Cate Tiernan: Spellbound

"Mother." His voice was clear, strong, but I couldn't read his intentions from his tone. Had he come to help me? Or to help Selene kill me?

No time to stop and ask. I saw myself as if from outside, dressed in Maeve's green silk robe, its hem rippling around my bare ankles like seawater as I turned. Magick crackled all around me, glowing like fireflies, floating in the air: a dandelion flower of magick that had burst and was seeding itself everywhere. Motes of power began to draw themselves around Selene, inside me was a fierce pride, an exhilaration in my strength and the ecstasy of weaving this spell. With my ancient words I gathered the motes around Selene; I began to encase her in them, as if I were sealing her inside.

Dimly I realized what I was doing. Dimly I recognized the cage of ice and light as I wove it around Selene. It was the same as the cage that had imprisoned Maeve and Angus. But I had no time, no energy to spare for wondering what this meant, where this knowledge had come from. I was caught in the magick. It consumed me.

It was the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. It was like the beauty of a star's death when it goes nova: exhilarating and devastating. The awe inside me welled up and spilled out of my eyes as tears: purifying salt crystals in and of themselves.

"No!" Selene bellowed suddenly, a horrible, gut-wrenching howl of fury and darkness. "No!" The crystal cage around her shattered, and she loomed within it, dark and malevolent and cloaked with blackness.

I didn't have the experience to duck or swerve or throw up a block. I saw the boiling cloud of dark vapor spinning away from Selene, churning toward me, and I knew that in a moment I would experience the soul being sucked from my body. All I could do was watch.

And then a dark form blocked my sight, and like a high-speed camera, my mind snapped image after image but gave me no time to process what happened. Cal surged forward, his eyes burning and hollow as he blocked Selene's attack on me. I stepped back, eyes wide, mouth open in shock as Cal absorbed the dark vapor; it surrounded him, fell upon him, and then he was sinking to the ground, his eyes already unseeing as his soul left his body.

Now I knew. He had come to help me.

Selene was on him in an instant, screaming, falling onto his chest, beating him, trying to force life back into him as I watched stupidly and without comprehension.

"Sgath!" she shrieked, barely sounding human. "Sgath! Come back!" I had never heard a banshee, but that's what she sounded like, an inhuman keening and wailing that seemed to have the agony of the world in it. Her son was dead, and she had killed him.

When Hunter staggered to me and grabbed my hand, I could only stare at him. He looked like himself again, pale and ill, but the Hunter I knew.

"Now," he croaked, his voice sounding charred. "Now."

It all came back to me again, my brain began to function, and Hunter and I took advantage of Selene's grief and joined our powers to bind her.

Feeling cold, I gathered my magick and wove it tightly once more, a beautiful cage. Hunter stepped forward and snapped the silver braigh onto Selene's wrists, catching her unguarded as she held Cat's face and wept over him. She screamed again, the chain already burning her flesh. I shrank back at the horror of it: Cal's dead body, Selene's grief, her endless screaming as she thrashed, trying to get the braigh off.

Then she paused for an instant, her eyes rolling back into her head, and began a deep guttural chant. I saw the silver chain begin to crumble and dissolve. "Morgan!" Hunter yelled, and quickly I dropped my beautiful cage of light and magick over her.

It was like watching a black moth slowly smothering inside a glass. Within a minute Selene's rage was burning out: her screams were quieting, her thrashing had stilled; she lay coiled inside my spell as if trying to hide from the pain.

When I met Hunter's eyes, he looked horrified, shaken, yet there was an acknowledgment on his face that at last he had accomplished his goal. He was breathing hard, sweat beading his pale face, and he met my eyes. "Let's get out of here," he said shakily. "This place is evil."

But I was frozen, staring at Cal. Beautiful Cal, whom I had kissed and loved so much. Kneeling, I reached out to touch his face. Hunter didn't try to stop me.

I shuddered and shrank back—Cal's skin was already cooling. Suddenly racking sobs began to burst through my chest. I wept for Cal: for the brief illusion of love that I'd cherished so deeply, for the way he'd given his own life for mine, for what he could have been if Selene hadn't warped him.

What happened then is hard to explain. Hunter shouted suddenly and I whirled, tears still raining down my cheeks, to see Selene standing, her wrists held in front of her. I could see the blisters, but the silver braigh was gone. Her golden eyes seemed to burn through us. Then she sank down, collapsing on the oriental carpet with her eyes closed. Her mouth opened, and a vaporous stream floated out, like smoke.

Hunter shouted again and threw out his arm to push me back. We watched as the vapor streamed upward and seemed to disappear through the one library window. Then it was gone, and Selene was still and ashen. Hunter stepped quickly to her and put his fingers against her throat. When he looked up, his eyes reflected his shock. "She's dead."

"Goddess," I breathed. I had helped kill Selene—and Cal, too. I was a murderer. How could Hunter and I be standing in a room with two corpses? It was incomprehensible.

"What was that smoke?" My voice was thin and shaky.

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it before." He looked worried.

"Morgan?" came Mary K.'s voice, and I shook off my paralysis and hurried to her. She was sitting up, blinking, and then she stood to brush off her clothes. She looked around her as if she were waking from a dream, and maybe she was. "What's going on? Where are we?"

"It's all right, Mary K." said Hunter in his still-raspy voice. He came and took her arm so that we braced her on either side. "Everything's all right now. Let's get you out of here."

By keeping his body close to her, Hunter managed to steer Mary K. out of the room without her seeing Selene's or Cal's bodies. I followed them, forcing myself not to look back. When we were in the hall, Hunter spelled the library door so that it couldn't be shut again. Then we went outside, into the darkness, the biting cold of winter pressing in on us.

As we came down the stone steps, Sky pulled up in her car, followed by a gray sedan. A stout man with graying hair climbed out, and Hunter moved to speak to him: he had to be the closest council member.

I sat on the broad stone steps in my gown. I couldn't think about what had just happened. I couldn't process it. All I could do was hold Mary K.'s hand and start to think up what I would tell my parents. Every version I could think of started with, "It's because I'm a witch."