“Are you sure, Provost?” she asked the older woman. Melody knew that there would be political fallout for her friend.
The provost snorted. “Child, I was just about to ask you the same thing. Don’t worry about me, we’ll sort everything out when the dust settles, and if my time here is done, then I will move on to one of a dozen other places where they are begging me to go. It is you who I am most concerned for.”
“I’m naked, and I’m cold, even with the dome,” Melody said, smiling. “And I think that it’s more important to start this ceremony sooner, rather than later.”
The provost chuckled. “Yes, it will be dawn soon. Let us begin, I don’t want any interruptions.”
The provost’s voice rose and fell as she chanted ancient songs asking for the blessing of the Goddess. The moon had set earlier, but not before they had finished the runes, so it technically had the blessing of the light of the Goddess. As an added bonus, none of the torches had blown out in the light breeze. That would have been a bad omen indeed, a sign of the Goddess’ displeasure.
Melody found herself swaying, the drone of the provost’s voice, the swirl of magic around her, and her own fatigue combining to lower her mental alertness. A stinging pain hit her left butt cheek, and she jolted upright. There were snickers from outside the circle, so she knew that one of them had done something stupid, like throwing a stone or a spell. She hoped it was a missile, because throwing spells at a time like this was seriously stupid.
Across from her, the provost’s eyes twinkled, but she didn’t pause in her singing. Finally, when Melody thought she could stand no longer, the provost spoke in English.
“Melody, you are called forth in the light to come and serve Coven Canticum. Search in your heart. Do you agree to bind yourself to us?” she asked.
“In the light of the Goddess, so do I swear. I promise to be loyal, faithful and to work to further the aims and goals of Coven Canticum. May I find acceptance in their eyes,” Melody replied, the words of the ritual ingrained in her mind.
“Indeed you have found favour with our members and we accept you as part of our family,” the provost intoned. Then she let go of Melody’s hands and picked up her altar bowl and athame, slicing across her hand and allowing the blood to drip into the bowl.
Melody held out her right hand, allowing the provost to cut it, and then directed her blood into the bowl as well.
“Let your blood mix with ours, your magic blend with our own, and our hearts love each other with abandon. Let the goddess bless this union of you and us and bring forth a new strength in our journey together. So mote it be.” The provost poured the blood onto the ground and turned to smile at Melody.
“So mote it be,” repeated Melody.
“Let me be the first to welcome you to our coven, sister.” She held out her arms to Melody, but Melody stumbled forward into them, unable to hold herself upright as the geasen on her began to break.
Melody had never felt pain like it. She screamed as the three major geasen recently laid upon her by her aunt, ripped themselves from her body. Outside the dome, a lion roared and a wolf howled, but nobody entered the circle, they couldn’t until the women had stepped out.
Hundreds more geasen followed the first, and pain lashed her nerve endings. To start with it was one at a time, but then it increasing tempo until it was a veritable torrent of torture. Melody’sbody bucked and shuddered as each one pulled itself free, like fishing hooks ripping out of her skin, although she knew it was a sensation rather than a reality, it didn’t make enduring it any easier.
In the near distance, there was a matching scream, and Melody knew that it was her aunt crying not in pain, but in frustration that her spells were being broken.
“They’re here,” she managed to say to the provost. Looking east, she could see where the sky grew brighter over the forest.
“Prepare yourselves for attack,” shouted the provost, still holding Melody up. “Can you stand, child? We need to leave the circle, I need to defend the academy.”
Melody tried to straighten herself, but her trembling limbs would not support her. She looked helplessly at her friend, just as a horrible screech sounded behind her.
“You fucking ungrateful bitch, you steal my birthright from me and now give it to another coven? I don’t fucking think so, I will have what is mine, even if I have to carve it from your skin, you little whore.” Aunt Georgia looked at the provost. “And you, you conniving hag, stealing her from us — from me! You, I will kill, slowly, and Melody, you will watch!”
She raised her hands and chanted something, bolts of electricity leaping from her fingers towards them both, but they bounced off the dome. Her aunt screamed in fury, saliva frothing at the corners of her mouth while she continued to shout insults at them both.
The four teachers who were witnesses were busy fighting battles with members of Bestia, while the shifters were locked in combat with the shifters her aunt had bought with her. Melody cried out when Craig, the puma shifter, fell lifeless to the ground at the feet of Dean’s lion, who had just broken the smaller cat’s neck.
“Don’t kill them,” she screamed. “They’re under compulsion, they’ve been ordered to fight, try to knock them out!”
Whether they heard her or not, she couldn’t tell. There was so much going on, shouts from the humans, screams from the animals, and her aunt’s voice yelling frantically above it all.
“Kill them all, fucking kill them all. If we can’t have these shifters, then nobody will!”
“Melody,
