Page 42 of Evil Eyed
Slowly, I lowered the hag stone from my eye. Now that I was touching the toppled stone, I could still see it, so I put the other stone into my pocket. With both hands freed, I heaved the stone up and flipped it over backwards. In the dark, I couldn’t see anything written on its surface. I ran my hands over the rough stone, trying to tell if there were any carvings.
Lightning boomed overhead, making me jump, but in the brief light, I saw a face carved into the stone. The carvings on the edges resembled arms and legs, turning the stone into a boxy representation of a person.
“I found it, but it’s not gold. It looks like a person.”
“It’s an idol representing Cromm Crúaich,” Warwick replied. “You’re in a place of great power.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “And darkness.”
I swallowed, shivering a little even though the air still pressed in like a heavy, suffocating blanket. My father, a dark god who’d supposedly been worshipped—or appeased—with human sacrifice. Lightning crackled again, illuminating the face of the stone idol. The arched top resembled a head, the edges thick shoulders. The stone was stained darker than the rest.
Dirt and moss from where it’d lain for centuries? Or something worse?
“Why am I here?” I said aloud, tipping my head back to look at the night sky. “What do you want?”
Another gust of wind pushed against me, carrying my words away into the storm. Lightning cut across the darkness and the sky opened like it’d been cut with Aidan’s sword, emptying cold, pounding sheets of rain. Wind tugged at my hair, my shirt, buffeting me harder. Swirling around inside the stone circle, building with intensity like a mini tornado.
Urgency rose inside me. I needed to do… something. Cold rain pounded against my back as I hunched over the stone. I ran my fingers over it, searching for a clue. The ground. Digging through grassy roots and gnarled earth, I found it. A notch carved into the ground, a stone footing or foundation.
Lightning pounded through the night, giving me plenty of light. I ran my fingers over the bottom of the tumbled stone and felt a matching tab on its base. The wind spiraled harder through the stone circle, whipping my hair into my face. Driving rain sliced like sheets of ice over my skin, chilling me to the bone. Hurrying, I pulled the stone upright, wriggling it back and forth to get the tab closer to the slot. Almost there…
With a heavy thunk, it slid into place.
The wind died. Rain ceased. Heart pounding, I scrambled to my feet, not sure if I’d done a good thing or not.
“What…” Warwick’s voice came from even further away, a thin, stretched out warble that went on and on through space and time. “Happened?”
An explosion burst up from the ground, slinging earth and mud and roots in all directions. It picked me up like a giant’s hand and slung me up into the air. I didn’t have time to be scared—even though it seemed to happen in slow motion. I could see it all. The upright carving now gleamed gold. Power rippled through the air, a shock wave that slammed the standing stones outward, knocking them flat to the ground.
I hovered in the air, looking down at the blasted circle. Huge, heavy slabs of granite knocked down like a child’s set of building blocks. The short golden stone burned brighter like a beacon. Then the power caught me, slamming me backward through darkness.
24
Iopened my eyes.
Stone engulfed me. For a moment, I thought the giant stones must have fallen on top of me, but I felt a heavy, steady thump against my cheek. Warmth wrapped around me. I lifted my head, and the deep grooves etched around Doran’s eyes eased.
“Gods, I thought we’d lost you, love.”
My head wobbled, as if my neck was too weak to hold it up. “What happened?”
“You tell us.” Ivarr spoke behind me. The warmth of his light soaked into my chilled back. It felt incredibly good, as if I’d been lying on a beach drinking in the sunlight for hours. “You fell backward, drenched, muddy, and unconscious.”
“Drenched?” I looked down at myself, surprised to see my shirt was indeed wet enough that I’d also dampened Doran’s T-shirt. “Oh. Yeah. There was a huge storm.”
Doran shifted me around in his arms so I could sit back against his chest while he supported me. We were on the floor in the kitchen. He leaned back against the island. Swords drawn, Aidan had his back to us, braced for battle. Ivarr and Warwick both hovered nearby. From the dance of magic on my skin, they’d both been sending me their power, trying to revive me, or at least warm me. My back was dry, though I was still damp from where I’d been pressed against Doran.
Keane squatted down and pressed a teacup into my hand. “This will help warm you up too.”
I wrapped my hands around the cup, soaking in its warmth as I sipped the drink. Tea spiked with drúchta. I closed my eyes, letting the warmth and love all around soak into me, though I couldn’t help the twinge of worry niggling in my stomach. “I hope I didn’t fuck things up.”
“What happened?” Warwick asked again, his voice echoing faintly, as if still reverberating through multiple dimensions of time and space to reach me.
“I found the stone in the center. It looked kind of like a person, though it was only about the size of a tombstone.” Saying that last word made me shiver, my teeth chattering a bit. “It wasn’t gold at first, but it did have a head, arms, and legs. After I put it into the slot, it turned gold.”
He frowned slightly. “What slot?”
“There was a hole in the ground that fit the stone perfectly. I felt like I needed to do something. Urgently. Everything kept tearing at me, urging me to hurry. When I set the stone into the hole, the storm stopped suddenly, like a switch had been flipped. I thought that was what it wanted me to do, but then there was an explosion that knocked all the stones down.”
His eyes widened. “All twelve stones?”
