and Yul only felt a tremor of Earth Magic spiral up from the Altar Stone, not the great rush he normally experienced. There was no green fire, no power blazing from his fìnger tips and filling his soul with joy. Sylvie looked as sour as an unripe apple and refused to meet his eye at all. When the moment came to pass the energy on to his people, to share his magic with the community, he could tell from their bewildered faces that they’d felt nothing at all. He wasn’t surprised – he had nothing to give them. The queue of folk waiting to take his hands and receive their customary share of the Green Magic looked on in surprise as people in front of them left the Altar Stone muttering and complaining. Yul stood there dejectedly feeling as if the Goddess had jilted him.
Sylvie, meanwhile, was also having a bad time. She was trying very hard not to dwell on the awful night she’d spent with Yul. The only way she could deal with it was to put his brutality down to the cider; he’d never behaved like that before. Today she felt sore and soiled, like damaged goods, and it would take a long time to forgive him for that. She knew he was struggling with the ceremony but hearing him stumble over the words filled her with a certain amount of satisfaction – served him right.
She thought back to that glorious Winter Solstice sunrise thirteen years ago when she and Yul had stood together on the Altar Stone like bright angels, locked in an embrace so fierce and eternal that nothing could have broken them apart. She recalled the sizzle of green Earth Magic that had spiralled around her handsome Yul, radiating from within him so that every single person in the Stone Circle was blessed with his luminosity. And now she gazed at him with candid eyes and didn’t like what she saw. He looked terrible, pale and waxy, his eyes blood-shot and puffy. He’d made a complete mess of the beautiful ritual, reducing it to a meaningless jumble of words and phrases with no heart to it. And as for the so-called communion of energy …
Sylvie felt the restlessness within the Circle and the surprise at just how lacking in the usual magic this ceremony was proving to be. People around her were muttering and fidgeting and there was an atmosphere of real disappointment. Martin stood by the Altar Stone and had been helping with the cakes and mead, as he always did, but the look he gave Yul was one of contempt. Sylvie couldn’t really blame him because she felt the same way. How could he have let himself get so very intoxicated last night, knowing how important this ceremony was to everyone? How could he spoil the youngsters’ Rite of Adulthood like this?
Then Sylvie got the shock of her life. She stood near the Altar Stone, having her own part to play in the rituals. The youngsters were getting ready for the presentation of their robes and pendants, jostling about and lining up. Miranda was trying to ensure Yul had the pendants ready in the right order, and he was swaying and looking even paler than before. Sylvie felt a throb of anger towards him for ruining the rituals, and looked up across the Circle for a moment. She had the strangest sensation of being watched, which was ridiculous as many people were watching. But something was making her skin prickle.
There, standing right at the back of the crowd leaning against one of the stones, she thought she saw Magus. It was too far away and murky to be sure, but it looked so like him – tall and well-built with glinting silver hair. Her heart leapt in her chest and at the same time she felt panic rise in her throat. She also felt a strange, sinking feeling of inevitability as the crowd spun dizzily in front of her. Events were spiralling out of control, things were falling apart, and her love for Yul was at an all time low.
*
Leveret lay on the narrow hospital-wing bed and gazed out of the window. It was a cold, grey dawn and she imagined the rest of the community all up at the Stone Circle right now, the bonfire blazing and the drum-beats echoing in everyone’s souls. This was the first ceremony she’d ever missed in her life and it felt very strange not to