by Laney McMann
"No, thank you." Hearing the word 'pie' reminded me of my grandmother and made me want to hit something. I kept walking through the kitchen and out into the dining hall beyond it. I kept going, all the way through the lower halls, past the massive chamber with all the hearths burning like we were living in a literal hell, underneath the prison cells, and directly into Elethan's study without knocking.
My father sat behind his semi-circular desk, light eyes downcast toward a large book in his gnarled hands.
"Why is Justice coming here?" I demanded.
Elethan glanced up casually. "Good morning, Son."
"Why is Justice coming here?" I repeated, glaring.
He placed his book on the desk and folded his hands, resting back in his chair. "I felt it best if Teine had the same ... benefits as you. I was trying to be fair." He smiled a little.
"Fair?"
"Yes. Samuel is working with you on your sword skills in the yard. I felt it only reasonable, not to mention, respectful, to offer the girl the same courtesy. After all, the Tuatha Dé may very well show up for the festivities. I wouldn't want them to assume their opponent was treated unjustly during her stay with us."
Letting out a deep breath, I reined in my anger and frustration. "Fine."
"Is it?" The King raised a brow, seeming to appraise me. "You appear very upset. Are you sure that you have this situation under control? You assured me your strength surpasses Teine's. Are you not so sure now?"
"I'm still sure." I let out another breath and sat down in the wooden chair facing his desk.
"I understand their presence here puts you in a difficult situation, but it is highly unlikely you will cross paths with either of them if that was your concern. Although, I must say, the light is shining on us. The girl isn't ... well. You have an unforeseen advantage."
My blood pressure went off the charts. I clenched my fists, trying to accumulate all of my anger in my hands and not say anything stupid. "Then I guess that is to my advantage." Giving him a slight smile, my pulse hammering hard, I hoped my words would pass as genuine. I tried to maintain my focus on Justice, rather than the bloody gash on Layla's neck, and pushed to my feet. The way Layla looked at me—the way she'd spoken like someone out of an earlier century ... I shook my head, turning toward the door.
"You won't see Justice, I assure you." Elethan lifted his book off the desk again.
Unable to even imagine what would happen if I did run into Justice—actually, that wasn't true, I could imagine it all too well. He would see straight through me. Instantly. And the only way any of what I had planned would remotely work was if Layla thought I'd gone off the deep end. Way off of it. Which meant if Justice was with her, he had to believe the same thing.
"Ryan, however," my father said. "Will be arriving this afternoon to take over your training."
"Ryan?" The sound of his name shot adrenaline through my blood. "What for? He hates me."
"Then he will have to get over it. You are his rightful master." He grinned without looking away from the book.
"He's sick. There's no way he can help me do anything other than learn a few new insults. I'm doing fine with Sam." I hated the game of having to sound like an eight year kid who was trying to win a losing argument with his dad. Ryan may have been in on the plan since he was an angel, but that didn't mean I wanted him anywhere near me. Considering he was the reason Benny had been incarcerated in steel shackles in a Fomorian cell, and he'd come after Layla at her house, Ryan may have found himself dead by my own hands, if not by Sam's, before he even had the chance to say, 'hey' or 'sorry'.
"Samuel has other responsibilities," Elethan went on. "Ryan knows his way around a sword. If you have difficulties with him, well ... put him in his place." He glanced over the top of his book. "It is not as though you do not have the power to do so."
My head tipped back, and I stared up at the soaring stone ceiling. "I doubt Ryan will be able to lift a sword off the damn ground," I groaned, having an intense urge to punch something again. "Have you even seen him?" I thrust my hands out to the sides. "He's like ... torn apart in his true state. Flesh hanging off of him. Blood. He's half ... dead gargoyle, half fallen angel. It's not good."
"Then he will simply instruct you if he is unwell."
"Instruct me? Whatever." I turned back toward the study door, giving up the argument. Who cared if Ryan would be there? If he was decapitated during our sword training, well ... accidents happen. "I just want to get this over with."
"Two more days," Elethan said, focused toward his book with seeming indifference. "And you shall have your wish."
5
LAYLA
"Teine?"
Someone touched my face with a rough hand, and I nodded slowly, the motion churning up nausea, and making the room spin. The sound of dripping water hit my ears, and something dabbed at my neck causing me to flinch in pain.
"Yeah, that's gonna sting for a while. Your throat doesn't look good, but I think I got the worst of it cleaned up." A cool, wet towel was placed on my forehead.
"Justice." I would have recognized the irritable tone of his voice anywhere. I reached out, groping the air. A callused hand caught mine and squeezed.
"Yeah."
My eyes barely opened, but I needed to see his face. It felt like forever since I'd last seen him. "I had the most terrible dream."
"Did you catch the sharp side of a knife in it?" His manner was short and succinct as always.
Alarm streaked through my veins, and I forced my eyes to open. A large room came into soft focus. I lay in a four poster bed made of dark wood. A small window was overhead, and a dresser with matching mirror rested against the opposite wall. Sitting straight upright, the pain in my neck hit me like a bolt of lightning. "Where's Cara?"
"Whoa. Careful there. She's fine. I saw her back to Flidais. You took a huge risk making a deal with King Elethan."
My breaths slowed and I slumped back onto the bed. "What happened?"
"I was hoping you could tell me. I'm not sure exactly."
I let out an exhausted breath as though I'd been asleep forever. "I feel really ... weird."
"That I am sure about."
"Why'd you call me Teine?" I glanced around the dark room.
"That's your name." He sighed and his tone sounded older than I remembered.
"You never call me that, though. Where are we?"
"The Fomorian castle. Do you remember anything? Why you're here?"
"The Battle. All my memories were fading away, and Agrona ... came to me when I was walking toward the Shadow Realm, I think. She gave me the padlock to the crypt Teine and MacCoinnich were buried in. It had a knife in it." I tried to remember what she'd said. It was like trying to see clearly underneath murky water, a few images were obvious while others remained blurry.
"That was clever of her." He let out an exaggerated breath. "So, you thought it would be a good idea to cut your neck open with it? The knife." Fussing with the washcloth in a bowl of water on the nightstand, he sloshed half of the liquid out and onto the floor.
"She said ..." What did she say? "I ... how do you know I cut myself?"
Justice dabbed my forehead again, not looking at my eyes, and gestured with his hand toward my throat. "Besides the fact that I'm looking at a very deep gash, I took an oath, and what that means ..." He rinsed the washcloth again," ... is that I have a code I live by, rules I follow that don't waiver." He grinned a little, and his arrogance faded, replaced by the sweetness he rarely showed. "You are my responsibility, and someone will have to kill me before I let you walk into enemy hands alone. I followed you. Apparently not quite fast enough, though." An eyebrow lifted in my direction. "It was quite a show from what I hear. Blood, fire, smoke."
"The Fomore let you in here?" I seriously doubted that would be the case.
"A note was sent by the Queen, your grandmother, alerting King Elethan that should he not allow me entry to guard the Fire Born I was sworn to protect, it would be seen as
an act of treachery by deliberately putting the Tuatha Dé opponent into harm's way and breaching the Battle rules. Or something like that."
"You guys were one step ahead of me." I couldn't help but give a weak smile. I'd been convinced I was on my own.
"A few steps, really, not that I'm counting." His weak smile was strained. "You should rest. This cut on your throat ... it's bad, and it sort of changed some things. You need sleep. I'm not going anywhere."
My eyelids drooped—exhaustion, and an immense feeling of relief knowing Justice was with me relaxed my nerves. "Changed some things?" I asked in a whisper. "What things?"
"Do you remember what the banshee told you?"
"She said a split soul couldn't rest ... and that I had to go back. Something like that. That I needed to behave as a Queen would."
"Yeah ... maybe we should talk about this after you've gotten some sleep."
"Just tell me what you know." My head tilted to the side, sinking into the contours of the soft pillow. It was comforting underneath my aching head.
Justice guided my head back toward him, exposing the side of my neck, and ran his fingers down my throat. I winced, and he let out a drawn sigh. "The dagger created a brand on your neck. The Fomorian Coat of Arms, no less," he said with a bitter tone, glancing into my eyes for the first time. "Right before it killed you."
"What?" I shot upright with a dizzying sway that threatened to throw me back down again. "Right before what?"
"It killed you." Justice remained calm, his voice not notching up in volume as he bent down and picked something up off the floor. Holding the dagger I recognized in his hand, he held it out. "This is a Demon God's blade. And I haven't seen one in a very long time." He gave a painful grin. "Hiding it in your crypt's lock was a very clever idea."
"You're talking in riddles."
He gave another short smile, dark circles discoloring his blue eyes. "I had no idea what happened to you at first. When I got here and saw the dagger, I recognized it, but ... " He shook his head. "Your Guard pronounced you dead outside the gates before you 'reawakened' as they described it, and you entered the Shadow Realm alone, but they couldn't tell the King that, of course. It wouldn't look good—the Tuatha Dé opponent dying on their watch. It would seem as if we'd planned it to keep you from fighting. And then rising from the dead ..." He shook his head again.
I stared him. "Dead?"
"Yeah." He held the dagger in his hand as though he was testing its weight. "Want to explain that?"
"Me? Do I want to explain it? I ... not really. I ... remember electric shocks. The same sensation I have when the Raven's feathers cut through my skin, but ..."
Justice held up the knife. "This is a Demon blade, like I said. They were forged in the Shadow Realm forever ago, and they had two uses and two uses alone. One was to brand the Fomorian people who were high up enough in rank to be worthy of the Coat of Arms. Like Max. The brand that appeared on his neck was carved by a Demon blade." He gave a painful grin. "Bringing him into the fold, I'm sure.
"He told me he thought it was a tracking device that his father imbedded in his neck."
Justice nodded. "Easy way to follow his movements. The other use for the blade was to kill. And it was very skilled at killing during the Uprising. A Demon blade was one of the only ancient weapons that could strike of its own will and kill a god. Or a goddess. They were popular when the Fire Born fell." He inclined his head toward me. "Sometimes the blade would mark its victims with the Coat of Arms as a warning of what the Fomorian people were capable of. How far their reach could go. The Fomore believed they were untouchable." He glanced toward the side of my neck. "The Coat of Arms on Max's neck proves they still believe that. They branded one of the only two Ancient Fire Born left as their own. And now, you've been branded as well."
I lifted a hand, touching my scorching skin. Raised under my fingertips was a mismatch of spear tips all merging to a center point on my neck. I knew what the brand looked like. Exactly what it looked like. Max had the identical one only on a larger scale. "I ... why would the Fomore do that to me though? They have me here. I came like they asked."
Justice shook his head. "The Fomore didn't do this." He pointed toward my neck. "Elethan doesn't have the power to touch you like this. Although he wants it. Demon weapons, when they were popular, required a strong hand wielding them from behind the scenes if they weren't wielded by one on one combat. They were cursed blades. I didn't think any of them still existed until I saw the side of Max's throat a few days ago. Unfortunately, the brand isn't the only issue we have."
"You're losing me."
He stood up and walked toward the dresser across the room. Returning, he sat back down beside the bed, a small mirror held in his hand. "The reason I called you Teine." He held the mirror up.
I saw my reflection. All the air sucked out of my lungs.
My eyes were wrong.
Really wrong.
My right eye was its usual vibrant green, but the left one ... the left one was blue. Clearly blue, so blue it was almost white. I glanced at Justice and back to the mirror in horror.
What the ...
"This is going to sound completely insane," he said. "But ... Teine's eyes, the first Teine, they would change. Sometimes. Depending on her moods. Layla's eyes, on the other hand, your eyes, have never done that. They've always been green.
"I don't understand."
He bowed his head. "When you died—"
I let out a shaking breath.
"When you died, something happened. I'm not positive, but I think ... I think your soul went back to its source, its home ... its grave. Back to Teine. Nothing else makes any sense."
"Because that makes sense?" My eyes went wide, my head spinning. "I'm sitting here, talking to you. As me. I couldn't have died. And the first Teine is dead. Which means if I died, we should both be dead." It was as though I'd walked through a bout of mental illness and come out on the other side unscathed. I doubted everything he was saying. None of it could be possible, except ... I felt healed. Better than I was before. Different. Stronger. And something else, there was definitely something I couldn't put my finger on.
"Which is why I need you to remember what happened after you cut your neck," he said. "What brought you back?"
"I don't know." I stared up at him.
"Okay ... well, you're still you, basically, I think," he said. "Just with a few ... tweaks. Your eyes, for example. Your eyes are what clued me in to what had to be happening. A split soul cannot rest. That's what Agrona told you, and although she may have given you the Demon's blade, may have even known what would happen when you used it ... this is the work of a god. There's no other explanation."
I frowned. "You're talking about the walking dead. Rising from the dead ..."
"Yes, and no. I'm talking about souls. Reincarnation. You are young eternal. Your soul never dies. Even if your body dies, your soul remains. You aren't human. And when Teine was killed in the Uprising it wasn't by natural causes. It was by a cursed hand. Sorcery, witchcraft, Accursed Arts—they're all the same, and they were responsible for her death as a little girl, but her soul was reborn in you. As you. At least part of it. And even though the Legend said that was going to happen, that you were cursed, not everyone believed it, and when you were born, you were different, you are different from Teine. You have the same name, but you're different. I see her, truly see her, for the first time when I look in your eyes now."
"Whoa ... that's crazy."
"But it's not. When Teine was reborn in you, I think her soul was damaged. Unsettled. Split. How else can you explain all the visions you've had? Seeing things from your former life?"
He was right. Every vision I'd had felt as if I were floating above myself, looking down on the scene somehow, but never actually being there ... except for the castle, when Max told me it was over. I still couldn't explain how that happened.
He touched my hand with an uncustomary tenderness that brought my attention bac
k to his face. His very old age showed in his deep blue eyes. "I don't want to scare you, but you need to trust me," he said. "Only a god, or goddess, can work this kind of spell." He motioned toward my neck. "It's Accursed Arts." He stared into my eyes. "This is happening. It happened, and I'm not positive, but I think it ends the cycle."
"How? The cycle is about both me and Max, not just me alone."
Justice shook his head. "The cycle is about being reborn. Cursed to rise over and over again with the same fate. That's what the Legend says. If your soul is healed, joined with its other half, then the cycle ends in you. With you."
"I don't understand ..."
"There was a passage in the Legend that said something about undoing what had been done. Trying to break the curse, realign the broken parts of a soul, I don't remember it word for word, but the angels believed that if the split souls were reunited, that would be it. There would be no rebirth. If you're killed now," he glanced at his hands. "You'll never come back."
"But ... what about Max's soul? His must be split if mine is, right?"
"Yes."
My brain started to catch up. "Wait, so you're saying if I get killed in the Battle, and Max doesn't, then I'm gone, dead forever, but Max—" I couldn't say it, couldn't even think it.
"Will live on. Still cursed."
Without me. "I ... But, if—"
Justice held up a hand. "The question isn't if, it's why. Why does she want only you dead and not Max? Why is she expecting him to win? She knows something we don't."
"She." I repeated the word, and it yelled back at me like a taunt. "The Morrigan."
Justice squeezed my hand. "There is no one else."
I remembered the electric shocks as I lay on the ground, stirring me awake after I lay in the cold, dark tomb. Teine's voice in my head. The pure, crazed adrenaline pumping through my body like a narcotic. I stared up at Justice. "The Morrigan brought me back to life."
"Yeah, I think she did. And now, you're going to have to even the playing field." Justice placed the knife in my hand.
"Meaning?" My voice shrilled.
