Chapter 2

2

Ever walk into a room and the conversation cuts off like the two people were just talking about you? Multiply that by three hundred and twenty coven members and you’d get the current vibe. A sweeping hush fell as I entered the chamber where magus gathered for meals and coven meetings.

My mother and grandmother had raised me in their ilk, but damn if the abrupt change in volume didn’t get to me.

At my side, Wild uttered, “Chin up.”

I listened. Sven said I needed to be one badass bitch. That was how I’d chosen to interpret his words anyway. I steeled myself and clung to Huxley’s words. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation for what I was. They could take me as I was—and what I had to offer—or fuck off.

To my right, a stage remained from the three-hundred-year anniversary. The council stood on it in a line. Frond at one end, and Varden at the other. Sage, Delta, and Winona were in the middle of the twelve members. The thirteenth member walked beside me.

One week ago, they were a council of seven Fertim members and six Vero members. Yet, now I was here. The council was no longer necessary with a leader, and they had to feel the curiousness of that. To be held in the highest status as the governing body in the coven, to then wake up a normal coven member. Would that rankle?

I cast my gaze over their row. In some, I saw relief. In some, I saw uncertainty. In some, a stiffness implied they didn’t like what was happening. Frond was downright hostile. Then again, he’d been that way since I refused to acknowledge his status at the anniversary celebration. I had no time for the lapdog of Wild’s parents.

I stopped before the stage. “Greetings to the council.”

Winona’s focus tore from my long-sleeved white gown to settle on my face. She stepped forward. “Tempest Bronte Corentine, you have been chosen by the relics of our beloved Ryzika, this coven’s last leader.”

Varden stepped forward next. “The Mother’s lightning chose you. Your possession of grimoire and divination, of battle and apothecary, denotes you as the most elite of maguskind.”

Sven had clearly spoken with him as I’d prepared. I tried not to show any discomfort at his words.

Barrow was next to speak. “This coven must now pave the way for your accession to leadership. Are you prepared?”

No amount of purification and centering could counter the tension of this situation, but I’d done my best in the hour left to me after the quad’s surprise visit. “Yes, sir.”

His face softened. I no longer had to call him sir, but I did respect Barrow after spending more time in his company. He’d witnessed my deal with the Astars over Wild’s near-lifeless body a week ago when he could’ve done nothing. That move would have secured the Astars’ disapproval, pretty much ensuring he’d never get an invite to join their midst—something he’d wanted for a long time. That took guts. Life had taught me not everyone had guts. In fact, precious few possessed that quality.

Delta enhanced her voice with battle magic to push her words to the far corners of the chamber. “Stand, coven of the Buried Knolls. Join hands. We welcome our long-awaited leader. Though uncertainty resides on our doorstep, this moment is ours. We rejoice together. Stand.”

The coven did as requested. Too quietly in my opinion. Shouldn’t there be more noise?

“Calm,” Wild murmured.

I focused on my breathing as he left my side to join the council.

From the corner of my eye, I watched as the coven joined hands. Ruby with Berry. Bedwyr with Josie—guess they were back on again. Rooke with Sven. Huxley with Spyne. Did they make up already?

Wild’s voice filled the chamber. “Open your magic.”

I felt the whoosh as the coven obeyed him. When was the last time they’d done this together? Certainly not at esbat or at other celebrations for the Mother. Perhaps the last time was during my initiation months ago. The power level in the chamber was incredible. Warmth and hope filled the space, and I took my first full breath in a week. Though the children in the chamber may not know how to release their magic yet, even they could feel the effect of it judging by their wide-eyed expressions.

I was meant to be here. Maybe not in this spot, but I belonged in this coven. I’d protect this place and the people here with my life. They knew that I would.

That meant something.

“Center,” Wild said in a softer tone.

His calm floated to me through our green strand. He accompanied this with a soothing push through our purple strand—what I’d dubbed the body strand. My shoulders relaxed at his magical touch. I stood taller and felt my heartbeat slow. My eyes were closed, but I sent him thanks through our connection.

I opened my four affinities and heard the gasps as a robe blurred out of nowhere to cling to my back. The pendant weighed around my neck, and a gemstone weighed in my hand. The hilt of a dagger thumped into my right hand. I’d purposefully left the relics off at Sven’s suggestion. More dramatic, he’d said. He should’ve been a ringmaster. Having been an intuit in the circus, I could appreciate such antics.

I started the process of drawing my magic to the space under my ribs. Centering was easy today—easier than ever if truth were told. I hadn’t noticed, but I felt so together. I never felt together. I’d struggled with chaos since my family’s murder. Then I’d discovered my demon, and I’d assumed that struggling with chaos was the price of holding her in my divination affinity. I had to wonder if gaining the fourth affinity had helped to align the rest of my magic.

Corentin had once remarked that his affinities behaved like they couldn’t find north. With me, it was as though north wasn’t where it should be—like I always set a little east or west of the real center.

Thiswas what it felt like to be truly centered.

I inhaled and exhaled long and slow. A smile touched my lips, and joy spread fast through the room as others found their connection with the origin of their gifts. The cave was abuzz with it. We reveled together in shared energy.

This had to become a more regular occurrence after my accession. We were missing out on so much.

“The time has come for our leader to ascend.” Opal broke the humming in the chamber.

I opened my eyes as she descended the three stairs from the stage. Her magic glowed at her fingertips, and she hovered her hand over my face and head, not quite touching me.

I accepted the heat and welcome of her power.

The rest of the Fertim members of the council followed her, and it seemed purposeful that they accepted me first and foremost. Vero—my team—had been on the path to winning Caves. Ryzika’s relics choosing a new leader should have made the end of the game a simple matter, but with a lot of long-held division involved, Fertim could choose to take exception.

Wild took his time hovering his hand over my face. His question vibrated to me, and I pushed my resolve in his direction.

Frond descended the stage as the last council member of Fertim. His magic was at his fingers, and he hovered his hand over my head as the others had done. Cold. Rejection.

I smirked.

He was outvoted and furious about it. I couldn’t give a shit when it came to this magus. Where Barrow had been put to the test and won, Frond went through the same test and failed magnificently. I’d learned that some people were redeemable—that I shouldn’t always trust my first impressions while also learning that some people weren’t worth my time and effort and entirely deserved my first impression.

The Vero council members were next. Straightaway, I could feel the difference in the openness of their magic. In comparison to those I’d received from Fertim council members, their welcome was absolute.

The council now stood at my back. I sheathed the dagger in a white-leather holster Rooke surprised me with a few days prior. One that had belonged to our grandfather.

The gemstone, I placed in an inner pocket Ryzika must’ve fashioned in the robes long ago.

I swept the robes back. The council had cleared the stage, and I blinked, seeing what their row of bodies had concealed.

A throne.

Though, just as this coronation was termed an accession, the throne was called an authority in magus culture. Not solely in this coven. Wild’s father and mother occupied authorities in the original coven. High Esteemed Rguc occupied an authority in her coven across the seas.

I took a breath. All I had to do was sit my ass down on what appeared to be a very hard stone surface. This authority would get a cushion. That I could say with certainty.

I walked up the three steps in the swirling cocoon of my coven’s centered magic. As I arrived before the throne, the novices started to chant, much as they’d done during my initiation into their midst.

The proven joined at a deeper pitch.

I turned to face them, and the esteemed added their voices to the chant at a higher pitch. The harmony was powerful.

It filled me.

Music swelled in my chest, and I lent my voice to the beautiful chant at a higher harmony again. I mimicked their words, feeling a lulling calm enter me as we continued through the chant, around and around.

Was I meant to be on this authority? I couldn’t say. This coven needed me here right now, and my friends needed me here too. I’d sit on this seat, and I would be what they needed me to be.

I’d fight for them.

I would piece this puzzle together the best I could. All I asked was their patience as I figured it out.

There were smiles, and I frowned, realizing I’d said those words aloud. Or maybe I hadn’t. Maybe my intent had been felt on a deeper level.

My knees bent.

I lowered and settled onto the authority.

Magic retreated from the chamber into its individual vessels. The lulling calm remained after, and I was loath to break it.

Frond wasn’t so loath. “The accession is complete.”

Varden approached the bottom of the stage and dipped his head, a hand over his heart. “Might I have the honor of being the first to greet High Esteemed Bronte?”

I tilted my head. There were too many other lies. I could fix this one. “High Esteemed Tempest,” I responded. “Thank you for your support, sir.”

His blue eyes said so much that others wouldn’t interpret. In his eyes, we’d won the fight—we’d finished Caves. I had to wonder if we were in another battle, but his happiness made me happy.

The council made up the first of those to greet me—I chose to think of this part as a greeting and not homage or sovereignty or something gross. Wild was last and walked up the steps to kiss the back of my hand. My cousin was next, and my closest friends. The esteemed after.

Ty, the divination mentor, stopped at the base of the stage. His rich brown eyes possessed a milky hue, and I waited for whatever his magic was pressing him to say.

“You are in the right seat,” he announced.

I stilled, having forgotten his prophecy from a couple of weeks earlier. “You did say the next seat wouldn’t be as comfortable as my purple beanbag.”

His lips curved, but then the ghost of a smile faded away. “You must accept it.”

I patted the authority. “I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”

Ty paused. “You are sitting there, yes.”

But I haven’t accepted it?He was bang on the money there. “I hear you.”

He bowed. “Welcome, High Esteemed Tempest.”

After the esteemed, the proven greeted me, then the novices, and the children last of all. The greetings were mixed. Some, like Josie, I’d had personal run-ins with. She’d warned me off Bedwyr, and still harbored a dislike of me though Wild and I were together. Then again, she’d told me once that if Wild was a romantic option, then Bedwyr shouldn’t be, so maybe she was jealous of my love life? Who knew.

A trend quickly became obvious.

Fertim was more closed off to me in general. Not everyone—not Huxley and Rooke, or Wild and Varden. A number of the younger Fertim players had also accepted my leadership without any resentment. A few of the older magus as well, which surprised me. Had they grown tired of Caves and been happy for its end, perhaps?

In any case, the majority of Fertim members weren’t totally happy with the turn of events.

I took in all their reactions, trying my best to catalogue the happiest and least happy of the magus here to enter into my quipu later. When I’d said this was a new battle, I’d meant it. I had work to do.

So much work that my mind boggled, and my only chance at figuring out what to do resided in my quipu. Until I entered enough information in the quipu for it to work though… I puffed out an exhale. I hardly knew a thing about being a leader. Scratch that. I knew nothing about what this role demanded.

Yet my grandmother’s voice was in my ear, and in the vivid memory that rose up in my mind, my mother winked at me from the driver’s seat.

We were parked in front of the gates to the high school on our first day.

Syera had flung open the car door and sauntered in without a backward glance.

Grandmother watched me from the front passenger seat.

The high school was a new place. So many rules to figure out. Each attached to a different person. The threads were overwhelming. They demanded to be braided and knotted, and yet I had to somehow not do that and get through the day without looking like a freak. I didn’t do so well with that at my last school. I’d figured everything out eventually, and the other children quickly forgot how weird I’d acted in the beginning, but we’d been young—five and six years old. Teenagers would remember.

The strands outside weaved around my mind, choking me. Closing in.

“Just fucking fake it,” Grandmother said, interrupting my mounting panic.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Fucking fake it. People are full of shit anyway. If you should be braiding anything, it’s a steaming pile of crap with flies buzzing around it.”

“Mother,” sighed her daughter from the driver’s seat.

“Just telling it how it is,” her mother said, facing forward.

I glanced to the gates and at the kids my age visible beyond. I just had to smile and move my legs. Flip my hair sometimes. Answer with single words. Watch the teacher and then look at my books for a while. Eat my food, drink my water. Move my legs some more. Get home.

Then I could figure this place out on my quipu.

Taking a breath, I pushed the braids and threads to the back of my mind as deeply as I could.I’ll get to you, I promised them, but I’ll collect information first.

Fucking fake it.

Grandmother was always full of great advice.

My mother’s soft voice reached me. “Love you, Tempy. I’ll be here to pick you up after school.”

And my mother never doubted that I’d rise to the occasion, no matter how long it took.

I walked through the high school gates in my mind, and in the very real here and now, I stood from my authority to face upward of three hundred magus. I pushed battle into my voice and spread my hands wide. “I am honored to be welcomed as the leader of the Buried Knolls coven. We will work together to find our new normal. I look to our future and know that change must come before we get where we need to be.” I lowered my arms. “Those changes start today. I summon the council to the meeting chamber.”

There was no longer a need for a council.

Tempest Corentine was about to fucking fake it.