Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch

by Heather Hamilton-Senter

  I sank back into the pillows and tried not to think about the corruption in my mind. Morgan and I had tried to heal it, but clearly we’d failed. The pain must mean that what I’d done to Boudica had made it worse. I knew something now, something terrible.

  Mom hadn’t made the barrier to protect me. She’d made it to protect everyone else. And I’d destroyed it.

  Rhiannon, hide in the shadows and be still and silent.

  I didn’t need to close my eyes anymore to conjure the veil of blue mist. It was tattered and torn, but I knew I could repair it and make it stronger than Viviane ever could. It was only a spell—a product of thought and imagination—but I could feel it as it settled on my skin. I touched my face as it molded against me like fine silk, cool and smooth. I could sweep it over myself and disappear into the shadows forever. I could hide from what I’d done.

  A tremor ran through the mist and I strained to hold it. Taliesin’s indigo was trying to stop me from accessing power, but with the barrier in my mind gone, I was stronger. Concentrating, I saw something I’d missed before. The texture of Viviane’s spell was different from Taliesin’s, but the color was just a lighter version of the same. I laughed, but it was an ugly, broken sound.

  I’ve been bound in blue my whole life.

  A blast of anger like a desert wind passed over me and dazzling shades of scarlet and crimson erupted from my hands. They flowed through me from some source outside myself—I didn’t know where and I didn’t care. The flames burned through Taliesin’s indigo and evaporated Viviane’s shadowed mist.

  And then I struggled for air as magic fire consumed the oxygen in the room.

  Panicking, I commanded the flames to recede, but they ignored me. I’d lost control the same way I did with Boudica. The flames flickering across my skin didn’t burn, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t suffocate. I started to lose consciousness.

  No. Not again.

  I forced my mind down to Viviane’s barrier, but instead of an icy edifice, there was only a dark tunnel leading to some unknown place. Color rushed through it towards me.

  A shift and my perception changed. I was floating in a lake of color and bright drops of rain pelted me. Each one carried a message, but as the rain beat harder, the lake churned and I began to drown.

  Another change as my mind struggled to comprehend the reality of what was inside me. I was suspended in a night sky and the multi-colored sparks in it were stars. Floating through space, I plucked a golden orb from the darkness, but the stars whirled around me and threatened to crush me into dust.

  I was back at the tunnel. The shades of red were gone, exhausted in the flames that had filled the hospital room. Gold swirled around me now and tentacles of ebony reached through it. This was what I’d taken from Boudica. Gathering all my strength, I ejected her colors from my mind. Tweaking and combining Viviane’s and Taliesin’s spells, I closed off the pathway with a veil of indigo.

  At least this time it’s my choice.

  I opened my eyes and gasped; the flames were gone, but the oxygen in the room was thin. Pulling the I.V. out of my hand, I staggered to the window and forced it open until cold air rushed in and I could breathe normally again.

  Once I was able to teeter over to the bathroom and get dressed, I made my escape. I called a taxi once I made it to the hospital entrance. When it dropped me off at Peter’s house and Mrs. Larsen opened the door, I threw myself into her arms.

  She patted my back and brought me into the kitchen where Peter was eating breakfast. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why didn’t you call us to come get you?”

  “It was just as fast to catch a taxi. I must have knocked my head again, but they did some tests and said I could go home.”

  Mrs. Larsen clucked her tongue. “It’s always dangerous driving on Halloween. I’m just glad you kids weren’t killed. I hope they throw the book at that driver. Imagine drinking and driving on a night when all those children are wandering around!”

  I glanced at Peter and he gave a slight nod—car accident was our cover story.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “it’s lucky we were in Daley’s Yukon. The van would have been totaled.” I was glad Peter hadn’t had to trash his mom’s minivan to sell the lie.

  “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you something to eat.”

  I shook my head. “That’s OK. I just wanted to let you know I was home. I’m going straight to bed.”

  “Well, call if you need anything.”

  I agreed and Peter hopped after me to see me out. Closing the front door, he walked to the porch stairs and sat down; he was pretending for his parents’ sake that he didn’t heal unnaturally fast.

  “You really scared me. I could feel you screaming right here.” He tapped on his temple. “I thought my head was going to split open.”

  I sat down beside him. “Welcome to the club. I’m fine now though. I’ve got it under control.” I sighed and slumped over my knees. “I messed up.”

  Peter draped his arm over my shoulders. “We messed up. And maybe we didn’t even do that. Melusine wanted to kill you—Miko told me—and Lacey and Boudica betrayed us. You tried to rescue Ty and Boudica got in the way.” His voice hardened. “That’s what happens in war.”

  “How are Daley and Rowan?” I was afraid of the answer.

  “They’re hurting. Rowan’s out of it. Taliesin and Goodfellow saw enough to guess what happened when they pulled you out of the Path. Melusine attacked and Boudica got caught in the crossfire, and then Morgan escaped with Tynan. Is that about it?’

  “Yeah.” I didn’t add that I’d ripped Boudica’s life and magic away to give myself the power to defeat Melusine.

  “Rowan won’t accept that Boudica was a traitor. Miko says he’s locked himself in his room with her body and won’t come out.”

  Bile burned the back of my throat. “What do we do now?”

  Peter pulled up his pant leg and picked out a couple of stitches. The skin around them was already smooth and perfect. “Taliesin wants me over there tomorrow. Should I put him off?”

  No more hiding. “No. Besides, Morgan has Tynan and we have to figure out how to get him back.”

  “She called him her son. What does that even mean?”

  I didn’t have an answer and after a quick hug, I went home and did what I should have done in the first place.

  I went to work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  A crackle of accusatory thunder woke me up. I got out of bed and opened the blinds, but I knew what I would find—clear blue sky. This was Daley’s thunder.

  Dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, I swept my hair into a tight ponytail and searched in my closet for the largest bag I could find. It was easy now that most of my clothes were littered all over the floor and I found one from my gym days in middle grade. Pulling Excalibur out of my underwear drawer, I dropped it in.

  I’d spent the rest of the previous day researching all the Arthurian lore I could find online. A lot of it was confusing and contradictory, but I felt better prepared to face Taliesin. I picked up Peter in front of his house and instead of going to school, we drove to Taliesin’s rented mansion.

  As we parked, I grabbed Peter’s hand and squeezed it hard once. “Follow my lead.” He nodded. Hefting the bag over my shoulder and marching up to the front door, I opened it and walked inside. I’d been treating the place like home for weeks, so why stop now?

  “Taliesin!” I yelled.

  After a few seconds, the bard appeared at the top of the stairs. “Miss Lynne,” he acknowledged, “I am glad to see you are recovered, but now is not the best of times for you to be here. I would ask that you go home until I send for you.”

  “I don’t think so, Tal.” He scowled at my tone but didn’t respond.

  A small pink and black projectile ran down the hall and hit me with a fierce hug. “Hey, Miko,” I responded as I disengaged myself.

  She backed away at the coolness in my voice. “I was worried about
you. I’ve never heard anyone scream like that before.” She looked at Peter as if asking for permission to go to him. He gave her a small smile, but something in his face must have told her to stay put. The fairy wrapped her arms around herself and I could see the tears in her eyes. She didn’t seem to understand that Peter might accept what she’d done, but it was going to take him some time to forgive it.

  I felt the pull of his electricity before he even arrived, but as Daley entered the foyer, I ignored him and focused on Taliesin as he descended the staircase.

  “How long have you known?” I demanded.

  “Known what, Miss Lynne?”

  “How long have you known that Tynan is really Mordred?”

  Miko gasped. “Then it’s true? Tynan is Morgan and Arthur’s son?”

  I nodded. “Not just their son. Mordred is the one who betrayed Arthur and put Excalibur through his heart. He’s the reason Arthur is sleeping. Am I right?”

  Taliesin did something I would never have expected—he sank to the bottom step and sat there looking old and crumpled. “Yes, Viviane gave Excalibur to Mordred. Whether for Cernunnos who had deceived the boy, or for herself, I do not know. I can only guess that her purpose for you is to continue her work of vengeance.”

  Daley stared at Taliesin as if he didn’t recognize him. “And what about Ty?”

  “I have not known, not for sure.” The bard rubbed his eyes. “But I had begun to fear it. The destruction of Excalibur broke Mordred’s mind and he was never seen again, but he was known to be a master of the Paths. Tynan thinks I do not know, but his ability to sense them first aroused my suspicions. There were stories of a Path that led through time, but I thought they were fantasies. Due to my estrangement from Arthur, I had never seen Mordred, even as a baby. I doubted it could be possible, but still, I never risked Morgana seeing him. She is bound to Arthur even at the expense of a son.”

  “What about Boudica?” I asked. “Did you know about her?”

  “I swear I did not. Rowan refuses to believe it, but I saw and heard enough to know she betrayed us.”

  I faltered in my righteous anger. “I didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident.”

  Daley barked a laugh and his hair crackled with sparks. “Didn’t you? Isn’t that what your kind does? Leanan sidhe, succubus, whatever you are—you take what doesn’t belong to you. At least the mystery of Rhiannon Lynne is solved at the expense of two lives.”

  “Maybe it’s true. Maybe that’s what I am. But I didn’t do it on purpose. I had to stop the dragon.”

  And people die in battle all the time.

  I pushed the thought away, but my own coldness shocked me. “The Melusine you loved was gone. You knew what she’d become and yet you bowed your head and practically asked her to bite it off.”

  “Daley!” Miko gasped.

  Thunder boomed, but I couldn’t stop. “Maybe the girl Melusine loved you once, but the dragon Melusine wanted to kill you. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I couldn’t.” Something flickered in Daley’s eyes, but he turned away.

  “Is Melusine truly gone?” Taliesin asked.

  I forced my attention back to the bard. “I think so. She was bound to Death and I told it to take her.”

  Taliesin stared at me, but I didn’t explain. He didn’t need to know all my secrets. Standing, he declared, “You are fearsome indeed, Miss Lynne, to command Death itself.”

  Peter stepped forward. “So we’re agreed it’s a huge mess, right? What are we going to do about it? How are we going to get Ty back from Morgan?”

  “What can we do?” I was shocked at the sound of the bard’s voice; rough and broken, its power and beauty were gone. “He is her son. She has more right to him than I, though I doubt she can love him after what he did to his father. Tynan is lost to us.”

  “Wrong answer,” I murmured. “We’re getting Ty back.”

  “How? Morgana will never trust me again and she is more powerful than you can imagine.”

  “I have something she’s going to want more than a son.” I upended the bag and dumped its contents onto the floor with a crash of metal on marble. The remains of Excalibur gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  Taliesin fell to his knees, touching the twisted gold and silver with reverence. “Can this be what I think it is?”

  “Take it and make a trade with Morgan. What can she do with a hunk of useless metal anyway?” The bard didn’t move. “Take it,” I insisted.

  “He can’t, kiddo.” Rowan shambled down the stairs, reeking of alcohol.

  Fear is white and thickly veined with sea-blue.

  The druid gave a low whistle. “Well aren’t you just full of surprises. Who would have thought you had Excalibur hidden in your handbag?” The others looked at me in shock as they caught on and Rowan laughed wildly. “That’s right, this hunk of junk is the greatest earth totem ever created. Says something about us, doesn’t it? Excalibur has latched on to our dear little Miss Lynne here. I think it knows we aren’t really her friends—that we aren’t exactly on the same side. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you.” Rowan kicked at the metal hard enough to break a toe, but Excalibur didn’t move. I flinched for him, but the druid was beyond physical pain.

  “Where did you find it?” Taliesin whispered.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t find it. My mom . . .” I paused and corrected myself, “Viviane left instructions for Goodfellow to get it from where she’d hidden it and then to give it to me.”

  Miko poked at the metal with a black-nailed finger. “How could he lift it then?” With horror, I realized she wasn’t wearing nail polish anymore—her fingernails were actually black.

  Taliesin touched her shoulder and she backed away. “If Viviane intended it for Rhiannon, then the agent of its journey would be given the ability to complete that mission. Viviane was the Lady of the Lake and Excalibur’s first master.”

  “Can Morgan use it?” I asked.

  Taliesin hesitated before answering. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Her powers are older than any earth totem. She might be able to break its will.”

  “Then she’ll want it bad.”

  The bard rubbed his face and I saw he hadn’t shaved. “If Arthur is awakened, Excalibur could be used to defeat us! How can we give our enemy the key to our destruction?”

  “We don’t know what might happen in the future, but we do know that Tynan needs us right now! You’ve said yourself he isn’t safe with Morgan. Call her, Taliesin.”

  “Make the call, Tal,” Rowan said over his shoulder as he shuffled back up the stairs. We watched him leave in silence. We knew what his steps were taking him back to.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Taliesin arranged the exchange. Rowan was finally persuaded to let his wife’s body go and Boudica was to be cremated at sunrise in the woods at the back of the property. Morgan would meet us there.

  Time crawled by. Rowan spent the day preparing the area in the tradition of the druids—he’d left his Christianity back in the clearing with the cross he ripped from his neck. The other men retreated to the garage to fashion a rough coffin. Miko and I had nothing useful to do, so we watched TV and listened to music. None of it distracted me enough, but I didn’t want to go home. I fell asleep around midnight, but a nightmare of an avenging queen riding a ghostly dragon woke me up before dawn.

  After a long shower, I dressed in the clothes I’d brought with me: black skirt, black boots, black sweater. Miko and I waited at the bottom of the stairs for the men to carry the coffin down. Rowan shambled behind it, but he seemed sober. I expected him to accuse me or tell me to go, but his eyes slid past me as if he’d never seen me before. As we passed through the yard and into the woods, Goodfellow was waiting for us in the shadow of the trees. Rowan looked at him in confusion.

  We entered a clearing where a pyre of wood was surrounded by leaves and herbs scattered on the ground. Tynan and Morgan stepped out of the trees to meet us, but Tynan’s head was down and
his hair hid his face. Shrouded in a velvet cape, Morgan was finally dressed the way I would have expected Arthur’s consort to dress. The men laid the coffin down on the pyre and backed away as Taliesin and Morgan shared a long and meaningful look.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said coldly.

  He gestured to the coffin. “For Rowan’s sake, let us first lay Boudica to rest.”

  Morgan shook her head. “The woman’s soul has gone from this world and has nothing to do with me now.” Her voice caught. “It is you who has broken my heart. I have always accepted that you will fight me in the end, but I never believed you would deceive me. You hid my son from me! What was once between us is finished.”

  Taliesin’s face was stricken, but he bowed his head and gestured for me to come forward. I’d wrapped Excalibur in one of Mom’s long scarves and Morgan gasped as I loosened the material to show her.

  “So it is true! Viviane had it all along.”

  “Take it,” I said. “It belongs to me and I’m giving it to you.” Morgan put out her hands and I placed Excalibur in them.

  She exhaled. “I was not sure I would have the strength to hold it. Even now, its weight is almost unbearable. But you have given it to me freely and it accepts me grudgingly. Once Excalibur is in its true master’s hands, it will burn bright again.”

  I ignored her and held out my hand to Tynan. “C’mon Ty, let’s go.”

  He turned to Morgan and whimpered, “Mother?” He sounded like a little boy.

  The woman’s face was unreadable. “See, my son. Your friends are here.”

  “I have no friends.” Tynan slapped my hand away so hard I stumbled and fell against the coffin.

  It slid off the pyre as if it had no weight at all.

  “What mischief is this?” Morgan cried and then whispered an incantation. With terrible strength, she pulled off the lid and threw it aside.

  The coffin was empty.

  Everyone froze except Rowan. He was wandering around the clearing as if he’d lost something.