Raven of Water

Chapter 3: Meet Kirroz

I kept my eyes fixed on the flowers on the altar as the chanting began. The flowers were beautiful. So beautiful that they made me want to cry. I'd watered them well after putting them in the vase, giving them one last cleansing before they were put in their final resting place on the ornate stone altar. Beads of water still glistened on the black petals of the roses, and the flickering candlelight danced over the droplets, captivating me despite the flurry of activity that was occurring around me.

It wasn't long into the chant, an amalgam of ritualistic words from the groups's grimoire, that the air around me began to swirl, carrying with it the strange, unsettling scent of rain and violence that I'd been smelling all day. Ignoring the aroma, I continued to chant with the rest of the group members, adding my voice to the thirty others. Soon, I felt the tingle of power emanating from the altar, sending sharp tremors of dread and excitement across my skin. As the blood letter, I was in the middle of the circle, a speck of white amidst a sea of black garments and dark robes and hoods. Even though I hated the darkness of our magic, my body responded involuntarily to the eddying power that danced before me on the altar, a combination of all our powers along with something more ancient and untamed but... not demonic. Not evil.

As the chant reached its crescendo, I walked to the altar with the bejeweled ceremonial dagger in my hand. I didn't break chant as I looked down at all the offerings which had been lovingly laid out on the stone sarcophagus that served as the groups's crypt altar. Small jewels, books, food: all the items were presented by organization's members as offerings to the darkness.

The black vase filled with ebony roses had been my only contribution to the ceremony.

As I observed the macabre collection of goods and trinkets, my hands, which would normally be shaking, remained steady while my body responded to the combined magic of the group.

The darkness both terrified and excited me.

Darkness was my home, yet the feeling of comfort I felt in the darkness was a curse.

Acting on some more sinister magical instincts, I didn't hesitate as I lifted the dagger and sliced my palm directly over the scar. Purple sparks flew from my skin as the enchanted blade made contact with my flesh, and the shadowed part of me smiled as my blood and magic dripped out and onto the altar of offerings, my powers sizzling and dancing brightly like molten metal being poured into a mold. In the moment, the ceremonial wound didn't hurt, although I knew from experience that it would pain me later. The power eddying around me buoyed me as I spent a few seconds scattering my blood over the offerings. When the flow of red liquid from my wound began to slow, my heart thundered in my chest as I placed the dagger on the altar so that I could squeeze my palm, causing more of my blood and liquefied violet power to drip out.

The rational part of my mind realized that at this point in the ceremony, there was supposed to be a change, a tale tell shift in magic and pressure that heralded the arrival of an emissary of darkness, but, just as every other time we'd tried to do this ritual, there was... nothing.

No magical change.

The ceremony had failed.

I knew it would take a few moments before the group realized the theatrics hadn't worked again and grandfather would give the order to cease chanting, so I had some time to revel in the power around me and try to find my own peace.

I liked feeling the darkness, yet I could also sense the light somewhere in the depths of the magic around me. There was something light about that ancient power that I felt. Because nothing was ever purely good or purely evil. Things just were. Most of the time, they were neither good nor bad, even though magic users and non-users liked to think the world was defined by the righteous and the unrighteous.

And the sensation of beauty in the shadows made my body celebrate.

As I breathed in the scent of magic and blood and water, I noticed that the dark roses in the vase beside me were reacting to the release of my magic, stretching and begging for one final taste of my power. Although it wasn't part of the ceremony as written by my ancestors, I decided to show the plants one final mercy. I couldn't mess things up at this point. The rite had already failed.

Smiling a little ruefully, I stretched out my hand and allowed some of the blood infused with my violet magic to coat the petals. The plants sighed as I pet them. I didn't know why, but their reactions made tears pierce my eyes. I was sad these plants were ending, but it brought me joy to know that I could offer them such comfort in their final days. I could only hope that whatever life existed after this one, the plants would find happiness.

Like I hoped the group members my grandfather had killed would find happiness.

Like I prayed my mother had found.

As I pulled my hand away from the roses, I stopped chanting with the others and whispered to the cut flowers.

"Find peace."

Then, everything changed.

The room froze, and there was a drop then rise in air pressure and a tingle in the back of my head. The sounds surrounding me faded, and I gasped as I realized that the entire catacombs, an immense warren of crypts and burial places that couldn't exist in the loamy and flood-prone soil of the south without magic, were eerily silent. It was as if the world had stopped breathing, as if it had stopped rotating and all the cycles of life acting out on the planet were placed on pause.

I wanted to look around at the others to make sure I was interpreting everything right, but when I tried, I found that I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe. The only thing I could do was stare at the roses and watch, captivated as my purple tinted blood glowed and dripped down and mingled with the droplets of well water still clinging to the petals.

Then the pressure shifted once more. Now I felt as if I was sticking my head out a car window as it moved too fast down the highway. My breath was sucked from my lungs and toward the altar. It took me a few moments to realize that it wasn't just the air from my lungs moving toward the center. It was everything. My dress. My hair. It all was pulled towards the middle of the altar with such force that I thought I'd lose my footing and fall face-first into the offerings until all at once everything was pushed outward in a violent explosion that sent me flying back and into the stone walls of the crypt.

For several seconds, everything went black as my ears rang and I slid to the rough stone floor of the crypt. When I finally opened my eyes, I expected the room to be in a state of disaster with the world disturbed by the explosion of energy I'd just experienced, but everything was as it had been. The lit candles were all still in place. The circle of chanting magic users, headed by my grandfather, remained unbroken.

I coughed and groaned as I pushed myself off the ground, feeling pain and soreness that told me something in my chest was either broken or severely bruised. Wobbling on my feet for a moment as my vision blurred, I placed my palm on the wall to steady myself, wincing when I felt the jagged stone and dirt of the crypt wall digging deep into my cut. With a hiss, I tore my hand from the wall and looked back at the altar.

And saw him.

A fiery red-orange creature with ebony horns, large black wings made of iridescent feathers that looked strangely avian, and unfathomably black eyes perched atop the altar like a gargoyle on the edge of a building. I wanted to scream, but common sense told me to be quiet as the group continued to chant, heads bowed and palms facing upward as if they were all deep in prayer.

When the beast locked eyes with me, it smiled, and my mouth went dry until there was a flash of bright light and the creature was replaced by a bespoke-suit clad man with dark skin, close cropped hair, and piercing eyes. The figure crouched exactly as the monster had, although it seemed absurd for a being that looked so human to be sitting like a gargoyle atop the altar.

"I'm here, Shadowmoon."

The resonating voice of the man sounded like rocks grinding together as it echoed off the stone walls. Suddenly, the chanting stopped and the eyes of all the magic users locked on the figure, who was hopping lithely down from the altar, despite his large, seemingly ungraceful frame.

I'd been wrong.

Very wrong.

Tonight's ceremony had worked, and now I was staring at an honest to god demon.