SWDnovel Chapter 208: Her First Ritual
Chapter 208: Her First Ritual
Chapter 208: Her First RitualOlivia swallowed. she did not even want to ask why a big man like him wanted to be protected!
Rhistel’s eyes held her for a long moment, and then, as if a switch had been flipped, the glint of sincerity in them vanished. He tilted his head and stepped back from the shelves.
"But enough about Oriana," he said, almost too casually. "We were speaking of you."
Olivia’s shoulders tensed. She wasn’t ready, and yet—she was. Her heart had decided long before her mind caught up.
Rhistel’s voice dropped, no longer playful, but heavy with meaning. "Are you prepared to take responsibility for what you are, Olivia?"
Her breath hitched. The air around them had grown colder, or maybe it was her blood that had chilled. But still, she nodded. "Yes," she said softly. "I think I am."
He watched her quietly,
She opened her eyes wide and her lips parted with a gasp when she heard a strong thud. The book had fallen on the table near her.
"Here, now you have everything you need." he clapped, "do you want me to stay or leave?"
She could feel Rhistel’s gaze on her, but he said nothing. She flipped the book open.
The pages fluttered on their own for a moment, flipping with the windless rustle of fate itself, before settling near the beginning. The script was old but clear, shifting slightly as if responding to her presence. The ink glowed faintly as her fingers brushed the margins.
She flipped the pages slowly. It had all kinds of spells and rituals from tracking spells used to find someone to erasing memory spells where she could make others forget about her existence. Her eyes stopped on a page where it taught her how to turn humans into frogs. It made her chuckle as she remembered the old joke about witches.
There were various healing spells and her eyes stopped on one. The one that lets you see old memories of any person alive just by touching them and performing a simple ritual.
"Memory Scrying: To Recall That Which Sleeps"
Her breath caught.
The instructions were deceptively simple. A basin of water. A sprig of ashroot. A drop of blood. A spoken phrase.
"Can I use it on myself?" she asked in a whisper almost to herself.
"You can try and see!" Yet, Rhistel offered a reply softly.
Rhistel, somehow, was already moving. He retrieved a small brass basin, setting it on a flat stone stand beside her. From a drawer in the cabinet came the ashroot—withered, thin, but still pungent—and he dropped it gently into the basin.
A knife followed, placed beside her without a word.
"You don’t need much," he said, voice quiet. "Just enough to open the veil. It won’t hurt... much."
She gave him a look but said nothing. With a steady hand, she pricked her finger and let the blood drip into the water. It spread through the surface in delicate tendrils, blooming like crimson smoke.
Her mouth moved almost on its own, the words on the page slipping past her lips:
"By root, by blood, by thread unseen,
Show me what lies where I have been.
Unlock the dreams, the quiet cries,
That sleep beneath my childhood skies."
The water shivered. The root dissolved into black mist, and her reflection flickered, warped, then disappeared entirely.
The basin began to glow faintly. She leaned closer to see properly.
At first, there was only darkness. Then it started to form shapes. A flicker of a field where a child was running barefoot. A voice calling her name from behind "Olivia!"
Her younger self turned. Her hair was longer, tangled, her cheeks red with laughter. There was another girl behind her, a little older.
"Mother is looking for you. She said the healer would heal you. Do you not want to get rid of those dreams?"