Chronicles of the Half-Emrys Box Set (Books 1-3)

by Lisa Rector

  Urien, her brother, came to her rescue. “Catrin! Stop! Calm down! Control yourself.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening!” she cried. “Make it stop!”

  Even now, pain burned in her chest over the memory. A sob squeaked out, and Catrin curled into a ball.

  Urien had wrapped his arms around her, absorbing the excess heat and light. Catrin stopped burning and trembling, but Urien hadn’t healed her heart-center because time was a luxury battle didn’t allow for. Once Einion appeared, the attention turned to him. With the jump through time and the drop into the ocean, Catrin had been neglecting her heart-center this whole time, and the split had grown bigger—bigger because of Meuric.

  That explained the waves of nausea when she healed Meuric. After both times—when she burned his hands and stopped his shoulder from bleeding. She should have seen the signs that her heart-center was cracked.

  She placed her hands over her heart. I’m damaged.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  DELIVERED

  A woman wailed.

  Meuric feared what he might find, yet he knew, because the same scream haunted his dreams. He knew Arya’s voice like his own. Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for the terrible reality to start. When light brightened before his eyelids, he opened them.

  Arya was as he always found her in his torments, lying in bed and screaming. Meuric didn’t know if he was reliving the past or having a nightmare. Although he had presence of mind and remembered exactly who he was and remembered Catrin and how they had fallen through time. He’d just spent weeks with Mara.

  He’d hold on to this. He would not lose himself.

  Arya whimpered, and Meuric snapped to attention. She needed him now.

  As much as he wanted to return to Catrin, Arya lay helpless.

  Meuric rushed to her bedside. “Tell me what I must do?”

  Arya’s body writhed up and down with each of her tortured movements.

  The midwife at the end of the bed spoke. “I told you, the babe is backwards. It’s impossible to deliver naturally. We must cut the child out, or they will die.”

  “Are you mad, woman?” he cried.

  “Women have survived. It can be done.”

  Meuric groaned and wiped the sweat off Arya’s face. “We need an emrys—a healer. Where’s my mother?”

  “She was sent for hours ago.”

  Curses, he remembered. Siana had been detained. The Dark Master sent her on an errand. This was his doing. How could the timing have been so well planned?

  They were alone in this.

  Arya moaned. “Meuric, you must save our child.”

  “She can’t cut you open.”

  “She must. My mortal frame won’t last long anyway, Meuric. You knew this when you married me. You can save our child. Our child will live forever.”

  This whole event had happened before to a horrifying outcome. Arya had spoken these exact words to him. They had died. Both of them.

  Could he change the past? This exact event? Could he save Arya even though he’d failed with Mara?

  Meuric clutched at her. “Arya, I don’t think I can save you. I don’t know if I have the power to do so.”

  His light might have grown. He might have used it to heal his shoulder, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Let me go, Meuric. It’s all right.”

  A contraction seized her, and Arya cried out from the unbearable pain. Meuric knew his former choice. The midwife didn’t cut out the baby. He’d been too afraid. His mother didn’t reach them in time, and Arya and the baby had paid the price.

  Meuric clenched his fist as beads of sweat swamped his brow. He bowed his head and spoke through grinding teeth. “Do it. Save the baby.” A voice whispered in his mind, no one’s words but his own. I’m a half-emrys. I carry light. I can heal.

  The midwife reached for her knife.

  Meuric held up his hand to stop her. “Wait.”

  He kissed Arya and caressed her face. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, my love.”

  With his forehead to hers he whispered, “I’m going to make the pain go away. All right? You won’t feel a thing.”

  “Will I be able to see her?”

  Meuric smiled halfheartedly. “You’re still convinced it’s a girl.”

  “Yes, who else would be so stubborn?”

  By the stars in the sky, he loved her.

  Arya’s head dropped back on the bed. Meuric touched her forehead and her heart. He closed his eyes. A tear slid down his cheek, but he ignored it. Looking inside Arya, he followed her pain through her mind and down her body and into her heart. Meuric didn’t know what was worse—the emotional pain from Arya willingly giving up her life so her child lived or the pain of the constant contracting of her stomach. He felt it all.

  Except for what Catrin had shown him, Meuric wasn’t sure how to alleviate pain, but he knew if he focused on what he wanted the light to do, it should follow his desires. He called to the Creator just this once. Master of Light, let this work. Take away Arya’s pain. Give her peace. Please do this. Absorb it. Give the pain to me if you must.

  A swelling agony pinched inside him. The light was working. Arya relaxed and appeared to be sleeping, but Meuric’s stomach turned. How had Catrin healed him repeatedly? Using the light overwhelmed him. His legs trembled. “We’re ready.”

  He didn’t have to open his eyes to know when the midwife lifted the blade and sliced through Arya’s flesh. Meuric saw the breach from within. Light wept through the wound and grew brighter as the knife carved deeper, cutting into the strong fibers of the womb, revealing light and cold to the babe inside.

  Meuric opened his eyes as the sac broke and water gushed forth. He dared not believe it—he’d see his child for the first time, thousands of years after she should have been born. Is this truly possible?

  The woman lifted the babe covered in blood and fluids and bound through the cord to Arya for one last blood beat.

  Then the cord was severed.

  After smacking and rubbing the babe until she cried, the midwife placed the infant on her mother’s chest. A girl! She was, in fact, a girl. Meuric reached out to touch her, but he stopped when he saw blood seeping from between his wife’s legs and pooling under her—

  A lot of blood.

  She’d never survive.

  He folded Arya’s hands around their daughter.

  “Remember your promise,” she whispered.

  “I will. I will.” He squeezed them both.

  Arya opened her eyes and kissed her newborn babe. Her head rolled to the side. All the strength dropped out of her arms as the baby wiggled against her lifeless chest.

  “No. NO!” Meuric shook his wife’s shoulders.

  The room grew dark, and the pressure increased in his head.

  “No, not now! I can save her. Let me try. ARYA!”

  Meuric held on to her as his vision blackened.

  He couldn’t feel her.

  He was in the void.

  The baby. “She was just born. Does she survive? She doesn’t even have a name. Tell me!”

  The Masters and their game—Meuric was a pawn.

  This was ridiculous.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHOICE

  Her light was failing her.

  Every night grew colder and colder as Catrin ascended the mountain.

  Day by day, she was growing weaker and weaker.

  Catrin had climbed past the deciduous forest and past the pines. Sparse vegetation covered the rocky ground. The air—a constant chill. The sun on the southern exposure warmed Catrin as she hiked, but huddling against sunbaked rocks or under scrubby bushes did little to retain heat when the wind tore through the landscape.

  No matter how desperately Catrin held on to the optimism that fueled her heart-center’s light, it constantly slipped away. She needed to forgive Einion and Rhianu. When she thought about them, they didn’t make her sad anymore. Maybe because she was more than a wo
rld apart from them—maybe because she thought of nothing but reaching the top of this mountain and of nothing but the balmy breeze that would greet her once she entered the realm beyond this grisly one.

  Her heartache from those two had faded. The shock lessened. She couldn’t force Einion to love her. She knew this when she left him. Naturally he’d find someone he could love.

  She didn’t anticipate new heartache. Catrin thought she’d found someone she could love. Not Einion, but Meuric.

  Catrin asked herself constantly, before Meuric had told her the truth about Einion, how could she love someone who differed vastly from her? How could she love a man who had sided with Evil and practiced wielding its power? Meuric was a warrior who fought against innocent people. He supported Rhianu in her quest to annihilate the Dragons of Light.

  He has good in him. Meuric had extended affection to the Eilian. Against his better judgment, he promised to help her on her journey. He saved her from drowning. She knew from looking at him and looking into his soul that he was a decent man, even if he had made poor choices and had suffered from them.

  Meuric knew loss and pain utterly incomprehensible to Catrin.

  And he had loved.

  He could love.

  I acted like such a child. Crushed by my first heartbreak! Shrouded in an immature tantrum of emotions.

  No wonder Meuric’s feelings toward me were indifferent. His love for Mara and Arya couldn’t compare to my infantile state. Catrin sighed. Love indeed. Meuric wouldn’t waste his time.

  Feelings for Meuric aside, Catrin let Einion go, and freedom lifted a weight off her chest.

  But the tear didn’t heal.

  The voice that haunted her echoed through her mind. It will take much more than that.

  Go away!

  I can’t leave you alone out here, Catrin. I’m watching over you.

  Lies. Leave.

  The voice left as easily as it had arrived.

  ***

  Gray clouds filled the sky. Catrin could almost touch them, as thick and as ominous as they were.

  A blizzard… mid-summer. Only on the top of Mount Eirwen.

  Her meager efforts couldn’t will her forward, even though the dangers of this forecast should have been enough to spur her on to find shelter.

  The ground crunched underfoot. The world in front of her had turned white. How did she not notice? It filled her vision.

  One foot lingered on barren rock and the other in snow. She was at the snow line. The morning had passed, and she had no reckoning of it. Her breath floated in front of her like mist.

  She was in a fog.

  Catrin’s knees wobbled, and she gaped forward to see if her wanderings had brought her any closer to the end.

  She saw it. The final ledge loomed in the distance. Reaching it would take the rest of the afternoon.

  She dropped in the snow, landing on a rock. Catrin cried out, uselessly, because no one would hear her. She twisted her pack off her back and flopped onto her bottom to inspect the blood seeping through a cut in her pants.

  The red’s… pretty. She dabbed her palm on the scratch, noticing how the blood filled the cracks in her dry skin, noticing her knobby wrists with each movement.

  Meuric would have said, You’re so bony.

  You try eating this jerky.

  She picked at her pants, pulling them away from her thighs. When had her hips started to jut out like that?

  You’re not eating enough.

  Well, you’re not here to pester me! His blue eyes dug into hers.

  Eat the accursed jerky, Catrin. Eat it!

  Her hands must have moved by an unseen power because they painstakingly worked at the bindings of her pack. They laboriously ripped the frozen fabric from the clump that was supposed to be jerky.

  Somehow she thawed it. Somehow light entered her palms and radiated into the salty block. She lifted a piece to her mouth.

  There you go, gnawing on it like a primitive.

  You’d be proud, Meuric.

  ***

  Here and there, the few snowflakes that had escaped the huge storm clouds drifted lazily. The pacified wind was silent. The white fluffs gradually peppering the gray sky would have been a delightful sight, but Catrin thought they foretold her doom. An icy speck here and an icy speck there saying, “Catrin, you could never hope to make it. Catrin, with every touch, we’ll freeze your soul.”

  She couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs. She was so tired. It must have been the thinner air because Catrin stopped and rested more and more. Her muscles protested another step. Even the short nap after eating her thawed jerky didn’t improve her energy or outlook.

  “Catrin… Catrin… How are you going to climb the cliff? It’s at least a hundred feet high.”

  She jerked and whirled around. A shadow in the shape of a man stood ten feet from her. He’s the voice.

  Catrin froze.

  The shadow moved toward her in slow, marked steps, leaving imprints in the snow.

  He has a body. The Cysgod in her time wouldn’t leave prints. He was imprisoned as a spirit—as a shadow.

  He roams freely. If he roams freely, he has great power.

  He’s dangerous.

  Scaling the cliff, which was only yards ahead, was impossible. The crevices and toeholds were filled with ice and snow. Catrin’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t know.”

  “I can help you,” the shadow said.

  The deceiver comes to offer help. Catrin scoffed. “I know who you are…” She summoned her strength and squared her shoulders, despite being so weak that she was at this villain’s mercy. “Cysgod! You’re evil! You’re darkness! I don’t want your help.”

  “Naming me will make no matter. Who or what I am makes no matter!” Cysgod spat his contemptuous words. “What’s important is you’re going to perish.”

  Catrin narrowed her eyes. “Why can’t I see your face?”

  The shadow stopped about four feet away. “Seeing my face isn’t important. What’s important is what you’re planning to do. A storm’s coming. You won’t last much longer. Either stay here and die or accept my help.”

  “I won’t die. I’m an emrys. My light will sustain me,” Catrin stammered.

  “Oh, you won’t? I’m not sure about that.”

  Catrin was sure Cysgod was sneering at her, but she couldn’t see his expression.

  The seriousness of her plight was right before her, and she’d been denying it. Catrin deflated inside as she slid into the snow.

  “Look at your light. So feeble,” the Dark Master said while shaking his head. He raised his voice. “No one’s coming. You’re all alone. No one’s here to help you.”

  “I thought Meuric would come back,” Catrin whispered. She resisted the urge to hide her face in her hands, resisted the urge to admit how hopeless her situation was.

  “What’s that? Ah, yes, Meuric. Well, he’s not here, is he? No one’s here to help you… but wait…” He turned both hands to his chest. “There’s me.”

  Catrin couldn’t accept the help of Cysgod. He spoke lies coated in honey. The rational part of Catrin knew this, but the rational part of Catrin also knew she’d die. Her light was feeble. It wouldn’t sustain her body. Her choices were to accept death or accept life and face the consequences.

  “Yes, you are deliberating. I can give you strength. I have incredible power, which can transport you to the top of the cliff, much the same way your Meuric moves through the ether.”

  “Leave me alone.” Catrin turned her face away. She hated when he mentioned Meuric. It burned a hole in her stomach.

  The shadow crouched in front of her. “Catrin, this would be a waste. Even I know this. You can accomplish much. The Master of Light didn’t create you to throw your life away.”

  Catrin had counted on Meuric to help her. With the two of them, they could have scaled the cliff. Being alone, she didn’t know how. She continued on this journey because she had to try. She continued because Meuric w
as supposed to catch up to her.

  Would it be so bad to accept Cysgod’s help? What if he tricks me? What if he takes me somewhere else?

  If he takes you somewhere else, at least you’re not on this wretched mountain.

  “That’s right, Catrin. I’ll take you to the top. All you have to do is hold out your hand and take mine.”

  “I’d never trust you.” Catrin narrowed her eyes. “Show your face. I want to see who you are.”

  “Very well. I’ll remove my concealment. If my face haunts your nightmares, that is on you.”

  Catrin scoffed. “You already haunt me.”

  The shadow moved his hand over his face, and the dark visage disappeared. Unsurprisingly, his face was that of a man’s, with smooth, pale skin. His eyes were blue gray like the sea, and his umber hair was thick, slicked back, and cropped tight. He didn’t seem menacing. He was handsome, though filled with immense sadness.

  Catrin felt sorry for him.

  “Looks can be deceiving, Catrin. Are you ready to accept my help?” Cysgod asked.

  She held out her hand, and he took it. Cold seized her arm, and she went rigid.

  Cysgod smiled at her, his lips forming a hardened line. “It’ll all be over in a minute.”

  Catrin’s world darkened.

  ***

  Catrin blinked and looked around. She was alone.

  And she was on the ledge.

  Though gray and bleak, the view was spectacular. Snow-covered mountains crowded around. Mount Eirwen’s peak thrust several feet higher than the ledge. Catrin was at the top of the world, the highest precipice in all the mortal realms. Cysgod had actually brought her there.

  In her world, the portal was marked by two vast boulders. Here it was not marked. While feeling for the opening, Catrin moved in the general direction where she knew the entrance should be. Where is it? She closed her eyes and searched with her mind, using the power of light.

  There, off to the right, above her head. If she reached up, she could touch the portal—a sliver about the length of her forearm, shimmering in the sky. Catrin sighed, overtaken by the sudden desire to be out of the frigid weather. The seasons in Gorlassar consisted of spring and summer, rotating in a continual loop. Oh, she longed for the sun’s comforting rays!