The faint whispers that had been chattering in my head grew louder. Excited. Waiting. All attempts to pinpoint their origin failed. “I think we’ve got their attention, boys and girls, and I don’t think I’m hearing them from this side of the gateway, but from the far side. Get ready to move.” A subtle nod to Parthalan, and he shut his eyes, hopefully to relay the message to the other teams.
“Keep all you hold dear deep in your heart, Lila Gray. I will attempt to be your anchor, but failing that, you will need to find your own.” Laerni grasped my hand, a devious smile stretching her lips wide. “For our lost ones. For Freymoor.”
I squeezed her fingers in mine, exhaling my utter terror upon the night breeze. “Yeah. For Freymoor.” For Liam.
26
Laerni and I jumped into the pond feet first. Instead of feeling wet or sticky as I’d been expecting, nothing touched me back. Just like Parthalan had said. A void empty of sight, sound and sensation. No current of water shifted my legs. No air movement whispered against the hairs on my arms. My body was free to move, but there seemed to be no bottom, no sides, no surface, no temperature to note. Nothing touched me anywhere except where Laerni’s fingers intertwined with mine. I’d have freaked right the hell out had she let go. She tugged on me, drawing me upwards. At least my brain told me it was up even though I couldn’t remember my head having ducked under anything.
My mind tried to convince me I’d gone underwater, making me gasp and thrash in panic, but breath continued in and out like normal.
One last jerk of Laerni’s hand brought sight and sound back, though I emerged alone. When her fingers had slipped from mine I had no idea. Panic started to rise like a funnel cloud in my center, stalling when it reached my resolve to keep it away. I will do this because I have to. For my boys. My hair and skin were bone-dry. A quick search of the surface and surrounding area revealed no elf, and no Parthalan or Nix either, despite my hope they might have jumped in after us.
Had the portal rejected her? My pulse jackhammered in my throat as I hoped she’d arrived safely back on the other side. Without Parthalan, I had no contact with the other groups, and without Laerni, I had no hope of getting a glimpse into the Magi mind or to use her as my anchor to reality. Not that I held much hope she could read dryads with such power. Without her, my lifeline had disappeared. I shoved it all aside and concentrated on the moment.
Overhead, the sky winked at me. Zillions of pinpricks shone against a black backdrop while I gathered my nerve. I was alive, determined, and I would change our future. In the background of my thoughts, I acknowledged that I’d known it would come down to me and the Magi in the end, anyway. The sooner I accepted the task and ran with it, the faster I could get it done.
Whispers continued from somewhere straight ahead of me. I peered at the reed-lined edge of the water and up at the same moon I’d left behind. Maybe it had been me who’d been rejected and the rest had gone through? Fuck.
I climbed the bank for a better look and peered through the red leaves of a small bush on the far side of the pond from where I’d entered. Not a soul inhabited the shallow valley that I could see. The place appeared identical to the one on the underside of the pond, alive with wild grasses and bouquets of buttercups, all highlighted by the full moon.
I slowly stood and noted the thick wall of trees that gathered around like spectators for a coming fight. Had they been like that when I’d entered? I couldn’t recall, since my focus had been on the pond. Would Andrew’s father still be alive in the Magi’s realm? I had no doubt about what had happened the day Andrew was attacked, but why hadn’t they taken his mind, too? Did he have an immunity to Alseides like me?
The sound of muffled crying drew my eye to the far side of the water. I scanned the woods and approached in a wide arc. Amongst a tuft of tall grass, a young girl sat on the ground hugging her skinny knees. Long, black hair painted a sleek line down fur clothing: a basic skirt and bra in a tawny shade of brown. When she raised her striking ice eyes, I sucked in a breath that refused to blow out for a moment.
“Juliet?” I knelt beside her body, thinner and more frail than when I’d first seen her in the hospital after Alastair had stolen her mother’s soul. “How did you get here? Why did they take you again?”
“They’re coming,” she said, her voice a pitiful wobble of sound. “I didn’t think anyone would ever find me. Please, I want my mom. I’m scared!”
Another scan of the woods. More nothing. “Who’s coming? The Magi? Alseides?”
A shake of her head sent black hair into a fan around her body, suggesting she was afraid to tell me rather than giving a negative answer.
Unable to take the utter panic in her eyes, I wrapped my arms around her, rocking her against my body. “I won’t let them hurt you. Do you hear me? Go back through the pond. You’ll find my friends on the other side.”
Her trembling ceased. She leaned back and put her palm against my cheek, her innocent face as calm and pleasant as morning mist.
Juliet smiled up at me before leaning in to kiss my chin. “I’m so glad you came, Lila.”
I blinked and stood alone in the center of a dark forest full of shadows and moving lights. Not lights. Insects. My breath came hard and ragged as I connected the dots. That little shit! The hair, the fur. If I’d been a betting woman, I’d have put my money that Juliet was one of the demon spawn the Magi produced with some unsuspecting human and used as a conduit. Scenarios I didn’t want to think about jumped into the forefront of my mind. The whole hospital scene and the story about the Shadowborn taking her mother had all been a fucking lie. She could see through my glamor. After everything that happened with the Shadowborn, I’d completely forgotten to ask Gallagher about it. She’d had her fingers so deep in my heart she just about broke it to bits. She’d played me like a pro and I’d swallowed it whole because she was a freakin’ Magi spawn. How could I have not sensed any deception at all? I usually read people pretty well. I hadn’t doubted her for a second. Not a Goddamned second. Did she do some spell on me to make me more vulnerable like she did to Nix? That didn’t make sense, or she’d have been able to get me into their realm the same way. Had it been her that had lured him there, and he didn’t remember? If one little girl could cause such havoc, it was no wonder the Magi were dancing deadly circles around us.
While I fumed over being so thoroughly duped by a ten year old, I scanned where I’d landed. The valley appeared to be essentially the same, except instead of an inky pool above, the sky had turned violet, the moon a pale pink ball in its center. An odd shade of jade replaced the usual grass green. Fireflies hovered around the edges of what I could see, blinking iridescent yellow, red and purple, their wings rimmed with neon green.
My gut told me I’d finally made it to Alseides’ realm.
How could evil live in such a magical, serene-looking place? How could our last stand be in the middle of an outtake from the Wizard of freakin’ Oz? I knew better than to buy it. The last time I’d felt that peaceful was when I’d found the farm where Liam, through Parthalan, had laid his trap for me. As bait went, I couldn’t imagine anything better to lure a girl with than Liam. I only hoped Alseides would fail to get what she wanted from me as miserably as Parthalan had.
Fog swept over my mind, eating thoughts I tried to have.
Why had I come? The answer flitted away into internal mist. Snippets of memory danced just outside of my inner vision, but I couldn’t find the will to grasp at them, to make sense out of the faces and sounds. Did someone leave me? Am I lost?
The cheerful call of some night bird rolled across the forest, snapping up my worries and flying off with them. A beautiful, humming silence inhabited me. I reached up to wave my hand through the glowing insects. Their wings caressed my fingers and induced a laugh that unfurled the knots in my muscles. As the tension drained out of me, I wondered why I’d been so uptight.
Another glance around the moon-kissed land had me droopy-eyed.
“Welcome, Lila. I’ve waited so long for you to come.”
I blinked, and a woman appeared several feet away, wearing not much at all. The instant I saw her bathed in moonlight, all veil of night vanished, leaving her vibrant and wild in the pink daylight, along with everything else visible in the tree-lined clearing. A sort of shadow overlaid her, as if her skin was only a façade to conceal something beneath—something brilliant, powerful and ancient as the bedrock. Black hair marbled with a rich, royal purple lay in a thick swath across bare shoulders.
“Who are you?” I asked in a whisper.
She smiled and lit up the atmosphere even more. “You may call me Alseides, and I am the mistress of these lands.” Eyes of a neon violet cut through the distance to steal the next breath I might have taken. Tiny silvery fur flaps covered her at the front, and another over her rear, while dark purple cloth draped across her upper half, leaving one breast uncovered. She exuded a presence that induced a primal desire to take a knee or abase myself before her.
She held her hand out. Before I could move to take it, a man with shoulder-length platinum blond hair strode out from behind me with a light step and a bright smile on his face. Where had he come from? Did I know him?
“Well done, Mannix,” she said.
Sliding his fingers into her black hair, he leaned down and kissed her as if searching for her bellybutton with his tongue. I averted my gaze from their moment, confused by the pain in my chest. Why would their affection bother me so much?
“We’re almost there, Alsei,” he said, his voice somehow familiar.
“Go now, and keep all away from our guest while I finish this.”
When I looked back at them, the man had gone, and for reasons I didn’t understand, I was glad he’d left. My fists ached as I opened and closed my fingers, but I couldn’t discern the reason.
I gazed around at the silent recital of fireflies in the perimeter of shadows, wincing as more disconnected memories lit my mind’s eye. Flashes of a tall woman with white hair, mauve skin and deep purple almond-shaped eyes that held knowledge from the beginning of time, crept through my brain. Her knowing smile warmed my heart and made me want to punch something. Had she come with me? Or was I looking for her?
“I think I’m looking for someone,” I said to the woman before me. “Will you take me to her? Is that why you were waiting for me?” The thought that such a Goddess would concern herself with me set my soul aglow.
“I’m simply waiting to welcome you, of course. You promised to help me, don’t you remember?” At my shaking head, she swept her arm toward a bench I hadn’t noticed beside me. “You must be tired after such a long journey. Please, sit, and we’ll talk for a while.”
I moved with leaden legs and lowered myself onto the seat, leaning down to rub my ankles. Why were they so sore? Had I walked there? “How did I get here? Did I come with someone?” The questions didn’t sound right on my tongue. I rubbed my flat belly, dully aware of an ache there. Had I fallen and bruised myself? A sense of loss fell over me before it vanished.
Alseides took a knee before me. Her ancient stare resettled on my face. Such wisdom and kindness I found there. “You insisted upon walking through the forest. You are so brave to face the dangers of the night alone.”
Alone?
“Lila Gray.” A distant echo rang in my ears before it disappeared. The female voice sparked recognition that remained out of my grasp as to why. I gripped the bench and listened for more, but it never came. “Did you hear something?” I asked Alseides.
Flashing a smile to cure the world of darkness, she took my face in her hands, gazing over me with adoration. “You’ve been hurt so much in your life. It pains my heart.”
A great bleeding wound opened in my center, throbbing until I could feel nothing else. “It hurts.”
“You are a survivor. I see it in your eyes. To have been so young, to have listened as he destroyed your family. Most would have broken. Given up. But not you.”
A flash took me to a dirt crawlspace under a wooden floor and to my thirteen year old body. The scent of copper filled my nose. Screams ripped through me from above. “Mother? Mother!” I scratched at the wood, thrust up my foot and shoved with all I had, but it didn’t budge.
“Run, Lilabear, run!” she screamed back. Streamers of light blasted through the joints of the hardwood floor accompanied by a maniacal laugh. Parthalan. His name was Parthalan, and he killed them all.
“I can’t run.” Arms wrapped around my middle, I choked on a sob as the blood of my little sisters seeped through from above and coated my arms. “I have to try. I have to save them!”
“Hush, child. It’s all right now.” Alseides pleasant smile replaced the horror.
A question waited on my tongue, but the words wouldn’t come out. How had she known how my family died? Had we met before? In her presence, the sickness in my soul evaporated back to the humming silence.
“You know about war. Don’t you? So many humans hurt you even while you tried to help them.”
Yes. I’d been alone for so long, wandering the wild places. So many guns and paranoid people who would kill for a scrap of food. Sensations of hands on my body from those who thought to take more from me than my clothes and food sent me off the bench. My instincts tried to evoke something to make the people go away, but nothing happened. What should I have been able to do? My skin should have looked different though I didn’t know how. Something seemed wrong, out of place, like a bone that needed to snap before I’d feel right again.
I blinked.
Night fell with the abruptness of a thrown switch. A man gripped my upper arms, his dark hair a mess, his stare hard and fierce. Stubble covered his strong chin. “Lila, snap out of it, dammit!”
A scream launched from my throat as I beat at him with my fists. “Where is she? Where’s Alseides?”
“It’s me, baby. Lila, stop, it’s—”
A quick shutter of my lids brought daylight and the psychedelic colors and serene twitters of birds to drive away the darkness. My brain hurt as if it had been squeezed for too long.
Alseides held her arms wide. “Memories are powerful beasts, are they not?”
“That was a memory?” I took a moment to allow the man’s face and voice to roll around in my mind. “I know him, don’t I? Not here”—I tapped my temple—“but here.” I palmed my heart that had swelled at the sight of him, but also hurt, too. “Who is he?” Emotion overwhelmed me as I collapsed against her, unable to control the shaking in my limbs. He’d been about to say his name, and it taunted me from one of the shards of memory blinking in and out. What had he done to me in the past? Why did he look so angry? I longed for the silence she’d given me. “Make it stop. I don’t want to remember.”
“I know, child. Give them to me—all of your wounds. Let me heal you.”
The tight knot of panic in my chest vanished in her arms, allowed me to float above the fear, serene and whole.
“We must hurry, now. There are people coming here to hurt you, to hurt all of us. We must be ready for when they come.”
The thought of anyone harming such a beautiful creature of the wilderness snapped me to attention. “What can I do? I’ve lost … something. A weapon, maybe?” Leaning back, I stared at my arms, waiting for something to happen that never did. “Will you help me find it?”
Night fell.
A war raged around me.
A sparkling red line encircled me on the grass in a ten-foot radius, and somehow I knew the three people standing on the other side had conjured it. Battle cries preceded a group of men slamming into a tall woman who appeared to be more tree than human, hacking at it with crude blades. Towering treetops bent and groaned as if they wished they could break free and fight, or maybe run. A handf
ul of people lay bleeding nearby. “Find her,” one shouted. “Alseides has to be one of them.”
“What’s happening?” I said, backing away, my eyes unable to fill my brain in fast enough.
“Lila!” The same man I’d seen during my last flash returned with a bruise darkening his left cheek. He reached for me, but I recoiled. “It isn’t working, Meline. She doesn’t recognize us. You have to try harder!”
“Whatever that bitch is doing to her is too strong.” A woman, with eyes of purple fire, said. “Hurry up, Liam. We’re going to lose her again. Make her see you. Make her remember.” Eyes closed, she held the hands of a man and a woman while they hummed words in Latin.
“You have to remember me.” His voice stirred something deep in my soul. Turning to a man with feathers for hair and a face coated with blood, he said, “Don’t let that kid touch you, and keep her the hell away from my wife.”
Wife? Kid? I searched the fray and found a black-haired girl staring up at the feathered man as their names shouted through my mind. Parthalan! Juliet! He killed my family, and she was Alseides daughter. “Touch her, and I’ll kill you,” I screeched, drowning in fear rising from wherever I’d buried it. When I moved forward, the other man clamped his arms around me and held me still.
Chest heaving, Parthalan turned to Juliet, to me, his eyes spread open in shock. “I-I see things I do not wish to see in my mind’s eye. I know this girl.”
“Ah, fuck, Parth! Tell me you didn’t,” the other said, still hovering over me like a wall of muscle. “Tell me you haven’t been here before. It was them? Is that why you went bat-shit crazy?”
A whisper told me I should know what he was talking about, but it sat behind the fog.
“Remember why you fight, Lila Gray,” a white-haired woman said from beside me, sending a jolt of fright along my spine. Her white skirt had been torn and bore scars of blood across the front. “Do not let the Magi steal them from you. Find your anchor. We have never left you.”
Rise of the Magi Page 23
