Page 45 of Incoronate
“It’s ready,” she said, cutting through the thick hush of the room.
Annabelle crossed the room with the mortar still cradled in her hands. She knelt beside her sister and tilted the bowl so that Anita could see the contents. It looked like crushed bone mixed with something rusty and wet. Then again, it could have just as easily been flour and paprika for all I knew. I was hardly an expert on these things.
“Perfect.” Anita took it from her and began sprinkling the mixture along the outer circle, each pinch landing exactly where it needed to. With every sprinkle, the candles flared brighter, making my heart race and my stomach roil.
The flames grew stronger as the boundary took shape yet the temperature in the room seemed to drop. My skin broke out in goosebumps, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from the magic saturating the air. Both, probably. Everything about it felt dark and unnatural, as though we were standing at the precipice of something vast and hungry. Something that might swallow us whole if we weren’t careful.
“Lay her in the center,” ordered Anita without looking up from what she was doing.
I tried to move, to stand up on my own, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. The numbness had spread too far.
Trace was already there, scooping me up into his arms like I weighed nothing. He slipped one arm behind my back and one under my thighs, tucking me against his chest in thatcareful, protective way of his. And for one small moment, I let myself sink into him. Let myself believe this was actually going to work.
Despite the progress and the small sliver of hope we now had, I could still feel Trace’s heart racing against my side. It was pounding so hard I was sure it was trying to jump straight out of his chest. But when I looked up at him, his face appeared calm and gave nothing away. Just that unwavering determination I’d seen so many times from him before. The one that said he’d walk straight into the Pits of Hell before he let anything happen to me. God, I loved him. I loved them both so much that it hurt. Worse even than the corruption eating through my veins.
He carried me to the center of the symbol and then gently lowered me down onto my back. My chest ached as he touched his hand to my cheek for a few seconds before finally pulling away.
“Get on either side of her,” directed Anita. “Close. You need to be touching.”
Trace and Dominic moved into position quickly, sitting down on either side of me as instructed. The moment they were inside the boundary, the air changed around us as the temperature plummeted further.
I doubted very much that was a good thing.
Arianna appeared above us, carrying three lengths of black cord braided together. I couldn’t tell what the material was, and frankly, I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have wanted to know even if I could ask. She didn’t say anything when she knelt before us and began wrapping the cord around our wrists—first Dominic’s, then mine, then Trace’s—binding us together until the strange rope connected all three of us.
I felt it immediately. A pull that went deeper than skin. I wanted to pull away from it, almost on instinct, but I couldn’t seem to move an inch.
“The binding holds you together during the ritual,” explained Arianna, her voice casual, as though she were reading instructions off a recipe card. “If it breaks, the Anchoring spell will fail, so whatever you do,don’tlet go.”
I wanted to ask her what would happen to me if the spell failed. But I suspected I already knew the answer to that.
Annabelle began circling us, lighting something at intervals that sent up thin columns of sweet, rotten smoke as Anita stepped to the edge of the circle, careful not to pass the boundary she’d drawn on the floor.
“This won’t be pleasant,” she said, and for once there was no smugness in her tone. Just a cold, hard fact. “We’re going to tether your souls together. This will create a permanent bond that will allow the excess power consuming her to bleed into you instead.” She looked between Trace and Dominic. “Once it’s done, there’s no severing it. You’ll be connected to her—and to each other—for as long as you draw breath.”
Wait. They’ll be what now?
“Do you understand?” she prompted, eyebrows raised.
What in the hell was she talking about? I didn’t remember her saying anything about this being permanent for them. I had understood this to be temporary. A stopgap until we could figure out something better. This wasn’t what we’d agreed to. This wasn’t what I wanted for them.
I tried to lift my head to say as much, to sit up and stop them, but Dominic pressed his palm to my shoulder, holding me in place against the floor with no more effort than you’d use on a newborn baby.
“We got it,” said Trace as Dominic brushed the back of his knuckles against my cheek.
I tried to shake my head. Tried to get the word out.No. Not like this. Not forever. Not for them. But Dominic’s thumb had already moved to my jaw, calming me, and I could feel Trace’s fingers tightening around my other hand. They weren’t asking me. They had already decided.
Anita nodded once. “Now this is where it gets tricky. For the spell to work, we have to strip all three of you down to your most basic essence,” she continued, her eyes darkening a shade. “Everything else gets pulled away until there’s nothing left but the core of who you are. That’s the part we bind. It’s going to be extremely painful. It will feel like dying. Like you're being torn apart and put back together at the same time.” She paused. “And once we begin, there is no stopping it.”
My throat clicked as I tried to swallow. The corruption had spread to my tongue, making it thick and useless.
“Understood?”
Dominic and Trace nodded as I lay there, weak and shell-shocked, terrified that the two people I loved most in the world had just damned themselves to hell with me. They were offering themselves up without a second thought, as though my life was worth any price. As though neither of them planned on surviving without me.
I wanted to scream at them. Wanted to tell them I wasn’t worth this. Wasn’t worth what they were about to sacrifice. To risk. But the words wouldn’t come. All I could do was lie there and feel the weight of what they were giving up closing all around me like a tomb.
The sisters took their positions around the circle with Anita at the north point, Annabelle to the south, and Arianna to the east. Without warning or ceremony, they immediately began speaking in unison, murmuring words in a language I didn’t understand. Incantations that felt older than writtenword. I wanted to cover my ears, wanted to block out the sound altogether, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but listen as the chant wrapped around every part of me, burrowing into my skin like splinters.
