“Dead end,” Morgan said.
“No. This door wouldn’t be here if it were a dead end.”
She shoved her foot through the door, closing her eyes and saying a quick prayer as she expected to fall to the bottom of the abyss. Instead, her foot touched solid ground even though it didn’t appear to be there.
“I don’t understand,” Morgan said.
“It’s about trust.”
“Trust? I’m supposed to trust there’s a floor where my eyes tell me there isn’t.”
“Exactly.”
Gwen walked without hesitation across the floor, keeping on a straight path. A door, this one blue, appeared on the other side. She paused as she had done before, opening the door cautiously before stepping through. This one led to an unusual place.
It was Cei’s bedroom back in the Langley home.
And Gwydion was sitting on his bed.
“Gwydion?”
He looked up, a book spread open on his lap. A slow smile touched his lips. “You did it.”
“I’m trying. Are you ready to go?”
His smile disappeared. “You have to open the gate.”
“How do I do that?”
He shook his head, sadness filling his eyes. “It’s too late,” he whispered just as something slammed into Gwen from behind, turning her vision red.
Not again.
Chapter 24
When Gwen’s vision cleared, she found herself in dirt outside of the gate. The sun was beating down on her face, the smell of blood so heavy in her nostrils that she thought she might have inhaled it while in Gwydion’s Annwn lab.
Cei’s laughing face was staring down into hers.
“Did you really think you could do this on you own?”
“Did you really think you could stop me?”
He shook his head even as he pulled away, snagging one of the many tears on her shirt as he did. “Looks like you’ve already had some kind of mishap.”
Gwen sat up and saw Morgan—or at least his mortal body—standing at the gate, his long fingers wrapped around the posts.
“What did you do?”
“I pulled you out. Just like I did that day you were visiting Mother Earth in the backyard of Theresa’s house. Had to practically break your ankle to pull you out that time. When you go into a trance, you go deep.”
“What do you mean, break my ankle?”
Cei just shook his head as he brushed his hands off on the seat of his jeans. “It’s time to finish this.”
“What are you proposing?”
Before Cei could answer, Branwen came out of the line of trees behind him and knocked him flat to the ground.
“There’s to lying to us,” she said, spitting on his prone figure.
“It’s too late,” Gwen said, jumping to her feet. “We’ve already begun the process.”
“But it is not finished,” Branwen said.
“It might as well be. Morgan is still in there.”
Branwen shook her head in pity. “You really are one stupid girl, aren’t you? Don’t you know who Morgan is?”
“He’s your nephew. But that doesn’t mean he’s as corrupt by power as you and Bran.”
“Shut up,” Branwen said, as she dropped her long sword and hit Gwen with a quick backhand. Gwen was ready for her, however. As Branwen swung, Gwen came up with her right hand and buried a small dagger in Branwen’s side. She screamed, the sound like the wail of a dying cat. Branwen turned to her left, unwittingly moving right into her own sword, as Cei retrieved it from the ground and severed her head with one quick swing.
“No!” Bran screamed from the trees, stepping out as his sister’s head hit the ground.
“Should have stayed in that diner where I sent her,” Gwen said.
Bran charged at Gwen, his hands outstretched as they filled with weapons—small, sharp knives that seemed to take the place of each of his human fingers. Cei pushed Gwen aside and met Bran with Branwen’s sword. Bran fell forward as the sword impaled him, spitting blood that splattered over Cei’s shoulder and across Gwen’s face.
A grunt filled the small clearing, but it wasn’t the sound of Bran’s dying throes. It came from Morgan.
“He’s in trouble,” Gwen said, running back toward the gate, her baton in her hand.
“You have to open it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Figure it out.”
Gwen stood at the gate and tried to focus. Morgan’s body moaned again as a gaping hole suddenly appeared just below his right arm. Gwen touched the tip of the baton to it and it instantly healed, but another appeared in the center of his back.
She had to figure this out now.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She pictured the open gate in her mind, hoping that just the image would make it work. She was imagining Branwen sitting in the same diner where she and Rhein had eaten their breakfast, and she had made her disappear. But it didn’t work.
“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t do this alone.”
Suddenly, other images began to pop into her head. An image of Theresa’s laughing face. A snip of memory…the twins good naturedly arguing over a video game. Anna sitting on a window ledge, reading another classic book. Melanie—yes, even Melanie—laughing at something Cei said. And there was Paul, running his fingers through his hair as he asked Gwen how her first day of school had gone. And Blodeuwedd the first time she appeared to Gwen in her human form.
And Cei. The smiling, laughing, Cei she’d known.
And then Rhein.
As she thought of Rhein, an ache built in her chest that was so much more than the pull the gate had on her. She’d known him such a short time and had even less time to spend in the comfort of his arms. She knew their time together would be short lived, and that it was likely over already, but she couldn’t let go of this undying need to see him again and touch him again. There was longing, but there was something else, too. Something she had never really known before.
Love. Unconditional, unconfined, unlimited love.
She touched the bars of the gate and instead of floating away and returning to that dark, heinous place, she felt a snap.
The gate popped open.
“Oh, my God,” Cei whispered behind her. “You did it.”
Chapter 25
They came out single file, one right after the other. Men. Women. Even a couple of kids. All looking around them in a daze as they tried to assimilate to sunlight after two millennia without it. Cei moved through them, pushing one after the other out of his way, clearly looking for someone. Gwen was on the ground, holding a moaning Morgan in her arms.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said to him over and over, as she carefully lifted his shirt and inspected his wounds. They were deep, horrifying gashes, some of them clearly human bite marks. She touched each one, some with the baton because they seemed deep enough to justify it, others with her fingers. Each one healed as though it had never been there, but Morgan continued to lie unconscious, refusing to come back into this world.
“Aneira? Aneira, where are you?”
Gwen looked behind her and saw Cei standing in the gateway, shoving people out of the way as he called a name that was vaguely familiar to her.
“Aneira?”
And then she remembered. His wife.
“Cei, you have to stay back.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He continued to stand in the doorway, watching the people move past him. “Aneira. Has anyone seen her?”
But the people, the dozens of people who came out of that gate, didn’t even seem to hear him.
“So many,” Gwen whispered to herself as she watched them walk around the clearing. Some saw the bodies of Branwen and Bran. A few spit on them, whispering quiet curses, while others were careful to step over them. She didn’t know who any of these people were, but guessed by the way most of them were dressed that they were servants of some kind.
“Gwen?”
Morgan sud
denly tried to sit up. Gwen pushed him back down, cradling his head against her thigh.
“It’s okay. You’re okay now.”
“You disappeared. And that man…he was evil.”
“It was an illusion, Morgan. It’s all over now.”
He closed his eyes, brushing wet hair out of his face. A streak of blood remained on his forehead where the hair had been. Gwen wiped it away with the palm of her hand just as a squeal that could only be compared to delight exploded behind her.
Cei was swinging a beautiful woman around in his arms.
Gwen watched, a small piece of her a little jealous of the pure love she saw in his face. She had thought he looked at her that way, but now she knew without a doubt that what she saw in his eyes was nothing compared to this. Aneira was the love of his life.
“Who’s that?” Morgan asked.
“His wife.”
“How did she end up in there? Was she a servant, too?”
“Yes and no.”
Gwen glanced behind her to find Gwydion standing there. Morgan saw him at the same moment and began to scramble to his feet, but Gwen pushed him off balance, causing him to land back in her lap.
“It’s okay. This is the real Gwydion. What you saw in there was just the dark side of him.”
Gwydion moved around Gwen so that she could see him without leaning backward. “You are a bright one,” he said with a smile. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised.”
Gwen shrugged as she focused on Morgan, trying to wipe the fear from his eyes as he continued to watch Gwydion with caution.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
Gwydion was quiet for a moment. She thought that he might have misunderstood her question, but when she looked up she could see that he was simply weighing the answer as he watched Cei and Aneira whisper to one another.
“I thought I could control him. I was wrong.”
“No one controls Cei. He is the one in control.”
Gwydion nodded in agreement. “That was my mistake. If I had seen that from the beginning, I might not have tricked him into servitude.”
“Why did you?”
Gwydion looked down at Morgan. “I think our young friend here might be able to explain it better than I ever could.”
The fear in Morgan’s eyes suddenly dissipated as understanding replaced it. He looked from Gwydion to Cei and back again, a sadness filling his eyes with tears.
“Yeah, I guess I could.”
Gwen ran her hand over Morgan’s hair. “We all got our hearts broken with Cei, I guess.”
“Young lady,” another man said, as he strutted over to them, his hands behind his back as though he was intent on having an intellectual conversation despite the fact that he had just been released from the gates of the Underground, “do you know where my servant, Rhein, might be?”
“About a mile back that way,” Gwen said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder, “unless he walks faster than I expect.”
The man inclined his head slightly. “You would be the young woman who released us?”
“Gwen,” she said, holding up her hand to him.
“Amaethon,” he said.
“We met, sort of.”
Gwen studied his face, again struck by how much like Gwydion he looked. His eyes were different, softer somehow, not hard like they had appeared in Annwn. He looked…nice. It was something of a relief to see that.
If Rhein had to spend eternity in servitude, she was glad he could do it with someone kind.
“Gwen?” another young man asked as he approached their growing group. “The young woman who saved us?”
“Yes.”
“This is Lleu,” Gwydion said. “My nephew.”
Gwen looked at this man with curiosity. This man was the reason her mother was created, the man with whom she spent several years of her life as husband and wife. He was also the man she plotted to murder…but like Blodeuwedd, Gwen preferred not to remember that little detail.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lleu.”
He smiled, as handsome as all the other men surrounding Gwen—they truly did make them better back in the Iron Age!—offering his hand for a kind handshake.
“Thank you for what you did. You can’t believe how nice it is to walk in the sun again.”
“I can only imagine.”
Lleu pulled back and a flash of something moved through the edge of Gwen’s vision. Morgan jumped to his feet quicker than she would have thought possible, blade in hand—conjured before her eyes—and then Cei…
She screamed, unable to believe her eyes even after all the carnage she had seen in Annwn.
Why hadn’t he just used his baton? Why hadn’t he gone through with his original plan? Maybe then Gwen could have talked him out of it, had Aneira talk him out of it. Why did he have to force their hands?
Poor Morgan…he shouldn’t have had to kill his first love.
Chapter 26
Gwen slept most of the long flight from Paris to New York. Her body screamed in pain when they landed from the awkward position she had forced it into. Rhein tried to help with a quick massage, but there was only so much a neck rub could do.
The three of them walked slowly through the terminal, not in a hurry to get to the next gate since their flight didn’t leave for three hours. It crossed Gwen’s mind to recommend food, but she wasn’t sure she could stand the sight of food even though she knew Morgan and Rhein were always up for a meal. Growing boys and all that.
Morgan hadn’t spoken much since the day they broke the curse. He saved Gwydion’s life and for that he had earned the undying respect of a powerful god. But he’d also lost his first love, his biological father, and his paternal aunt all in one afternoon. Not a good day for Morgan.
Rhein arrived in the aftermath of Cei’s death, running down the path so that he could barely catch his breath when he arrived to find Gwen sobbing in the arms of his master. Rhein took it all in in a single glance and gathered her in his arms, moving her to a place where she wouldn’t have to see Cei’s beheaded body any longer.
Amaethon had pity on them and agreed to allow Rhein to accompany Gwen home. They had no idea what would happen next. But maybe that was for the best.
Morgan gestured to a small bookstore stashed away in a corner of the airport. Rhein, who had somehow become everyone’s father-figure, nodded.
She and Rhein continued on to the gate alone. They found seats toward the back, far from a group of college students who apparently had been there most of the night and were still snoozing away in sleeping bags.
“You should eat something,” Rhein said, bending over to grab a granola bar from his pack.
“Not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten anything in nearly thirty-two hours.”
Gwen just shook her head. “I’m too exhausted to think about food.”
He sat back and pulled her into his arms, pressing her head to the center of his chest. She liked to lay there. But the idea that this could be the last time—
She was so tired of counting everything as the last time.
“Will you have to go back right away?”
“I don’t know. Amaethon wasn’t clear about his plans.”
Gwen ran her hand slowly down his stomach. “I wish we had more time between flights.”
Rhein kissed the top of her head. “So do I.”
“It just seems…so unreal. I was the one who was supposed to die. You and Cei were supposed to live forever. And Tony—”
No one was really sure what had happened to Tony. Gwen suspected that Cei killed him and hid his body in the woods before he pulled Gwen out of Annwn. But, if that was the truth, no one had been able to find him. He could have just chickened out and made his own way back to the States. But Gwen talked to Paul three times since then and he had not heard from him.
It was odd.
Rhein pushed a piece of hair away from her face. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”
“It�
�s true.”
“Cei left Morgan with no choice. If it hadn’t been Morgan, it might have been you or Gwydion, or any of the half million people standing around there. Cei knew that.”
“Then, why would he do it when he had just reconciled with his wife?”
“Because he was overcome with anger and hatred. That’s what happens when you let those things take over.”
“I suppose.”
Gwen closed her eyes and wondered how far she’d been from that sort of anger and hatred. She was consumed with the wrongs done to her in the foster care system, so determined to get out and make a life for herself that she refused to see the people who were trying to help her. Even Paul…the one person she trusted, she really never let him in either.
What was that saying? But for the grace of God…
“Cei made his choice. And now we get to make ours.”
“But we have no choice to make.”
“We do. We can wallow in the fact that we’ll soon have to be apart, or we can enjoy the last few hours we have together.”
Gwen sat up and looked at him. “You’re right,” she said.
“I’m always right.”
She laughed, slapping him lightly on the arm. And then she kissed him, no longer counting the last one. Just enjoying the moment.
Chapter 27
Paul was standing at the gate in the small airport in Lubbock when Gwen, Morgan, and Rhein walked off the small plane. There was no hesitation for either of them as Gwen rushed into his arms. They had shared a few, cursory hugs in the past, nothing like the father-daughter touches that she hoped were still to come. But, somehow, this felt so incredibly familiar.
Paul pushed her away from him and began running his hands over her, touching her face, her arms, looking for injuries. Gwen laughed because it wasn’t the first time she had withstood this inspection in the past week and would likely not be the last. So much for the whole I-can-do-it-on-my-own thing.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? It sounds like things got pretty crazy over there.”
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