by HP Mallory
“What does that even mean?” I asked. My headache was returning and then some.
“Annice speaks the truth, Lily,” Asterion said as he nodded to my supposed aunt and she nodded right back at him. Then she turned her eyes back to me.
“I will explain in time,” she said as she folded her hands on top of the table, and she leaned closer to me. “The women of our family possess very special gifts. I hope in time you will discover what your own abilities are.”
It was then that I began to put two and two together. I turned to face Asterion. “You brought me here on purpose,” I said, realizing that Annice had been waiting for us.
“I did,” he answered.
“Why?” Tallis ground out.
“Because I asked him to,” Annice answered. Then she faced me again. “Asterion is a good man, Lily, and you can trust him. Just as you can trust me.”
“I don’t know you.”
She nodded. “Yes, and I hope to rectify that situation in time. Unfortunately, time is the exact thing of which we are running low.”
“Why did you bring us here?” I asked. “And don’t tell me it was to give me some magical item to keep me safe.” I glanced over at Asterion and frowned. He just shrugged and smiled at me like it wasn’t his fault I was sitting here.
“Actually that was one of the reasons Asterion brought you. The other was so I could meet you and you would realize you have a friend in my people and in me,” Annice said and smiled kindly and stood up, walking over to the far side of the room where there existed numerous shelves with all sorts of odds and ends covering it. There were books, jars of things, boxes and more books. She reached over to a shelf that contained a pewter box. Grabbing the box, she walked back over and set the box on the table in front of me.
I noticed Tallis was instantly riveted on the object. As he studied it, and more pointedly, the carvings on it, his lips moved as though he were reading words.
Annice opened the box and pulled out four bracelets that differed in size and design but were all made from copper. She passed the bracelets out to each of us, one by one.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Bracelets,” she answered and I frowned because that part was obvious. “Wear them at all times…”
“Why?”
“Because they will come in handy in more ways than I have time to list at the moment,” Annice answered.
“’Tis written in the language o’ me kin,” Tallis interrupted. “I recognized the runes over the door as well.”
“Yes,” Annice answered with little interest.
Tallis studied her narrowly. “How did ye come to learn such things when me people have been dead long before ye were ever born?” There was a touch of awe in his voice. And suspicion.
“I’m much older than I look.”
“Ye dinnae look a day past forty,” Tallis said.
Annice smiled and shook her head. “I used to swim with the Atlantians and hunt with the Vikings.”
“Wait,” I started as I shook my head. “You just told me you died in a car accident and last I checked, the Vikings and Atlantians didn’t have cars…”
She smiled warmly. “That was simply one of the many forms I’ve taken over the years, Lily.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My spirit is an old one, as is yours,” Annice answered and I was beginning to think each subsequent statement from her mouth was going to be more confusing than the previous one.
Annice stood up and clasped her hands in front of herself. “You should stay here tonight where it’s safe. Then you can continue your journey to the Underground City tomorrow as planned. There are hot baths, warm meals, soft beds, and a tankard of mead for those who stay.”
###
The key jingled in the lock before I pushed the door open. Fresh jasmine and chamomile wafted through the room, and I spied a large clawfoot tub in the corner of the room. I dropped my bag and approached the bath, tossing aside scraps of clothing as I went. A table with scented oils and soft soaps sat beside the tub. I chose my favorites and set them aside for future use.
I didn’t know what to think about everything that had just happened. Annice said she was my long lost aunt but could it be true? Was it possible my mother was adopted but never knew? And what was this about the women in my family having abilities? If that were true, I’d definitely been bypassed when the female Harpers were receiving magical abilities because I clearly had none.
A quiet hiss escaped my lips as my toes touched the steaming water. I slid beneath the surface slowly and closed my eyes as I wet my hair. There was a knock on the door a moment later. “Who is it?” I called.
“Me,” Tallis answered.
“Come in.” The door opened, and I nearly swallowed my tongue as he swaggered over to me, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his middle. I knew what that meant. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
The bruise on his face where Asterion had hit him was already gone and so was the swelling beneath his eye.
“I have nae intention o’ sleepin’ without ye,” he answered with a shrug. “I mean nae disrespect to yer aunt, but I cannae be in bed without ye, lass.” Tallis’s lips found mine as he knelt beside the tub. Something was worrying him, I could tell. He was too quiet. While Tallis was renowned for his stoic ways, he wasn’t the sort to bite his tongue when he had an opinion.
“What? You don’t trust her?”
“Nae, ‘tis naethin’ like that,” he sighed.
“Then you do trust her?”
He nodded. “I could feel the truth in her magic,” he answered.
“How?”
“Part o’ me Druid abilities,” he said with a shrug. “She’s as old an’ gifted as she says.”
“Wow,” I answered with a shrug.
“An’ that means… ye are gifted, as well, Besom.”
“Yet, I have no magical powers,” I said and frowned up at him. “Or did you fail to notice that?”
“Mayhap the magic skipped ye?” he asked. “Or, more likely, it has yet to appear?”
“I think it skipped me.”
“Regardless, I think your kin may be more powerful than your aunt let on, Besom. Those runes alone took much magic to create, let alone make them work.”
“The runes you said were in the old language?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “Not only that, boot I dinnae have access to me magic here at all, which means the runes are strong—strong enough to divorce me o’ me abilities.”
“But you healed yourself?” I asked.
“’Twas yer aunt who healed me,” he answered, shaking his head.
“She told you that?”
“Nae, boot I’m convinced all the same. I’ve tried me magic an’ it’s nae good.”
“She can do that?” I asked, surprised. “She’s able to take your magic from you?”
“From everyone. That’s the magic o’ the runes. I nearly suspected she were a witch, but I did nae get any read on her.”
“A read? Like looking at her aura or something?”
“Nae quite, boot close.” Tallis dipped his hands in the hot water and ran his fingers through my hair. He massaged my scalp and washed me from head to foot before carrying me over to the bed, wrapped in a towel. We laid there in the dark with nothing more than scraps of fabric between our bodies. I drew nonsensical patterns against his chest as my mind reeled.
“I have so many questions to ask her.” I curled up closer to him and nuzzled against his palm as it came to rest on the curve of my cheek. “She died the same way I did,” I started. “And she said she was sent here to do the same thing I’m supposed to do. I still don’t understand what she meant by that.”
“I imagine she will tell ye when the time is right.”
“Could it be possible she and I share the same destiny?”
He shook his head. “Nae, lass. Since the beginnin’ o’ time, there was nae a destiny that was the same as another. Ye have tae find t
he right path fer yourself.”
“And you’ll be by my side, right?”
“I would never leave ye.” Tallis pulled me in for a kiss. It was a kiss that made my hands curl around his shoulders. A quiet whimper floated through me, and I sank into the warmth of this man I loved so much. He pressed kisses along my neck and against my temples, the tip of my nose and base of my throat.
“Promise me something, Lily,” he said.
“What?”
He stared into my eyes and the expression in his was searching. “Never roon away from me again. We are in this life together, every step o’ the way.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I was just… trying to protect you. An’ I felt like… maybe I’d pulled you away from your life in the Dark Wood. I was worried you’d changed so much of your life for me and maybe you… wished you hadn’t.”
He shook his head. “I wish to change naethin’. The Dark Wood isnae me home, Lily, ye are. An’ I’m happiest with ye beside me.”
I felt tears burning my eyes. I smiled up at him as I batted them away. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“You’re forgiven, lass, boot dinnae doubt me again.”
“I won’t.”
He smiled down at me and nodded. “Sleep, Besom.”
SIX
LILY
Love makes fools of us all, and I longed for a love you would not surrender. A love I would have… if not in life, then in death.
I read the elegant handwriting of my undesired suitor. The fireplace crackled and popped as I tossed the letter into the flames.
“You should not have done that, Sorcha.”
The lifeless cadence of his voice sent a flash of fear through my veins, turning my blood into a frigid stream that chilled me to the bone.
“I do not love you,” I coughed as the room filled with thick, roiling smoke. My eyes darted over to the fireplace where I had just burned the letter, but no flames licked at the walls. No, the fire was now somewhere else in the castle, consuming it. An orange glow emitted from beneath the door. “What have you done?”
“Everything is as it should be.”
I hurried out the door, towards the corridor. I didn’t slow down but kept running, trying to put as much distance between us as I could.
Pounding footfalls gave chase through the fire. He was close. He would reach me. And then…
My lungs burned, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I gasped for air. I reached the bottom of the stairs and hurried for my bedchamber door. The first touch of my hand on the wood caused me to jerk my arm back with a curse on the tip of my tongue. My palm throbbed painfully.
“Sorcha!”
“Leave me be!”
“Never,” he rumbled low in his chest. “The bladesmith will perish by my hand.”
###
I came to, not out of a dream or a burst of knowledge brought on by my sword, but from a vision in its rawest form. I licked away the sweat from my lips and chewed the inside of my cheek as I replayed the images in my head.
Images of a fire and Sorcha.
Images of Aulus Plauntius.
This shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have been able to have a vision without touching my sword. So how was this possible? My sword was nowhere near and yet I was still seeing things, witnessing things…
Lying there in bed beside Tallis, I felt as though a barrier in my mind was slowly weakening like tiny cracks in a windshield.
Part of me wanted to tear the barrier down to see what awaited me on the other side, but the other half was terrified of who or what I could become. The person I felt just beyond that barrier wasn’t the Lily I’d been before death. It wasn’t even the Lily I’d chosen after I arrived at Afterlife Enterprises.
I wasn’t sure who or what the being was. Or what it wanted.
You know, I argued with myself. Beyond the barrier is Sorcha.
But, who is Sorcha? What is Sorcha?
The fear of losing myself had only occurred to me when I’d been possessed by Persephone and then Donnchadh. But, now I wasn’t possessed by anyone and yet, the feelings of fear were still rampaging through me, all the same.
I didn’t want to lose myself. I’d already lost myself once, when I’d died. And I didn’t want to lose that person again because… I missed that person. It didn’t seem logical that I actually missed the old Lily, the wallflower who still dreamed of being someone important.
You can’t miss her, I thought to myself. Because you are her and she is you.
And that was true. Though I no longer saw her face when I looked in the mirror, I still felt her inside me.
And if I lost that part of me, it would be like dying all over again.
But, what if you didn’t have to lose yourself? My voice barked back at me. What if you’re in the process of discovering the real you, the entire you? And the old you is simply one aspect of the true Lily Harper?
###
There was no light beyond the windows, just an endless dark sky without a moon or stars in sight. The windows were sealed by some sort of magic, and I started feeling rather claustrophobic, so I got up and left Tallis to his sleep as I wandered out into the corridor. I pulled my robe tighter and strolled down the hall towards the gallery that overlooked the open floorplan of the pub below. Creatures of all sorts milled through the room with tankards of ale or mead. Nymphs and demonesses perched on the laps of mercenaries and refugees as they scented the air with their sickly-sweet pheromones.
I leaned over the railing and smiled as I glanced down and played with the copper bracelet Annice had given me. I could only wonder why she’d given one to each of us and what powers, if any, the metal cuff possessed. I glanced back over the railing, at the festivities going on below me and I was happy to be here. Though I was still confused about Annice, it was nice to know I might have kin in this bizarre place. Actually, that thought was really nice.
So maybe you should believe her, Lily, I told myself. Asterion believes her and so does Tallis. And both men were about as reliable and responsible as it was possible to be.
A bard sang a jaunty tune as he danced around the tables. Some of the patrons tossed him a coin or a sultry wink. Applause echoed through the room and drifted up towards my ears. A man came down the hallway and stopped to stand beside me. I didn’t turn to look at him because I didn’t want to invite his company. But, from my peripheral vision, I saw a curtain of long, black hair.
“Quite the excited crowd, isn’t it?” he asked.
I turned to observe him then. Silken waves cascaded down his shoulders. The man was a mountain of muscle and he was enormous—even standing taller than Tallis, which was a feat in and of itself. A swatch of sun-kissed skin peeked out from the top of his shirt where his buttons were undone. His features were sharp, with high cheekbones and an angular jaw that looked like it could cut glass. Dark, wide set eyes with faint flecks of amber sparkled in the light of the chandelier. My pulse quickened as a roguish grin slid across the man’s extremely handsome face.
“You could say that,” I answered, then decided there was no point in getting into polite conversation when I wasn’t going to offer him what he wanted.
“What’s your name?”
“I have a boyfriend,” I said.
He chuckled and shook his head as he then turned to look at me. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
I frowned. “Am I supposed to?”
He moved a little closer and dropped his voice. I cleared my throat and noticed with interest that I didn’t back away. It was his smell, I decided then. I somehow… recognized it.
“I’d hoped you would have recognized me.”
And that was when I realized I knew his voice. When I looked at him, it dawned on me that the color of his eyes hadn’t changed. “Asterion?” I gasped. “But, how are you…”
Asterion tossed his head back and laughed heartily. “I told you I’m able to return to my human form when I eat meat.”
And that was when I r
ealized the meal we’d just consumed was exactly that—steak.
“Oh my God,” I said as I shook my head and stared at him. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything.”
I continued to stare at him. “Um, hi.”
He chuckled and the look in his eyes was complex—deep, heated. “Do you like what you see?”
My heart started to race. “You’re very… you’re very handsome.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I like what I see,” I said quickly and then looked away.
“You know, sometimes whatever this… is between us,” he started as I made the mistake of facing him again. “It gets to the point where I feel like it’s going to tear me apart if I don’t act on it.”
“You can’t act on it,” I whispered.
“I know,” he responded.
“Talk to me about something else,” I demanded.
“What else?”
“Anything,” I insisted, staring out at the patrons below because I couldn’t look in his eyes. “Tell me about what it’s like when you transformed back into a human.”
“The transformation is painless,” Asterion said, giving me the opportunity to start getting used to his new and, ahem, extremely attractive human form. “But I find it best to do so in private rather than making a spectacle of myself in public.”
I couldn’t restrain myself as I reached out and touched a strand of his hair. It was as soft as it looked, shining in the dim lights of the pub. Asterion closed his eyes, and electricity passed through our bodies, causing me to flinch. I pulled back and dropped the lock of his hair.
“What was that?” I asked on an exhale.
“I wish I knew,” he answered as he shook his head.
“What is this between us?” I continued, trying to make sense of the fact that there was definitely something going on—there always had been. “Why do we feel connected like this?”
“Your heart belongs to Tallis, and that’s all that matters.” Asterion stood up straight and turned to face me squarely. Then he brushed a lock of hair from my face and took a step closer, creating an intimate pocket of reality between us. “Whatever this is... it can’t mean anything.”
