I’d had enough of this. I did not bother softening my footsteps any longer. If Garrick or Isanara wanted to come save me from the green witch, I’d welcome it.
“I prefer Auri.”
I paused, and not only because of the vines that curled around my boots. I waved my hand as I turned, and the vines withered as I froze them to death. “What?”
Her lower lip quivered, but the words seemed to come more easily than they had before. “I’ve always preferred to be called Auri.”
A hysterical chuckle bubbled out of my chest. This was ridiculous. What a conversation to be having in the woods in the middle of the night, with barely any clothes on. “In three hundred and seventy-seven years, I have never once heard one of our sisters refer to you as Auri.”
She blew out a breath between her lips, lifting the fringe of red hair from her forehead again. “No one ever asked.”
Something about the way she said those words made me pause. The contrast in her face, in her voice and throat…
An idea formed inside of me, cold and confusing and just barely possible.
“Why are you here?” I repeated, watching her closely.
Aurienna looked to the side, then up at the sky, just beginning to change as dawn edged closer and closer.
Her lips trembled as she repeated herself again, word for word, each syllable strangled as she forced it past her lips. “Nothing is as it seems.”
Cold surged inside of me, power and realization competing. Those were the only words she could say in response to my direct question because she was under a binding spell that prevented her from saying anything more.
The only witch left in Velora capable of casting one was Maura—and she would have needed help from other members of the coven because Maura was a fire-bound witch, and such a spell was not within her bind.
“Nothing is as it seems,” I said softly.
Relief flooded Aurienna’s eyes. She knew that I understood. Even those five words had been difficult to get out. She was bound from answering certain questions, most likely, or from giving certain information. That was how I’d seen binding spells used.Nothing is as it seems—that was just vague enough not to violate the terms of the spell that bound her.
What could it possibly mean?
We were weeks away from where Alize, Garrick, and I had stood outside the faerie ring. But the weighted looks the two of them had exchanged were burned into my mind.
Only three gates remained—Memory, Peace, and the Unknown Gate that belonged to the Dark God. Three gates and three supplicants.
That could not be significant, could it? Witch lore spoke of the power of three. The triskelion and the triquetra were among our most powerful runes, linking the power of maiden, mother, and crone, and of past, present, and future.
Maybe it was a warning about the gods themselves. Xyta had tricked me, using their twin’s gate to call in the sacrifice I’dpromised. Perhaps Ramkael and his lover, Pava, the Goddess of Peace, had some similar trick waiting for us. But the Peace Gate was more than a month’s travel away, whereas we would reach the Memory Gate tomorrow.
The leaves around us rustled again, drawing my attention back to the green witch.
With a wave of her hand, she withdrew the vines from beneath my feet. She left the ones on the trees, even though I knew they would wither and die in a matter of hours, no match for Velora’s cold without Aurienna’s power to sustain them.
She pulled her cloak around her, covering her hands once more. “I cannot linger.”
Whether that meant that Maura was nearby and expecting her to return soon, or she did not want to risk encountering my companions… I was not sure I wanted to know.
She inclined her head, but did not try to offer any more words, if she even could.
But before she disappeared into the night, one more question burst out of me.
“Auri… why did you come?”
She might not be able to answer, not if the question violated the parameters of the binding spell. Even then, she might not want to.
It had been at Aurienna’s urging that my power had exploded out of me at the guild hall on the night of my Rylynn’s engagement celebration, permanently injuring her betrothed.
Our intertwined power would always tie us together, and to the Midnight Coven. But beyond that…
