Ritual Space Read online

  Chapter Twelve

  After she spoke with her parents, Luning asked, “So, they are made of ice?”

  She chuckled. “No. Just hostility and greed. It is harder to thaw than ice.”

  Adrea stood in an open area so that anyone who wanted to could come up and hug her as well as talk about her great aunt. She was in one of the short lulls in the process.

  The crescent moon was rising, and the nocturnal guests were waking completely.

  Adrea faced another few hours of meeting strangers. Many of the guests simply came to make themselves known to her for the purpose of renting time in one of the environments.

  When Mr. Grant made his way to her, she smiled and shook his hand.

  He smiled. “I was surprised that she wanted to be burned.”

  Adrea blinked. “So was I. She wanted to be buried with the previous curators. This was a bit of a shock, but since you have all of her documents, I thought that it was in her will.”

  He scowled. “I was told it was what she had discussed with family.”

  She didn’t have a chance to ask who had told him that. Someone shouted, “Fire!”

  Adrea felt a burning on her forearm, and she ran out of the tent, flicked off her heels and sprinted through the crowd toward the flames licking the trees.

  She wasn’t sure about what she was doing, but she begged for rain.

  The meditation house was engulfed in fire. Adrea halted, her feet throbbing from the run on uneven ground, and she watched the place where her aunt had died burn to the ground.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks, and the rain came.

  “You can’t do anything else, Adrea.” Benny and her team were there, and Luning was with them.

  “Who would have done this?”

  The fire was slowly fading, but the walls and ceilings were already destroyed. A building made of wood didn’t stand up to flames.

  Benny reached out and hugged her. “When her body was burned, it was done without safeguards. Her blood caught fire and that included this crime scene.”

  They were both soaked to the skin, and Adrea started shivering.

  Luning came up and put his arm around her, pulling her away from Benny. “You need to get dry.”

  She fought her fury and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Where is my father?”

  Benny looked at her and cocked her head. “Why?”

  “Because there is only one other family member that Mr. Grant would have consulted.” Adrea lifted her head and sought the traces of her father.

  “Either follow me or come with me, but I am going to have it out with him.” She left him and began running.

  The trees moved from her path, letting her run in a straight line to the spot in the dark forest that she had visited once before.

  She could feel Luning behind her, but he was a few minutes away. The property wasn’t powering him as it was her.

  Adrea stopped and stared at her father, his suit rumpled and his expression uncomfortable.

  “Why did you do it, Dad?” She walked further into the clearing.

  He jumped, and his expression turned ugly. “This was mine. It was all for me. I was promised it until you arrived.”

  She stared at him. “Who promised it to you?”

  “My mother. She said I would inherit.”

  “You never could have. If you didn’t have a girl, Neadra would have found a way to have her own daughter. No male has ever had a place in command of this property and none ever could.”

  He lifted his hand, and he sneered. “With this vial, I can summon Apep, lord of chaos, and he will give me what I need.”

  “If that is Neadra’s blood, I really wouldn’t open that vial.”

  He sneered and looked to the spot in the grass where the pillar of smoke had appeared.

  “You have no say in what I do or don’t do. In a moment, I will be in charge of Ritual Space and you will follow in Neadra’s footsteps.”

  He opened the vial, and a cascade of flame shot out. He shouted and dropped the container. “What happened?”

  She raised her brow. “You arranged for Neadra to be burned in Ritual Space. Contagion magic means that all of her body burned. Even her blood.”

  He looked shocked. “I need the blood of the guardian.”

  “And you killed Neadra for it? You are an idiot.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. He grabbed for a branch, and he struck at her. She dodged the first few strikes, kicking out at him, but then, she felt the impact on her temple and she was thrown onto the base of a tree.

  Her father used the sharp end of the stick to pierce her wrist, and he cupped the blood in his hands, carrying it over to the portal before dumping it while he chanted.

  Adrea muttered, “Our family can’t do magic.”

  Her blood was seeping into the ground, and the pain in her head made it hard to think, but she saw arms covered in bark reaching for her, and she reached back.

  The tree cradled her and lifted her high into the branches as she gave what was left of her life to the property and everything that lived on it.

  ★ ★ ★ ★

  Luning ran to the clearing in time to see Adrea’s father dumping blood on the ground.

  The spiral of smoke that came up had the sinuous look of a serpent.

  The trail of blood led to the trees, and it was dripping down the trunk.

  Luning couldn’t get up that tree, so he took on the opponent he could manage.

  “Step away from that portal.”

  Adrea’s father turned and snarled. “This is none of your business.”

  “You have assaulted your daughter. That is my business.”

  “She got in my way. I needed her blood.”

  Luning moved in and grabbed the man around the neck, pulled him off his feet and pinned him to the ground. “Where is Adrea?”

  “What do I care?”

  “She is your daughter.”

  “She was an accident.”

  “That doesn’t matter. She is your blood.”

  The man in his grip twisted and struck at him. Luning shifted, and struck Mr. Morrigan in the head.

  The column grew heavier. It hissed at him. “He could not deliver what I needed. I can make your dreams come true if you bring me the blood of the guardian.”

  The rustle of the canopy drew his attention, and Luning looked up to see Adrea descending with a vine around her waist.

  Her eyes were glowing a violent blue, and her hair illuminated the woods. “Apep. You are not welcome here. I will tear you to pieces if you dare to creep through my soil again. This is your warning.”

  “I am not yours to command, curator.”

  Adrea grinned. “I am no longer the curator. I am Ritual Space.”

  Wind, fire, a tumble of earth and a jet of water came out of Adrea, and it wrapped around the god trying to crawl through the magical soil, and it shoved him back into the ground.

  Luning looked at her in shock. “What is that?”

  Adrea walked over and pressed a soft kiss to his lips that managed to electrify his entire body. “That is what we were meant to be, guardian. Haul him along, and we will see him punished for the murder of Neadra.”

  Luning flipped her father over and got his cuffs out of their case at the base of his spine. He wrenched the man’s arms together while Adrea stared at the world around her with her glowing eyes.

  Her gaze fixed on the direction where the mourners were still gathered. “He’s still here.”

  Before Luning could react, she was moving through the woods in her tattered gown.

  He hauled her father to his feet and dragged him behind her. Something was about to happen, and she might need backup.

  ★ ★ ★ ★

  Adrea felt truly alive for the first time in memory. Every nerve sang, and she knew every living thing in her territory.

  She moved through the woods, and they touched her
softly in greeting. When her body had completely recovered, she would not need to walk through the forests but rather be able to go where she was needed. That was a skill for another day.

  Today, she needed to find the other soul anchoring the chaos spirit, and she needed to deal with it.

  The mourners stared at her as she walked through the crowds. A quick glance told her that her dress was shredded and her arms and head were covered with blood.

  Mr. Grant came toward her, but she held up a hand to keep him back. Her mother was speaking with Gera and that is where she headed.

  “Hello, Mom. May I have a word with you?”

  A crowd surrounded them as her mother slowly turned to face her. The poison green of her eyes burned in her pale features. “Adrea. What is it? You look horrible.”

  “I feel horrible. Can I have a hug?”

  Her mother jerked in shock. “Why?”

  “It is a funeral, Mom. Folks hug each other.”

  “You are all bloody.”

  “Yeah, well, it has been a freakish evening.” She stepped toward her mother, and she cut her off when she tried to escape.

  The hug began as a restraint, and it turned into a punishment as her mind sought out Apep, god of chaos, and she didn’t just exorcise him, she shattered his corporeal contact.

  When she looked up, a group of mages had surrounded them, and they were chanting and energy was humming to keep the god from escaping into another member of the gathering.

  She kept going until she had routed every fleck of power that didn’t belong to her mother out of her soul. All that was left was her animal, and when she was sure, she let her mother go.

  Leanne Morrigan staggered back with a hand to her head. She looked around with wide eyes. “Where am I?”

  Lenora Ganger stepped forward and took the woman’s arm. “What do you last remember?”

  “I... Adrea’s birthday party.”

  Lenora looked to Adrea and kept speaking in a soothing tone. “How old was she?”

  Leanne smiled. “She just turned five. Adrean asked me to sit with him in the back yard and have a cup of tea. It tasted funny, and I got sleepy.”

  Adrea blinked and stepped back, but she kept her mouth shut.

  Leanne looked to Lenora. “Time has passed, hasn’t it?”

  Lenora nodded. “Yes, dear. You are going to have to go in to be examined. Magic was used on you without your consent.”

  “Oh. That makes sense. Is Adrea all right? She was going to Neadra’s after the party. Is she with Neadra?”

  Lenora put her arm around her and steered her to the outside of the crowd, speaking to her in low tones.

  Benny and her team followed, and Adrea watched from fifty metres away as her mother was put into custody with the XIA team.

  Luning brought her father out of the woods, but her mother had already left.

  The gathering murmured in shock as her father kept shrieking, “She was mine to kill!”

  He kept screaming as Luning hauled him out of the gates, and Adrea let them go.

  She turned to the hundreds of folks who looked shocked by the events. “Please continue to share tales of Neadra. This evening marks the conclusion of her story. Celebrate her life. I will return in a moment.”

  Mr. Grant nodded cautiously as she passed him, and she headed back to the house in order to shower and change her clothing.

  The evening gown on her bed was deep pewter. She took it as a hint, and when she had washed the blood from her skin, she dried off and slipped on the gown. The pewter chiffon flowed around her legs, and it was at that point that she realized she was not on the ground. Her steps carried her an inch above the solid surface, a warm column of air was under her feet.

  The mirror showed her that the scars from the night had already healed. The pattern on her wrist wasn’t a stab mark; it was a tree that ran up her inner arm. The mark on her temple was a spiral in a dark blue that stood out against her skin and hair.

  Her horror of finding out that it was her own parents who killed her aunt was fading rapidly. Part of her had always known.

  Now, it was time to speak to those who wanted to share stories of the previous curator, and Adrea wanted to listen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Adrea was sitting next to the pile of ash that had been her aunt when Luning returned.

  He sat next to her and took her hand.

  She smiled. “He has been charged?”

  “He has been charged. He has also been charged with inciting possession in your mother. She is in with the healers, trying to find her missing time.”

  “So, she wasn’t really my mother for the last two decades.” She nodded.

  “That is what seems to be the case. She will need to catch up with her missing time, but her family is coming in to take charge of her. They will integrate her back into their gathering, and things will right themselves for her... eventually.”

  “Two parents in one night. That is a record in my family.”

  He nodded.

  She looked down at his hand holding hers. “So, now that the mystery of the murder is solved, I suppose you will be resuming your duties?”

  He chuckled. “I thought I would take some leave. This has been a little stressful for me, and I need some spell practice. A little more work on my part and I could have found the trail much earlier.”

  She nodded. “It sounds sensible. I am going to do some renovations here before I open fully for business.”

  “What kind of renovations?”

  “I want a camp ground, and we obviously need a new meditation area.”

  He chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Camp ground?”

  “Yeah, I talked to a few of the ladies, and they mentioned that they had been members of the Mage Guides and some of the men had been Scouts. Having them here would definitely give them a sense of what controlled magic can do in the world.”

  “I also noticed that you said we.”

  She scooted closer to him. “Well, there is no better place to practice magic than Ritual Space. I might need a little bit of security around here as well. When you get back to work, do you think I could get you on loan?”

  He smiled. “I am sure that they would, but would you really mix business with pleasure?”

  “Well, we seem to be able to separate them so far. I would suggest we give it a try.” She bit her lip. “I do have to engage in full disclosure though.”

  He stroked her temple where the spiral stood out. “What?”

  “You were what they were looking for. It wasn’t my blood that would pull Apep through, it was yours. The blood of the guardian touched by death. Apep was a death and chaos god. He needed your blood in your position as guardian to open the gate.”

  Luning scowled. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t know it was you until you came after me. At that point, I was being hauled up the tree to die.”

  “What?”

  She cleared her throat. “I had to surrender myself to the space, and I had to do it before I was gone. The property rushed the transformation for time, but I will have to spend some time flexing my new wings, so to speak.”

  He slid his hand into her hair and turned her head toward him. “Are there actual wings involved?”

  She smiled at him. “I don’t think so, but there hasn’t been an elemental here since the first days of Ritual Space. She was bound to the water, and I am trees and air.”

  “You learned that in the journal.”

  Adrea kissed him lightly and then leaned back. “It isn’t so much a journal as a downloaded version of the daughter of the first elemental of Ritual Space. Everyone after has been a curator, until now.”

  “So, you don’t really read it.”

  “Not really. When I said it speaks to me, it actually does. I have learned about the history of the area, the history of my family and why we kept the men out of controll
ing the space.”

  He brushed his lips against hers and whispered, “Why?”

  “Our men are mages. They want to use the power. The women just look after it. We can’t do anything when we step away from our property.”

  “So your father was a mage?”

  “Untrained. It apparently made him a little crazy.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “Apparently.”

  They sat in silence, and the dawn began to creep up over the horizon.

  She got to her feet and said, “One final thing.”

  She stepped onto the platform where her aunt’s ashes were resting.

  Adrea closed her eyes, raised her arms and a spiral of wind picked up the previous curator and swept her ashes into the air before travelling to the burial area and driving them into the ground. The column of swirling ashes continued to burrow into the ground until it was gone. A patch of irises and daisies bloomed on the spot.

  Adrea walked—or floated—over to the burial site. Luning followed her but stayed back several feet.

  “Auntie, I am so sorry that this happened to you. I never suspected that my father would take his obsession to this extent. I knew he wanted power, but I had no idea that he would kill to get it.”

  She sat next to the resting place and put her hand on the grave. “Know that Ritual Space is in good hands. I will keep it safe and continue to expand the property and the collection of magical places. I am going to be bringing children here to experience it, and I know how much you love children.”

  She wiped the tear that curled down her cheek. “It will be full of laughter again, as it was always intended to be.”

  A spectral cascade of laughter rang in her mind. Neadra was enjoying the plans for the future. She would remain here, in this place, until she wanted to leave. She was part of the property now and her ancestresses were with her.

  Adrea spent some time sitting and listening to the laughter and singing. A rustle in the grasses told her she wasn’t alone, and one by one, the bunnies came forward and put a fresh daisy on the bed of flowers.

  She sat with her companions until the sun streamed in and lit the flowers. The bunnies scattered and played in the sunbeams. If Adrea focused, she could see Neadra walking in the woods beyond.