Chapter 162-1
Chapter 162-1
Kiana
Clam
The sun was setting when I met Lunessa, Evalina, Irene, Finn, and the remaining sisters in one of
the open fields. Except for Lunessa and Evalina, everybody eyed the others with suspicion.
Well, also except for Finn. He just stared at a blank space, his hands in balled fists by his side.
“Shouldn’t he be in chains?” Raven asked in a whisper. Nobody wanted to stand near him.
“If I put him in chains, then I put all of you in chains. Claudine has the power to take over any of you, “I pointed out woodenly. “We’re here to stop that.”
“I’ve never had magic done on me before. Is it going to hurt?”
“No, it won’t hurt,” Lunessa said with a gentle smile. “We do not have the power to keep Claudine from spelling your blood, but we can weave a two-part spell that will redirect it. The first part of the spell is to simply identify when magic enters your body. Once that spell is activated, it will trigger a second spell to deflect. The only bad news is that it has to be administered every twelve hours. The stronger the magic, the faster it will burnout.”
Tears filled Raven’s eyes. “She has what she wants. She doesn’t need us anymore. Can’t we just
leave?”
She had a point. If we let the rest of the sisters go, then we wouldn’t have to expend any more magic, and we wouldn’t have to keep an eye on them.
“It won’t matter where we run,” one of the sisters said darkly. “If we’re on this mountain, we’ll be swept up in the spell. I’d rather stay and fight. She needs to be handled.”
I watched Finn for any signs of emotion, but he didn’t even blink. Lunessa looked at me, and I nodded. “If you want to leave, we won’t stop you. It’s true that the chances that your mother will capture you and carve out your heart are minimal now, but your sister is right. There’s nowhere to run now. If you stay, you stay to fight.”
After a moment, when no one moved to leave, Lunessa and Irene stepped toward one of the sisters. I took a few steps back to make sure my null power didn’t interfere, and I prayed that Claudine wouldn’t choose now to try and make an appearance. We needed to do this. We needed to be able to trust each other again.
The sisters and Finn were first. He barely moved a muscle during the ritual, and when I gently touched his arm, he just tensed even more. “She can’t use you anymore,” I said gently. “You should talk to Troy…”
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“You don’t know that,” he growled as he turned his head. “You said it yourself. Claudine has been planning this for years, and you opened your pack to her and let her waltz in less than a year ago. You have no idea what she did while she was here. She could have a dozen spells to control me. She could have an infinite amount of magic at her disposal. I cannot be trusted.”
His fury blasted into me, but I didn’t back away. “We will fight back. She’s not going to win.”
“I don’t know. Seems to me like we’ve already lost.” Stepping around me, he stalked away.
I didn’t even realize that I was shaking until Irene put her hands on me. It was all I could do not to immediately jerk away, but when I looked up, I knew it was the witch looking back at me. For the first time in a long time, she actually gave me a smile.
“He’s hurting,” Irene said in a low voice. “I know the feeling. When Claudine leaves you, she leaves this bitter feeling like you’ve housed something truly evil. And she is his mother, and she used him in the most vile of ways to commit the darkest of betrayals.”
I already knew that. He hadn’t said anything personal against me, but when he looked at me, I wondered if he’d stopped seeing me as a friend and started seeing me as an instrument of mass
destruction.
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