His anger spiked as if he’d been trying to get my attention for hours and had degraded to throwing a mini-me-sized tantrum. “Okay, shhh,” I whispered to him, muting him a little so I could think. “I’m sorry. I’m listening now.” If Alseides knew I’d opened myself to Garret, she didn’t let on.
A flash of night and silver moonlight appeared in my peripheral vision, faded as if I’d been caught half in reality and half in Alseides’ fantasy. I caught a brief scream and a blaze of lightning splitting a tree down its center before it disappeared. “You’re losing this fight, Alseides. I think one of your sisters just fell into a pile of kindling.”
“I’ve lost nothing!” Her voice ripped open the air and teased the fine hairs on my body to attention.
Her influence grew like a bloody tide in my senses, but I held on to Garret, matched my heartbeat to his to bring us closer in tune with one another. What do you want me to do, baby? He hadn’t the words, and I couldn’t decipher the emotions crashing around in my soul.
He and I needed to finish with Alseides, so I concentrated everything on him. She’ll hurt Liam, my voice of reason whispered to me. She’ll tell you lies. Although Liam’s face had disappeared from my memory, I knew he was important, that he loved me, and I loved him, but I didn’t try to hold on to anything but Garret.
Everything vanished from my thoughts.
Alseides glided across the grass as the cheerful birdsong relaxed me.
I wouldn’t listen to her. I didn’t know why, exactly, but it was important that I didn’t believe whatever she was about to tell me.
Upon reaching me, she kissed my forehead and petted my hair. “Do not fret, my sister, for you are mine now, and I will take care of you always. Awaken my sisters so that they may help me heal this world. Become our sun.”
A wave of euphoria drained me of tension, leaving me floating in Alseides presence, but it was no longer bliss. It was a lie.
Pretend. She has to believe.
“Now,” she said. “They’re coming.”
“I won’t let them hurt you.” I kissed her cheek. She half smiled as if unsure whether or not I spoke the truth.
Garret directed me with emotion and nudges. I turned my face up to the sky, pulling in energy from above as I ignited into my Light form.
Night fell.
Silhouettes rushed in every direction. The faces seemed somehow familiar, but I had no names or emotions to glue them together. Shrieks and shouts of ‘Lila!’ sounded distant, insignificant, like ants shouting at a god to spare them. Don’t be afraid, I thought at them. The ground fell away as I ascended, pulsing with power.
The energy came too fast, much faster than I meant it to. I sensed every animal for a hundred miles stumble as I absorbed all they were. Startled minds sent cries ricocheting through my head. The Old Ones, thousands of them, stretched for miles, all locked in their own wooden prisons. Some wanted to be freed. Most wanted to be left in peace. My flesh grew brighter with every passing second, radiating heat that could have melted concrete. It was terrifying and wonderful. In that moment, I could become their sun. Their provider. Protector. They would worship me.
“Lila, don’t—” a familiar voice shouted inside my head before Alseides bombarded me with another wave of endorphins. Who had it been? He sounded afraid and sad.
Liam, my distant voice told me.
Something flopped like a land-bound fish in my belly. Garret’s temper flared, searing me from the inside out. Daddy, he thought at me well enough I caught the word.
“Liam!” I squinted through my own fire. Fighting carried on in sporadic groups across the valley and into the woods, leaving bodies scattered from end to end, but I couldn’t see who had fallen.
Meline and her group stood in an even larger circle directly beneath my personal fireball. I couldn’t locate Juliet or Alseides anywhere among those who rolled and tumbled, who ducked arrows and shot lighting from their palms, but two of the trees moved like black swords cutting swaths through my company. Since one had fallen, one of them had to be Alseides in her dryad form.
My body continued to draw power from everyone below, the sun and the moon, and no amount of trying made it stop, like I’d become a black hole, sucking everything into me. Willing myself to shut it down had no effect, but clued me into the danger I posed with the amount of energy I’d consumed. Had Alseides done something to me? Or was it more of the all-or-nothing issues I’d been having recently?
A knowing sense passed from Garret to me like a band of soft mental kisses. He wanted me to keep going, but what did he want me to do? Even if I didn’t intend to use my energy, it would have to go somewhere. I couldn’t expel what I’d taken without destroying everyone, maybe the earth itself, cleaving it right down the middle with the sheer force of it. Expelling a small fraction of the amount I already held had created Iress. If I let go, Alseides would consume everything, just like in Brígh’s vision. I had to hold onto it until I figured out what Garret wanted.
The fog lifted a little. I searched the fray for the humans, for Richard and James. Oh, shit. I’d risen as fire. How could I have been so stupid? The Host would have told the Mountie and the Fed to send the planes. Had they already dispatched his weapon? If I only had minutes, I needed to use every second to figure out what to do. I needed time to figure out what Garret wanted me to do, what the Goddess intended for him to do before it was too late.
I screamed, “Parthalan!” the sound cracking into the night like a thousand guns, silencing everything below for a span of a few breaths. Not that I seemed to be breathing, more burning, surviving on the fuel of others.
In the east, a black form shot into a sky turned from night to day by my own fire. Parthalan. He darted toward me, soaring, drawing one wing over his eyes as he drew near.
“Mistress?” he hissed, his tone laced with sorrow.
A sob burst from me, and when it passed, I said, “Tell James to abort. Then you get as many of ours out of here as you can. Yank them out kicking and screaming if you have to, but get them as far away from here as you can. You and the Host. Now, Parthalan. It will be the last I ever ask of you. They took your life from you, and I will make sure they never hurt another soul.”
“I will not fail you.” As he streaked across the sky, the forest erupted with Sluagh, and in their talons, fae and witches screamed to be returned to the fight.
The rumble of a jet engine drew near. No, wait. Please! I just need a little more time!
My own fire blinded me to the ground and everyone I loved as Garret burned hot within me.
“Come back to me,” Brígh had said as I’d left to talk with James and Richard.
Why did they all trust me to find a way?
“Because you care enough to take away our pain,” her voice piped up again.
“The Goddess didn’t put her faith and power in yeh for shits and giggles,” Willa had said
“Who do you choose to be?” Laerni’s wisdom joined the parade.
A flash on the horizon began as a dot of color before expanding and rolling across the sky like orange lightning.
As I opened my mind and gathered up Liam, Laerni, my family and friends, my home—all I’d tucked away in my heart—a moment of perfect clarity dawned on me.
I choose to be a mother and a wife, friend and lover, strong shoulder and soft heart. I choose to take the pain from another and cry their tears for them. I choose love over power. I choose to follow the light and embrace the night, for without true darkness, we can’t appreciate the dawn when it finally breaks. Without trial, there can be no growth of spirit, no test of faith.
A trail of fire from the package the jet dropped left a bloody scar across the clouds.
I locked onto Garret’s spirit deep within me, coaxing him to tell me what he so desperately wanted me to know.
A
horde of black winged creatures rocketed into the sky toward the incoming fire.
I’d come so far only to fail. I’m so sorry, Liam.
A breath passed. Two. Three.
Numbness settled in.
At least with my destruction, the Magi would remain in prison. I only needed to resist Alseides’ temptation.
We’ll meet you in the realm of the spirits.
The sonic boom from an explosion slammed into me, knocking me back, and maybe apart. Above, white clouds turned red, rolling and tumbling.
“Parthalan!” I cried, knowing it was too late. His warm presence vanished from the world and from my senses, like a flame snuffed out, leaving only darkness—even through the barriers I used to link to the Host. He’d given his life for me again, and my heart splintered.
All doubt vanished as I re-centered myself. I would not let his sacrifice go to waste. Swallowing my grief, I focused back on Garret. I’m ready. Show me.
Flapping of wings erupted below me, drumming against the air. A giant white form appeared yards away. Liam. As owl, his large, yellow eyes held far too much intelligence for a mere beast. He seemed to be trying to say something to me, circling around and around, squawking, before flying right at me. He wouldn’t know I’d found my anchor and had broken free from Alseides.
“Liam, no! It’s all right!” When he reached the aura of my energy, it flared, sending him shrieking, falling, spiralling down, down until he thudded to the ground in a sprawl of white feathers.
Oh, Goddess!
Close to hyperventilating and choking on my own fire, I wailed into the night. I’d hurt him, just like in my nightmares. I couldn’t punch through my power to find him within our bond. I’ve killed him. Oh, Goddess, please! No!
I am the storm. Where my heart should have been, only a bleeding wound remained, throbbing, burning until I couldn’t stand it.
A mutinous voice told me she could make it all go away. Alseides influence surged again, stronger, teasing me with bliss, with promises of ultimate power, of safety I’d never find on my own.
I shook my head as if that could expel her from my mind, but her claws were in deep. Streaks of lightning shot from my limbs and forked in every direction. Connected. Hooked like a battery to the Magi’s sparks, I could force my Will on them, pull them to consciousness, make them whole like I’d done to my people before.
“Do it,” Alseides commanded inside my head. “Nobody will ever hurt you again. Give me your pain.”
The Goddess gave you the one gift she, herself, does not possess, an echo of Laerni’s voice spoke up in my mind.
My head and heart emptied of all but one thought. It would have been so easy to give in, to take the road without pain, but that wasn’t who I was, who I’d become. Had the Goddess given the gift of Will to the one person who wouldn’t be seduced by its power? Had she known the life Alseides would give me, make me fear my own abilities, grow stubborn as I learned to survive, and know the sweet taste of love and family after fighting so hard to get it?
A spike of love surged again from my belly. Yes, it said. Yes, Momma.
Love or power? My life, or those of my people, of my friends, my mate? My son? To be worshiped, or to be loved—the real kind that came from the heart instead of from magic tricks?
There really was no choice at all. Alseides’ will was not stronger than mine. She fought out of hate and greed, out of a god complex that had consumed her.
I gritted my teeth and bellowed, “No!”
Sheer will alone let me hold still, not drawing and not expelling a drop of Light. For my people, I had to hold on.
Your mind only serves to remind you what you fight for, Lila Gray.
I fought for love I never dreamed of feeling. For Liam. For Garret.
I love you, baby boy.
An urge claimed me—to touch all the sparks connected to me. Not my urge but my son’s. Understanding bloomed bright and clear. He’d made me grab Neasa when she was being pissy, and had stolen her gift. When Tameryn tried to take Brígh, he’d used Neasa’s cumhacht on her, throwing despair in her face, and took her Sight.
“I understand.” I laughed, burning brighter. “I understand!”
With the Magi, I would be the vessel, and my boy would be the magnet. Laerni had been right all along. Garret was the key to the Magi’s undoing. He would take their power, and I’d help him do it.
Who did I choose to be? I would be the ending before the new beginning.
“You’re right, Alseides,” I said with that multi-layer voice of ultimate power. “Everyone always overlooks the child.”
“You’re mine! What are you doing?” Alseides frantic voice rattled my inner world, a dim image of her overlaying the landscape as if she couldn’t quite pull me into her mind.
“I’m doing what our Goddess wants me to do, what she created me for.” My smile wouldn’t be contained. “You tried to take my pain, but it was a load of bull. You tried to give me the one thing I wanted most, to feel safe, but I don’t need you for that. In turn, I’m going to give you the peace you seek because, for some strange reason, your mother still cares what happens to you.”
Alseides roared in my mind. That ancient beast I’d sensed rolling beneath her skin came to the surface. Her projected image faded a bit more against the real world, skin darkening to show patterns of bark.
I let go of the power. Tendrils of Light streaked across the land, connecting to those tiny sparks I’d sensed in the Old Ones, in Alseides and her sisters, in Juliet. The Old Ones didn’t come to life or break free from the earth, only turned their imagined faces up to me and smiled. Lava entered my fingertips. Crawled up my arms with a slow burn—a familiar sensation I relished. Garret’s spirit scorched my center. It wasn’t pain but a brilliant, wonderful heat that was love and trust and determination rolled into one.
“Yes, baby. That’s it,” I whispered to him. A symphony of screams rose from the ground—agony, fear of the deadliest kind that could whiten a person’s hair just from the sound of it, like in my nightmares. Not from my people. From the Magi.
The lava ascending the length of my arms turned to searing agony as it neared my heart, invading my soul. I swelled and expanded to the point I couldn’t hold it any longer. Whatever connection Alseides kept with me remained active. In her psychedelic valley, her arms stretched skyward, lengthening, sprouting oak leaves at the ends of each branch. Face contorted in a scream, bark crawled over her skin, or rather her false skin evaporated leaving her true flesh behind. I absorbed her fear, her rage and left her at peace for the first time in her very long forever. The others I sensed radiated relief and joy as I pulled back from them. In the center of the valley, Alseides and Juliet stood in their natural wooden forms. Faces peaceful. Their spirits dormant, part of the earth, the elements.
A blast of relief sent the air from my lungs, but my high crashed almost instantly. Too much power. I’d risen even farther, pulsing and flicking like a dying star. The job had always been a one way ticket for both of us. I supposed I’d always known but couldn’t accept it. Suppressing a sob, I said, “It’s done, baby. I’m so proud of you. I can’t hold it much longer. I love you.”
A blaze of golden mist erupted before my eyes, shifting and drawing near, caressing my forehead with a tendril of something warm. Mother?
“Let go, child, and I will take you home.” Fierce pride mingled with sorrow in her tone.
“Forgive me.”
“Home? Garret, too? Liam?”
“Your loves will never leave you again.”
We would meet in the realm of the spirits. Forever. After sampling one last breath of life, I released my iron fist from the energy I held back, letting it flow out unchecked. My body came apart, losing cohesion, like foam shifting and drifting apart on the surf.
An explosion of o
range sparks and red flames ate the world as I closed my eyes and held my son with imagined arms.
30
I stood barefoot in a field of white. Somehow, I knew I’d been standing there a long time, staring into the peaceful, empty distance. Staring kept the hurt away, and my mind hurt. My heart hurt. My center ached as if something had been torn from me, leaving a bleeding, invisible wound in its place, but staring at the white muted it all. I liked it there. I thought I would stay forever.
A tug from a gentle breeze had me looking down. A teal dress danced around my knees, the only color in whatever strange place I found myself in. The fabric caressed me like the touch of a lover, tickling, stroking my body, inducing a flash of images in my mind: the touch of a man’s lips, strong arms holding me so tight I could scarcely breathe, a gaze that set me aflame while I held a book, a voice that could render me boneless with the mere whisper of my name, and a warm feeling in my heart his presence induced in me, one I had no name for, but terrifying and wonderful.
I touched my cheek and found it wet. Why was I crying? Had I lost something? Done something bad? Hurt someone?
A man appeared beside me. His black skin stood out against the starkness of the surroundings and of his hair in the same flawless white. It was twisted into bunches that fell around shoulders covered in a tweed suit jacket, a bow tie secured at his neck. His eyes, though they stared right at me, appeared opaque as if they’d lost their ability to see.
“Who … who are you?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know. He didn’t belong in my emptiness. My inner voice told me he’d reveal things that would kill me inside, would remind me of the hurt I’d forgotten in the serenity of the white place. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “No, whoever you are, go away. It’s peaceful here. I won’t let you take it away.”
Rise of the Magi Page 26
