Page 66 of The Coven of Ruin
They hadn’t been able to train as much as Trista would have liked over the last couple of weeks. With the Channeling ceremony only three nights away, preparations required quite a bit of their attention and had the capital in a frenzy of activity.
Demurielle was almost always with someone, whether doing something with Prince Roan or getting ready for the ceremony. Despite all efforts to be otherwise, she was one of six witches that Prince Roan was considering for betrothal and the chosen one from The Coven of Sun and Gold. This resulted in her practicing all hours of the day for exactly what would happen at the Channeling ceremony. Though she still lacked interest in the mage, she stuck to what she had said. She would do her duty and maybe, eventually, love the prince and enjoy being the future queen if that was her fate.
Trista did her best to avoid getting caught up in the preparations. She had holed herself up in the library when she wasn’t with her friends. Between trying to figure out the runes that she couldn’t translate, reading about the dark magic that preceded witchkind, and searching for anything that could lead her to more knowledge about Nyx, she had plenty to keep herself occupied. However, none had yielded many results.
She had found a rune that looked similar to the one she had been trying to interpret. Its meaning was ‘red’ which still made no sense in any context she could come up with. Braving the tower stairs and the chance of running into a particular war god she was avoiding, she even asked Grae if it meant anything to him. But he was as perplexed as she was. The need to fill her time and the deep desire to succeed kept her returning to the library each day. She did not, however, spend any more evenings in the western tower with the band of war gods.
“What if she got caught up again with the prince, and we are just standing here waiting like fools?” Zyana muttered, pressing her back against the stone wall.
The door opened suddenly to Demurielle’s bright smile. “I’ve been in here the whole time preparing. Honestly, you two have no trust in me. I could hear everything,” she said, looking between them.
Zyana at least had the awareness to look ashamed.
“Come on, come on.” Demurielle beckoned them inside. She had transformed their usual empty chamber into a candlelit and flower-filled creation. In the center were three velvet cushions positioned in a circle. In the space between the cushions stood three large, unlit black candles and three different flowers. Though Trista had been only part of healing ones, she recognized what Demurielle had been preparing—a ritual.
Zyana stopped right inside the room, her hand still on the door’s handle. A look of pure wonder transformed her features as she took in the chamber. The candlelight made her otherwise dark eyes sparkle with hues of sepia. “This is extraordinary,” her friend whispered in the tone she usually reserved for speaking about weapons or only the freshest hotcakes.
Demurielle watched their wonder with satisfaction and amazement of her own. She sat on one of the cushions, patting the other two on either side of her. Trista and Zyana traversed through coiling and thick vines that seemed to sprout from the stone floor. The leafy tendrils reached and clung to them on their way to their respective seats.
“I wanted it to be a surprise, but youdoget a choice,“ Demurielle stated, making direct eye contact with each of them as she did. The flickering light and the dark emerald dress she wore made the sun witch appear as if she was a bejeweled enchantment of the room herself. “The ritual I want to conduct is partially in honor of the Mothers as we will not get to share our magic with each other at the ceremony. But also, I want us to make the Triune more than just something we say.”
A thrill moved through Trista. “What do you mean?”
“I want us to bind our magic together into these.” Demurielle held up three rings made of spell ore, a rare type of metal that could be imbued with magical properties. “These will have our magic contained inside of them. Then,” she leaned forward, “nothing and no one could take us away from each other. We will always be together in this way.” Clinking the metal rings together, she exhaled. “What do you two say?”
Zyana only hesitated for a moment. “I’m in.”
It was a simple ceremony, more symbolic than anything. Still it felt like fate. To never be alone again. Tobelong. Chills overtook her, her heart’s way of urging her forward. “Yes, of course,” Trista assented, moving several curls out of her face as she did.
“I would have definitely reconsidered my choice of Triune members if you said otherwise,” the blonde witch said in a humorless tone as she pushed her braid off her shoulder. Reaching into the circle, she picked up a lush, dark blue, cone-shaped flower and handed it to Zyana. The mountain witch took it carefully as if she was afraid of dropping it. Demurielle then gave Trista a purple blossom she recognized as Vita, often used in medicine. Taking up the last flower, its petals white and wispy, she sat it in her lap.
Demurielle gestured to the bloom in Zyana’s hands. “The Syasin flower grows on a thick vine. It is said that if you followed the vine into the ground to its roots, you could use it as a guide to the center of the world. It represents grounding energy, perseverance, and immortality.”
Turning to Trista, the sun witch looked at the blossom she held in her palm. “Your flower grows in one place and is highly sought after for its healing and magical properties, as I’m sure you know. It represents life, healing, and journeys.”
Sighing, Demurielle held up her flower for them to see. “And mine represents connection and harmony.” She studied it for a moment before plucking three petals. “You two do the same and pass them.” When they had pulled three petals off, they passed them so that each of the three witches had a petal from each flower. “And put these on your left wrist,” Demurielle ordered, handing them each their spell ore bangle.
Trista slipped the metal onto her wrist, and her magic was called to it even without having done anything. It sat cool against her skin, yearning to be filled.
“Petals go in your mouth, and you’re going to hold them there until the rite is complete,” Demurielle instructed as she placed her petals in her cheek, ensuring they were well out of the way so she could speak. Trista and Zyana followed suit. The petals were soft and warm, tasting of something that made her homesick for a place she didn’t know, but her tongue remembered.
“Mothers,” Demurielle started as she took Zyana’s hand and then Trista’s. Trista and Zyana joined their other hands, closing the circle. “We are three witches, come together to invoke your love and divine creation. May we be bound, in this life and the next, by our magic that you gifted from your own immortality.”
Trista felt Demurielle’s magic, and it beckoned hers softly forward like a mother calling her witchlings home or the summer wind whispering to trees of forgotten things. It was warm like thick blankets slung over overstuffed chairs and patches of sunlight.
Trista’s magic awakened to meet the call. It was resplendent in its rising, a universe rushing free from the confines of her being. The light, soft violet like dusk, joined Demurielle’s dawn.
Then Zyana’s. At first, it withdrew as if it wasn’t yet sure if friend or foe. But then it was receptive like a drawbridge lowering, thick doors swinging open. Her magic surrounded, swirled, and then surrendered as if laying down a sword to say, ‘it is yours, I am yours’.
Trista had paired with witches in the Akeso, and never found anyone whose magic felt like theirs. They shared magic more than just through their hands. They shared it through their lungs, through their heart, and from their very core. Their magic braided together as if each were a missing part of a sum. And as it filled them up, the candles bursting to life in the circle’s center, the room blinding from the colors that poured from them, she knew that everything had led to this moment.
How had three witches—one covenless, two from covens that couldn’t be more far-flung than theirs—ended up in a carriage together?Destiny,their magic whispered.Home.You belong here. You are safe here. Together.
She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, their essence flowing through each other in endless loops, joining and delighting in the connection. When their spell’s magnetism dissipated, Trista noticed Demurielle chew the petals and did the same, the sweet and earthy taste amplified by their enchantment. It took a few more moments for any of them to talk, their hands loose in each other’s, matching spell ore bracelets now shrunk to lay fitted to their wrists, warm and filled with their alchemy. The metal swirled almost imperceptibly with violet, golden, and blue-gray essence.
“Long Live the Triune,” Demurielle sang, squeezing their hands, her smile as bright as her magic had been.
“Long Live the Triune,” Zyana and Trista exclaimed together with matching grins.
