Echoes from the Veil (Aisling Chronicles)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Acknowledgments
Discover more Amara titles… Night’s Kiss
Magnolia Mystic
Magnolia Mystic
The Hunt
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Colleen Halverson. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
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Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Robin Haseltine
Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations
Cover photography by heckmannoleg and curaphotography/DepositPhotos
Dollarphotoclub
ISBN 978-1-68281-543-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition February 2020
Dear Reader,
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Liz Pelletier, Publisher
For Dr. Brian Short, Dr. José Lanters, and all the teachers I met along the path.
Chapter One
The hardest part about running a Fae rebellion was that there was never a Starbucks around when I needed one. And of course, lucky for me, all our raids began at dawn. I rubbed my throbbing temples, scanning the horizon, silently cursing the lack of coffee beans in the Faerie Realm. Maybe our Fae foes the Fir Bolgs had an espresso maker in their convoy. Hell, at this point, I would have settled for instant.
My lack of caffeine was not the only thing giving me a headache this morning. Not even six a.m., and I had dealt with a grumpy general, two wayward leprechauns, and a Druid who accidentally set a catapult on fire.
Oh, and there was one stupid dearg-dubh who had insisted on getting himself captured.
The rustle of leaves attracted my gaze, and Grainne nudged me. Her usual warm and friendly face hardened, her mouth set in a grim line. Grainne had become my most trusted soldier in this rebellion and one of my closest friends. It was easy to forget the smiling, laughing, redheaded Irishwoman was a trained, cold-blooded warrior.
“Elizabeth,” she whispered. “That’s the Fir Bolgs’ convoy.”
“Do you think Malachy’s in there?” My grip tightened on my spear. Malachy was the stupid dearg-dubh in question. A dearg-dubh is kind of like a Faerie vampire. Deadly, cunning, and generally a capable spy with his ability to slip in and out of shadows. Malachy had gone on a special recon mission a few weeks ago to suss out the Fir Bolgs’ defenses. I needed his intel—badly—but most of all, I needed my friend back.
She brought her hand to her sword grip and flashed me an impish grin. “Only one way to find out.”
My heart pounded, but even with the adrenaline racing through my veins, I struggled to suppress a yawn. God, what I wouldn’t have given for a vanilla latte. Or one of those fancy drinks with the crumbled graham crackers. Tasted just like summer camp. I should have quit caffeine once we began the rebellion. I’d tried, but one sip and I was straight-up Lorelai Gilmore again, a slave to my dark, shade-grown mistress. I suppose it was better than being addicted to other things. Like speed or crack.
Or hot, Irish, alpha male warriors.
I blinked, and flashes of chiseled abs and corded biceps circled across my mind like tracers, and I took a deep breath, recalling the smell of man sweat and leather from earlier this morning as I rolled over on the mats Finn and I called a bed. My thoughts wandered to Finn down below, hiding out in the bushes with Eamonn. He had argued like mad to stay by my side, but Eamonn was the key to this ambush. Without his Druid fire, none of this would work, and I needed Finn to protect him.
I glanced over at Grainne again to make sure she still lay sprawled beside me, her bright red hair shrouded and covered in leaves. She’d stood up for me in the end. I had trained hard with her every day for months with my spear. I clutched it tight, the hum of violence radiating through the enchanted leather binding still fastened around it. Without the binding, the spear would send me on a killing spree, and its bloodlust wouldn’t be satisfied until it slaughtered everyone in its path—friend or foe. Just a fun little gift passed down from the warrior Cuchulainn himself. My former Irish language professor had left it to me but sadly had neglected to provide a manual on how to prevent mass genocide. Finn seemed to think I needed to learn how to control it, overpower it. “Like a wild horse,” he had said. “It needs to learn to respect you.”
Sometimes it felt like that with everyone.
Even him.
I pushed the thought out of my mind. The Fae had made me de facto leader of this rebellion, and Finn quietly struggled with deferring to me. I suppose I wouldn’t be head-over-heels in love with him if he bent to my will all the time. Still, he was used to giving orders, not taking them.
And lately, it felt like all we did was fight.
Grainne’s lithe body tensed beside me, readying for battle. We’d had little time to plan, but so much depended on the mission being a success. The Fir Bolgs had taken over the Faerie realm with special weapons created by a splinter faction deep within the US government. I know, crazy, right? But officials in the government wanted to arm these pointy-eared wee men with special, sparkly, immortality-busting weapons and arm them to the teeth. Why? Because the Fir Bolgs had a plan to sever the ties between the mortal world and the Faerie realm—permanently.
I refused to let that happen on my watch.
Ignoring the stabbing caffeine headache attacking my temples, I whistled a signal to my sharpshooters perched in the trees and, raising my head up ever so slightly, I peered over the ridge. Two covered wagons rumbled down the winding path. A team of five Fir Bolgs guarded each one, their long fingers clutched to the side, sparkly M16s strapped across their backs. The weapons looked out of place in the otherwise medieval world of Tír na nÓg. Any type of technology here would break apart, dismantle, or spontaneously combust in the midst of so much magic, but with the help of the US government, the Fir Bolgs had harnessed a special power to enchant modern weapons. They had used those weapons to take o
ver Teamhair—the capitol of the Faerie Realm. Think Rivendell but with, like, a hundred more turrets made of opal, crystal, and pure sunshine. The Fir Bolgs had taken it months before, which was why I found myself with a rock sticking in my hip and sharp grass scratching my chin as we kept watch over that ridge. Teamhair didn’t just belong to the Fir Bolgs, but to all the Fae. We needed to take it back.
The Fir Bolg drivers slapped the reins against the snorting black war horses, their panting breaths fogging up in the chilly morning air. They were in a rush to get somewhere; that much was clear.
“Malachy has to be in one of those,” I whispered. “They wouldn’t have so many guards if the cargo wasn’t important.”
Grainne shrugged. “They could be carrying weapons.”
“Malachy is the priority.”
“I would prefer the weapons over that dearg-dubh lag-about,” she said.
I thought it was impossible for the Irishwoman to dislike anyone, but Grainne and Malachy had fought like cats and dogs from the beginning, especially about the particular mission that had put us all into this mess. More tension. More infighting. I didn’t know how I would ever get that motley crew to come together, and the guilt over my inner failures as leader weighed on my shoulders. Who the hell had put me in charge anyway? I swallowed down the hollow rush of self-doubt and squared my jaw.
“Malachy has skills,” I countered. Malachy was one of the oldest Fae I knew, and he had a lot of knowledge about the Faerie realm and its ever-shifting politics. It was hard to keep track of all the tribes and species sometimes, but he helped me keep them straight. Before I discovered I was half Fae and got dragged into this mess, I had thought the Fae were a myth, but it turns out Tír na nÓg is a real place separated by a magical Veil created eons ago. Even with the Veil, sometimes the boundaries between their world and our world blur, and many Fae feel we have a right to live freely alongside humans. I happen to believe that, too.
Malachy also helped me understand my own powers as an aisling. Pronounced ash-ling. You could say we’re a rare sort. I’m the last of them, actually, and I had been trained to teleport, zip people and armies around a map like a game of Risk. I can even enter people’s dreams, although that’s generally on accident. All these powers, and here I was, caffeine headache and all, hidden in the shrubbery. Finn kept urging for an attack on Teamhair—face the Fir Bolgs head on—but I hedged constantly. Then, when they captured Malachy, I put all that on hold.
“Oh, Malachy has great skills,” Grainne quipped. “If you count sarcasm and sleeping all day a skill.”
I let out a long sigh, not bothering to argue with her. Malachy may not have been Danu’s gift to fighting, but like I said, he knew things. Things about the Fae, about the Fir Bolgs, about the government. Things no one else knew. He also could strategize like no other, and while I hated lying face down on the rocky forest floor waiting for this convoy to turn the corner to the ambush site, if we could save him, he wouldn’t come back empty handed.
“Do you see Eamonn?” I whispered.
Grainne nodded, a muscle flickering in her jaw. Eamonn was no coward, but the Druid was a lover, not a fighter, and it bothered Grainne to put him in harm’s way.
“How about Finn?” My voice sounded thin in my ears.
“Sure. Where’s your man gonna go?” she said with a grin.
I lifted my head up just a hair and whistled the “fire at ready” signal to the sharpshooters above.
This was it.
The wheels of the wagons groaned as the convoy whirled around a hairpin turn. Right on cue, Eamonn walked out of the forest, his cloak trailing behind him. He mouthed a spell and twisted his hands.
The Fir Bolgs had no time to react before two balls of blue fire blinded them. I had to look away, bright white spots beneath my eyelids, but I knew the plan by heart.
With a horrible crunch, Eamonn took out the front two wheels. I opened my eyes and squinted. The wagon lurched forward and the horses reeled, their eyes rolling in the back of their heads. The heat from the fire snapped their reins and they barreled away, disappearing into the woods.
Crack.
Crack.
Sniper fire took out two of the guards, and the Fir Bolgs scrambled, shooting wildly into the trees, their backs to Grainne and me. The Irishwoman followed me down the ridge, staying low, weapons drawn. My spear hummed beneath my hand, power surging through the shaft as we advanced toward the convoy.
A loud cry echoed through the woods, and a rain of arrows shot through the sky. One landed in the neck of one of the Fir Bolgs, and he clutched at his torn flesh with a yelp, blood pumping through his fingers. Another grasped at his belly, fell to his knees, and crumpled in a lump of leather and homespun cloth. The Fir Bolgs screamed at each other, shouting orders in their guttural language as they attempted to fall back in formation. But Grainne and I were about to deliver a first-class package of whoop-ass on these little gremlins, and there was nothing they could do to stop us.
“Take the rear guard first,” I said in a low voice, sounding much calmer than I felt.
She nodded, raising her sword.
Quiet as ninjas, we crept out from behind the rock outcrop. Before I could even blink, she ran her sword through one Fir Bolg and sliced the throat of another one. The last guard was about ten feet away, distracted by the chaos.
I didn’t have time to lose. Closing my eyes, I unleashed my aisling abilities, and a force made out of pure light surged through my limbs. For a brief second, I relished the power, the feeling of weightlessness, the bending of time and space that belonged to me. I collected the emptiness and transformed it into what I needed it to be. Ten feet became nothing at all. A thousand miles in a blink of an eye. I could literally move mountains and armies, shatter time, and bridge the gaps between worlds. I could do all these things…and still, I was afraid.
I traveled through space and landed right behind another guard, thrusting my spear through his spine. As soon as my spear tasted blood, we became one, the battle fury taking over my limbs. Swinging the weapon in a wide arc, I took off a Fir Bolgs’s head clear off, hot blood spurting over my tunic as he toppled to the ground.
“Nice hit,” a low voice whispered in my ear.
Startled, I whirled and swung wildly, but Finn deflected the blow with an annoyed glare.
“Don’t be so jumpy,” he growled, then pivoted and sliced into an approaching Fir Bolg. Its black eyes widened and its mouth opened in an empty scream before Finn pushed him off his blade with a savage kick. “Remember, half the battle is staying calm.”
My heart thundered, but this time not from fear. “Do you think you can save the mansplaining for later?”
With a savage thrust, Finn cut through another Fir Bolg soldier. “That’s not even a real word!”
“And now you’re mansplaining the mansplaining?” I swept the feet of my attacker, and the Fae enemy landed on his ass with a hard thud.
The Fir Bolg raised a pistol, and before I could move out of the way, Grainne’s sword came down on his hand. He screamed, staring at his stump of an arm. She finished him with a flash of steel, and blood spurted across her face. She whirled at me, her green eyes flashing fire.
“Will the two of you shut up?” she cried. “Elizabeth, get us out of here before—”
A high whine rang through the air, and a surge of bullets cut across the path. Throwing out my aisling energy, I grabbed Grainne and Finn and teleported us safely back on the ridge.
Refusing to give Finn a pass, I grabbed his flexed arm, forcing him to look down at me. My breath hitched in my throat as I took in his perfect face—his stormy eyes, his firm jaw, the dark hair grazing his cheek. Even now, in the midst of battle, my lower abdomen fluttered, and I longed to kiss his full lips, take him to some secret place and make love to him senseless. Maybe talk some damn sense into him, and then do…other things.
> I cleared my throat. “Mansplaining is when—”
He lifted his hand. “I know what it is. You’ve only explained it to me a hundred times this past week.”
Grainne groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.
I opened my mouth to scream obscenities at Finn, but a chorus of howls and snarls echoed through the trees. A pack of wolves barreled onto the path, teeth bared and growling. They pounced as one, their canines sinking into the Fir Bolgs before they could turn around and aim. It had been an uphill battle making alliances with the shape-shifting werewolves, called púcas in the Faerie realm, but it had been worth it. The fierce wolves added a kamikaze element that bought us time for more intricate maneuvers.
A horse screamed and the second wagon lurched forward around the broken one, one of its wheels tearing clean off as it slammed against a giant oak. It thundered down the path at breakneck speed.
“Shit,” I hissed. So much for intricate maneuvers.
I pointed to the first wagon. “Clear out the guard! Find out what’s in there!”
Grainne nodded, racing back down the hill, leaves swirling behind her.
Grasping tight onto my spear and closing my eyes, I made to transport out of there, but a strong hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Finn demanded.
“Getting calm,” I said, which was exactly what I needed to do before teleporting myself out from the ridge. Finn’s roar echoed behind me, but in the blink of an eye, I landed right smack on top of the runaway wagon. My nails dug tight to the canvas flapping in the wind as it tilted sideways around a sharp turn. I barely had time to register the guttural cry above me before rolling to the side, bullets tearing through the material not a foot away from where my head had been. A Fir Bolg hovered over me, reloading, his black eyes glittering.
Shifting quickly to my knees, I jammed my spear upward, and it clattered against his sparkly M16, his aim going sideways before the weapon catapulted into the trees. I jumped to my feet, balancing wildly on the wagon, the cold wind streaming through my hair.