DARKHAVEN | "Three Sisters" Book One

Chapter Forty-Eight

Blodwyn

"It's a Dead Moon. This doesn't feel right."

Roslin and Blodwyn lowered the hoods of their cloaks and looked at Gia, who had otherwise scarce spoken since their meeting in the War Room that morning.

"The risk of failure is high when casting spells during a Dead Moon," Gia continued, clearly expecting the Lords to acknowledge her.

"Yes," agreed Aleksander, walking through the massive doors he and the other two Lords had unsealed only a moment ago. "You're right. The chance of failure is high. The potency of successful spells on a Dead Moon, however, is near double. We've been waiting for this opportunity and cannot squander it now, seeing as the hour grows more dire."

Gia was still frowning. Her characteristic obstinance could be heard in her voice when she insisted, "But something doesn't feel right."

"We need to do everything we can," Aleksander told her with finality in his voice. "You are safe down here. The First Evil can't detect it, just as they couldn't before. I promise you, I will not put you in harm's way."

No further argument could be had. Each sister had tried with an argument of her own to no avail.

Roslin had argued that they hadn't had enough time to study the new writings, Blodwyn had argued that their power was not at its strongest, and Gia had argued that magic and its happenings were ill-advised beneath a Dead Moon.

So there they stood again in that ancient sanctum, awful as it was awesome.

The Lords had led them deep, deep down into the bowels of the castle, and had pushed them to that precipice, and now they watched.

Roslin took one last look at Lucien. "Promise me," she had said, and he had answered, "I promise."

Again they crossed that narrow precipice to the altar. Again they joined hands. Again the sisters summoned their innermost magic, their strongest magic. And again they began to speak words far more ancient than anything they'd ever dared learn.

Places taken at the circular altar and with darkness threatening to swallow them from above and below, the sisters began to speak. They hardly knew the translations of the words that they spoke—they were simply words memorised from hand-written, neatly folded pieces of parchments scrawled on by the Lords. Blindly they went forward: blind faith and blind obedience.

As their spell neared the closing of their first recitation, it was immediately obvious something was wrong.

Blodwyn's attention snapped over to the Lords. She wanted to yell, to ask if they felt it, but she was silenced by a deep, deep hum—a beastly vibration—that rattled the flesh on her bones. Instead she looked between her sisters, whose expressions, wide-eyed and panicked, mirrored her own.

Then it struck them.

The feeling hit them like a wall, and their very beings vibrated. The air shattered inwardly in an explosion that was both deafening and soundless. The blast of magic slammed into the sanctum's wards and then reverberated back into the sisters' minds.

All three screamed, all three lurched forward and clung to the altar, flailing madly between trying to clutch their pulsing heads, cover their ears, and hold each other in what felt like their last breaths.

It lasted only a moment.

Whatever had happened left them as abruptly as it found them.

Blodwyn felt a disorienting, drugged haze creeping into her awareness as she struggled to rise. She shook her head and blinked repeatedly as she tried to dispel the darkness that clouded her vision. A piercing, agonising ringing in her ears drowned out any other sound, leaving her senses muffled and dimmed.