The night of the second ritual arrives in a heat wave. The midsummer sunset turns the sky to blood. The air is so heavy I can hardly breathe; sweat beads my face and trickles down the back of my neck. We stand beside the lake, at the edge of the forest. Shadows stripe between the pale trees. Arien and Clover are on either side of me. Our skin is marked with spells. The sigil is carved into the shore. We are almost ready.
The past weeks have been a blur of lessons. Days spent in the library, the table cluttered with papers and pens and ink, as I’ve practiced drawing the symbols for the spell to focus my magic. Days spent outside, the three of us circled around the jars of inky water, the sigil on the lawn now permanent: a sooty, charred mark. We’ve worked the spell so much that each night I’ve dreamed of it. My hands, their hands. The draw of power, the weave of shadows. The Corrupted water cleared and mended.
And all the while, outside, beneath the growing moon, the lake has waited for us to cast our magic. I’ve not heard or seen the Lord Under since he offered his help, but part of me is still afraid that using my magic will call him back to me. But there’s no other choice. It will work. It has to work.
Rowan comes down the path and through the garden archway. He has his cloak tucked over his arm. Florence walks behind him, carrying a lantern and a basket packed with bandages and folded cloths. When she puts the basket down beside our feet, I try not to look at it. Try to ignore the reminder that if the ritual fails, Rowan will have to cut himself and bleed into the ground, to let that angry darkness overtake him.
Florence gives us all a steady, flinty look. “You’ll be safe.” There’s no lilt of a question in her voice.
“Of course we will,” Clover says. She smiles, but the brightness doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, we’ll try our best.”
Rowan puts his hand on Arien’s arm. There’s a brief tenderness in his eyes as he looks at my brother. Then he steps back, his face as set and unreadable as a mask. “Are you all ready?”
Arien draws up his shoulders. “We’re ready.”
“Good.” Clover and Arien start to walk toward the water, but when I move to follow them, Rowan touches my arm. “Wait. Violeta, I…”
I turn back. He trails off. We stare at each other, neither of us speaking. He’s tied all of his hair back and his face looks so different without any of the loose, dark waves tangled around it. He keeps touching his fingers to his throat. Around the scars is a pale, indistinct shadow, traces of the poison beneath his skin.
“Aren’t you going to wish me luck in my first ritual?”
“You don’t need luck. I’ve watched you.” Rowan fastens his cloak around his shoulders, then takes his gloves from the pocket and pulls them on brusquely. “I mean—you and Arien. You’ve done well. Both of you.”
“I’m getting better at drawing sigils now. See?”
I show him my arm, and he huffs out a soft laugh. “Be safe, Leta.”
“You too.”
I walk down to the shore and take my place between Arien and Clover, stepping carefully over the sigil so my feet don’t smudge the carved lines. Arien kneels down and presses his palms to the mud. Clover flexes her hands, and sparks scatter from her fingers.
I kneel down beside Arien. The ground is so cold, and the wet mud seeps through my skirts. Though the air is hot against my face, the chill sends shivers all across my skin. I swallow down my revulsion as I put my hands into the earth.
Arien smiles at me reassuringly. “It will be just like when we practiced.”
Clover looks at us. Her eyes are gold, and magic dances over her outspread fingers. “You know what to do.”
The shadows come from Arien’s hands. With the first touch of his magic, the Corruption starts to shift and churn. His first few gestures are tentative, but with each movement he becomes more and more confident.
Power sparks up beneath my skin and the sigil on my wrist burns. I think of a thread. See it unspool alongside the strands of darkness. I hold the shadows in place as Arien casts them out across the ground.
Already, this ritual is different from the first attempt. Arien—all the practice, the lessons, our life at Lakesedge—it’s changed him. His blackened eyes, the cold of his magic, the salt-and-ash taste of it in the air—it’s part of him. It is him. He’s clever and strong, and he’s not afraid.
My magic still feels too small and too faint. But it’s enough. I can help him do this.
Clover murmurs encouragement to us both as she sends light into the spell. “Cast it farther. Tighten it more, over there. Keep going.”
The shadows lattice across the ground. Together, Arien and I weave them into a taut, controlled net. It spreads farther and farther, until it covers the entire shore. Clover’s magic twines through it, and the spell gleams like sunsparks across shallow water. Beneath it, the Corruption begins to glow and waver. Tremors undulate across the ground, from the lake to the edge of the trees. We can do this.
Our hands dig deeper into the mud. It’s so cold. The Corruption shudders against my palms. It feels the same as it did the night Rowan paid the tithe: dark and endless and hungry. So empty of the light that runs through the world—the golden warmth of the Lady’s magic.
I clench my teeth. Think of sun and seeds and flowers. Beside me, Arien is tensed. His muscles are drawn tight. But his magic holds. He keeps control. It doesn’t falter.
We push and coax and force our magic into the earth. The ground moves in waves, like a tide pulled by the moon. The spell is working. Clover and Arien and I, with all of our magic laced together, are mending the Corruption.
The blackened ground begins to change. It softens, the mud turned back to sand. Strands of sedge grass push up from the earth. At our feet, the water ripples, the inky darkness now becoming clear.
For a breath, everything stills. Slowly, Arien draws the shadows back, and Clover lifts her hands from the ground. We sit, encircled by the still-glowing sigil and look around.
It’s mended. It’s all mended.
Then blotches of darkness start to spread across the shore. Arien and I look at each other nervously, then turn to Clover. She holds out a hand, magic sparking across her palm, brow furrowed.
“I don’t understand.” She takes a tentative step toward the water, toward the changing earth. “It shouldn’t be doing this.”
I look down to see the ground tear open. Clover cries out. We fall back heavily as the darkening shore splits into a deep wound. Arien’s elbow strikes my cheek, and all I can see is stars. From far off, I hear Florence calling out, urgent, “Rowan! Get them back. This isn’t—”
Rowan is beside us instantly. He grabs my arm, trying to drag me away.
“Leta—” His voice is choked.
The rift tears wider and wider. Then a shape rises up from the mud. One, then another, then another. They’re tall. Too tall. Oily dark that seeps and drips. They have limbs without hands. Grotesque, faceless heads. They slither forward, and my breath comes out in a desperate gasp.
“No!” I look to Arien, who is wide eyed with shock. “What are they? What’s happening?”
“Get back, both of you!” Clover cries. Her hands are blazing with light, which she casts at the creatures in a brutal slash. They flinch back and melt into the ground. But then the rift opens farther, and more of the creatures rise up.
They have claws. Sharp slices of stone, hooked and brutal. They have mouths. Round, studded with shards of broken shells. They surge from the earth in a torrent. I reach for Arien, but they’re so fast—I have no time to move before they’ve washed over him.
His arm thrashes out, caught by coils of mud. His face is pale, terrified.
“Arien, hold on!” I lunge toward him as he vanishes beneath the creatures.
Rowan wrenches at my arm. “Leta, get back.”
“No! Arien—”
I twist free of his grasp. But before I can do anything, Rowan shoves his hands into the writhing mass of earth. He doesn’t even flinch. The way he moves—it’s practiced. Like he’s done this before, faced the Corruption, pulled someone free. Or tried.
I crush in close beside him, my shoulder hard against his. I plunge my hands into the mud, desperate and frightened as the creatures rush over me, as I feel the scrape of claws and teeth. I reach farther into the icy darkness, searching desperately, but Arien is gone. There’s only mud and cold and the hungry creatures.
I could have stopped this. If I’d accepted the Lord Under’s help, then none of this would have happened. I grasp for the strength he showed me, a force far beyond my magic. But there’s only the faintest throb. A burn at my wrist, an ache in my chest.
I can’t do this. Not alone.
“Please!” I call out to the shadows. To the monster who was kind, once. Who held my hand and led me through the woods. Who saved my brother. “Please, you said you would help me—”
Darkness clouds my vision, and the evening light is swept away. Water rushes over me, followed by a sound. A breath, a hiss, a sigh.
I search again for Arien, but my hands find nothing in the dark. My voice is an incoherent sob that echoes through the shadows. “Help me, help me, help me.”
With a flare of silvered brightness, the Lord Under appears. Tall and sharp and jagged, like the upturned roots of a fallen tree. Streaks of wet, dark shadows trail around him, and there’s a spill of black water as he moves forward. I can’t see his face, but I know—somehow I know—that his eyes are fixed on me. He watches me silently for a very long time as the dark closes down around us. When he finally speaks, his voice is as cold as a midwinter night.
I offered my help already, Violeta. And you refused it.
He’s going to let Arien die. He’ll die, and it will be my fault. No. Indignant anger burns through me. I’ll not beg for his help. I’ll not cower here, small and afraid. I am light and heat and fire.
“You’ll save him.” I grit my teeth and glare at him as power sparks, blistering, from my fingers. “You will.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. Then he laughs, softly, softly.
You’re so brave. Be a little afraid—it will hurt.
I reach out, and the darkness wavers. My fingers touch cloth and skin. Arien—his sleeve, his wrist. He takes a sharp breath. I pull him close. I wrap my arms around him. I don’t let go. As the shadows thin, as the light brightens, I brace myself for the promised pain, but it doesn’t come.
Then Arien screams. He screams and screams. We’re back on the shore, released by the Corruption. I hold him in my arms. He screams. Clover and I drag him back from the lake, across the shore and toward the pale trees, where we fall to the ground. He’s crying, his screams changed to ragged sobs.
“Arien?” His hands are stained dark all the way to his elbows, the skin ravaged and raw. They’re charred, like something held too long in the fire, but when I touch his fingers, his skin is cold.
Clover lets out a hopeless, wounded sound. “Oh, Arien. Oh, what have you done?”
Her magic flickers as she runs her hands over him.
“I—I can’t feel—” Tears streak across his face. He drags in a tattered breath. “They’re all numb.”
Arien cradles his ruined hands against his chest. I hold him tightly as he starts to cry again. He shivers and shivers. I want to make him warm, but I’m just as cold. “We need to get back to the house.”
“We can’t.” Arien tries to push me away. “Those things—they’re still there.”
I look back toward the lake, horrified, to see that the creatures have begun to rise up again. And Rowan—he’s there. He’s taken off his cloak, and his knife gleams in his hand.
“We need to help him,” Clover sobs, starting to get up from the ground.
The creatures close in around Rowan as he stands with his arms outspread.
“We are not going to do anything.” I move Arien gently into Clover’s arms. “Stay here.”
I run back toward the heart of the Corruption. It will hurt. The sun has set behind the hills now, and everything is streaked in darkness. I stare out into the night sky above the lake. Black water, black sky, twin moons. I reach desperately for the burned-down scraps of power I have left, feel it heat my palms.
I run across the shore until I’m beside Rowan. He’s cut his arms—both of them. Blood streams from his wrists. He turns to me, and his eyes are crimson, his throat snared with dark. “Get away from me.”
His voice is wrong: low and terrible, like a clotted-over wound.
I kneel on the ground beside him. “No.”
He holds out his hands, bloodied and trembling, as tendrils of earth rise up and tangle around him, gripping his throat until the darkness seems to sink into his flesh. He hisses through clenched teeth.
The creatures come toward him in a rush. One after another, they fall onto him. He chokes out a desperate, hurt cry, but he doesn’t fight, doesn’t move. He lets them come. Their rounded, hungry mouths fasten at the wounds on his wrists. They tear into his skin. They bite at his arms, his chest, his throat. It will hurt; it will hurt.
Rowan sits with his arms flung wide, eyes closed, as the creatures writhe and feast. Cut and bled and devoured. I swallow down my cries, remembering how it was last time. When I put my hand to the earth and thought of warmth and made the Corruption leave him alone. I stretch my fingers toward the ground.
“No.” He shakes his head. His voice is thick, water and mud and lake. “Let them.”
I draw back and watch helplessly. There is more than one way for me to be hurt—how did I not understand this until now? I thought I could burn myself down to save the world. But I never thought of what to do if the world burned all around me instead.
After a long time, the creatures start to change. They soften, becoming more and more formless. Finally, finally, they let Rowan go and seep back into the earth. He falls forward. The tendrils of Corruption unwind from him. The ground gives a final shudder, then goes still.
There’s no sound but the lap lap lap of waves against the shore. The creatures are gone. The wound in the shore has closed. The ground is black, still poisoned.
“Rowan?” I crouch beside his collapsed body. His shirt is stained with blackened blood, and his face is ashen. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I press my trembling fingers against his throat in search of a pulse.
His lashes flutter, then he stares up at me with bloodshot eyes. He tries to push me away, but he’s overtaken by coughing. He curls up on his side, fighting for breath. He coughs and coughs, then chokes out mouthfuls of ink-dark water. He sits up, slowly, gasping for air. Spits out more of the oil-slick darkness and scrapes his wrist across his mouth.
“Arien.” He scans the shore, then sees Arien and Clover huddled beside the trees. Florence is holding a cloth to Arien’s arms; the contents of her basket are scattered across the ground. “Is he hurt?”
“Yes. I—” Tears fill my eyes. How can I tell Rowan—or anyone—the truth? “He was hurt, and it’s all my fault.”
Rowan’s expression darkens. “Never again.” He grips my arms with his bloodied fingers, fear and fury clear across his face. “Do you hear me? We are done with the rituals, with all of it.”
“You can’t give up. You know what will happen if it doesn’t stop.”
“Let it,” he whispers roughly. “Let it kill me. I don’t care. I’ll not have you—or Arien, or anyone—hurt again.”
He gets back to his feet, wrenching down his sleeves. More blood soaks through the cloth in dark streaks. He storms away, but when he reaches the gate, he falters and starts to stumble before catching himself against the scrolled iron arch. Florence goes to him quickly and wraps her arm around his waist. I watch him trying to shake her off as they disappear into the garden.
I go back to where Clover and Arien sit, and sink down beside them. I lean against one of the pale trees and press my face into my hands, breathing hard as I try to gather myself. The shore sprawls before us: cold and black and still. Clover rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. Arien stares out blankly toward the water. His hands are wrapped in a cloth, but he’s bled through the pale linen.
I’m relieved to see that the stains are crimson, not black. But this small moment of relief is quickly swallowed by guilt. I wasn’t strong enough. The wounds, the hurt, it’s all because I gave in to the Lord Under. I called on the lord of the dead, and this is what he did.
I thought I could help, but all I did was make everything worse.