Da met my gaze across the battle. He knew the answer, I was certain of it.
I blinked to Da, and recoiled at the gore soaking his clothes and the ground around his feet. He’d split Fionnlagh’s corpse from neck to groin and splayed him open, baring organs and bone to the chill air.
“When did you begin desecrating the dead?” I demanded.
“I am not desecrating anything,” Da snapped. “I thought Fionnlagh might have hid the key to his power inside his body.”
I looked down at the bloody, butchered mess that had been the Seelie King. “Is that why you tried to pummel your way down to him in the ice, to look for an object he might not even have? Why not just ask someone for help instead of sneaking about?”
“I did ask for help,” Da said. “I went to Beira, and she refused.”
“Mum refused you, so you went to Crom?” A disciple’s stone arms shattered near our feet, the arrow-like shrapnel narrowly missing Da and me. I grabbed Da’s arm and pulled him farther away from the fighting. “Did it ever occur to you that Mum’s no longer as strong as she once was? She likely cannot assist you the way you needed her to.”
“Beira’s not lost one iota of strength,” Da said. “She may have you and that Udane fooled, but she has never fooled me.” Da pulled me closer, his black eyes boring into mine. “Never, not for one blessed moment.”
Mum is still powerful? I thought about all the things she could still do, and all of the magic I’d seen her work with my own two eyes. There was also all the magic she’d worked without me being present, such as repairing not only the entirety of the Winter Palace on her own, but rebuilding the enchanted paths that led from the palace into Elphame and the mortal realm.
“If she’s so powerful why am I the Queen of Winter?” I demanded. Another rocky piece of disciple shattered next to us. As much as I needed these answers, they could wait. “Never mind her. You think you found where Fionnlagh obtained his power?”
“Remember when I took you to Iona?” he asked, and I nodded. “When the world began, it started out as a single stone. Eventually an ash tree grew upon the stone, and that was the beginning. The stone and tree both still exist, and it’s said that they remain on Iona.”
I glanced toward the battle. Lucius was rallying his men yet again, and the giants were battered and bloody. We needed to end this altercation before more ended up like Fionnlagh. “Go on,” I urged.
“After I rightly trounced Udane, his family scattered to the four winds,” Da continued. “His only living brother, Fionn, retreated to Iona. Less that a turn of the seasons passed before Fionnlagh emerged, fair to glowing with the power he’d obtained.” Da leaned closer, and said, “No one understood how he’d transformed himself from a powerless sot to a mighty warrior in so short a time, but I did. I remembered. I believe when Fionn was on Iona he found either the stone, or maybe a bit of the sacred ash tree, and swallowed it so no one else could duplicate his efforts. There’s no other way to explain how he became so strong in such a short time.”
“And how is Crom involved?”
“I heard Crom whisper in the earth, wondering where in the nine realms the Seelie might had originated. I whispered back that the power is in the dahm coroin, and Crom agreed to help me claim the Seelie lands in exchange for the crown. I once thought Fionnlagh had put a portion of the stone or tree in the crown, but it seems I was wrong. Not the first time that happened.” Da regarded Fionnlagh’s mutilated body and frowned. “It wasn’t inside him, either. I’ve no idea where he stashed it.”
I drew back. “It won’t be long before Crom knows the truth. He’ll kill you for this!”
Da shrugged. “Many have tried to end me, and they all failed. Crom’s welcome to have a go.” Da looked down at the body, and tried to shake the blood from his hands. “There’s neither stone nor tree in this fool’s corpse. Let’s handle Crom and get our people out of here.”
I nodded, not in the least bit comfortable with Da’s frank assessment of things, but understanding that we must deal with one catastrophe at a time. However, now that Fionnlagh was well and truly gone the Seelie Court was more vulnerable than it had ever been.
“After Crom, what of the Seelie?” I asked. “You can’t mean to reinstall Nicnevin.”
“All the realms are better off without that scheming viper in play,” Da replied. “You could lead the court.”
“Me? But I’m winter!”
Da faced me, and in the depth of his dark eyes I saw the sweet man he’d been, the caring father who would move mountains just to make me smile. He’d done so many, many times. “Is that all you are?”
A massive piece of the courtyard’s wall crashed in front of us. Da pushed me behind him, and turned toward the beast who had thrown it. Crom.
“You do not harm my lass,” Da bellowed, then he launched himself at Crom. The monster drew upon the earth he stood on and increased his size, but Da was a giant. When he wished it he was taller than the highest mountains on earth or Elphame. Crom could have grown until his head brushed the stars, and Da would have matched him inch for inch, and blow for blow.
Only, Da didn’t do that. He remained man sized and attached himself to Crom’s shoulder, then started tearing Crom apart with his bare hands. Chunks of the beast—stone and mud and stinking, green-tinged flesh—fell haphazardly around us, striking friend and foe equally.
I surveyed the battle. Christopher led the Ninth Legion at Lucius’s side, his standard aloft and proud. They harried and harassed the disciples, while my brothers and Meg beat as many of the stone men down to pebbles as they could get their hands on.
“Angus,” I shouted. My eldest, sneakiest brother was at my side in an instant. “Get them to lay off the disciples. It’s Crom we need to rout.”
“We can’t rout him,” Angus said. “Crom’s a true earth god. His power comes from the dirt we’re standing on.”
Frost grew in my hands. “Then I will separate him from the dirt.”
I threw the frost at Crom’s feet. A layer of ice built up between him and the ground, limiting his ability to regenerate. I hoped.
“Get Maelgwyn,” I said. “And a few of our brothers.”
“On it,” Angus said. The Unseelie King was the first to arrive.
“Separating Crom from his power source,” Maelgwyn observed. “My daughter is brilliant.”
“We need to get Da off his back, literally,” I added, since Da was still ripping Crom apart, one handful at a time, “and send Crom back to the crypt where we found him.”
“He will likely regenerate there.”
“Yes, but he will be there and not here. Hopefully it will take him a while to recover, and by the time he reemerges we’ll better understand how to resist him.”
Maelgwyn nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“When Da breaks contact with Crom we will send him back to his lair.”
Angus arrived with three of our brothers. “You lot, crawl up Crom’s back and knock Da loose,” I said. “When Da complains tell him I said it’s for his own good.”
My brothers attacked Crom like a gang of thugs, going in for cheap shots and sucker punches and scurrying off before the much-larger beast could retaliate. They weren’t able to crawl up his body as I’d ordered, but while they harried our foe I grew the layer of ice beneath his feet, thickening it layer by layer until Crom had no way to pull strength from Elphame’s soil.
“He’s shrinking,” Maelgwyn said, then he yelled, “Bod, let go!”
For the first and possibly only time in his life, Da did as he was told. As soon as he hit the ground Maelgwyn and I linked hands, created a portal, and pushed Crom out of Elphame and back to that dark cave beneath the holy well and its graveyard. I hoped he would stay down there for a long, long time.
“That’s my lass,” Da bellowed. “A finer Queen of Winter there never was! Don’t tell your mother,” he added.
“I won’t,” I promised. “Get over here, you big lug!”
&
nbsp; Da’s face split into a grin, and I felt at ease for the first time in days. We’d overcome the beast, and all was well. Da took a step toward us, slipped on the ice and landed on his backside.
“Did you have to make the ice so slippery?” he demanded, laughing. Before I could respond the ground opened up behind the layer of ice and Crom’s head, now big as a hillock, emerged.
In one bite, Crom swallowed Da whole, then the ground swallowed them both.
“Da!”
I ran to where he’d last been, slipping on my own ice and falling hard. I shoved my hands into the mud where Crom had dragged away my Da. “Da!”
“Blink to him,” Angus said, dropping to his knees beside me.
Maelgwyn grabbed my hands. “We go now!”
“The cave,” I said, and we blinked.
A moment later we were back.
“It’s warded against us,” Maelgwyn said.
“Wards have never stopped you,” Angus said. “You can blink to anyone living, anywhere!”
I thought of Da, held the image of him, the feeling of him, in the forefront of my mind.
I closed my eyes.
I opened them. I hadn’t moved.
“Anya,” Angus shrieked. “Go get him!”
“I... can’t.”
Angus’s face fell, then his whole body collapsed against the mud. Christopher ran to me; he was streaked in mud and ash, but appeared unhurt.
“Anya, what happened?” He dropped the aquila and held my face with his hands. “The disciples disappeared right after Crom.” He glanced around. “Did we win?”
“Crom... Crom took Da,” I replied. “I can’t blink to him.”
“What does that mean?” Christopher asked.
“It means he’s not alive,” Maelgwyn said as he set his hand on my shoulder. “Anya, I am so sorry.”
My Da was gone.
I clenched my fist, frost spiraling outward.
Crom would pay for this.
Chapter Thirty
Chris
WE TRIED EVERYTHING we knew, but no one could locate the Bodach, or Crom Cruach. We feared the former was dead. As for the latter, none of us were foolish enough to hope he was gone. Since Crom was a true chthonic deity, I wondered if he could die, or if he was one of the few truly immortal beings.
Anya, Maelgwyn, and Rina had all tried to portal to Bod, and none of them had been successful. Even Beira had tried her hand at locating them, though instead of teleporting she’d sat crouched over the solarium’s globe for hours, gesturing wildly and muttering incantations. I didn’t know if she was searching for Bod or Crom, and didn’t ask.
Two days after Bod’s disappearance I ended up in Glasgow, while Anya remained in the Winter Palace. We’d decided that the best course of action was to divide and conquer, so while she continued to search Elphame I told Rina and Rob the awful truth: we needed Nicnevin to reclaim the Seelie throne and rebuild the court, the sooner the better.
“What it all comes down to is that Bod thought Fionnlagh had some sort of object that gave him his strength,” I explained. “He told Anya a story about a stone and a tree on Iona.”
Rob grunted. “He was referrin’ to the sacred ash?”
I spread my palms. “Maybe. Do you know where that is?”
“Is it Yggsdrasil?” Rina asked. When Rob and I both stared at her, she continued, “You know, the world tree? The one Chris and I visited?”
“I guess it could be,” I muttered. Trust Rina to see the obvious while we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. “Regardless—”
“That’s what he always says when I’m right and he’s irritated,” Rina interjected.
“If Crom found whatever Fionnlagh supposedly had, the incredibly powerful bad deity could become even more powerful,” I finished. “And possibly more bad.”
Rina rolled her eyes. “Nice grammar, Mr. Professor.”
Rob grunted again. “Ye say Nicnevin is holed up in our home, relaxin’ in our bed?”
“Last we knew, yes.”
“Verra well.” He stood and summoned his sword. “I shall do me best to persuade her, and after she is out o’ the cottage I will burn that cursed place to the ground.”
“Probably for the best,” I said. Gifts from the Seelie always bit you in the ass, sooner or later. Since the cottage was a gift from Fionnlagh himself it probably had an extra layer of evil built into it.
“Are we quite certain the king is dead?” Rob asked.
“I watched as Crom manually decapitated Fionnlagh.”
“Still. Can no’ be too sure with that one.” Rob extended his hand to Rina. “Are ye coming with me, love?”
“I feel a lot better,” she replied, referring to her recent sickness. “Might as well go talk to Nicnevin and feel like crap again. Chris, can you stay and watch Faith?”
“Avoid confronting Nicnevin while hanging out with my favorite girl? Sounds like heaven. Be careful.”
“We will.” Rina took Rob’s hand, and they portaled out.
I flopped back onto the couch. Since Faith was sleeping and Colleen was out the flat was quiet, which was good. I didn’t know if I could handle any extra noise. The thoughts rushing through my head were more than enough.
Across the room, something sparkled. I got up to investigate, and learned that the shining object was the bottle of well water the Norns had given to Rina. The light had caught the stones that were affixed to the bottle’s neck just right, and had turned it into a mini light show.
I held the bottle in my hand, testing its weight. It seemed like Rina and I had gone to the Norns for help such a long time ago, even though it hadn’t been more than a few days. I remembered the central Norn explaining which stones corresponded to the past, present, and future, and how to invoke a vision from each.
Visions brought on by enchanted water were about the only way we hadn’t tried to locate Bod.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Oh, because I’d never before been tasked with locating a missing giant, or had a bottle of enchanted well water on my hands. Growing up in New Jersey hadn’t prepared me in the slightest for where my life had taken me.
I grabbed my phone to call Rina and ask her to send me to the Winter Palace so I could get my own bottle of magic water... and didn’t call. Not only was I supposed to be watching Faith, I was already holding a bottle of the same well water in my hand.
I decided to take a sip. I didn’t think I would drink it all, and even if I did I had a backup supply at home. If I did consume all of Rina’s water I would just give her the other bottle.
So. Past or future? Since we needed to know what Crom had done with Bod, I pressed my thumb over the blue stone, closed my eyes, and drank.
Colors swirled in my mind’s eye, then the coalesced into a room. A room I had been in before, I was sure of it. A few more details settled into place, and I realized where I was: the room I had grown up in. I checked the calendar on the wall, and realized this moment was from almost thirty years ago, long before Rina had been born. I heard shouting coming from the first floor, and went to investigate.
I followed the voices toward Mom’s studio. At some point I realized the voices belonged to my parents, which was weird. I couldn’t remember either one of them ever raising their voice, and I’d never once seen them argue, much less shout at each other. I made it to the studio’s doorway, and froze.
Mom was sitting on the floor, hunched over and bawling her eyes out. Dad was pacing on the far side of the room, clearly agitated. He spun around on Mom and she shrank back, raising her arms to protect her head.
Had he hit her?
I ran to Mom, but in the vision I was little more than a toddler and no defense against a grown man. Mom saw me and snatched me into her arms, holding me so tightly I could hardly breathe.
“I won’t let it happen to you,” she said, rocking back and forth as her tears wet my cheeks, my hair. “I won’t let her kill you.”
I snapped back into my
present self, shaking and confused. I glared at the bottle in my hand, and wondered how accurate these visions were. I had no memory of my father raising a hand toward Mom or anyone, but why had she been so upset? Why had she recoiled at his approach? What the hell had gone on in my house back then?
As much as I liked to remember my parents, and especially my father, in the best light possible, there was no way I could have known everything that went on when I was so young. I also remembered Mom’s frequent panic attacks, and wondered if that was why I’d stumbled in on. Now I knew her panic attacks were part of her foresight, and that she’d seen a future where a woman kills me.
That must have been the moment I walked in on. But, why that moment? How was anyone helped by me seeing that? One thing was certain, that vision wouldn’t help anyone now. Perhaps I should try the water again, but not to see the past.
Seeing the past had only led to more confusion. Let’s find out what the future holds.
I pressed my thumb over the purple stone, uncorked the bottle again, and took a sip. While I’d immediately been thrown into visons of the past, this time nothing happened. Wondering if I needed to wait for a time in between sips of the water, I set the bottle back in its spot on the bookcase, and reclaimed my place on the couch. I’d no sooner settled onto the cushions when the vision took hold of me.
A woman was standing with her back to me. She had long brown hair, which meant it wasn’t Mom or Anya. I felt future me pleading with the woman, and her reticence to do what I was asking. Without turning she extended her arm toward me, and I fell through a portal. No, not a portal; unlike a portal the darkness thickened around me until I couldn’t hear or feel anything else, and I could barely see At the last moment, the woman turned and I saw her face.
Rina.
I finally understood Mom’s prophecy. My sister is the one that kills me.
My sister sends me to the underworld, and I beg her to do it.
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