Page 44 of Blood & Ash

Del noticed. She wiped her bloody hand on her jeans and looked at Aislinn across the rune.

“How long can you hold it?” she asked.

Aislinn’s eyes stayed closed. Her lips kept moving. The count held for three more repetitions before she answered.

“Long enough,” she said. “Maybe.”

Del positioned herself at the anchor point. Eric’s shell sat with its back against the rune, the base of its spine touching the blood-and-ash spiral. Del pressed her bleeding palm flat against that same point. The contact sent a jolt through her arm, a current that ran from her palm to her elbow and settled there like a live wire under skin.

“I need the name fragments,” Del said. “In sequence. Each syllable. You hold them?”

Aislinn nodded. Her count stopped. For the first time since Del had entered the room, Aislinn’s lips went still. The shell breathed. The candles burned.

“I hold them,” Aislinn said. “All of it. Every piece.”

“Speak them. One at a time. I’ll repeat. Don’t rush.”

Aislinn drew a breath. Her shoulders dropped. She spoke the first fragment.

The word came out cracked, three syllables of a sound that belonged to no language Del recognized, ancient and precise, with a weight that hung in the air the moment it left her mouth.

Del repeated it. She pressed her bleeding palm harder against the rune and spoke the fragment back in the ritual cadence her grandmother had taught her. The cadence turned the syllables into something that rang. The shell against the wall didn’t move.

Aislinn spoke the second fragment. Four syllables this time. Her voice wavered on the third. The chalk lines of her anchor circles flickered. Her posture dropped a degree. She pressed her palms flat against the stone and kept going.

Del repeated. Blood from her palm seeped into the rune. The ash turned darker. The spiral caught the light and held it.

The third fragment cost Aislinn more. Five syllables. She got through three before her voice broke. She stopped, drew a breath, and finished the last two in a rush that sounded like someone running out of air. The chalk lines dimmed, flickered, and held.

Del repeated. Her voice stayed even. The copper taste of her own blood filled the back of her throat. She swallowed and kept going.

For the fourth fragment, Aislinn’s head bowed. Her hands trembled against the chalk circles. The word came out in pieces, each syllable separated by a breath that sounded like it hurt. When it was done, she didn’t lift her head. She stayed bowed over her anchor circles, her brown hair hanging damp around her face.

Del repeated. The shell against the wall moved.

Eric’s fingers curled. His right hand, then his left. The movement was slow and wrong, like something relearning its own mechanics. His jaw worked. Opened. Closed. Opened again. A sound came from his chest that wasn’t quite a breath and not quite a word. It hung in the air between the candle stands.

The iron candle stands rattled. Both of them. The metal bases scraped against stone. The candles flared, then settled, then flared again. The smell of sage sharpened. Burnt sage became something chemical and wrong, ozone and copper and the tang of magic under pressure.

Aislinn spoke the fifth fragment. Her voice was barely above a whisper. Six syllables. She got through four before she stopped. Her hands shook against the chalk. The circles dimmed to grey.

“Again.” Del’s palm was slick with blood. The rune beneath it was warm. “From the top of the fifth. I need all of it.”

Aislinn drew a breath that sounded like it tore something. She spoke the fifth fragment from the beginning, all six syllables. Each one cost her. Her posture dropped another degree. Her elbows touched the stone. The chalk lines flickered and held by threads.

Del repeated. The shell convulsed. Eric’s spine arched. Both hands slammed flat against the rune on either side of Del’s bleeding palm. The contact sent a shock through the circuit. The rune lit: cold blue-white light running the outer ring first, then the spiral, racing inward toward the anchor point where Del’s hand met Eric’s spine.

The iron stands rattled harder. One candle went out. The other flared white-hot and stayed lit. The chemical smell filled the room. Del kept her voice even. Her hand pressed flat. The copper taste was everywhere now, in her throat, behind her teeth, in the spaces between her ribs.

Aislinn spoke the sixth fragment. The last one. Seven syllables. She got through three before her voice gave out entirely. She mouthed the remaining four. No sound came. The chalk circles went dark.

Del filled the silence. She spoke the sixth fragment from memory: all seven syllables, the cadence perfect, her bloody palm grinding into the rune as the light built toward something that would break.

The shell arched. The rune held. The room filled with light and the sound of something coming apart.

The final syllable broke something. Aislinn mouthed it (no sound, just the shape of her lips), and the shell convulsed. Eric’s spine arched off the wall. Both hands slammed flat against the rune on either side of Del’s bloody palm. The contact was electric, in her teeth, in the roots of her hair, in the cut across her hand that opened wider with the pressure.

The chalk lines ignited. Cold blue-white light ran the outer ring first, racing along the name-lock geometry in a circuit that completed itself in less than a second. Then the spiral. The light moved inward, tightening, accelerating, until it hit the anchor point where Del’s hand met Eric’s spine, and the whole thing collapsed.