“What on earth happens to the extra food?” Angel asked. Her mother had opened her diner to the hungry as a soup kitchen after hours.
“Oh, none of it goes to waste. Our servants get what’s left over from the banquets, as well as their own dinners, and what they don’t eat is given out to the poor.” Morgana handed Sheila a jewel-encrusted dagger. “A gift from Cernunnos and me. This is for your family carving board. Every couple who marries in our lands is given a family carving knife—perhaps not as dear as this one, but one they can keep for the life of their union. It symbolizes good luck and good fortune to come.”
Sheila and Viktor joined hands over the hilt of the dagger, the blade slicing through the cake to cut the first piece. As they shared bites of what I recognized as carrot cake, we all clapped and cheered, and then we got down to a serious dinner. The flautist had followed us in, and he and his fellow bandmates began to play—reels and jigs and a lively blend of Celtic tunes as we stuffed ourselves silly.
I thought about Sheila and Viktor. They had made the best of a bad situation. Sure, we were forced to change by circumstance, but true adaptation—shifting one’s perception to look for opportunities when bad things happened—that was a matter of choice.
Herne came up and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“That will be us, in a short time,” he whispered.
“First I have to pass the Gadawnoin,” I whispered back.
“You will. I have no fear on that.”
But even with his trust, a part of me was afraid that I wouldn’t be up to the challenge. Even though I suspected it was fear talking, I also knew that there was a very real—even if small—chance that the future would vanish with my attempt. And that led to thoughts of the dragons back home on Earth, and what was going on in the country now.
Trying to block out thoughts of the future, I focused instead on the present, and on how happy Sheila and Viktor were. I threw myself into the dancing and merriment. That worked up until late in the night when we broke up the party and once again, the future felt like it was rushing toward me like an out of control semitruck on an icy, steep hill.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, Herne woke me bright and early, poking me in the ribs till I squinted my eyes open. “Get up, love. My mother wants you in the learning center pronto. You can eat breakfast there.”
I grumbled, trying to pull the covers up over my shoulders again, but he yanked them off. Shivering, thanks to the cool air of the palace, I grudgingly sat up and reached for my robe.
“Why so early?”
“I’m not sure what she wants. Maybe to prepare you for the ritual?”
I had drunk a little too much mead the night before but now, I remembered. It was Thursday and I was in for two days of ritual preparation. I wondered how many trances and magical tests I’d have to navigate.
“I hope it doesn’t matter that I tied one on last night,” I mumbled.
He snorted. “As long as you can take good notes and listen to the tutor, you should be fine.”
Tutor? Notes? What the hell?
“What do you mean? What am I going to be taking notes on?” I frowned, trying to acclimate myself to the chill of the room. “Can you light the fireplace? It’s cold in here.”
“A little chill is bracing to the blood, but yes, I will light the fire. However, you have barely thirty minutes before Morgana sends out a search party to drag your ass to class. As to what you’ll be taking notes on—all the things you need to know when you pass through the Gadawnoin. There are rules and regulations and decorum and…oh, so many things that those of us born to the gods learn as we grow up. Of course, you’ll continue to attend classes with your tutor after the ritual, but these are the most important things.”
“How to Be a Goddess for Dummies?”
“Well, yes, for lack of a better phrase.” He pushed me toward the shower. “Hurry up, love. Mother doesn’t joke around when it comes to things like this.”
I stopped in my tracks, feeling overwhelmed. “I can’t believe this is happening so fast.” I paused as Mr. Rumblebutt wove around my legs, mewing. He was hungry. “Mr. R. needs his breakfast.”
“I’ll feed him for you. And I know that right now, it’s all so difficult to take in, but I think that we—the gods—made a huge mistake. We believed the dragons would honor their promises.”
“What did they promise, exactly?” I washed my face and took a quick sponge bath in the cool water of the basin before looking through my closet. “Remember, the rest of us weren’t privy to the terms that you agreed on.” I didn’t feel like being pushed. I wasn’t sure why I was so reluctant, but I had the suspicion that being hungover had something to do with it.
Herne sighed. “The Luminous Warriors had promised to abide by the win. If Echidna was able to injure Typhon enough to drive him into stasis, they would return to the Forgotten Kingdom and never bother our world again.”
“She didn’t, though. She ended up in there with him. Didn’t that nullify her victory?”
He shook his head. “Not as far as we were concerned. She drove him into stasis, so her victory should hold. But the Luminous Warriors don’t accept that. They maintain that he drove her into stasis and got caught with her. We know he sustained more injuries than she did. That was obvious to all the gods. But the Warriors refuse to concede.”
“And given they’re immortal, like the gods…”
“There’s not much we can do to them. Zeus has already decreed them anathema in Olympus. Neither Typhon nor any member of the Luminous Warriors may ever appear in Olympus again, or he will appeal to Gaia and ask her to level their race.”
I frowned. “Why doesn’t he do that anyway? If Gaia was one of the original Titans, can’t she just take away Typhon’s powers?”
“Yes, but now we run into a tricky road.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Gaia’s volatile. When she’s roused to action, she may not stop with Typhon. Think about this: when she slumbers, her dreaming causes most of the quakes and volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and hurricanes. Can you imagine what she might decide to do if she consciously steps in to take matters into her own hands? The world lives on a precarious balance beam. What if Gaia decided to not only punish the dragons for what they’re doing, but people for what’s happened to her forests and her animals?” Herne shook his head. “No, appealing to her is a last resort.”
“I see,” I said. I was beginning to get the picture that if the gods truly decided to intervene in the world in any major way, the world would be toast. “All right, I’ll get my ass down to the classroom.” I paused at the door. “By the way, at our wedding, I want a say in my dress. That was pretty yesterday, but not my style.”
“You know my mother’s having your dress made,” Herne said, grinning.
“I know, but that’s our ‘state’ wedding. At the private ceremony we talked about, I’m choosing what to wear.”
“Of course, love, as it should be,” he said, waving me on.
Wearing a pair of jeans and a V-neck sweater, I hurried to the classroom. It was small and cozy, with a table and two chairs, a sideboard covered with pastries, fruit, eggs, sausage links, and a massive coffee pot, and a bookshelf filled with tomes.
I glanced around. Nobody else was there yet, so I took a plate and piled on the food. Eggs, a dozen sausage links, a bunch of grapes, and two hand pies, along with a steaming mug of coffee. As I sat down and dug in, the door opened and a tall woman—an Elf—walked in. She was wearing a pair of glasses, something I wasn’t used to seeing, and she carried what looked like a briefcase with her.
“Hello, I’m Ember Kearney.” I wiped off my hand and held it out to her.
She shook my hand, then set her briefcase on the table and unlocked it. “I’m Elta. Please, finish your breakfast as we talk. Don’t rush on my account. We have a long road ahead of us and much to cover, and today, we’ll barely skim the surface. But we’ll get there
,” she said, with a smile brighter than I felt. “I’m your tutor for decorum, customs, and the most important things you will need to know when you pass the Gadawnoin.”
“Will I have other tutors?” I asked.
“Of course. Once you are through the Gadawnoin you will learn much more, and when you marry Lord Herne, you will train with members of his own staff. I trained Lady Morgana when she was facing this trial, and she asked me to train you.”
That was when I realized that the woman sitting across me was thousands of years old. Morgana had gone through the Gadawnoin when Cernunnos asked her to marry him. And that had been a long, long time ago. So long, in fact, that it was almost incomprehensible.
Elta handed me a long list of names. As I glanced through them, I recognized Cernunnos, Morgana, Brighid, and several others. I knew of Cerridwen, the Morrígan, the Dagda, Danu, and Eiru. But a lot of the names were a mystery to me.
“I assume these are the names of the gods?”
“Yes. There are a number of lesser gods that you probably have never heard of. You will be required to know all of them. Not for the Gadawnoin, but as time goes on.”
“What happens if I can’t remember them all?” I wondered if I’d be punished like a naughty schoolchild.
“You’ll be socially disgraced, that’s what.” She motioned for me to open another book.
I did, gently folding back pages. It was written in Turneth, so I could understand it, and it was titled The History of the Celtic Pantheon. The book had to be four inches thick, and it was the size of a coffee table book in height and width. The print was small, but readable. Elta motioned for me to turn to the table of contents. I did, grimacing when I saw that it had to have over hundred chapters in it.
“Let me guess. This is my textbook?”
“Well, the first of many. You will be studying with me for at least five years. That’s how long it took the Lady Morgana to learn all the rudimentary information. And we are talking almost every day, at least four hours a day. You’ll notice that the book is divided into five different sections, each with twenty chapters. I expect you to read the first chapter by the end of next week. After the Gadawnoin, you will immerse yourself in your studies.”
Before I could say a word she handed me three more books. The second book was a volume on customs and decorum when meeting gods who were either superior or inferior to yourself. I cringed at the thought, but I was moving into a caste system and I needed to just accept that thought. It wasn’t like the Fae Courts didn’t have their own caste system. The third book was a volume on activities and skills I was expected to learn. Among them were dancing, how to hold a scepter or wand, how to approach a throne and take my seat on it, and other activities I never thought I’d be reading about. And the fourth book went into the geography of Annwn, and of the other realms in the world. I recognized a map similar to the one in the inn we had stayed in.
I shook my head. “I feel overwhelmed.”
“Of course it’s overwhelming. You’re not just changing addresses, you are moving into a sphere that most mortals never even imagine. If you thought things were chaotic within the realm of the gods, you were mistaken. In this realm, we follow hierarchy and protocol.”
She sat down beside me, crossing one leg over the other and leaning on the back of the chair with her arm, staring at me. After a moment, I began to feel uncomfortable. I wanted to inch away from her, to scoot my chair back, but I had the feeling this was a test of sorts.
“Well, I see you have some instincts,” she said, not explaining what those were. “All right, your homework assignments: read the first chapter in your history book, and also the first chapters of these three books as well. So that’s four chapters you are to have read by the end of next week. Take notes and study the material. There will be quizzes and tests. That should give you time to rest up a day or two from the Gadawnoin.”
“I thought this session was to teach me how to survive this ritual,” I said.
“No one can tell you how to do that. Only those who have been through the ritual ever know what truly goes on, and they aren’t allowed to speak about it. I will tell you this: once you have been through the Gadawnoin, you’re never to discuss it except with someone else who has been through it. You’re not to talk about it, to explain what happened, or anything of the sort. If you do, the gods will punish you. Your life would be forfeit whether or not you are immortal, and don’t ask me how because I don’t know. Do you understand?” Elta stared at me sternly over her glasses, which were resting on her nose by now.
I sighed, as my stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry.” Even though I had just eaten.
“We’ll break for lunch,” she said. “But be back in an hour.”
After I returned from lunch, which I spent with Angel since I couldn’t find Herne, Elta and I plunged into an intensive study of how the hierarchy worked among Cernunnos’s and Morgana’s palaces. It was then that I also realized just how incredibly complex the world on Annwn was, and especially, the realm of the gods. Finally, after ten solid hours of study, with another half-hour break in the afternoon, Elta let me go.
“I will next see you after the Gadawnoin. Read your chapters and take notes.” She paused, placing a hand on my arm. “I believe you will come through this and in all my years, I’ve never been wrong.”
“How many people have you seen ascend to deityhood?” I asked.
She shrugged. “A few. Morgana, and a few before her. Go now, and we’ll talk later.”
I headed back to my rooms, my head exploding with facts and figures. It had been a number of years since I had been in college, and I had been a good student, but this was different. I was cramming to enter a world that was alien to me. I hadn’t considered how intensive the study would be. I hadn’t thought about anything like that.
As I entered the bedroom, Herne was there, reading over some information. He looked up. “How did the day go, love?”
I stared at him. “You never told me I’d be headed back to school.” I held up the pile of books. “Look at all of this. How long will I be studying?”
He laughed, setting aside the forms he’d been looking at. “For at least four or five years. Consider it…oh…getting a master’s degree. Or getting a second bachelor’s degree, this time in entering goddesshood.”
Shaking my head, I set the books on the table and crawled onto the bed beside him, resting in his arms. “I hope you appreciate what I’m doing to be with you.” I laughed, running my hand over his cheek. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. And I love you. And that’s why you’re doing this—so we can be together. I won’t keep you as a mistress. If I did, you could stay mortal, but I want you to be my wife—I want us to be together, in all ways.” He kissed me, then sat upright. “Viktor and Sheila are off on their honeymoon.”
“Where are they going? Surely not back home, given what’s going on with the dragons?”
“No.” He sobered. “They dare not. I sent them to a nearby lake, where an inn overlooks the view. It’s beautiful, they’ll be waited on hand and foot, and it will make up for them having to drastically alter their wedding plans.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees, bringing them up to my chest. “Do we have any word on what’s going on back home?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He went from sober to grim. “Ashera contacted us. The United Coalition has yielded to the Luminous Warriors. Though the organization still stands in name, the dragons are now calling the shots. They threatened to level New York City, Los Angeles, and Seattle if the UC didn’t give them their way. And they demonstrated their ability to do that by strafing several smaller towns to the ground. Not even a tornado could have caused as much damage as they did. Thirty thousand dead, between the three towns. The Luminous Warriors have done this throughout the world. Their plan must have been in the works all along.”
“What happened to trying to gain power through conniving—the theme park?” My heart sank as I thought o
f all the lives destroyed.
“That ended when Echidna called out Typhon. The Luminous Warriors—and Typhon—truly didn’t realize we had found her and that she had agreed to help. Unfortunately, they have no honor, and so they made alternative plans should Typhon fall.” Herne sounded weary, and I caught the glint of tears in his eyes.
“What about our friends? What about Ginty? Did he escape?”
“Ginty will hold to his post. He can smuggle a number of people out through the Waystation, so he’s doing what he can to help important members of the Otherkin societies escape. Hopefully the dragons haven’t paid much attention to him. I know he’s changed the name of the bar in hopes of keeping them in the dark. It’s now ‘Wendy’s Bar & Grill’ and Wendy is frontrunning it.” Herne bit his lip. “There are a lot of our friends over there who won’t be able to leave. We’re going to have to accept that fact. But you’ll be happy to know that Merilee is over here, now. And Raven managed to persuade Llew and Jordan to follow her to Kalevala. In fact, Vixen and Apollo and Trinity have also left—they went to Wildemoone.”
“I wish we could be there, helping out.” I wanted to go home, but I also realized that right now, that wasn’t possible. I paused, then added. “I want you to promise me something. If I don’t make it through the ritual, you’ll take care of Mr. Rumblebutt for me.”
“Of course,” Herne said. “You’ll pass through it, but I know it’s important for you to rest easy on the subject.” He jumped off the bed. “So, tomorrow, you’ll spend in meditation. That gives us tonight together. Because the ritual will start at midnight tomorrow night, and will last for twenty-four hours.” He pulled a bell cord. “I’m going to order our dinner and then…I want to spend the night making love to you.”
Feeling like the condemned woman about to partake of her last supper, I nodded. In some ways, it would be much easier if we were going about things as normal—it wouldn’t leave me with such a feeling of foreboding. I knew that most of the anxiety was probably just in my mind, but it was affecting my nerves and my stomach and everything else.
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