It ran so hot and strong through her that Breen felt she became the flame as she stretched her hands into it.
Yet she felt no burn, only the searing power.
“Come earth, come air, come fire, come water, to protect and shield your humble daughter. Stir and boil to conjure a shield against the poison dreams revealed. At this hour and in this place, I pledge to you all my faith. We stand for the light; against the dark we fight. One of seven and seven as one, tribe by tribe until it’s done.
“All of Talamh call to thee. As you will, so mote it be.”
Thunder clapped once. The flames rushed up her arms, engulfed her, gold, red, blue. She felt their heat like an embrace, so strong it took her breath.
A thousand voices sang in her ears.
Then they died away, and the stone was a stone. And still the power of it beat inside her.
Keegan took a cup, and lifting the cauldron, poured liquid—eerily green like the lake, like the river by the waterfall—into it.
“Drink, Daughter. This is also faith.”
She took the cup, and with her eyes on his, drank.
“So the gods will,” Marg said. “And so the spell is done, and will not be undone.”
“So close the circle, and bring the power arisen here with us to the next.” Tarryn touched a hand to Breen’s shoulder. “You did more than well.”
“It felt—indescribable.” Not like being one of seven, but one of all, of everything. “The sun’s set.”
“It took a bit of time.”
“It didn’t seem like it.” She pushed a hand at her hair and discovered it had flown out of its band.
“I like it free.” Keegan took her hand. “Come, call your dragon. We ride to finish the work. How did it taste? The potion.”
“Like power. That’s not really a taste, but—”
“It answers well enough.”
The power rode with her as she flew from the shore of the bay to the ruins. They stood, gray and worn and eerily beautiful in their way under the light of the half-moons. The mirror moons sailed a sky where stars had awakened and shone white and hard over the headstones, the flowers, the high grasses of the graveyard, over the stone dance high on the hill, the spear of the round tower.
And the place where the Pious, turned dark with their fanaticism, tortured, tormented, and sacrificed the Fey.
Breen stood on the rise facing the stones she and Tarryn had sealed, with magicks, with their blood, and, to make the three, with blood from Bollocks’s paw.
Beside her, Bollocks let out a low, warning growl. She laid a hand on his head to soothe him, but he quivered under it.
“A holy place once,” Tarryn said. “Long, long ago. A place of prayer and good works, of intellect and compassion, all turned and turnedand turned to bigotry and brutality in the name of false faith and false gods.”
“And in the name of false faith and a dark god, black magicks plied to give the blood-soaked spirits form, once more to destroy the light. Never again,” Marg continued, “said the Fey long, long ago. Never again, say the seven this night.”
“It will be holy again.” Keegan stood, a hand on the hilt of his sword. “We will not raze the stones here, but cleanse them, cleanse the ground beneath them, the very air around them, and leave this place to stand, as it was written, as a reminder of the corruption in the dark. So say the seven this night.”
“We come to release the spirits sealed within.” Harken spoke as he stood, with Keegan, flanking their mother. “To send them into the light or into the dark, as the lives they led deem. So say the seven this night.”
“And with this pure heart, whose blood joined with mine and the mother of the taoiseach to make the seal as witness to this act, we come to break that seal. So say the seven this night.”
Breen gave Bollocks one last stroke, then told him to sit, to stay as she, with the others, cast the circle.
She heard them, the moans and cries of the tormented, the howls and snarls of the torturers. And all of them, all within, pressed and pounded and pushed at the seal.
On the rise, within the circle, the seven joined hands, joined voices, joined power.