On the grassy mound behind the woven chairs, I knelt and gazed up at the spirits rolling and curling above. For minutes, I just sat there, not knowing where to begin or what to ask as tendrils of mist descended to encircle me. Shifting between cool and warm, they wrapped me in their comforting blanket. Emotions from them all touched me: sympathy, fear, anger, despair.
“Goddess, please. I need guidance.” I knew it didn’t work that way, but I thought it was worth a shot.
18
Light footsteps preceded another set of knees landing beside mine on the center mound of the Court. When I realized who it was, I wondered if the Goddess had heard my plea after all. Laerni tucked her white skirt beneath her knees, the rest of her towering over me. I’d never been so grateful for her presence than I was then. My family comforted, but they couldn’t help me or impart any wisdom. Not anymore. I needed some wisdom, fast, because I hadn’t a clue what to do beyond gathering the masses again.
“Cas asked if the magic Talawen used belonged to the Magi or to the elves,” Laerni said. “Although we can conceal ourselves from others, we cannot conceal our presence from our own.”
Needing a few more minutes to collect my questions into some sensible order, I nodded. “So, it was the Magi’s magic. But Talawen’s dead, so she can’t very well teach me how it works now.”
“I suppose that is true.” Laerni released a sigh, one full of some strong emotion I couldn’t nail down. “Cas had the most loving home life of any fae here, did you know that?” At my shaking head, she continued, “A mother and father who loved him, encouraged him and taught him how to survive in the horrors of the Black City without losing his soul to its darkness. So, it should mean something to you that it is not his parents he thinks of when he wants comfort, but you and Liam. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, even though many aren’t consciously aware of it.”
I paused to let it sink in. I’d never known anything about Cas, but it didn’t surprise me he’d had a good family given his kind nature. It warmed me that he saw us as security and comfort—after all, that was what a king and queen were for, right? Though, I found it hard to believe many others outside of my closest circle looked to us as Laerni said. Not yet, at least. Maybe if we survived the next few days intact.
I stared at her for a moment. “What do I do when I find them?”
A long, slow sigh escaped the elf as she cast her large eyes skyward. “Alas, I do not know what the Goddess wishes for you to do. This is an unprecedented event in my eternity upon these lands. Whatever path you choose, whatever decisions you make, will shape the future for all.”
I shot up and made a wild gesture of hands. “No pressure, or anything. I don’t need you to state the obvious here. I need you to give me a clue. She can’t mean for me to kill them. Hell, I can’t even find them.” Her persistent calm took me down a notch. “I know you were afraid of them, so you must have encountered the Magi before, or at least heard some stuff. Gallagher didn’t get a chance to tell me what he learned from you. I need to know everything.”
“What I know, unfortunately, is very little, but all of it is yours as it should have been the first time you asked me in Freymoor.” Laerni curled her legs to the side and leaned one long, lean arm down, propping herself up. The bandages on her wrists had been removed, revealing twin bracelets of red scars on her once perfect skin. “It was so long ago our first encounter took place, I’ve not the words to describe it in a way you would comprehend. Long before the great mother divided realms to imprison her children, and another to safeguard us from them, bargaining with the moon pixies to create a world where she did not exist.”
When I’d asked Gallagher about how the glen remained the same when I’d created Iress on top of it—or so I’d thought, anyway—he’d explained that I’d birthed another realm, another shift of reality, taking the tomb of her tree with it and leaving everything else on the human plane. Thinking about it gave me a brain cramp, so I’d just smiled and nodded and gone on my merry way. Hearing Laerni’s description reminded me of it. “So Meline was right. It’s another realm? And, it’s a prison?” At Laerni’s nod, I tilted my head to the side. “They found a way out, then?”
“Not them, I don’t believe, but those whom they use as conduits for their magic can traverse the portal.”
I made a tired sound and flumped down, elbows on my knees in an unladylike position so unlike the elf’s regal pose. “Well, that’s just great. Psychotic magical ventriloquists. What happened to make you so afraid of them?”
“It was Alogason who encountered them first, though he held no memory of who the physical contact had been, as if she’d wiped only her face from his mind. Through his memories, I searched, but could not find a single detail that would tell me who she was. I do know the sound of laughter drew him, and that she wanted something most inappropriate to want from another’s husband. We are a telepathic race as you know, but the Magi are even more skilled than us. She twisted his mind, made him relive his worst moments, then took his pain.” Those almond eyes, exuding sadness, focused hard on me. “What we put you through in Freymoor, barraging you with your darkest thoughts and fears, do you remember?”
I shivered. “I never want you to do that again. Ever.”
“During one of your darkest moments, imagine someone appeared and took it all away, not just from your sight and ears, but removed every negative moment from your life. How would you have felt?”
“Probably would have damn near worshiped the woman.” The sickness in my stomach knotted it up. A gift that could have healed the world, and the Magi were using it to mind-rape people. No wonder the Goddess imprisoned them. “From what Nix told me while I was in his mind, I think one of her conduits, as you call them, lured him the same way.”
“It does not surprise me that he succumbed given his affection for you and having lost you to Liam.”
Something about that didn’t sit right with me. “What did she want with Alogason?”
Laerni ripped out a clump of grass. “For him to give her a child and to amuse her, as in leave Freymoor to be by her side. Had we not been as connected as we are, we would have lost him that day. I would have lost him. As his anchor to reality, I kept him from becoming completely enamored and ensnared by her false promises.”
I clenched my fist tight, wishing I held Liam’s hand. “But he’s so powerful and … well …” I didn’t say it, but if the Magi had bested an all-powerful elf, what chance did I have? Close to none, that’s what. “She’s not going to ask that of me, for obvious reasons, so why does she want me?”
“I’m not certain, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say to free them from their prison.”
“That’s not going to happen.” If they caused so much havoc locked up, what would they do if they were out? My mind ached with the thoughts that punched against my brain. “So, when I go against them, and I’m guessing I’ll have a face-to-face eventually, she’s going to crawl inside my head like a poisoned worm?”
“That is her power. There is no need for her to force your will. Once she is done working you over, you will feel as if she is more precious than anything you hold dear. You may not even remember who you are, or who Liam is, only pleasing her and holding onto the false euphoria she creates will matter. Once she gets you near enough to her or one of her conduits, she will claim you, befuddle and own you, and you will never want to leave her side again.”
“Shit.” That sounded a lot like what Tameryn intended to do to Brigh, shining light on a pathway I couldn’t bear to travel. I got up again, unable to sit still for a moment longer. “How do I fight against that? Are you saying I can’t touch her, this Alseides chick?”
“It would not be advisable.”
“And my cumhacht doesn’t work, so what does that leave me?” I knew my voice had risen to a high-strung shriek, but I couldn’t bring it down. “If
I can hit it or throw power at it, I can win, but how can I fight against this? How do I get Liam back?”
She smiled that infuriating curl of lips at me again. “What is your heart’s greatest desire?”
“My heart’s … what the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything.” Her brow went up in that elegant arch that made me want to smack her. “She will use it against you, so it would be helpful to know what it is.”
A search of my hurricane of thought didn’t turn up anything. “I don’t know. Liam, I guess. Garret. I can feel you in my head; why don’t you know?”
“Search deep. When you left your home the night Parthalan destroyed your family, what would you have given anything for?”
I exhaled a jagged breath and worked to bring myself down a notch. “Home. My family back.”
“Nothing else?”
A memory, of my mother putting me to bed, tucking me into her arm as she sang me to sleep, consumed me for a while. “To feel safe again. I have a new home now, a family I’d die for ten times over, but I still don’t feel safe.”
“Then, that is what she will offer you, Lila Gray, and you must find a way to remember what she will take from you in exchange for it.”
“I just can’t imagine anyone being able to sway me like that. I’m not an idiot.”
She smiled again. “No. A bright mind you have, a warrior’s mind, as did my Alogason. It seems to matter little under the power of her spell.”
“I don’t know if I can do this. I could waltz in there, and it won’t even occur to me to fight, just hand over whatever she wants and bring an end to everything?” A thought stopped me cold. “What if I’ve been thinking about this all wrong?” I raised tired eyes to the elf, my guts twisting. “What if this, what’s happening right now, what the Magi are doing, what if this is the Goddess’ wish? What if we’ve all disappointed her so badly, she’s decided to turn us all into green lumps and return peace to this joint once and for all?” Cursing under my breath, I marched back and forth across the grass. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, she’d never have let your people die that way. She’d never have let them take Liam!” Shouting, I scrubbed at mutinous tears. “We went through hell to be together, and she’s just going to rip him away from me? Give us a child only to see him die on some wooden crucifix? It’s not fucking right! Is this what fate has in store for me, for us?”
Rising with regal poise, Laerni glided to me, passing the backs of her fingers through my tears. “My dear child, I do not believe in a fate pre-written. We are but given a choice, and that choice defines our future. Another choice may change it again, and another and another, until we become who we’ve chosen to be. Who will you choose to be, Lila Gray?”
Good question. She’d cut to the meat of it as always. Every choice was mine alone, and I needed to make every one count right up until Alseides mind-fucked me. “I don’t know. Whatever I need to be, I guess.”
Hands cupping my face, she kissed my forehead and stepped back. “Answer this question for yourself, and you will be closer to the answers you seek. We are a passive race, as we’ve been since the dawn of our very long forever. Watching you, the fire from your belly filling your eyes, your voice and your heart, makes me feel alive and bold.” She placed one hand on my chest above my heart, and the other over her own. “I choose to be the one standing with you when the last battle begins.”
Silence fell between us as I stared at her, the stranger wearing the Laerni suit. She’d always been the cautious one, the make-love-not-war woman, except when it came to the Shadowborn, who’d killed her daughter. “I don’t know what to say. If you’re willing to come with me, then I can’t think of anyone I’d rather stand with when this all goes down. Maybe you can be my anchor like you were to Alogason, pull me back from the brink when Alseides tries to take me.” I rubbed her arm through the silk of her dress, needing to touch her. Yet another issue she’d been hounding me on, to not resist the urge to touch when I had one. “The problem still remains, though … what do we do when we find them? If I can make it past the whole telepathic screwing thing.”
Laerni gave me another dose of her indulgent smile. “Has it occurred to you, Lila Gray, that the Goddess has bestowed upon you the one gift she, herself, does not possess?”
Her words zapped through me like a super-charged lightning bolt, stealing the oxygen from the air. A gasp cleared the clog from my throat. “I can affect free will?” I said on a whisper, uncertain what it meant.
“Yes, and my heart tells me this was not by accident. So, you cannot truly believe she would wish this hardship upon you or any of us. She creates life, but for reasons that remain a mystery, she will not make our choices for us. This is the basis for freedom, is it not?”
Head bobbing to my quagmire of thoughts, I mulled that over. Freedom. If someone forced their beliefs on me my whole life, I wouldn’t be who I was. “Choosing for ourselves makes us who we are—the good and the bad.” Again, back to the choices. Too bad not all of us made the right ones.
My finger shook at the ideas forming in my head. “So, she doesn’t like what her kids are up to. She wants me to do something with my gift. Something she either can’t or won’t do.” I growled and flumped down on the edge of the nearest dais. “But what? I’m sure it’s not something as simple as walking up to her and ordering the Magi to stop what they’re doing. Especially if that magic hocus pocus of theirs is clogging up the air. Who knows, maybe they couldn’t be affected by my Will, anyway.”
Coming to one knee, Laerni placed her hand on my bulging belly, her touch so light I could barely feel it. “It has also occurred to me that perhaps this little one might have a part in your answer, as well.”
Arms wrapped around Garret, I jumped up and whirled to face the still-kneeling elf. “I will not let her touch him, and I certainly won’t let anyone—Goddess, or otherwise—use him for anything. Especially not defusing an end-of-the-world war.” The claws of my mother bear had come out, and they were damn sharp.
That smile again. “I sense an already strong, stubborn mind in that little one you carry, Lila Gray, as I’m sure you do, as well. Perhaps, like Arianne, he will be born a warrior, and maybe even now, within the womb, he is already prepared to fight for the ones he loves. You do feel his love for you, do you not? Like your own personal sun?”
I did feel it, when I allowed myself to. Every time I opened my soul completely to my child, his love made me sob with the intensity of it. That made me even more resolved to keep him away from all of the trouble we were in.
Before I could respond to Laerni, Neve appeared at the gate, relaxed yet confident in her stance. A commanding presence radiated from my captain. Had my one small concession, my show of trust in her, made that change in her demeanor? Gallagher and Andrew weren’t the only ones in my life I’d been neglecting, apparently.
“We’re ready when you are, ladies,” Neve called.
Was I ready? To face my people and delegate as Liam had suggested? To offer up my child as some miracle cure to the Magi curse? To face that sociopathic bitch who’d make me do her bidding and think it was the best thing ever? Not even close.
With some effort, I straightened myself and hoped my face no longer displayed my confusion and disbelief over the little bug Laerni had planted in my ear. I looked at the tall creature and wondered how much she knew about Garret because she could read him and how much was speculation. “Are you coming with us?”
Her warm hand landed on my shoulder. “My dear Lila Gray. I know I once cowered from this fight, but with nothing left to lose but my very life, I find myself as eager as you to see an end to this. If death shall find me before the end, then I shall lay down in peace knowing that I have made my stand with you.”
Although she drove me around the bend more often than not, I had to admit the cryptic son
gstress had crept into my heart at some point. I managed a small smile and gestured toward Neve. “In that case, after you. Maybe you can sing them into submission.”
“Alas, if the same spell surrounds them as we faced in Freymoor Wood, then my voice will have as little effect as your gifts.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that, realizing the thought must have at least crossed her mind. “Then, maybe with a few witches in our corner, we can bring that shit down and wreak some havoc on their scrawny asses.” At her determined stare, I added, “But whatever’s going on in that head of yours”—I pointed at my bump—“this kid stays out of it, or we’re going to have a big problem, you and me.”
Walking taller, with the liquid grace of water gliding over a riverbed, her lips curved into a devious smile. “We shall see what the future will bring, Lila Gray.”
I really didn’t like the sound of that.
19
I followed Neve and five other guards out of the portal along with Brígh and Laerni. My stomach snarled at me—a reminder that I never did get to finish eating the drumstick I’d taken from the refrigerator. In the kitchen, in his arms, sharing a heart-warming moment while eating turkey legs. That may have been the last fond memory I’d ever have of Liam.
I clamped down on the emotions threatening to spill over my lashes and cleared my throat of grief as I gazed toward the jewel-blue summer sky. It looked so peaceful. Calm. Staring into the crystal expanse could have made me forget the world was about to go to shit.
“How dare you take our men!” Neasa came storming out of the Dun Bray gate with forty or so women behind her. Tears had worn paths through the dirt on their cheeks. They looked like they’d been living under a bridge for months or, in their case, a scruffy garden. Why hadn’t Neasa done something to help them?
“Oh, shut your hole, you stupid hag,” Brígh said, shaking her head. “They took ours, too.”
“Why would I believe a word any of you say? Lying, scheming half breeds!”
Rise of the Magi Page 16
