Rowan approached her. “See anything you like?”
She flinched as if he’d surprised her. “What?”
“The books. What do you like to read?”
She frowned at him, and thunder rumbled overhead, announcing the impending arrival of a storm. “Histories, mostly, I suppose.”
“Not fiction?” Rowan selected a leatherbound book with a worn spine.
Rixxis shrugged. “I just find it difficult to relate to things and people that don’t exist.”
“You just need to be more open to experiences outside your own. Funnel some of that curiosity into your imagination. Every book is a new life, a new world.”
“Yes,” she said, “but when you finish, and have to leave that world, isn’t it a little like dying? You don’t find that sad?”
“Death is only sad if it is the end. It is simply another stage of life. We are born, we live, and we die, returning to the soil to nourish a future we helped build. Death is simply part of a rebirth cycle.” Rowan smiled and held the book he’d selected out to her.
“What’s this?” Rixxis asked, taking the book.
“Sionna’s Song,” he replied. “It tells the tale of a wounded warrior tricked into marrying Fionn, the god of death, and her time in the underworld alongside him. I think you’ll find it more relatable than you expect.”
“Tofi is ready,” announced the necromancer.
Rixxis tucked the book under her arm, and they went to the table together.
Rowan sat between Ieduin and Rixxis.
“How does this work?” asked Ewan as he sat with a grunt and scooted his chair in. He eyed the silver handled dagger Tofi had set on the table.
“You will see,” Tofi assured them. “We will invoke Stofi, Tofi’s patron god of death, and seek his permission to straddle the veil between life and death. Should he grant it, Tofi will channel the voice of the dead, but do not be alarmed if an apparition should appear before you. Such things are not so uncommon.”
Thunder growled and lightning flashed. Rowan’s heart was in his throat, threatening to choke the life out of him.
“Once we join hands,” Tofi said, “no matter what you see, no matter how shocked you may become, do not let go until Tofi has told you it is safe. This cannot be stressed enough. You must not break the circle. Do you understand?”
Everyone at the table nodded or mumbled their agreement.
Tofi lifted the wooden bowl before him and tugged a pouch from around his neck. He opened the pouch and sprinkled what looked like brown powder into the bowl. “A little cemetery dirt for the worms, and then the last ingredient.” He lifted the ornate knife and held it out to Rowan. “Blood.”
Rowan reached for the knife, but Ewan grabbed it first.
He looked at Rowan. “What good am I if I can’t bleed in your place? Unless it must be him?”
They looked at the necromancer.
Tofi shrugged. “It does not.”
Ewan held his hand over the bowl and sliced open his palm without fanfare, squeezing his fist long enough to let a thick trickle of blood fall into the bowl.
Tofi shook out a handkerchief and passed it to Ewan, who tied it around his hand. “Now, join hands and do not forget… Do not let go until Tofi says so.”
Rowan took Rixxis’s hand first. She had rough skin on her fingers, the kind that only came from heavy work. There were lines of the same roughness on her palms interlaced with soft spots. He had a special balm that would soften such skin, and thought about using it with her, how she might melt into such a gentle massage after a long day of work.
Ieduin’s hand was the opposite, soft and warm. Rowan briefly entertained the thought of what those hands might feel like stroking his cock or running over his chest until Ieduin turned to look at him.
“It’s really not that scary,” Ieduin assured him.
Rowan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve done this before?”