Because of the papers from Matteo, Gerard had missed the exchanges between the cousins. He wondered if Nora had given Elea the forgiveness that she so desperately wanted. Forgiveness he himself had been unable to give. He folded the two papers up and placed them back into the pigskin envelope. He wanted to protect them. He had no idea what to expect from the trigon or from the cairns.
Elea shook her head. She was still standing close to her cousin. “I haven’t made it yet. I’m not sure that I remember the pattern exactly.”
Nora pulled a sword from her scabbard and began carving a large and intricate triangular symbol into the mud. Gerard had assumed that the Holy Trigon would be something more spectacular. Within the triangle, at each point, there was a circle. But it was only a symbol in the dirt.
“My soul has already been rendered into thirds,” Nora said, replacing her sword in her scabbard and pulling a dagger from her boot. “The holy number. I cannot break it again without dying. You two will have to share your souls with each other.”
Gerard looked at Elea, whose face was suffused in a blush. Had she known? Had Aris? He would never be rid of Elea now. Even if he wanted to be.
“I no longer carry your soul,” Elea whispered.
Nora shrugged her shoulders and pointed the weapon at her. “I know, but I still carry yours. It’s what kept me tethered to my dead body until you returned the piece of my soul. And once your soul carries his, we will both be connected to you. As queen, you are the highest point of the trigon. The most important.”
Elea gave him a beseeching look. “Please. I know that I have no right to ask such a thing of you, but it’s for the sake of the prophecy.”
Swallowing heavily, Gerard nodded. “What do I do?”
Nora gave the dagger in her hand to Elea and then focused her intense stare on him. “Do you have a dagger?”
“No.”
She pulled a second dagger out of her other boot and handed it to him. Gerard couldn’t help but wonder how many weapons Nora carried. She was a dangerous woman.
“You will each stand in a corner of the Holy Trigon and then you and Elea will cut your palms through your lifelines and say the celestial word at the same time: bhòid.Then you will feel your soul split and the entrance of the other’s soul into your body.”
Gerard felt a little sheepish, but he couldn’t help but ask. “Does it hurt?”
Nora gave a short laugh. “Like you’re falling through each one of the seven purgatories.”
“Worse,” Matteo said, making a face.
“Let’s get this done,” Elea said, and walked to the top of the trigon and stood in the etched-out circle.
The hairs on his arms stood up as he stepped into the carved trigon. He felt as if he had the eyes of a million people on his back. Placing his feet into the circle, he held up both of his hands. This muddy symbol felt more holy than any church he’d ever entered. His eyes found Elea’s emerald ones. She also held up the dagger against her unmarked left palm. With a nod from her, Gerard cut a line through his three lifelines on his right palm. He saw blood dripping from her hand.
Waiting for her once again, he opened his mouth and they both said, “Bhòid.”
Pain erupted at the base of his skull and radiated through his entire body to his fingertips and toenails. It was so exquisite that he fell to his knees and grabbed his head. It was as if he was being unmade from the inside. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. But he could feel the agony of a thousand daggers stabbing his entire body. And then he heard a loud crack in his heart and his soul broke in half. An ethereal shape left his body, and he watched it enter Elea’s.
A moment later, he felt a wave of coldness over his entire body, as if he’d jumped into a deep pool of water. The sensation spread all over his body and began to tingle until it became warm and then burning with heat. He felt his soul join with Elea’s, welding together to make them one.
He experienced Elea’s sorrow. Grief. Guilt. Shame. Feelings of failure as if they were his own. He felt the weight of expectation that she carried. An invisible crown. But what surprised him the most was that he could feel her love for her country, her family, and her growing admiration forhim. It was blinding in its brilliance, the purest of light.
Gerard opened his eyes and watched Elea. She was also on all fours, on the ground, but her head looked up at him. A tear ran down her cheek and he knew that it wasn’t from the pain of her soul breaking. It was for him. She had felt all of the wounds in his own soul. The rejection of his mother, his father, his half brother, and lastly, the woman he’d thought he’d loved.
Her.
It wasn’t love. He knew that now. He had barely known her. The feelings he’d felt were a combination of attraction and obsession, fueled by his visions of her. And now, all he felt for her was a grudging respect.
Nora stepped into the last circle of the trigon and Gerard felt how the three of them were connected together. Their gifts were made to help each other. All three of them were equal in the Holy Trigon.
The warrior princess held up her right hand. “For our Màthair.”
Gerard and Elea echoed her words; and a voice inside his head told him that it was done. They were now one.
Elea struggled to her feet, the blood from her hand staining the sleeve of her gown. Matteo held out a handkerchief to her.
“No,” Nora said, waving him off. “She can’t wrap it up yet. Blood has power for our people. She will need it for the sacrifice.”