Destiny Gift (The Everlast Trilogy) - By Juliana Haygert Page 0,79
Beside me was Ceris—disguised as Cheryl.
Looking deeply into his eyes, she said, “One of the gateways to the Clarity Castle is Cathedral Rock in Arizona, a place of pure power. A couple will come to ask about it, and you will help them get there. You will do whatever you have to. You will sacrifice anything, even your life to aid them. After helping them, you will forget about the gateways. Do you understand?”
Looking like a zombie, Morgan nodded.
Shadows rose from the ground and revolved around me, taking me to yet another place.
The goddess and I stood beside an incredibly blue lake inside a rocky cave. The ceiling was low and full of sharp points, though the overall extent of the cave seemed large. I couldn’t see an exit and that made me nervous. The smell of wet moss was strong, but it died out as soon as Ceris ignited a log, creating a bonfire beside the lake’s bed.
That was when a whimper made me turn. I saw a young girl seated against the cave’s wall. Her mouth was gagged, and her wrists and ankles were tied by a shiny pink thread.
The girl was terrified. Every time Ceris moved, she recoiled and whimpered.
Ceris approached her and whispered, “I’m so sorry.” She put her hand over the girl’s chest. For a few seconds, the girl squirmed with wide eyes, trying to get out of Ceris’s reach, but soon she stopped and seemed petrified.
Ceris’s hand glowed. Slowly, the girl’s chest opened.
Bile filled my throat and I gagged. My knees buckled and I sagged against the wall, wanting this vision to end.
But it wouldn’t end. The girl’s chest opened fully and her heart appeared from inside the gap. The bloody mass floated forward, guided by Ceris’s power. The heart kept coming until it rested over Ceris’s palm. The girl’s lifeless body slid sideways.
Ceris took the girl’s heart to a steel plate that hovered over the pink fire. Then, she repeated the procedure over the girl’s arm, grabbing one of the bones of the lower part. She placed the bone with the heart over the plate. Ceris focused on the heart and bone, and in her eyes was a heinous shine. What was happening to her?
Oh God, I wasn’t witnessing this. No, no, it could not be true. Wasn’t Ceris the goddess of love and family? Where was her heart now?
Ceris grabbed the bone and pushed it through the heart until it looked like a nasty and gruesome chicken leg—the bone inside the meat. She deposited it over the plate, and then using magic, she guided the plate over the lake. With a wave of her hands, the plate sank into the lake, taking the bone and the heart with it.
An intense dark light shone from where the plate had disappeared, blinding me for a second. Ceris chanted some incomprehensible words, holding her scepter tight.
It didn’t take long for something to rise from the water: a Black Thorn.
Smoke ascended from the shadows of the cave and covered me. I screamed as a piercing headache shredded the inside of my skull. It felt as if my brain were being stabbed by thousands of needles. Through the black wall, some spots of light surfaced and grew, clearing my sight and bringing me back to Grandmother Rock.
I was kneeling inside my sign circle atop the rock. The wind whipped up and a cold fog brushed against my skin.
Ceris had her hands over my forehead. I kept screaming at the pain; it was as if she were extracting my soul with her long nails. I felt it from my toes, my knees, my thighs, my abdomen. I put my hand over my chest when it passed over me there, as if I could hold it in. My eyes wide open, I observed the goddess drink from me. Then the pain passed through my throat and my forehead, finally leaving me as it was absorbed by Ceris’s skin. I fell.
I gasped as the pain went away. I gaped at Ceris’s elegant retreating form, wondering why I wasn’t dead. I thought she had been sucking my soul and killing me.
“There.” She halted in the center of the circle drawn on the ground. Her white gown ruffled in the wind. “I gave you the gift. I also took it away.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Wait a minute. Back up. I wasn’t ready for this. In fact, I couldn’t even stand up. My body shook so hard, beating and hurting against the cold rock of