Page 33 of Tanglewood Magic (The Three Sisters 2)
Darnuith’s army had taken flight.
“Darnuith is attacking Paragon,” he said. “We need to go.”
Isis barely glanced in his direction.
“I know you’re grieving, but things could get far more difficult for us very soon,” Rhys said. A war between dragons and witches would be deadly, whether it was staged by Zelaria and Eleanor or not.
Without even glance in his direction, Circe laid Medea’s wand along her breastbone. The sisters started to circle. The shadows around their ankles stretched and tangled with their movements, growing thick. Isis whispered an incantation in a strange language Rhys had never heard before. Medea’s body began to glow. With perfect orchestration, Circe dropped Tavyss’s heart toward Medea’s chest, and Isis drew her wand across her wrist like her veins were the strings of a macabre violin. Blood shed into that glowing light. It splashed over the dragon heart, over their sister’s chest.
The power the spell created gusted his hair back in a gale force wind. It grew in intensity until his feet slid across the forest floor and he had to cling to a tree to hold himself in place. Lightning sliced through the previously calm night sky, and a crack of thunder rattled his bones. The second boom made his ears ring and threw him to the ground. It sounded as if their entire world had cracked in two.
He screamed and clung to the forest floor, unable to move against the torrential flood of power raging over him. When the storm of fire finally settled, he raised his head, surprised the trees around them were still standing. Circe lay a few feet away, limbs splayed. He crawled to her through thick mist. She was breathing, thank the Fates.
“Isis,” she said.
The mist parted just enough for them to see her leaning over Medea, cradling the dead woman’s head in her outstretched arms. Shadows twisted and coiled around her in the darkness, tangling with the mist so that even by the full moon he could barely see Medea’s body. Serpents of darkness. Thousands of them covered Medea’s body, writhing and tangling with one another until he could no longer see Medea at all.
Isis’s eyes glowed red as hot embers.
His breath caught. Something had moved under those long, black things. The shadows and mist expanded and contracted over Medea. The night was breathing. The darkness had a heartbeat. Pressure throbbed against his skin, popped his ears.
Circe gripped his arms and leaned into him, shivering. He didn’t deny her the comfort of his embrace.
“Tavyss?” Medea’s strangled voice came from under the mist. She cried out the dragon’s name with such pain, Rhys pulled Circe closer. But she gently extracted herself from his grip and walked to her sisters on trembling legs.
Rhys couldn’t stand. His knees were shaking too hard. In all his years as a wizard, he’d never witnessed a resurrection. A whiff of sulfur met his nose, and his heart pounded as if he were standing at the gates to Hades itself.
All at once, the shadows drained away like water after a rain, and there she was. Medea stared at him with vibrant blue eyes and pink cheeks. He released a trembling breath. These were no ordinary witches. These three sisters held the magic of the old gods in their blood. No wonder the Fates had chosen Medea. She’d held the formula for life itself around her neck.
“Medea!” Circe knelt beside her and threw her arms around her neck, pulling her close. “Thank the Fates. It worked! Oh, Isis, it worked.”
Isis smiled, and all the shadows dissipated. Her eyes morphed from blood red to deep blue. She hugged her sister from the opposite side.
“Tavyss?” Medea asked, her voice strained.
Isis searched the ground around her body and retrieved the golden jewel that was his heart. She held it out to her sister. “I’m so sorry, Medea, but his soul has moved on to wherever it is dragon souls go,” Isis said. “I cannot resurrect him. He is no longer… here.” She motioned to his heart. “And he was not in any dimension of the underworld.”
Medea convulsed into sobs, the heart clutched to her chest. Rhys thought he’d be torn apart by the grief that rolled off her in waves and triggered his own dark memories. But after several minutes, she quieted and her tear-etched face took on an angry edge. Her voice was cold and hard as steel as she said, “It was a trap. Eleanor and Brynhoff invited us all onto the veranda for a toast. We were all given glasses of Tribiscal wine. Tavyss made his announcement, and everyone drank. I thought the wine was safe because we chose our own glass from among dozens. We were surrounded by well-wishers.” The words came out like a punch. “But Eleanor and Brynhoff poisoned their entire Council of Elders and us along with them.Why? I can’t figure out why they would do that.”
Rhys looked back at where he’d seen Darnuith’s troops on the horizon. The witches were gone, but dragons patrolled the skies above Hobble Glen. “Why? Because you were set up by Zelaria. You can’t return to Darnuith, my queen.”
Medea’s weeping red eyes sought him out.
He licked his lips before continuing his explanation. “Zelaria and Eleanor orchestrated this. The slaying of the Council of Elders will be blamed on you and Tavyss.”
“Everyone knows we were there at Eleanor’s invitation! People saw—”
“Who? The people who are dead? They’re all dead, my queen. And the servants, the guards… When we left with you, they were in a stupor. Zelaria has enchanted them to believe you were behind this.” He pointed toward the witches, rising like a cloud above the dark mountains. “She and Eleanor are staging a war… a war that will be blamed on you and will result in your death and the deaths of the entire Council of Elders.”
“Dear Fates.” Circe clutched at her throat. “We have to stop Zelaria. She needs to pay for this.”
“My well is dry, sister,” Isis said. Indeed, the witch appeared waifish and depleted in every way.
Medea opened her mouth to say something to her, then stopped abruptly and looked down at herself. Her face turned white as bone. As she climbed to her feet, her hand trembled along her perfectly flat abdomen.
Rhys’s eyes stung, and he shook his head at Isis. “I told you there would be a price.”
“My-my son. My son!” Medea bent in half and vomited.
