Page 10 of Our Covenant

I force myself to repress a sigh and the rolling of my eyes when Alric steps forward. His tweed jacket covers the white Oxford that he’s decided is this decade’s professor ensemble. He makes it his concern to know the new trends so not to draw suspicion to his unaging face. But the horn-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his long, narrow nose are several seasons old, giving away that he’s a few J. Crew catalogs behind.

“What misdeeds do you suspect we’ve done that have angered them?” Asher balks from behind me, not bothering to raise his eyes from his phone at the challenge.

“Only you four can supersede that malfeasance,” Alric dryly counters. “The spirits beyond the veil have only chosen me to carry the message, not the explanation.”

Mariana clears her throat and speaks loud enough that the descent he’s proposing silences instantly.

“When you’ve deciphered that cryptic omen, we will all be receptive,” Mariana says, enforcing her support in regard to Alric’s words. “And seeing as you do not possess the gift of connection that our legacies have been given, I suggest we don’t jump to conclusions.”

Alric’s shoulders tense at her scolding, but his determination to undermine continues.

“Of course, my high priestess.” Alric’s slimy voice wraps around her title with ill favor. “I am merely interpreting what I feel to be true. While I may not be fortunate enough to be as connected as the four of legacies are, my blood was once considered as pure as yours.”

I pass a look to Asher. Neither of us has the ability to read thoughts, but I know he’s just as disgusted as I am at Alric’s last comment. Still, Asher’s darkened eyes warn me to hold my tongue. It’s the smart thing to do with so many other coven members in the room, but why ignore when I can invoke?

When I turn back to the council, I speak only to Alric. “Messengers aren’t historically received well.”

His brow lifts. The defiance pricks at my skin like heat from a spitting fire. Mariana stands firm at my side, unwavering in her power over the coven council.

Alric relents, turning his gaze away from our matriarch and remembering the true threat to his comfortable existence.

“Noted,” he says before he steps back into line, the place that—no matter his life expectancy—he belongs.

Mariana nods to me, permitting me to continue, but before I open my mouth, another disturbance stops me.

“We have to listen to our elders,” Darcy Nurse adds over the crowd.

Darcy stepped in to help raise me after my mother died. If coven traditions had won out, she would’ve been my father’s wife. For years, I suspected he would eventually choose her to marry and further the bloodline, but once my abilities presented, she was cast aside.

The stain of rejection from my father was hard for her to erase. Alric collected her easily and has since used her as a mouthpiece to get his way, like the manipulator he is. Standing up for him in front of our high priestess, the council, and two of the legacies without shame is proof that the infection is spreading. And like all festering appendages, if not dealt with, it would eventually need to be severed.

I pause and wait for Mariana to speak to her sister directly, but after a moment with no intervention, I answer, “Your concerns will be discussed. The four of us will take to our archives for an answer, but until we are able to come to a concrete conclusion, we ask that you conserve your precious energy. We know that our coven has relied upon our gifts for hundreds of years, but it’s time to look ahead to our future and the generations who may be robbed of that same power if we were to use it frivolously.”

A few heads nod, a reluctant agreement to heed my warning. My eyes focus back on my father, who is staring daggers into the back of Alric’s head. Their constant rivalry has only weathered James Proctor over the years, while Alric has decades of seniority to his advantage. Alric’s hate had started long before my father was even conceived. If intent could kill, Alric would have long since smashed our thrones to rubble with his own two hands so he could forge one for himself.

“We’d like to close on this matter and move on to distributing magical stores in the next few days. Hawthorne will reach out to your family leaders when it’s time.” I hold my hands up, relinquishing my time to Mariana.

She closes the meeting with the words used in every ceremony since I was a small child: “Beneficia multorum.”

The dull reverb back to me fills the room before the buzz of conversation starts as council members move to the hallway leading to the front door. Mariana turns to the two of us, and we bow our heads.

Her dark eyes widen and ping between us.

“It’s imperative that, as the wardens of our ancestors’ magic, you find a way to unstopper whatever force is constraining the harvests.” Mariana is smiling, but her words hold no warmth. “Time is running short, and if the coven is to make it through the next cycle, you will need to find a way to augment the yield.”

Annoyance bubbles in my chest.

The dwindling magic potency has been a mystery for many legacy cycles, which last for as long as legacies can perform their duties, until they are paired off to procreate to whichever sacrifices are chosen for them by the coven. Those cycles have been getting shorter and shorter as the need to replenish the harvest with new blood has become greater. It’s thought that with the right combination of bloodlines, the old gods would permit magic to flow freely once again. But that’s a tale older than Alric with the same amount of reliability.

Asher and I say together, “Yes, Mariana,” and she leaves us with one last, icy glare.

Edmund and Emilie Morey linger at the back of the room with my father. The two retired legacies stand vigil, bidding council members safe travels. Emilie keeps her watchful eyes on me and Asher until Mariana leads the last council members out of the house. The fire of a mother’s protection isn’t as foreign to me as one might think. While my own mother never stood with me during my crowning achievements, Emilie and Patricia Bishop have never let my side grow cold.

When only my father and Alric remain, Alric turns his way. “Your boy sure carries the spark of his mother, James. Couldn’t quite stomp out that stubbornness, could you?”

Heat in my blood rises and a hand clutches the back of my blazer to keep me from taking a step I would regret. My father tilts his head, his eyes panning over Alric slowly before he answers, “Love from beyond the veil comes in many forms. A strong-willed progeny that mirrors his mother is most certainly a love I wouldn’t stomp out. But I don’t expect you to know anything about love or loss with a soul so hollow and rotted.”

Alric’s jaw tenses, but like all verbal sparring matches I’ve seen him instigate with the regal James Proctor, he knows when he’s bested. My heart pounds in my chest and fists clench as I wait for the defeat to manifest into something more deadly than the curse in Alric’s eyes. His fingers twitch at his sides, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by any man in the room.