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From afternoon into evening, I practiced with Hellforged. Each session began like the first; the athame was skittish and flew out of my hand. By centering, I could calm it down and line it up with my own vibration. Keeping it in alignment was another matter. The moment my concentration slipped, Hellforged bucked and jumped and, nine times out of ten, got away from me. Staying in control meant maintaining intense, unwavering focus. By the time I knocked off for the day, usually when it was getting too dark to see, my nerves thrummed with fatigue.
When I wasn’t training or trying to read, I slept. No matter how many hours I spent in bed, I couldn’t sleep enough. The exertion of my daytime activities wore me out, but worse was the effect of Mab’s no-dreaming tea. The tea kept Difethwr out of my dreamscape, but it kept me out, too. Sleeping was like standing on the wrong side of a brick wall that stretched up, up, up—into the sky and out of sight. I slept without dreams and woke up exhausted, like I’d spent the dreamless hours beating my head against that wall. Mab was right—nobody could live this way for long. Dark-shadowed hollows etched themselves under my eyes, my features sharpened, and my skin took on a yellow-gray undertone. Although I was sleeping more than ever, I looked like I hadn’t shut my eyes for a week.
The still-fading black eyes added to my ghoulish look. I wasn’t going to be ready for my close-up anytime soon, that was for sure.
On the third afternoon, Mab said I was ready to practice the “stoning the crows” ritual with Hellforged, rather than empty-handed. I took a few minutes to get centered, then held out my left hand, open and palm up. Mab placed the athame there. It trembled, and I focused on my breathing until it settled down. I closed my fingers lightly around the grip. Hellforged hiccupped a couple of times. I worked on the double focus, noticing the dagger’s behavior and staying deeply centered at the same time. When I felt us move into alignment, I began making big lasso-circles. So far, so good.
Rose came out on the terrace and called to Mab.
My arm kept circling, but Hellforged didn’t. The athame leapt from my hand, soaring several yards before it landed on the grass.
“Rose has a question about dinner,” Mab said. “I must speak with her for a moment. ” She started toward the house, then stopped and turned around. “Why don’t you come in, too? It’s all but dark. ”
“In a minute. Let me try again. ” I wanted to get through the entire ritual once before I quit for the day.
Mab nodded approvingly and walked over to where Rose waited on the terrace. They spoke for a moment, then went inside together.
The light was failing, but I found Hellforged by the dim silver glow of its blade. I picked it up, stilled it, and began the long, slow circles again. I moved slower than I’d practiced because Hellforged kept twitching, and I couldn’t circle as smoothly as Mab had.
The athame twitched again and pulled upward. I kept hold of it, but it jerked my arm out of the circle. I stopped, sighing. The dagger wrenched itself from my hand and landed at my feet. I’d worry about smooth circles after I’d actually made it through the whole ritual.
One more try. It was almost too dark now to see the slate target. Feeling weary, I picked up the dagger. I looked toward the tree to locate the target. A flash lit up the night, and Pryce stood beside the slate, holding his carved staff. He waved to me, then held up one finger.
Hellforged shot from my hand and disappeared into the darkness.
The athame. Pryce must be here to steal it. It was our only weapon against the Morfran—if he got it away from me, there’d be no way to stop him.
I ran in the direction the dagger had gone, tensed against the tackle I expected. Ahead, a silver glow shone in the grass. I lunged, pinning Hellforged under my hand. It jumped like crazy, but I held it down with both hands, screaming for Mab. Pryce had beaten me when he had the advantage of surprise, but there was no way he could win against the two of us.
Where was Pryce? Keeping Hellforged trapped and yelling for Mab, I whipped my head around, trying to spot him. He wasn’t beside me, drawing back his leg for one of his sadistic kicks. There. He stood by the tree, bending over the slate target. He passed a hand over its surface in a circle, and I heard him say something, but I couldn’t make out the words. He glanced toward the house. I looked that way, too, and saw Mab’s silhouette in the open doorway. She carried a shotgun.
Pryce stepped back and hit the slate three times with his staff. Each strike rang out like a gong.
On the terrace, Mab worked the shotgun’s bolt.
Pryce disappeared a split second before the gun roared. A dark mist swirled out of the slate, a deep black smudge against the night. The mist rose and gathered into a cloud.
I took three long breaths and closed my hand around Hellforged. Focus. At any moment, Pryce could pop out of the demon plane right in front of me. I needed to get Hellforged into the house, behind the safety of Maenllyd’s wards. I rose to my knees, athame in hand. A buzzing started in my ears. Mab shouted something from the terrace, but the noise swelled, drowning her out.
The buzzing crescendoed to a fierce, throbbing pressure in my head, like a migraine times ten. I pressed my fists against my temples, realizing only then I’d lost Hellforged again. I patted the grass, looking for the dagger and trying to get centered through the agonizing throbbing. As I reached forward, a sudden, sharp stab bit my arm. I touched the spot. My jacket was torn, the sleeve wet with blood. The pain in my head fractured into a million shrieks.
A stab to my thigh: more blood, another gouge in my flesh. And it kept happening—to my arms, my legs, my back—I felt like the bull’s-eye for a barrage of arrows. I couldn’t see what was attacking me. I hit out in all directions, but my flailing arms met empty air. More slashes and tears opened in my body, like it was spontaneously destroying itself.
I looked up. Above me, dozens of jet-black crows cawed and shrieked in an insane chorus. Their lightning-fast dives were almost too fast to see, as they ripped me with their talons, their beaks. I screamed and waved my arms, trying to beat them away.
Still they came at me. The world was a boiling fury of wings and feathers, of pain and blood and beaks and claws. A crow slashed my cheek, and I covered my face with both arms, terrified the creatures would gouge out my eyes. I fell forward, trying to protect my face as the crows pecked my back into hamburger.
Then the attack stopped.
I didn’t realize it at first, I was so frantic with pain and panic. Screams tore at my ears, and pain lacerated my flesh. I gulped in a breath, and the screaming stopped. It was me, my own voice—the demonic shrieking had ceased, making my ears ring with silence. No cruel beaks tore at me. I peeked out from between my arms. The crows were gone.
Gingerly, I sat up. Five feet away, Mab whirled the athame over her head. She shone with silver light. The crows circled, following the motion of her arm, blurring together. Mab’s circles grew smaller, and the crows, blurring into black mist, moved in toward her, swirling faster and tighter, like water going down a drain. In another second, they’d touch the blade.
Suddenly the athame was in Mab’s right hand. She pointed it at the slate as though hurling a spear and shouted the incantation. Like a bolt of black lightning, the crows shot into the slate. The heavy tile leapt into the air and belched smoke. It fell over and lay still, wisps of smoke curling from its surface.
Mab rushed to me. “Show me your wounds, child. ”
Where to start? I was nothing but wounds. I held up an arm, and she probed some of the gouges. I winced, but she kept going, checking my shoulders, my cheek, my other arm. At last she let out her breath and sat beside me on the grass. Her lips were thin and white; tension etched lines across her face.
“Thank heaven I could stop it in time. The attack didn’t progress beyond the first phase, so your injuries will heal quickly. ”
She was right. The pain was already receding and, as I watched, cuts shran
k and scabs formed. Weird. I’d never healed that fast before. This was more like werewolf speed.
“Let’s get you into the house,” Mab said. “I have some salve that will facilitate the healing process. Can you walk?”
“Give me a minute. ” I drew the sweet night air into my lungs. Breathing, seeing, even hurting—these things seemed miraculous, and I drank them in. Beside me, Mab sat with her arms resting on her bent knees, Hellforged dangling from her hand. She stared across the dark lawn.
“So that was the Morfran,” I said. Without shifting her gaze, Mab nodded. “I thought it only did that to zombies. ”
“Strictly speaking, it feeds on any kind of undead—liches, ghouls, revenants, even some vampires. The Morfran is a carrion-eater, so the most corpselike undead beings, such as your zombies, are most vulnerable. But you’re correct. It shouldn’t have attacked you. ” She blinked rapidly and pressed a hand over her eyes. Tears—from Mab? “Victory, child, if I’d imagined such a thing could occur, I’d never have used a live slate. ” She covered her face with both hands and drew in a long, deep, shaky breath.
When she lowered her hands, she looked and sounded like the Mab I knew. “I intended, as soon as you were ready, to release the Morfran imprisoned in that slate so you could practice on the real thing. The worst that could happen—so I believed—was that a bit of Morfran would escape and find its way to Boston. But that seemed a small risk. ” She took another deep breath. “I don’t know what happened. ”
I flashed on Pryce, standing by the tile and holding up one finger. “I think it’s related to Pryce’s prophecy, the one the book won’t let me tell you about. ” I tried again to say it, but Mab shrugged; my words remained gibberish to her. “Pryce said there’d be three tests. If I survive them, I’m fated to fulfill his damn prophecy—did you understand that?”
She nodded. “I’ve seen that in the book. ‘And shall thrice-tested Victory be conquered?’ But I’ve never been able to discover the tests’ purpose or what they would be. ”
“I think you just helped me pass test number one. ” A test where failure meant death. If Mab hadn’t been there …