Page 165 of First Ritual

“Suits me.”

We trailed after my mother, who remained in a group of herself all around the same age. The child versions of her had broken away for the lake or moss forest. The teen versions of her were mostly going to the meadow or hot springs. These fifty or so echoes were heading for the alpine forest that crept up the mountains ahead.

I jerked as the version of Mother I was following leaped behind a tree.

Rooke’s feet pounded behind me, and we burst off the small dirt path and through the layer of shrubbery.

Mother was kneeling, her shoulders heaving.

“What’s she doing?” Rooke hushed.

We’d found the right echo. “She’s vomiting. She’s pregnant.”

There wasn’t any visible curve to mother’s stomach, but she could be early on in the pregnancy.

Mother stood and wiped her mouth. I studied the pinch to her features. She’d always shown her stress around her eyes, and that was present. She was exhausted too—perhaps from the pregnancy. What drove her out here when she felt so ill?

She squared her shoulders and continued on, glancing back every so often to check for company.

We wound up the path, and I was the only one surprised when the sparse trees gave way and we dipped down into a field basked in afternoon sun.

The sunflower field. My jaw dropped. “It’s beautiful.”

“Something, huh?”

“Creepy that we intended to come here today and Mother’s echo led us here too.”

Rooke lifted a shoulder as we continued after my mother. “Nah. You know how much our ancestors drive us. They literally give us their power after death, but their force remains after that to surround us. If I were to do a retell at an important moment for a magus—let’s say they make a breakthrough with a project—then I would absolutely see a bunch of that magus’s ancestors setting the groundwork for that achievement. I don’t believe in serendipity. Each moment is the work of centuries and decades. We become what the mother has wired us to achieve. As much as we like to think ourselves unique, each generation just walks further down the path our ancestral line is meant to take. Each person pushes forward with the same purpose, so we feel we’re different.”

We waded through the tall grass, and I turned over her words, but my reply was snapped off as Mother startled on the edge of the sunflower field.

She disappeared.

“Dammit,” I hissed. “Someone must’ve come upon her. She’s put up an obscurity charm.” I held up her necklace and focused. “The scry isn’t working. Shit. Can we break her charm?”

Rooke grimaced. “We only observe the past. If you removed that, and the person saw her, it could change the course of your mother’s life. Given she’s pregnant, that’s a big risk for you blinking out of existence.”

Convincing. “New plan. Maybe she doesn’t keep the charm up for long. She’s not in great shape. All she needs to do is vomit or get too tired and we’re back in business.”

“Split up?” Rooke asked me.

I nodded. “Give me a call through our tether if you find her?”

“Got it.”

Steeling myself, I walked into the sunflower field. They were unlike any I’d seen—a deep, rustic red that bordered on burned orange in places. The sunflowers towered over me by several heads, all turned to the last of the sunshine like hopeful children.

I walked on, my surety of the futility of this plan mounting.

Pain seared me low in my stomach, almost at the apex of my thighs, and on my shoulder too. I cried out, hunkering down on all fours and hugging myself tight against the pain. A rune was being etched into my skin. Not one of them, two.

I panted on the ground.

Footsteps.

“Tempest,” Wild said, crouching beside me. “It’s here?”

I groaned as the pain began to ebb. “Two of them. They fucking hurt.”