Magic Unchained Read Free Page B

forcing herself to act the hostess because there wasnobody else left to carry the burden. Her mother was in that fresh-turned grave, her father just standing there beside her, staring through the people who stopped to shake his hand and murmur something they thought would comfort. And the fourth member of their strange little family—her so-called foster brother, Sven, who hadn’t been any sort of brother at all—hadn’t even shown up. He was off diving the Great Barrier Reef, he’d said by way of a voice mail, and couldn’t get there in time. So he hadn’t even tried.
    That wasn’t the first time Sven had let her down, but it had been the final proof that he cared far more about his adventures than the people who loved him.
    Shit. Don’t go there. And for gods’ sake, focus.
This wasn’t about her and Zane, wasn’t about her and Sven, wasn’t about her at all. It was about completing the ritual and showing the
winikin
that she wasn’t dumping all of the traditions. Just the ones that didn’t make modern-day sense.
    Realizing that Rabbit had started the funerary rite, she winced and made herself dial back in.
    “We ask the First Father, the Hero Twins, and the gods themselves to take the
winikin
Aaron Rockwell up into the sky to be reborn,” he said, reciting from memory, though she’d told him he could read it. “Since what has happened before will happen again, we will see you anew, brother, in the next cycle of life.” He lifted an oblong bundle wrapped in gray cloth, which he opened to reveal a thin, narrow stone spike that had been carved to resemble the barb of a stingray’s tail and sharpened to a deadly point. He turned and handed it to Cara.
    Her stomach churned as she took the smooth, thin stone, but there was adrenaline alongside the nervesnow. The funeral ceremony was one of the very few rituals that called on the
winikin
to make their own blood sacrifice, bringing it very close to an actual spell. And there were recent hints that the
winikin
could do magic, after all. But although Dez had lifted the stricture forbidding the
winikin
from working magic—he too had been put in place to shake things up—none of them had been able to manage even the simplest spell. More, a search of the Nightkeepers’ vast library had failed to turn up any hint of how a
winikin
was supposed to work magic, or even whether it was possible. She kept hoping, though. And given the nature of the magic and its dependence on blood sacrifice, it was tempting to think that Aaron’s death might open the floodgates.
    As she slid her fingers along the spine, all other thoughts fell away, leaving only her awareness of the pyre and the others gathered around her, the sudden tension in the air.
Please, gods,
she whispered inwardly. Then, steeling herself, she set the spine to the tip of her tongue, then closed her eyes and, with a quick, jerky move, drove the bloodletter deep and yanked it free again.
    Pain flashed and her stomach lurched as blood filled her mouth, making her want to gag at the salty tang. Instead, she let the blood pool in her mouth, then stepped forward and spit out the mouthful of mingled saliva and blood—both sacred to the gods, who had given their blood to create mankind in a land where water was scarce.
    Optimism flared for a nanosecond… and then died. Because when her offering hit the pyre there were none of the red-gold sparkles the Nightkeepers talked about seeing when they dialed into their magic, no buzzinghum in the air. All she got was a throbbing tongue, a gnarly case of muck-mouth, and a solid reminder that none of the prophecies ever even mentioned anyone besides the Nightkeepers fighting in the final battle, never mind using magic to do it.
    Exhaling, she passed the spike to Zane, who took it without comment and made his sacrifice in grim silence. The others did the same, all the way around the circle until the bloodletter returned to Rabbit, who touched it to his lips and then tossed it