Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Suddenly, I’m in that cabin again. It’s New Year’s Eve and my grandmother smells like death because she is dying.
Magnificent promises.
“He is going to promise you something you want very badly, Syrsee.”
“What, though? I don’t need anything, Grandma.”
“No. You don’t. But someone you love will. So be very sure about the man you give your heart to, my love. Because he will be your downfall. He will steal your soul.”
“You were told this. This should not be news to you,” Lucia says. “At the very least, you should recognize the truth in it. Did you ever know your mother?”
I’m still halfway in the past with my dying grandma when Lucia asks me this, so it takes a moment for me to completely come back to her. “What?”
“You never met your mother.”
“So?” I’m irritated now. Why am I always the last to know everything?
“Have you ever seen a coven of Black witches?”
“No. Have you?”
“Of course not.” Lucia laughs, making her eyes sparkle. “They don’t exist, darling. Only you exist. Coyrah. The trade.”
Finally, I’ve had enough. “Look, either you tell me what the fuck is going on and what I’m supposed to do, or go away! I don’t have room in my head for this shit right now! And I want it spelled out for me, OK? Short, simple sentences. Give me the fucking bullet points!”
Lucia looks a little stunned at my outburst, but she composes herself quickly. “Fine. You want the bullet points? Here they are. One. You’re an eternal sacrifice. Your soul is trapped in a constant recycling of a single human girl. Two. Your purpose is to carry the Black blood into the future. Three. The future is now.”
I stare at her for a moment, waiting for point number four, but she remains silent. “Don’t stop, Lucia. I’m fucking serious here. Four. Keep going.”
Lucia sighs, side-eyeing me. “Four.” Her voice is low now. “You have two choices. End it all or don’t.”
“End… all… of what?”
“You. Ryet. Paul. Josep. This whole bloodline.” She gives me a weak smile. “And me.”
“You’re already dead, Lucia.”
“My soul is trapped, just like yours. But in a different way.”
For a moment I think she’s sad that she’s a part of this. Of the bloodline, as she calls it. But then I remember back to when Paul cut off her head in the Montana lodge and all the things she told me that night.
Well, fragments of it, anyway.
She wanted to die, that I remember for sure. But she mentioned second-level powers that would come with it. “What do you get out of this?” I ask.
“I get to move on, Syrsee.”
“To that ice castle place?”
“That’s right.”
“But that’s not a place for you.” This is a guess on my part, but if what she just told me is true, then I’m right. I’m the only Black witch there is. She doesn’t belong there, I do. “That’s a place for me.”
But that’s a lie too. And I realize this when Lucia frowns.
It’s not a place for me any more than it is for her. I’m stuck in an eternal process of recycling.
“If you could go there, Syrsee,” Lucia says, “would you?”
I want to say no, but that’s just a reaction. So instead, I take a moment to really think about it. If I am stuck, and living out this Black witch Coyrah thing is all I have to look forward to for all eternity, then… I sigh. “I suppose.”
Her reaction is a single raised eyebrow.
“Fine,” I huff. “I would, I guess. To get out of this cycle. Yeah. I’d rather spend eternity in some fantasy ice castle with people who traded me for the power to leave this world for good than keep going as the horse and rider.”
“The ouroboros, you mean.”
I wave a hand in the air. “Whatever.”
“Let’s return to our bullet points.” She smiles. “Five. In order to break your cycle you must kill them all, Syrsee. Ryet, Josep, and Paul. Then, and only then, will you be free.”
But it’s a lie. I can feel this lie. Because she left something out. Something I can’t really articulate, and I know almost nothing about, but she hasn’t even mentioned the Obscurati. Who must have a part of me as well. So it’s a lie.
Lucia is shaking her head. “That’s not what’s happening here, Syrsee. Paul made you. You are a brand-new Coyrah brought to life by the Darkness itself and living inside that baby you’re carrying right now.”
“So who is the Black witch across the ocean?”
“Not a who, but a what. It is a bloodline that is too dilute to continue. Something that was merely dying, but will soon be dead.”
“Six,” I say, continuing the bullet points. “How do I kill them?”
Lucia smiles, and my God, it is evil. “You feed them the dead Black blood. There’s a vial in Josep’s cave. He brought it with him from the Old World. Paul used that blood to coerce him into joining up on this quest. Find it. Drink it. And let them feed. One and done.”