There was still too much power here. If the other women had joined her in the dance, they would have absorbed some of it, renewing their own strength in the process. They still needed to do that. There were enough of them that, once they’d taken in the power they could, the rest could be shaped into something harmless or gently grounded through the branches of the Great Mother. But how to tell them that?

She couldn’t. She doubted they would listen to her. So how to do what needed to be done?

She looked at the glowing ball of moonlight in her hand, then tossed it skyward as high as she could, sending a small breath of the branch of air with it. The ball burst over their heads, arcing in all directions, coming down on the women who made the circle.

She watched the glow of their power brighten. When their gift had been renewed, the power flowed harmlessly into the earth, filling the whole clearing with gentle light.

Tired now, she took a careful step back, breaking her connection to the spiral. Her limbs trembled with the need to ground the power she’d raised from the branches of the Great Mother, but she would need a few minutes of quiet and focus to do that safely, so it would have to wait a little longer. But not too much longer. Her emotions were raw. The joy she’d felt in the dance had constantly been pricked at the edges by the Fae’s resistance to what she had done here, forming little jagged slices of anger inside her that she needed to smooth out.

That, too, had to be done soon because as conflicting emotions washed through her, she saw the power in all of those women flicker. It didn’t matter how the Fae usually decided who ascended to control a gift. The power itself had issued the challenge—and she had met it. She controlled the gift now. Their lives were in her hands.

Mother’s mercy, if I lose control now…Please, Mother, please let me get out of this circle and find someplace quiet for a few minutes.

She looked at the woman on the edge of the circle, who was now smiling at her shyly, hesitantly, as if waiting for some signal. But she didn’t know the signal, didn’t know—

“Who are you?” a harsh voice, bordering on hysteria, demanded.

The woman who had been inside the circle with her strode forward a few steps.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded again.

“I am Selena. And now I am the Lady of the Moon.”

The woman stared at her, wide-eyed, as if she had just been slapped. Then her eyes narrowed, and an ugly anger filled her face. “What are you?”

The sneering anger in the woman’s voice made those jagged slices of anger inside her rip a little more.