Page 207 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Oh, they all have their insufficiencies—their unclarities. They all need deciphering, which is half the battle of being a prophet, I’m afraid.”
Great.
“But when it came to her unborn daughter, Amy, your mother was certain—she’d be staggeringly powerful. She’d be a beacon of fire in the pitch of Gentian’s hell. She’d be what the masses had been waiting for. She’d—”
“Please don’t say it!” I flailed to evade the burden he was about to heft upon me. “Don’t you dare! Because I’mnot. Okay?” I fixed Myrrdin with a death glare—knowing my eyes shifted colors as I sat before him. “I’m notanythinglike what I’m supposed to be if your insinuation is true.”
“Because you’re still learning who you are, child. Even Danu wasn’tDanuat birth.”
Of course, he’d sit there in the face of my panic and compare me to the All Mother.
I felt Pete move before he stepped back into view. “Exactly what bush are you beating around, Myrrdin?” His gaze flicked back to me.
Myrrdin lifted a hand. “She’s a triple goddess, Pete. She’s the Aurora.”
He might as well have sucked all the air from the cabin. Neither Pete nor I breathed for a brief eon. We just stared at each other, stuck in the web of Myrrdin’s proclamation, the truth as sticky for Pete as it was for me.
One of the clerics, a short and portly Middling, cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Myrrdin, but if the princess is truly blessed with that kind of magnanimous power, why can’t I scent it?”
The rest of the homespun army hummed in accord.
“A valid question, Buxus.” Myrrdin leaned toward me. “If Amy is willing to allow me the privilege of conducting her reckoning, then we shall hash that out right now.”
Finally breaking my stare down with Pete, whose cheeks had turned chartreuse, I faced Myrrdin. “First tell me what a reckoning is,” I croaked, having never felt as alien as I did right then.
“Of course,” Myrrdin agreed, his clear gaze a small comfort to my burgeoning turmoil. “A reckoning is a simple spell we conduct on those who need or want to better understand their powers—or to discover what’s hidden beneath. You see, sometimes secondary powers—or the underlayers of principal powers—may lie trapped beneath surface magic. And as with any immense energy, trapped magic tends to build up in pressure until it bursts forth, unbridled.”
Ghosts probably had more color than I did right then. What the hell was roiling within me? Myrrdin made it sound like losing control of my powers would be tantamount to a geyser blow-out.
“A reckoning will show me what’s lying in wait, so we can form a plan, together, for an easier summoning ceremony.” Myrrdin cleared his throat, shifting. “In your case, Amy, any added ease during a summoning is a necessary mercy. In order to alleviate the pressure building in your arsenal, we must release it. We’ll then funnel your freed powers back to you—as conduits. And to conduct the powers of a triple goddess—well, it’ll require all our combined strength.”
I glimpsed the clerics. “Could conducting a summoning for me hurt you guys?”
“Our safety is not for you to fret over,” Myrrdin said. “We’ve all trained rigorously to conduct such things. Besides, whatever your powers might do to us, foregoing the ritual would be far more dangerous for us—and for all who reside in the garden.”
There was the rock and the hard place, and me right in between.
“Think of yourself as a volcano,” Myrrdin posed. “You’re going to erupt, your immeasurable powers unrestrained. Summoning them, however, will harness the deluge—so you don’t thrash everyone unlucky enough to be near when you explode.”
“FuckingA.” I scraped my face with both hands, now as nauseous as Pete looked. “Okay, do it.” I tossed up a hand. “All of it. Reckon me. Summon me. Just make sure I don’t blow the Garden of Eden off the damn map.”
Myrrdin and his clerics chortled. At least they found humor in this daunting situation.
Inhaling, Myrrdin shimmied closer to me. He held his elegant hands out, palms up. “You need only take my hands for the reckoning, child. Relax and let the spell do its work. Be assured, while you may feel discomfort, the spell won’t hurt.”
I cringed, wary, but an encouraging nod from Pete, despite his green gills, calmed me. Pete had promised—he wouldn’t let Myrrdin hurt me. So, he must’ve trusted the prophet’s word. And I trusted his.
Barely breathing, I laid my palms upon Myrrdin’s and waited, my heart drumming. A heavy silence mantled the cabin as Myrrdin’s eyes closed. His shoulders loosened, his back straightened, and his chin lifted toward the ceiling. Then his lips began a low, measured, completely foreign chant—his strange, stilted whisperings quickening until they were all syllables of one enormous word. The nonsensical drone all but lulled me to sleep.
Then I felt a prodding. In my head. Like my mind was under attack.
While Myrrdin had been truthful with me—it didn’t hurt—my gut instinct was to flinch from the spell’s incursion. Which solicited more aggressive prodding and Myrrdin gripping my hands too tight. Resulting in something inside my mind—something defensive—snapping shut like a guillotine—cutting off whatever connection Myrrdin had tried to make and throwing him and his spell from my psyche.
Blinking, Myrrdin released my hands and sat back.
“Was that it?” I chewed my lip. “Is it over?”
“I regret to say, Amy, the spell had barely begun.”
