Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Beatrice gives me a wry smile. “Allow the possibility of magic working.”
“You are right,” I tell her and tip my chin down, looking at the altar before us. We simply must allow it, fighting the magic is cumbersome and only gets in our way.
Certain aspects of my altar are the same as before. There is the large crystal I use for an energy source. There is the candle. These are other items I will use to cast the spell from herbs to oils.
But I will not be doing so alone. I will have Beatrice. We will cast together. I am not hiding away in the dark, hoping no one will see me trying to magic my powers to life and doubting whether they will work. I’ll not be stolen away just as the light fills the room…
I only had time to kiss Hades once before Hecate took him to the Underworld. We did not have time to speak. We did not have time to plan. It is a taste, I suppose, of what some parts of the future will be like. Our time will be limited, and we must make the most of it.
“I’ll watch over her,” Beatrice says softly. “Your mother. If you would like me to do so.”
“I would.” A heaviness that I had not known was there disappears from my shoulders. “I…think she will understand, in time. But I know those months will seem to pass slowly.”
“But not for you?”
“No. Not for me,” I say with a sigh. “He is my king and I love him, all of him.”
“You do truly?”
“I do,” I tell her and let the smile show fully on my face. “I’ve found who I was meant to be at his side, and he…he sees me. He sees all of me. Even the pieces of me I thought might not be there at all. And the parts of me that I was ashamed of, he loved fully.”
“Oh,” Beatrice says, sounding slightly breathless. “You do love him.”
My voice cracks with a half laugh. “How could you tell?”
“You’re blushing.” She traces her knuckles briefly over my cheek, a gesture that speaks to the closeness we have shared for years of my life. “And your eyes are bright. It was—forgive me, my queen. It was so long that the light in your eyes was…” Beatrice’s gaze softens. “It was not gone, but it was dimmed. I could see the worry in your heart, but I did not know how to fix it. And I wanted to. I wanted you to be happy.” She smiles, brushing a few tears from the corners of her eyes. “Now I see you are.”
“I am,” I reassure her. “I’m…excited, as well. Nervous. I will miss you when I am in the Underworld. I will think of you often.”
“I will think of you every day, my queen.”
I lean over and wrap my arms around Beatrice’s shoulders. She hugs me back.
I take a deep breath, memorizing how it feels to be close to Beatrice, then release her. We share a smile, wiping tears from each other’s eyes, then face the altar again.
“We came to do magic,” I say, teasing her. “Not to cry. This is not a goodbye at all. I’m not leaving yet, and when I do, I’ll be back in the blink of an eye.”
“It will be a little longer than that, my queen.” Beatrice pats my hand, then folds her hands in her lap. “But you’re right. We came here to send blessings through the realm to sustain us all while you are gone, not feel sorry for ourselves.”
Beatrice places her hands on the base of the candle. I reach out, mirroring her, and place my hands on the center stone, a large pale blue raw chunk of angelite. For peace and calm and centering one’s soul. We will cast together, two halves of the same whole, the power flowing from the crystal to the candle and then out to the realms. I will offer up the power I can feel on Olympus, and guide it through those realms with my sense of the powers I gained in the Underworld.
That is the hope.
That is what will happen. I sit up straighter, breathe in, and then let it out. Next to me, Beatrice does the same. My arms tingle with anticipation.
This time, I am not asking for power on my own behalf, but for all the realms.
I close my eyes, the crystal warming under my fingers.
“The divine is within me,” I state, and it is true. I do not doubt it. I do not have to try. I can feel it within me and all around me. “The divine is within me and with me, and I can bring light to the darkness.”
I have done it before. I can do it again.
“Protect the realms from all that would wish them harm. Olympus. The mortal realms. The Underworld. Heal them from the strife that they have felt and smooth away the imbalances between them. Protect them from anything that would trouble them again. Guide the realms, and the gods and mortals within them, and the souls in the Underworld, to safety.”