Page 276 of The Daughters of Avalon
“My sister did that?”
“Aye,” said the paladin very smugly.
“My Seren?”
Marcella lifted her brows. “Perhaps you know another?” When Rhiannon shook her head, she said with a sniff, “Seren will be Regnant, so I’m told.”
Rhiannon was too stunned by the revelation to take offense over Marcella’s high-minded tone.
Witchwater?
Seren had castwitchwater?
Seren?
With the power to heal, and cast away demons, the Church had once usedwitchwaterfor their sacraments. However, since the break between the Papacy and the doom of Avalon, they’d been using plain old well water, blessed by a priest.There were only three sacred elements in the world—witchwater,witchwindandwitchfire. Supposedly, if a dewine grew strong enough, and her affinity allowed it, she could find within her ability to cast one sacred element. No witch in modernity had ever had the power to summon them all… not even her grandmother.
None of her sisters were skilled enough for that.
Elspeth was aligned to earth. All hermagik—what little she’d dared perform—always hearkened this alignment. Rosalynde’saffinity was water; from the time she was young she could cover a windowpane with frost in the middle of summer. But Seren?
And yet, somehow, it did make sense…
Someonehad to be the Regnant, and her sister’smagikhad always been odd—as though it were bound. Her middle sister had displayed a very strange combination of affinities. Although Rhiannon had always supposed she was aligned to air, she was also gifted with the skill to charm, much like Ellie, only better. However, charm was a skillset aligned to earth, and earth was not compatible with air. Therefore, the only logical explanation should be that Seren, too, was aligned toaether. Rhiannon had never seriously considered this, mostly because she herself was aligned toaether, and the alignment toaetherwas so incredibly rare it was far more likely that all her sisters would be aligned to a single affinity, rather than to have even one aligned toaether… much lesstwo…orthree.
“Art certain?” Rhiannon asked, casting another dubious glance at Marcella.
Marcella lifted a black brow. “Quite,” she said. “Your sister will be Regnant—Goddess willing.”
“But…I…am aligned toaether,” Rhiannon said. “’Tis highly improbable to have threedewinesall in one family aligned toaether…”
“Nay, not three,” Marcella countered, and Rhiannon tilted the paladin a questioning look. “Your mother isnotaligned toaether,” she said, and then she averted her gaze, staring straight ahead with her chin raised belligerently. “God’s blood! You look exactly like her,” she interjected, and it sounded like a complaint.
By now, Rhiannon had had enough of Marcella’s icy demeanor. Ever since leaving Blackwood, she’d been moody and argumentative. She didn’t know what was wrong with thewoman, but why in the name of the Mother Goddess would she deign to help Rhiannon if she loathed Rhiannon so much?
“I look like her because sheismy mother,” Rhiannon said icily. “And because she ismymother, don’t you supposeIshould know best if my mother is aligned toaether?”
Marcella lifted her brow a little higher, as she slid Rhiannon a triumphant glare. “Oh, how ignorant you are!”
Rhiannon pursed her lips and longed to fill her palm with water again, only to cast it into Marcella’s face. “I beg pard?—”
“Oh, please!” said Marcella. “Spare me, Lady Blackwood! I know your kind!”
Rhiannon was momentarily disarmed by the vicious presentation of her title—Lady Blackwood. For the past few hours, she’d somehow been able to keep Cael off her mind—thanks mostly to Jack. Clearly, Marcella could not.
“All your life you’ve been blessed in your affinities, and perhaps you believe yourself better than those with less. Merely because I’ve chosen alchemy as my profession, and simply because I’ve no elemental affinity, does not mean mydewineblood is less than yours!”
Rhiannon opened her mouth to speak, but the paladin wasn’t through…
“What I lack in my affinities, I make up for in expertise elsewhere. Unlike you, Lady Blackwood, I’ve made it my life’s devotion to know my kin.”
Rhiannon countered, “And yet, you would hunt and slay your own kind?”
Marcella’s eyes narrowed till they were slits. “You know nothing, RhiannonPendragon,” she declared, with the emphasis on her ancestral name, and the rebuke left Rhiannon dumb. Once again, she opened her mouth to argue that she, too, had dedicated her life to her Craft—practicing even when her sisters dared not. But she closed her mouth again, wondering…
Could it be true?
Did she believe herself better than others?
