Page 12 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)
BEFORE
My middle sister came of age the same year my father reached the pinnacle of his power.
Human spectacles had become even more opulent since the disappearance of the fae, as if we were determined to prove we were just as powerful and prosperous.
No one was more dedicated to this purpose than my father.
“Two hundred and twenty-one guests,” Janessa crowed as we waited in the courtyard. The temple was already full to bursting.
I shivered against the cool late spring breeze that seemed determined to hold on, despite the longer days that drew us closer and closer to summer. Janessa had chosen sleeveless gowns for me and Rylynn, her attendants in this inane spectacle of womanhood.
“And I had a hundred. You have outstripped me. Are you satisfied?” Rylynn snapped.
She should not have been here at all—only unmarried women were attendants.
Having reached her own womanhood three years before, Rylynn should have been long married.
Except our father was so drunk upon his own wealth that not a single of the dozen offers made for Rylynn’s hand had satisfied him.
“I am satisfied,” Janessa said. The tallest of us, she looked right down her perfectly straight nose at Rylynn.
I stepped between my sisters before someone got blood on the gowns.
“Isn’t it time to go in? We do not want to keep all of the guests waiting. I saw Lord Devlin’s son arrive a few minutes ago.” An offering to each sister. So many people had come to watch Janessa, a young man my father might finally approve of for Rylynn among them.
Rylynn glared over my shoulder at Janessa before turning and gliding through the doors.
Despite Janessa’s ornate gown and the hours she’d spent perfecting her cosmetics, there was no disputing that Rylynn was the prettiest and most graceful of the three of us.
Janessa frowned after our eldest sister—well aware of it, too.
I sighed and took my place between them, as usual.
The heat of the temple pressed in from all sides, the thick scents of burning frankincense and palmarosa mingled with the odor of crowded bodies, sweat, and perfume.
Two hundred and twenty-one guests were too many for the dark, close space of the temple.
We walked in procession around the perimeter, stopping at each of the seven altars to place a bloom at the base before spiraling toward the center.
Guests crowded into whatever space they could.
They lined the stone walls beneath the windows behind each altar and crowded the spiraled path that we followed toward the center of the temple.
They watched from every angle as Rylynn and I took our places a few paces from where my father and the priestess who would conduct the ceremony awaited Janessa.
The young woman of the hour made her way through the crowd slowly, watching every footstep.
She may not boast Rylynn’s natural grace, but she’d practiced for this moment for months.
When she finally arrived at the center of the temple, her curtsey before the priestess was as elegant as any our elder sister had ever executed.
I watched in silence as the ceremony unfolded.
There was a lot of praying. A song I didn’t like that my father had selected. There was a bit where the priestess cut into the fleshy part of Janessa’s palm and said something about the lifeblood of mothers. I paid all of my attention to my sister and none of it to the words.
The hours she’d spent in front of the mirror were not in vain.
Her golden-brown hair, lighter than both me and Rylynn’s deeper umber, caught and reflected the flames burning in sconces and candles all around us.
The pale green gown she’d chosen brought out the celadon stripes in her hazel eyes.
I was a bit sad that none of her freckles were visible.
I’d always admired the way they danced when she smiled and laughed.
But Janessa complained they made her look childish, and she’d covered them with paste and rouge.
My head began to swim, my attention slipping away in a thick cloud of frankincense and sweat and chanting.
Rylynn refused to look at Janessa, staring at the ground instead.
The boy who’d come to see her was frowning.
The people were swaying.
No, that was me swaying.
I forced my spine upright, discreetly peering left and right to see if anyone had noticed. But all eyes were fixated on the trio at the center of the crowd, where the priestess had just revealed the showpiece of the ceremony.
The diadem was fae-made, just like everything my father collected.
He’d bought the treasures for cheap when the fae were fleeing, and now sold them off to the humans, all desperate to elevate their status by acquiring one of the rare heirlooms. Some were followed by whispers of magic, but I’d never seen one of the artifacts do so much as sing, let alone ensure fertility or multiply wine, like my father alleged.
The ceremony of womanhood always concluded with a crowning. The circlet could be made of anything. Less affluent families wove together lilies and roses. The poorest of all would craft a tiara of twigs and wildflowers.
But not even gold and diamonds would do for my father. He’d saved this spectacular fae heirloom not for his daughter, but for himself.
My father nudged the priestess aside, taking the diadem from her hands. Her dark eyes flashed, her lips drawing together, but she let him take it. The priests and priestesses would not reach the zenith of their power for another century, when the crops failed and desperation reached a crescendo.
Janessa’s eyes brightened as she focused on the diadem.
Ornate whorls swirled from the sides, hundreds of tiny gemstones in every shade of blue creating an effect that could be waves or clouds, depending upon the viewer’s imagination.
At the center, a translucent stone unlike any I’d seen before reflected the light around us.
In one blink it shone red, then it caught the green of Janessa’s dress and then the deep plum of the priestess’s robes.
A whisper of awe rolled through the crowd. I looked to Janessa—this was exactly what she’d always wanted, to outshine our perfect elder sister—but her eyes were transfixed, focused on the diadem.
I glanced around me. No one had noticed me almost passing out because all of them were equally transfixed. Even Rylynn, who’d been looking on with such apathy… her mouth hung open in unmuted anticipation.
A shiver of awareness snaked down my spine.
It hadn’t been like this, even at Rylynn’s ceremony.
My stomach lurched, my heartbeat accelerating into an erratic, painful beat that pushed me forward, demanding I take a step toward the center of the temple as Janessa kneeled and my father stepped forward.
But there were so many people that the motion didn’t stand out.
No one noticed me, they were all in thrall to the diadem.
They did nothing as my father lowered it to Janessa’s head, setting the intricate platinum confection atop her crown of golden-brown hair.
For one long heartbeat, my sister shone brighter than any star, as glorious as any of the goddesses we worshiped in temple, more beautiful than Rylynn could ever hope to be.
Then she started screaming.
The trance broke. Around me, the guests jolted back to awareness, some swooning while others recovered faster and held their neighbors up.
Their movements were awkward, their voices muddling together as they tried to grapple back to reality.
But all of it was drowned out by Janessa’s horrid screams.
She clawed at her hair, tearing at the perfectly arranged curls as she tried to pull the diadem from her head. But it wouldn’t budge. Her fingernails dug into her scalp, ripping away chunks of her golden hair as she desperately tore at the metal.
My father stood over her, blinking in confusion. She stumbled forward, pain etched in every feature as she fell hard on her elbows, unwilling to release the diadem enough to catch herself before she hit the hard flagstones. Rylynn rushed forward; my feet pulled me along with her.
Rylynn grabbed Janessa’s arm, pulling her up and cradling her in her lap. I reached for her wrists, trying to pull her hands away from the diadem. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but they’d mingled with the blood from where she’d ripped out her hair and clawed at her scalp.
“It burns!” Janessa wailed, fighting against my hold.
“It’s the diadem,” Rylynn realized. “It’s cursed.”
With fae magic. The same magic that had held two hundred and twenty-one guests in thrall was now burning my sister alive.
Rylynn tightened her hold on our sister as she turned her head up to our father, still standing helplessly in the center of the temple. The priestess had disappeared entirely.
“Help her!” she demanded.
But my father only gaped like a fish, staring not at his bleeding, keening daughter, but at the diadem that crowned her head.
“It burns!” Janessa screamed again. She wrenched her hands free of mine, reaching for the diadem. The scent of burnt hair and flesh overpowered the frankincense and palmarosa.
What was left of her hair fell away in golden ribbons. The skin of her scalp blackened and began to melt. My stomach turned, but Rylynn grabbed me before I could flinch away.
“Help me pull it off!” We twined our fingers around the diadem, cool to the touch even as my sister’s hot, melted flesh seared my arm.
But it would not budge. We pulled together. Again and again and again. Until it was no longer Janessa’s flesh, but her skull there beneath the ornately wrought diadem. Until Janessa’s screams stopped. Until my sister died in my arms.