Page 55 of Druid Cursed

CHAPTER

The spot where Kellen had been still smoked from the lightning strike, charred and cracked. A ragged sob tore from deep within Maggie. He was gone. A few days with him and a lifet ime without. Maybe he was right to try to stay away. This hurt too much.

Kellen was gone .

They lost.

Everything .

Sorcha drifted into view, studying the spaces where Kellen and Caedmon had been struck down, an apathetic observer at the site of a tragedy.

She shook her tangled hair back and curled her fingers to the sky.

Her stained cloak billowed as she began muttering in a tone that made Maggie’s stomach roll.

The bracelet from her father snapped, and its stones fell to the ground, scattering. Every one of the protection amulets and charms from Caedmon hummed against her skin, hot almost to the point of burning.

The earth beneath her knees groaned.

Energy charged the air, tingling her skin and lifting every hair on end.

One by one, the standing stones blazed with eerie blue light.

Droning arose, as if the underworld and every circle of hell responded to the witch’s call.

Lightning danced across the horizon, ripping closer.

Maggie didn’t need to be a witch to get that Sorcha gathered the stores of stolen Ravenwood magic for herself. And some part of that power came from centuries of Sorcha robbing her own family tree.

All this time, she’d been terrified of Aunt Maeve and all things arcane, ignorant to the truth. Maeve had been protecting her from Sorcha, had sacrificed the last of her magic in an attempt to thwart Sorcha, had even tried to warn Maggie from the grave.

All the sacrifices made by Maeve, Kellen’s mother, and both Ravenwood druids hadn’t been enough.

How was that fair? Evil wasn’t supposed to win.

Lying jerks weren’t supposed to get everything in a divorce.

Wicked witches weren’t supposed to get away with ruining families, possessing best friends, stealing magic, and killing true love. Nothing about this was right.

Good isn’t supposed to lose.

Anger swelled inside her, scorching away the sorrow. Maybe it was too late for them all, but she wouldn’t simply watch while evil won the day. There was still one thing she could do…

Pulling the sphere from her pocket, she scrambled to her feet and lunged at Sorcha’s back.

Without even looking, Sorcha flicked her fingers. An invisible hand grabbed Maggie’s ankle, and she face-planted in the mud next to Aunt Maeve’s rock.

The sphere spun from her hand, rolling beyond reach. She lifted her head as the lightning converged above the standing stones.

Maggie wrapped her fingers around Aunt Maeve’s rock, the only weapon on hand, just as, in one great, violent crack, the lightning bolt shot down.

Power—vast, immutable—flooded her in a dark tidal wave.

It took possession of all she was, claiming her as its own.

Magic invaded her bones and wrapped around her soul, somehow familiar and simultaneously alien.

She trembled at its unleashed wildness, overwhelmed by the strength pulsing, pounding through her, threatening the constraints of human flesh.

She was suddenly, piercingly aware of every pore in her body, the uncountable creatures burrowed in the soil beneath her.

Of each raindrop perched glistening on blades of grass.

A thousand primeval trees with roots drinking from the deep and boughs catching secrets on the wind.

Of brambles and ivy, moss and mushrooms, ancient stones and ancestral barrows.

The endless power coursing through the ley lines and into the land itself.

All of it belonged to her. Maybe Maggie was a witch, after all, as Kellen had accused her of the day they met. Maybe her abilities had been lying dormant within her, merely waiting to be awakened.

“How is this possible?” Sorcha’s bewildered voice filtered through the chaos.

As if in answer to the question, the energy whispered to her, a familiar, caressing reminder. It was the same magic that had flowed through her the night of the harvest ritual, during that carnal act before the hearth.

Ravenwood power .

And Sorcha didn’t know how or why.

Maggie almost laughed. Sorcha hadn’t been the one to trick her into going to the castle and Kellen the night of the harvest ritual.

If she had to guess, Caedmon was to blame.

Clever, conniving Caedmon. He’d banked on her forming some sort of bond with Kellen.

She was option number three, the backup plan when all else had failed, an honorary Ravenwood by proxy.

Her humor faded. Too little, too late to save him or his brother. They were gone.

But she could still give Sorcha what she deserved.

“Maggie.” Stepping closer, Sorcha spoke quietly, as if addressing an unreasonable child on the verge of a tantrum. “One person is not enough to contain or control such power. If you wish to survive it, you must give some to me.”

The protection amulets burned, a distant annoyance among the pandemonium tumbling through her mind and pushing at her skin. It took a considerable effort to focus on Wendy’s face, the lines on her forehead so familiar. But this wasn’t her friend standing before her. This was her enemy.

“I don’t make deals with witches who kill—”

The reminder that Kellen was probably dead sent the power into a surge, eager for release, a pawn to her emotions.

She clenched her teeth and fisted her hands.

If she surrendered, Sorcha would manipulate it.

The most she knew about magic was from the past week at Ravenwood.

She was a novice, tasked with outmaneuvering a centuries-old witch. Somehow.

“Come now, dear. Despite our differences, we are family.” Sorcha turned toward the fire and gazed into the flames as if pondering their future.

“I have lost my daughter. You have lost your love. Why should we suffer more by losing each other? You are my blood, the last of our family line. We are all we have left.”

“That’s not true. I have Wendy.” A sweet scent wafted on the air, curling around Maggie and calming the power storm inside her to a gentle lull. Exhaustion fell over her, and she fought to keep her eyes open.

“No, dearest. You do not.” Sorcha faced her, sadness shimmering in her eyes. “Wendy gave up this body days ago. She gave up on you.”

The force of a battering ram hit her in the gut.

“No…” The word was hardly even a whisper, the possibility too horrible to voice.

One of the protection amulets cracked, barely noticed beneath another wave of grief. She couldn’t lose Wendy, too…

Her vision blurred. She shouldn’t have listened to Kellen, should have fought for Wendy instead of waiting. Her best friend, the one who had always been there for her, was gone.

My fault.

“’Tis not your fault,” Sorcha said softly, reading her like an open book. She tilted Maggie’s chin up with one finger, guiding her gaze to hers. When had she gotten so close? “You cannot control the way you were made or the manner in which others respond to you, how easily they leave you behind.”

Another charm snapped. The odor of burnt herbs burst and faded away.

“Your mother was the first, was she not?” Sorcha shook her head. “Despicable, a mother abandoning her child, her only daughter. Even I, considered selfish, even wicked by some, would never commit so terrible a deed.”

That old wound gashed open, and Maggie wrapped her arms around herself.

She’d tried to convince herself that her mother’s choices hadn’t had anything to do with her, that maybe she’d left because she felt it was the best thing for her daughter and husband.

But that had been a lie she’d used to make herself feel better.

She hadn’t been enough of a reason for her mother to stay.

Even evil witches loved their daughters. There must be something wrong with her, some deep flaw that her mother couldn’t ignore to be able to love her.

Stone crumbled, another amulet gone. The sensation of butterfly wings brushed her mind.

“Your father did not battle his sickness long, aye?” Sorcha’s words drifted from far away, hypnotic. “Mere weeks and he surrendered, naught here in this world to keep him.”

Maggie’s chest caved in, making it hard to breathe. She hated that she’d thought the same about her father, that he hadn’t seemed to fight back at all. A few weeks into his treatment and one day he just closed his eyes and never woke up. No goodbye. Her only family, gone.

Three amulets broke with a sigh and fell to her feet. The butterfly wings grew claws, scraping her mind.

“Your husband chose another. Your best friend abandoned you. Not even your true love deigned to stay by your side. You are alone, Maggie O’Malley. Friendless, without family. You have nothing. You are nothing.”

Maggie sobbed, the truth of it crushing.

Sorcha took her hands and squeezed gently. “Let it go. Let it all go.”

What did she have left to fight for? A life of loneliness? Days that blurred into one another, empty and hopeless?

“Let me make it all go away, sweet granddaughter.” Sorcha stroked her head like her father used to do when she’d wake up crying from a nightmare. “We can set this to rights. I only need your consent. Give it to me, Maggie.”

Maggie slumped beneath the weight of reality. Surrender. Really, there was nothing left to do.

Blinking slowly, she lifted her head and turned toward the scarred earth where Kellen had vanished. I’m so sorry, Kellen.

A burst of heat seared her wrist, and Maggie sucked in a sharp breath.

The bracelet Cara had given her glared like live coals, tightening like a coiled viper.

The bones cracked, leather snapped, and the agates exploded.

The abrupt pain sliced through the fog conquering her mind.

The Ravenwood power, strangely subdued before, writhed like restless snakes under her skin.

Is ceol mo chroí thú. Music of my heart.

The memory of Kellen’s gravelly voice curled around her, his words throbbing in time with her pattering pulse.

Her mother may have abandoned her, and Darren was a sad story of his own, but her father had adored her.

Wendy had loyally watched her back. Kellen had loved her.

Even Cara, the friend she’d never expected, had helped her and comforted her during her lowest point.

They would be eternal pages in the book of her soul, just as she would always be a thread woven with them.

With those she loved and who loved her back, she would always be enough.

And no witch’s lie could change that.

For the first time in what seemed like centuries, she could draw a full breath.

“Give it to me,” Sorcha hissed. The claws in her mind sharpened to knives. “Give the power to me.”

As searing pain exploded, rage roared in response, spiraling up from the deepest well of her soul. All the fear, disappointment, and hurt she’d hidden behind a happy face gathered into a wrecking ball of magic. She released it on a war cry, straight at Sorcha.

Crackling lavender light struck the witch. She flew through the air and hit a standing stone with a sickening crunch.

As quickly as it had come, the power departed. Maggie dropped to her hands and knees, shaking. Oh, God. Wendy. What had she done?

A fine trembling rose from the ground, and the standing stones hummed, alive. Maggie pushed back onto her heels.

Sorcha gazed down on her, only inches away. Slowly, she smiled.

All the heat drained from her blood. Her weapons were all gone. Kellen’s knife had dropped beside the altar somewhere along the way, every protection charm gone, the silver sphere in the mud, out of reach. All she had left was a pocket of salt.

And Wendy’s spindle.

Sorcha lifted her hand. Lightning tore apart the sky.

From her knees, Maggie threw a handful of salt into Sorcha’s eyes.

As the witch shielded her face, shrieking, Maggie freed the spindle and wielded it like a weapon, just like the fearless medieval woman in the illustration she loved. The knotwork on the iron whorl glowed electric-white, reflecting the heavens.

Her breath caught. The iron whorl.

Kellen had said a spirit couldn’t sustain their energy against iron. While it had worked on Aibreann before, with the dagger, Kellen’s curse had nullified any effect when he’d attacked Sorcha the same way…or was it because Sorcha was so much more powerful?

She couldn’t know for sure. She could be wrong. But she had zero left to lose.

Like the medieval heroine she’d always admired in her favorite painting, she aimed the spindle at Sorcha and threw it like a javelin. The spindle sailed toward Sorcha’s shoulder…an inch too high. But the whorl spun, unbalancing the spindle’s flight enough that the impromptu weapon grazed her cheek.

“Mags!” the witch cried.

At Wendy’s familiar nickname for her, Maggie froze. Lightning still flickered in the sky, but the woman before her was all Wendy—no unnatural glow in her eyes, writhing magic or poisoned smiles, only panic.

“The spell!” Wendy pointed at the sphere beside the altar. “I can’t hold her more than a few seconds!”

Maggie didn’t question whether or not it was a trick. It was all or nothing now.

She dove for the silver ball and grabbed it. As she tossed it at Wendy’s reaching hands, the venom returned to her eyes.

“You will rue—”

Sorcha’s snarl cut off as the sphere landed into her outstretched hand. Her fingers curled around it, holding tight, whether an element of the spell or Wendy’s influence, Maggie didn’t know. Sorcha lifted her face to the sky and screamed.

The standing stones lit up in a brilliant blue, reforming the trap Caedmon had set. Wind howled through the trees and ripped at Maggie’s eyes. Lightning snapped like a whip. She covered her ears, the follow-up boom of thunder louder than a cannon shot.

One by one, the standing stones crumbled.

The last one fell, and the hum of magic in the air and Maggie’s veins died.

Wendy collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been severed.

The witch was no more.