Free Web NovelChapter 58: The Ritual
We left at dawn which felt dramatic and also appropriate because I was about to temporarily die and apparently that required atmospheric lighting.
Eight hours back to Millbrook with Draven in the passenger seat and his veins had spread past his jaw into his cheeks now, black tendrils crawling toward his eyes like the corruption was racing his heartbeat, and watching it happen while my brain counted down the hours until his heart stopped entirely was not helping my mental state.
Morgana had spent all night preparing the ritual components—candles and crystals and herbs I didn’t recognize plus a whole lot of equipment that looked suspiciously medical, which made sense because we were going to stop my heart and hopefully restart it but also seeing defibrillator paddles just sitting there was doing things to my anxiety levels.
"You don’t have to do this." Kael’s voice came quiet from the driver’s seat. "We can find another way."
Another way. Right. The mythical third option that didn’t involve anyone dying or getting corrupted or sacrificing themselves.
"We’re out of time." The words came out flat because my emotions had apparently filed themselves under later and I was running on pure logistics now. "Draven has hours. Maybe less. The demon is coming. This is the only option."
The only option. God I was tired of those words.
Through the bonds all four alphas were broadcasting variations of absolute terror wrapped in forced calm, and trying to keep my own panic contained while also managing theirs was like juggling knives except the knives were on fire and also screaming.
We got to Millbrook around 3 PM and the witch enclave looked exactly the same as before which seemed wrong somehow, like the universe should acknowledge that we were about to attempt something catastrophically dangerous.
The workshop was still warded but Draven could pass through and the rest of us followed, and when I saw the anchor stone sitting on its bone pedestal my stomach did this thing where it tried to relocate to my feet.
That thing was going to kill me. Temporarily. Hopefully just temporarily.
"Everyone in position." Morgana started arranging candles in a circle around the anchor. "Selene in the center. Four bonds at the cardinal points. Draven beside the stone."
Four bonds at cardinal points. Right. So Kael to my north, Riven to my east, Thorne to my south, Draven to my west beside the anchor.
I stepped into the circle and tried not to focus on how this was either going to save everyone or kill me, no middle ground, just binary outcomes.
"The ritual has three phases." Morgana’s voice was clinical. Professional. Like she wasn’t about to stop my heart. "Phase one: establishing the connection. Phase two: the transfer during clinical death. Phase three: revival and binding destruction. Each phase has specific timing. Deviation means failure."
Deviation means failure. No pressure.
"Phase one requires all four bonds open simultaneously." She handed me a knife—different from the one I’d used before, this one looked older, meaner. "Your blood on the anchor. Draven’s blood on your hands. The bonds create a bridge."
My blood on the anchor. Draven’s blood on my hands. That sounded ominous and also probably accurate as a metaphor for this entire situation.
I sliced my palm—second time in two days, my hands were going to be all scar tissue at this rate—and pressed it to the anchor stone.
The stone was cold. Not temperature cold, something deeper, like it was sucking heat out of my hand and replacing it with emptiness.
"Draven." Morgana handed him the knife.
His hands were shaking now, fine tremors that meant his body was fighting the corruption, but he managed to cut his palm and press it over mine on the stone.
The wards flared. Not bright like before, more like a pulse of recognition, and suddenly I could feel the binding—this massive structure of magic that had existed for three hundred years, anchored to the stone, tethered to Draven’s blood, connected to a demon that was currently regenerating somewhere and would be here soon.
"Open the bonds." Morgana’s voice cut through my panic. "All four. Completely. Now."
I reached for the bonds and pushed them open wide—wider than I’d ever opened them, no walls, no barriers, just pure connection—and suddenly I was feeling everything all four of them felt.
Kael’s terror that he was about to watch me die. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Riven’s strategic certainty that this would work mixed with fear that it wouldn’t.
Thorne’s feral rage at the universe for putting me in danger.
Draven’s guilt and desperation and determination that I would survive this.
All of it hit me at once and my knees tried to give out but I locked them because falling during phase one seemed like a bad plan.
"Phase two." Morgana’s voice was steady. Calm. "Selene, you need to let go of your heartbeat. Stop fighting. Let death come."
Let death come. Right. Simple. Just stop my heart voluntarily. No big deal.
Except I didn’t know how to do that and my body was very invested in staying alive actually.
"I don’t—" The words came out panicked. "I don’t know how to just stop my heart."
"The hybrid magic." Morgana moved closer. "You can freeze time. You’ve done it before. Freeze your own temporal state. Freeze the moment between heartbeats. Stay there for ninety seconds."
Freeze my own temporal state. Freeze between heartbeats. That was—
That was actually brilliant and also terrifying because temporal magic was volatile and I’d only practiced on training dummies and what if I froze myself and couldn’t unfreeze?
"Trust yourself." Riven’s voice came through the bond. "You can do this."
Trust myself. Right. The me who’d barely survived two demon battles and was currently about to stop my own heart.
I reached for the hybrid magic—that space between wolf and vampire, between life and death, between contradictions—and pushed intent at it.
Freeze. Stop. Hold.
My heart stuttered. Slowed. The space between beats stretched longer.
And longer.
And then it stopped.
Everything stopped.
I was caught in the moment between heartbeats, suspended in temporal stasis, and I could feel the binding reaching for me through the connection to the anchor stone.
The demon’s essence was there. Cold and hungry and ancient. It touched my consciousness and I wanted to scream except I couldn’t because time was frozen and I was—
Dying.
I was dying and the binding was transferring and through the bonds I felt all four alphas screaming my name but I couldn’t respond because I was caught between life and death and the demon was trying to take me with it into the dark.
"Hold." Morgana’s voice sounded far away. "Eighty seconds. You’re doing it. Hold."
Hold. Right. Just hold onto death for ten more seconds while a demon tried to consume my consciousness.
No problem.
The binding snapped into place around me like chains made of ice and shadow, and suddenly I was the anchor instead of Draven, the tether instead of the stone, and I could feel the demon on the other end pulling, pulling, trying to drag me down.
"Ninety seconds. Now!"
Morgana’s voice cut through the dark and suddenly something was shocking my chest—the defibrillator, had to be—and my heart stuttered, fought, tried to remember how to beat.
One shock. Nothing.
Two shocks. Still nothing.
Three shocks and my heart kicked back into rhythm with a lurch that made my entire chest seize.
I gasped—actually gasped, dragging air into lungs that had forgotten how to work—and opened my eyes to find all four mates surrounding me with expressions that were equal parts relief and terror. freewёbnoνel.com
"Did it—" I couldn’t finish because talking required more coordination than I had.
"It worked." Morgana sounded shocked. Awed. "The binding transferred. You’re the anchor now. Draven’s free."
Draven’s free. That was—that was good. Except I could feel the binding wrapped around me, could feel the demon on the other end, could feel it pulling and I had maybe minutes before the corruption started and—
"Phase three." The words came out rough. "How do I destroy it from the inside?"
"You’re the anchor." Morgana’s voice was urgent. Rushed. "The binding is tethered to you now. You can unravel it. Just—let go. Release the threads. Tell the magic to end."
Let go. Release. Tell it to end.
I reached for the binding wrapped around my consciousness and pulled.
The magic resisted—three hundred years of structure didn’t want to just dissolve—but I was hybrid, contradiction made manifest, and the binding couldn’t hold against something that existed in the space between all its rules.
I pulled harder.
The binding started to fray.
And somewhere far away, the demon screamed.
