by P. C. Cast
With the first scream the pain hit her, driving her to her knees.
Aine didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. She woke up in the gloaming of predawn with a single thought: find Tegan.
Her body felt heavy and off balance as she stumbled, drawn forward by a relentless invisible thread.
When she found him it was too terrible for her mind to fully comprehend. She could only stand there, immobilized by despair and loss.
They’d cut his wings from his body. That sound she’d heard had been metal slicing through the flesh of his soul.
Then Tegan moaned and the Healer in her took over. She ignored everything: the raging pain that seared through her body in tandem with his and his pleading to let him die. Aine worked methodically. She pulled him into the shadows. Calling on strength she didn’t know she had, the Healer half-dragged, half-carried Tegan to his cave. Then she went to work with his sword, trimming the ragged edges of his eviscerated wings. She used the same sword to sear the flesh that wouldn’t stop bleeding. Finally, she filled Epona’s funeral urn and bathed his body, mixing cool mountain water with her tears.
His eyes opened when it was all over. “You should have let me die.”
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“He took my soul.”
“No, love, he couldn’t. Your soul is safe with me.”
Tegan closed his eyes against the tears that streamed down his pale cheeks.
Aine did the only thing left to her. She prayed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aine used Epona’s urn to pour a libation circle around her. Then she knelt in the middle of the cave under the round opening that showed a night sky filled with the brilliance of a full moon. The Healer spread her arms wide and lifted her face to the heavens.
“Gracious Goddess Epona, please hear me. I have nowhere left to go. No one else to turn to. Forgive me. I killed those women. I love a Fomorian and I’m too weak to leave him, even after I’ve seen what he could become. Goddess, I’ve felt you throughout my life, even before I heard your voice. I used to believe I only knew your presence when I healed someone, but I’ve come to understand that you were always closest to me when I failed. I don’t deserve your love or your help, but I’m asking for both. And I’m asking for Tegan, too.”
The sky above Aine shifted. The stars that littered the night began to whirl wildly, funneling into a shimmering cone that rained light through the roof of the cave. Aine heard Tegan’s gasp of shock as the figure of a woman materialized in the air above them.
Aine’s eyes stung with the effort it took to gaze upon the Goddess. With a gentle smile, Epona passed a hand before her visage, and her divinity dimmed and became bearable. Aine felt the raging pain as Tegan struggled to lift himself so that he could bow before Epona. She started to move to help him, but the Goddess was there before her.
Epona knelt. She took Tegan’s face between her hands and kissed him gently on the forehead. The phantom pain in Aine’s back instantly cooled.
“My Goddess!” Tegan cried. His body was trembling, but his eyes were no longer haunted with pain and grief. “Forgive me for not being stronger.”
“Tegan, my son, your strength is a deep, quiet well that rests within you. It nourishes without drowning your judgment. And when it’s needed, you pour and pour from it. I am well pleased by you.”
Then Epona turned to Aine. The healer began to kneel, but the Goddess’s hand on her arm stayed her.
“Not long ago I gave you a choice, my daughter,” the Goddess said. “As with the mate of your soul, I am well pleased by you.”
“I killed those women.” Aine’s voice was choked.
“You did. Again, you had a difficult decision to make and you followed your heart. Would it help you to know that the people of Guardian Castle made their own decisions, and because they invited darkness into their midst they have been corrupted by evil? For many years to come they will pay the consequences of their choices. The ones whose spirits you set free are lucky. Their death was painless. Others will not be.”
“So you forgive me for it?”
“You had my forgiveness before you asked it.” The Goddess smiled. “Your life has been short, but you have a strong spirit and you are ready for the journey ahead of you. So Aine, Healer and daughter, I give you one last choice.”
Epona took Aine’s hand and led her over to where Tegan sat looking strong and whole again, though he no longer had his beautiful expanse of wings. The Goddess joined their hands before she continued.
“I give you the choice of your destiny. You may warn Partholon of the coming Fomorians or you may escape from this world into one where technology rules and the beings here are merely stories of myth and magic. If you stay in Partholon you will not be safe and your love will not be accepted. If you escape to the world of technology, you will begin new lives and grow old together. Know before you choose that I will bless your decision either way. I give all of my people free will—even my champions.”
Aine met Tegan’s eyes. She didn’t need to ask him. Their bond told her that his choice was the same as hers. She didn’t blame him for it. It was who he was in the deepest well of his soul. She should know—she held that soul safe for him.
Aine looked into her Goddess’s eyes. “We choose Partholon.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Epona’s smile was blinding in its brilliance. “Well done daughter! You have passed my final test. You’ve chosen the difficult task, to save my people. And because of your courage, you will actually have both worlds—and by living in the one, you can know that in time you will save the other. And you will need this. It is your destiny to keep it safe until the day Partholon has need of it.” The Goddess made a graceful gesture with her hand and the funeral urn floated to Aine. Startled, the Healer reached for it, but it slipped through her hands to clang against the floor of the cave.
Chagrined, Aine hastily picked it up, horrified to see that a hairline crack had appeared in its base.
“Forgive me Goddess!” Aine cried.
Epona laughed joyously. “Little Healer, you couldn’t be more perfect. I want you to remember this urn. The next time you see it you will know that the time of your destiny is near.”
“I don’t understand,” Aine said miserably.
“You will. Just remember that this urn must return here with its likeness, and you and Tegan will be the ones to ensure that happens.”
Before Aine could ask any of the many questions swarming through her mind, the Goddess placed one hand on her forehead and one on Tegan’s. “Go with my eternal blessing.”
Aine, Tegan, and Epona’s urn disappeared.
Fifty years later. Northwest Oklahoma not far outside the town of Locus Grove.
The enormous mansion was a sprawling Victorian, as out of place in the Oklahoma countryside as it would have been on top of a slate colored mountain range. It was once beautiful, but age had cracked and crinkled it until it reminded some people of an old smoker’s skin.
The ancient couple who had lived there loved it.
“Do we really have to leave this place?” The old man asked his wife. “I hate to see all of our things auctioned off like this.”
“It’s better this way—easier,” she said. “Besides, our job here is almost over. Look, it’s already happening.” She motioned for her husband to join her at the window. Together, the two watched the scene in the backyard unfold.
“My God! What the bloody hell is this?” A man with an accent cried, placing the item haphazardly back on the table.
Another man picked it up and blanched in horror as he, too, saw the hairline crack in the urn’s base.
“Sir, you are correct. Please accept my apologies for this damaged merchandise. Your bill will be corrected immediately.”
The old woman smiled as she watched a beautiful girl with wild red hair approach the man and speak with pretended nonchalance. “Excuse me, but what will happen to the pot now?”
“
It will be re-auctioned, as is, of course,” the man said.
The couple continued to eavesdrop on the events of the auction, but only until the redhead bought the urn and drove off their grounds with it tucked into the seat beside her.
“She did look amazingly like the Incarnate on the urn,” the old man said.
“That’s because she is the Incarnate on the urn, or at least she will be very soon.”
“Hard to believe someone so—” he paused, trying to decide on the right word, “—modern is going to stop the Fomorian invasion.”
The old woman laughed. “At first she’s going to believe that she’s divine by mistake. As if Epona makes mistakes!”
“The Goddess’s ways are not always clear,” he said.
“No, but they are always interesting,” she said. “Shall we finish this, love?”
Instead of answering her, he approached his wife. Facing her, he took both her hands in his own. “It has been a long, full life, hasn’t it, Aine?”
“It has been, just as our Goddess promised.”
“Because through her will we were able to escape and save Partholon,” Tegan said.
Not only through my will, but also through your strength and willingness to sacrifice yourselves to defeat evil. Epona’s voice filled the room with ripples of magic and love. Now, my children, it is time you came home.
Still grasping hands, the old couple’s bodies began to shimmer, and then their crooked, wrinkled forms fell away, leaving a beautiful dark haired woman with eyes the color of a spring sky, and a tall, lean man whose wings unfurled majestically as he threw back his head and laughed with absolute joy. Tegan took Aine into his arms and kissed her passionately as they faded from the modern world to reappear in their Goddess’s verdant meadows, where she welcomed them with song and laughter and love.
* * * * *
Two Realms. One Choice. No Second Chance.
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Discover the jaw-dropping, zombie-infested bestselling series, THE WHITE RABBIT CHRONICLES, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter!
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To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.
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ISBN: 9781488027390
Divine Beginnings
Copyright © 2007 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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