Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys

Author:Ruthanna Emrys
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2018-07-10T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

I attended to every detail of the Inner Sea’s basic spellwork, more mindful than I’d been for months. It was far easier to focus on what I was doing than to consider my reasons for doing it.

I sketched the diagram in minuscule on paper torn from my journal. I leaned close and held the pen lightly, tracing thread-fine geometries across the ruled lines. Knotwork twists delineated each participant; a single variant glyph protected the confluence from expansion. I remembered learning each one: the first breathless lesson on the cool wood floor of Charlie’s back room, the Yith’s clinical criticism in Trumbull’s study. Frances watched closely. Her first Inner Sea should have focused on celebrating her own blood-born strength. No help for this inadequate initiation.

Grandfather traced a simple seal across the wall; in this small a space, there was no room on the floor. Either it would rub off, or the hotel wouldn’t welcome us back.

I grounded, focusing on the connection between myself and my world, as the others also looked inward. My blood is a tide, I told myself, and for the first time I feared that I was lying.

Then the chant. This part was easy: Enochian swirled around my body, indifferent to my lack of confidence—I only needed perfect enunciation, surrendering my voice to blend with Grandfather and S’vlk, Audrey and Charlie and Trumbull. Neko, who joined us so rarely, hummed descant.

Then finally, not daring to think: the knife handle against my palm, the sting of blade on skin, the blood dissipating in intimate ripples.

And I sank into my blood.

My blood, usually a river in full rush to the sea, ran slow. I couldn’t yet mistake it for Charlie’s blood or Neko’s, but its power had waned. Worse, I sensed it through a vertiginous haze, as though I saw the world a half-second late in a cracked mirror.

That haze lay between me and something that should have been inseparable. I couldn’t fathom it. And so I simply perceived, in fear and confusion and mourning.

Something touched my wrist: contact breaking through the timeless haze. I wanted to cling to the physical sensation like a raft, but for this ritual that touch was only the means to another, harder intimacy. My grandfather had grasped my arm so that he could see my blood for himself—and I was swept up in his.

If my blood was usually a rushing river, Grandfather was the ocean. My blood intimated a stronger, surer form that might someday be mine; his embodied that form in full. Deep waters surged around me, vast currents and crushing pressure. Salt filled my every pore, not respecting the boundary of skin. I wanted to drown in him. I wanted to become part of the ocean any way I could.

But the tide receded, leaving me gasping. I sat on a coarse cotton blanket. Grit stung my eyes and nose; the air was heavy with our exhalation. There was no water save my own sweat.

Charlie’s hand hovered near me. I should have said something, but reassuring him seemed too much effort.

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