philip?” Simon asked.
“That foolish woman is about to sacrifice either her gifts or herself for me and I will not have it.”
“Foolish woman?” Simon snorted. “I assume you mean Lady Antonia.”
“Yes!” Philip barked.
“I will endure this wolfish state for a few moments each night. It is my fault that I am in this predicament. However, I will not allow Lady Antonia to suffer on my behalf.”
“I am not certain you have a choice,” Orion said.
“We do not know that for certain,” Philip reminded him. “I need to undo what she has done.”
He sat down before the stone where Antonia had always sat.
“Amcaster, sit across from me since you do have magic. The rest of you, sit and fill in a circle, like our mothers and sisters do.
His brother, cousins, and friend reluctantly took a seat.
Philip glanced around and tried to remember everything he’d witnessed of the witches in his family whenever they had to perform a ritual.
