Page 27 of Wings of Snow
I stepped away from my sister and looked to the top of the stairs and prayed to Nuleef, the Goddess of Luck, that I was making the right choice. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Priestess Genoova gave a wide smile and ushered me toward the stairs. I climbed them slowly, each step feeling like an anchor around my ankles.
When we reached the top, I could see that it was indeed an open design. There wasn’t any furniture or altars. Thank the Mother. It was a simple circular dome supported by columns, and the stone flooring was covered in intricate designs. The most powerful constellations in our galaxy had been etched into the stone, rimming the rock, and at the center of the temple was a carving of the supreme symbol that united all of the gods and goddesses—a circle with an array of connecting swirls and stars.
“Drachu?” Genoova said, holding her palm out.
Startling me, the brush of the Lochen king at my back had me nearly pitching forward. He’d climbed the steps so silently behind me that I hadn’t heard him.
The king extracted something from his pocket and then handed it to her. Stiffening, I realized it was the rock that I’d seen him place in his pocket when I’d been hidden in his closet, the same small stone that looked as though it’d been picked up on a nameless beach somewhere.
Genoova took the small rock to the center of the temple, then placed it directly in the middle, right in the center of the star.
“Please stand here.” She gestured to the central symbol. “Place your feet in the slots.”
The rock that Drachu had handed her waited between the two divots, and the fact that there were grooves for a fairy to stand in gave me pause and comfort simultaneously. It meant others had done this before me, but whether they’d endured a bad outcome was something to be determined.
“Will this hurt?” I asked.
Genoova shook her head as Cailis and Tylen ascended the steps to stand beside Drachu, just outside of the temple’s columns. “I shall be summoning God Zorifel, which requires nothing of you. All I ask is that you close your eyes and clear your mind.”
I took a deep breath and studied my sister. Worry lines puckered her mouth, but she gave me a single nod, probably because it wasn’t uncommon to summon the gods and goddesses when our kind was in need. Sometimes they answered—most of the time they didn’t. Who knew if God Zorifel would heed Genoova’s plea. It was possible I would simply stand there, and nothing would happen.
No harm in that, I suppose.
Moving to the center of the temple, I stepped onto the divots. I could have sworn that a wash of magic brushed over my skin like a gentle caress. Closing my eyes, I stood still. The temple’s stone floor felt smooth beneath my soles, and it almost felt as if the minuscule weight of the stone Genoova had placed on the central star between my feet called to me.
I waited for something to happen. Waited for a shift in the realm or something otherworldly to occur as the wind lifted my hair, and the sound of Cailis tapping her foot filled the open space.
“All right, clear your mind and breathe.” Genoova began to chant in a language I didn’t understand. It didn’t have the same cadence and notes of the language I’d heard Drachu and Sabreeny speaking. Perhaps it was another dialect of the Lochen’s unique tongue, or maybe it was more ancient.
Regardless, I did my best to empty my mind of any thoughts or feelings. I breathed deeply in and out as the priestess’s chants grew stronger and faster until they blended into a song that spun around me.
Time seemed to slow as I stood there. The breeze stopped whipping against my cheeks. The scent of salt in the air dimmed. The sunlight piercing my closed eyelids faded until blackness coated my sight. Even Genoova’s lulling chants fell to the great beyond.
And then it felt as though I was falling.
The force of the sensation hit me like a bolt of lightning. I tried to open my eyes, tried to scream, but my body was immobilized. The sensations of the realm disappeared as I sank into a void.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Down, down I went even though no air kissed my skin, and no sight graced my eyes.
Oh, Blessed Mother.
I plummeted through time and space, zinging through a tunnel of nothing and everything all at once.
With a jolting lash, the falling sensation stopped, and then I was suspended.
Darkness surrounded me, as a deep humming sensation began in my gut. It vibrated my body, pulsing and throbbing, in a way that felt akin to my magic.
Heat flooded my veins as fire coursed through my limbs while wind whipped by my ears. My skin felt as though it glowed as an otherworldly power sang through my veins, and then something was splintering inside me. I felt for my affinities. I dove my consciousness deep into my belly as I tried to stay latched to the present, to the tangible feel of my body that grounded me to my realm, because it suddenly felt as though I was being lost, pulled, perhaps even extinguished, and that my realm was no realm at all and perhaps had never been. As if everything had been an illusion. My life. My existence. The very fabric of our universe.
No.I latched onto the feel of my power, my affinities, and my magic, even though that awful veil still covered them and kept me from accessing my true potential. I would not get lost. I would not succumb to this darkness.