“That will do.” He spread the fabric out in front of him and slowly began tracing a pattern across it with his finger.
My curiosity got the best of me, and I sat down next to him at the table. “What kind of a spell is this?”
“It’s a binding spell,” he said, continuing the pattern. “A spell to connect our three lives—Queen Genevieve’s, Onal’s, and mine—to yours.” His golden eyes were solemn. “After it is complete, our lives will shield yours.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It means,” Mother said, “that you cannot die until we also have died.”
Kellan was taking short, impatient strides across the room. He probably hated this; he had no love for superstition. Kellan didn’t believe I was a witch. He didn’t believe in witches at all. He was solid and practical, possessing a deep trust in the things he could see and touch but naught else. So it surprised me greatly when he burst out, “Can there not be a fourth? If this spell puts lives before the princess’s, would it not be even better protection to add one more?”
“Only three,” Simon said. “Three is a sacred number; the only way to strengthen it would be to add multiples of three. Six, or even better, nine. Are there more out there we’d be willing to trust with this secret? Who’d tie their lives to Aurelia’s?”
“No,” Kellan said, looking at me. “There’s nobody else.” It was true, but it hurt to hear him say it. He considered me for a moment before continuing, “But I am strong, and I know Aurelia. It is my job to protect her. Couldn’t I take your place in the spell?”
“I follow a very strict set of rules when I practice magic. I must be a part of the spell; drawing blood from others is permissible only with willing participants and when the executor of the spell shares the bloodletting. Were it not for that, I would let you take my place.” He was thoughtful. “But as you said, you are young and strong.”
“Onal already has many years behind her—”
“Are you calling me old, Lieutenant?” Onal asked shrewdly, drumming her long, brown fingers against her weathered cheek. “I may not have as many years ahead of me, young man, but I don’t live a dangerous life. I may live a hundred years; you may die in combat tomorrow.”
“Kellan,” I added reluctantly, “you don’t even believe in these things. In spells and witchcraft.”
“He doesn’t have to believe,” Simon said. “The magic exists whether he believes in it or not.”
“I don’t believe,” Kellan said, “but I want to do it. For you.”
“So sentimental,” Onal snapped. “Fine. You can have my place. Not as if I wanted to die for Aurelia anyway.”
“Die for me?” It was such a ridiculous notion, I almost laughed. “No, no . . . Simon didn’t say that. He just said you’d die before me. So as long as you are all alive, so will I be, too . . .” I trailed off, marking their solemn expressions with growing dismay.
Simon said gently, “If we do this spell and you are at any time injured to the point of death, one of us will die in your place and their drop of blood will fade from the cloth, until we are all gone.”
My chest began to constrict. “I don’t want you—any of you—to die in my place. My life isn’t worth all three of yours. And why do we have to keep this treaty anyhow? It’s been two hundred years. Nobody cares anymore.”
Mother spoke first. “Fulfillment of the treaty is the only way to get you to Achleva.”
“Renalt is my home. My people—”
“Want to kill you,” Mother finished.
“They wouldn’t,” I argued, a bitter taste on my tongue, “were it not for the Tribunal.”
We’d had this discussion many times before, but never to any avail. To my mother, the Tribunal simply was; implying that it could be dismantled was like calling for the sky to be pulled down from the heavens, or begging for the dispersion of all the water in the oceans. It could not be done.
“Achleva needs you, too, Princess,” Simon said. “There are many forces at work against the monarchy. Domhnall may be petulant and prideful, but we have to keep him on the throne until the prince can inherit. For now, we at least have a tentative balance. But I’m afraid that if Renalt reneged on the treaty now, there would be little to keep the steward lords from making plays for the crown at the expense of people’s lives.”
“You’ll be safe in Achleva,” Mother said. “We just have to get you there.”
Simon beckoned. “Give me your hand.”
I reluctantly removed my gloves and placed my upturned palm in his. He paused, taking in the sprinkling of thin, white scars that crisscrossed it, before drawing a new line with his knife. As the blood began to well up from the cut, he put the bowl beneath my hand to catch it.
“Now repeat what I tell you, word for word. ‘My blood, freely given.’ Say it.”
“I thought blood magic doesn’t require incantations.” I swallowed. “I mean . . . that’s what I’ve heard.” Stupid.
He gave me a sidelong glance, eyebrow raised. “Is that so?”
I shrugged. “A rumor, I guess.” To cover, I added, “My blood, freely given.”
“Good.” He held a bandage against my palm, to stanch the flow. “We’ll fix it up better once we’re done. This will have to do for now.”
He placed the knife in my hands and folded my fingers over it. Then he reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a velvet purse. He tugged at the drawstrings, and three clear, strangely cut stones tumbled into his palm. “These stones are called luneocite.” He held them out for me to see, but I already knew what they were. The Tribunal called them spirit stones. To be caught in possession of them was the same as a direct confession of witchcraft—probably the quickest way to earn yourself a rope necklace for the next spectacle in the square.
He placed the stones in a large triangle in the center of the room, and the air felt suddenly charged, like the atmosphere of a lightning storm. Simon placed a bowl in my other hand and then guided me into the center of the stones. As I stepped over them, they gave off a momentary flash of blue-white and then dimmed back down. Lights were darting in front of my eyes, and my ears were buzzing, the silver knife and bowl growing warm in my hands. “Luneocite is rare and precious, and can only be found in seams beneath the ley lines—the paths the Empyrea traveled when she descended from heaven to journey across the earth. Luneocite is, in many ways, the crystalized remnants of her power. We use it like a prism, to enhance our spell, and as a boundary, to contain the magic within our designated parameters.”
He stood at one of the luneocite points of the triangle, and my mother and Kellan took their places at the others. The buzz in my ears became a breathy hum—almost like a distant whisper.
“Go to each of us in turn. Draw some blood from our palms and drip it into the bowl, just the same as I did for you.” Speaking to Mother and Kellan, he said, “As she does this, you must say, word for word, ‘My blood, freely given.’”
We all nodded in assent, and I took two steps toward my mother. She calmly opened her palm, not even wincing as I drew the knife across it. As her blood dripped into the bowl, mingling with mine, she said, “My blood, freely given.”