by Natalie Grey
I had almost fallen back asleep again when he came awake with a jerk. He sat up, chest heaving and his eyes wide, and I pushed myself up blearily to stare at him.
“You okay?” I rubbed at my eyes.
He looked at me, wide-eyed, and I had the sense that he wasn’t all here yet.
“Daiman?” I knelt in front of him. I wasn’t sure whether to touch him or not. “Daiman, it’s me. It’s Nicky. You’re awake, everything’s fine.”
I saw him force his breathing to a slower pace. He sat back, arms around his knees, head hanging forward.
“What did you dream?” I reached out tentatively, and he clasped one hand over mine.
“Don’t do the rite.” He didn’t look at me.
“What?”
He looked up now, and his eyes were haunted. “Don’t do the rite,” he repeated. “I had a dream—someone was calling you away into another world.”
“Is that not part of the rite?” I shook my head when I realized what I had asked. “Never mind, I know you can’t tell me. Daiman, it was a dream.”
He shook his head. “It was so real, Nicky, it was like she was standing right here on this hill beckoning you away, and there was a terrible magic about her. I was so afraid for you.”
“It was a dream,” I told him again. “I will be part of another world when this is over. There will be danger in the training, I’m sure of it. But you faced it and mastered it, and so will I.”
He reached for my hands, and I saw that he was actually shaking with fear.
“Promise me something,” he said seriously.
Anything. I didn’t say it. It wasn’t the sort of thing I promised anyone—though I wanted to. I nodded slightly, noncommittal.
“You always have the chance to walk away from druid training,” Daiman told me seriously. “They will ask things of you over the years, even in the rite today, that will be dangerous, that may be beyond your skill. I watched people fail and walk away from the training, and it was bitter for them.”
I nodded again, wary.
“But I also saw people stay who should have left.” Daiman reached out to touch my cheek. “They died horrible deaths, Nicky. Please, if you’re beyond your skill, leave. Promise me you’ll leave.”
I stared at him silently as the wind blew the morning mist all around us. I couldn’t think what to say. What could one say to that?
I looked down.
“I don’t want to fail.”
“It isn’t a failure.”
I looked up at him. “What would you call it if I can’t do the training?”
“Nicky, I could never do what you do.” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “Does that make me a failure? Being a druid seems like something anyone should be able to do if they just want it enough, but it isn’t. Promise me you’ll walk away if you need to.”
“Then how will I—”
“You’ll find a way,” he interrupted me. “There are more ways in this world to help people than just being a druid. Maybe you’ll go become a medical researcher. But I’m scared for you.”
“Daiman.” I sighed and rubbed at my forehead.
How could I explain this to him? I never wanted to back down from this kind of fight—the kind where I was trying to prove something. I had always been one of the best at what I did, and I’d be damned if I failed at something magical.
After coming here and fighting for a chance, telling Taliesen that I needed to do this … how could I face walking away again in defeat?
“Promise me.” His hands took ahold of mine and wouldn’t let go, even when I tried to pull away. “I can’t lose you, Nicky. Not like that. And if you die, you can’t help anyone.”
Goddammit, he had a point. I hated it when good points ruined my plans.
“Fine,” I said grumpily.
His eyebrows shot up. “You know, I think you actually meant that.”
“You thought I would lie to you?”
“I know you’re about as stubborn as I am. I figured any promise to back down if you were in over your head would be tenuous at best.”
“Almost as stubborn as you are?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m twice as stubborn as you are, Bradach. Easily.”
“No one out-stubborns a Bradach,” he said instantly. “No one.”
“We’ll just see about that, won’t we?” But I was laughing as I let him help me up. “Speaking of the test, shouldn’t we go back? Or were you hoping to distract me with banter?”
I regretted asking when he tensed slightly.
“You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Daiman, it was a dream.” I cupped his face with both hands and stood on tip-toe to kiss him. “I promise you, that’s all it was. It’s going to be okay.”
He held me close, his fingers clenched in my shirt, and then he nodded jerkily.
“Right. Come on, then.”
I didn’t want to let on, but his worry seemed to infect me as we made our way back over the hills to the hall. He led me on a roundabout path, a pretense made somewhat possible by the mist, and I pretended not to notice.
Daiman had always seemed reluctant to bring me back. I had thought it was only his certain knowledge that the other druids would never accept me, but what if it had been more?
What if it was a premonition?
I was being superstitious. Old land and mist did that to a person—not to mention hangovers from too much whiskey.
I was lucky I’d never known about whiskey in my heyday. I’d gotten up to far too many shenanigans as it was. Add whiskey to the mix and the possibilities boggled the mind.
We found Morgana waiting for us outside the doors of the hall. Something about her pose said that she had sensed us walking in circles around the place, and was not impressed … but that her mind was elsewhere.
“You, come with me.” She jerked her head at me and led me into the hall.
Daiman and I were reluctant to let go of one another’s hands and I was suddenly afraid that the rite would start now, right away, without him—but he nodded and gestured me into the darkness.
The remains of the feast lay around us as Morgana led me through the room. I could smell spilled whiskey and cooked meats, a heady combination that didn’t far too well on an empty stomach. She, for her part, seemed untroubled—and un-hungover.
Also uninclined to talk to me.
Well enough. I guessed she was one of the ones who disapproved of sorcerers being given the rite, and thought sadly of Daiman’s story about her. However proud and foolish he had been, they had accepted him.
I was unlikely to find the same welcome.
There was a small room off the great hall, through a door I swore hadn’t been there before. I was beginning to think that doors appeared when and where they were needed, shuffling rooms with a cheerful disregard for physics.
I kind of liked it. I smiled as we went through the door, and then stared in confusion at the objects in front of me.
An undyed robe lady folded neatly on the floor. A baked good of some kind lay on top, along with a rope—presumably a belt—and a strange collection of leaves set in the middle of a large piece of rough cloth.
“Put on the robe.” Morgana’s voice was distant. Whether that was part of the rite, I did not know. When I started to pull it on over my clothes, she added: “Just the robe. Nothing else.”
I stripped off my clothes, oddly self-conscious. It was evident that she didn’t care in the slightest, but it felt surprisingly vulnerable to cast off my own clothes. I went to pull on my boots, and again she stopped me.
“Just the robe,” she repeated. “Nothing else.”
I tied the cord around my waist. I was shivering now, the rough cloth of the robe scratching at my skin.
“Eat the bannock,” she instructed next.
I hesitated only a moment before I put it to my mouth and took a bite. It was still warm from the ovens, and had a dense, nutty flavor to it. I could feel oats, and it was only as I wolfed down the secon
d bite—suddenly ravenous—that I tasted the faint medicinal note.
Poison? I turned to her accusingly, and this time, she smiled.
“It is drualas you taste,” she said. “It opens the doors to other worlds.”
I saw a woman, beckoning you away to another world. I let the cake drop away from my mouth.
Morgana raised her eyebrows, and for a moment I was struck that this was Morgan Le Fay, speaking to me as if nothing at all was wrong.
“Do you not wish to proceed with the rite?”
“Is … everyone given this? The drualas?” I stumbled over the unfamiliar name.
“Yes.” She did not seem to care much if I believed her or not.
I considered. Eating this might be the stupidest thing I had ever done. On the other hand….
“Yes.” She might have read my mind. “There are easier ways to kill you.”
I almost laughed at that. I ate the rest of the bannock and looked at her expectantly.
“Come.” She beckoned me over to the herbs, which she knelt beside to point. She pointed first to what looked like blueberries, with a leaf that had no serrated edges. “These berries are Fraochán, they are one of the most basic remedies we have.”
She pointed next to a nettle. “Neanntóg, the nettle. Nettle tea will slow bleeding. The plant can be used to make cloth, and its sting can protect against dark magic.”
I frowned, but held my tongue.
“Drualas.” She pointed next to a familiar plant. “It is what you tasted in the bannock.”
“Mistletoe?”
She shrugged. “Yes. It is not native to these lands, but it is special to us. It opens the doors to other worlds, and is known for its healing.”
Her finger moved on. “Caisearbhán. Dandelion, to you.” I couldn’t tell if that was an insult. “For rejuvenation.”
Next, the silvery-green leaves of a willow, tied to a piece of bark. “Saille,” Morgana pronounced. “The bark brings down fevers and inflammation. And here, ferns. Carry them for protection.” She sat back on her heels and looked at me shrewdly. “You wonder why those of us with true magic should need something you think of as superstition.”
I sensed that a lie would only hurt me, but I wasn’t sure what reception my honesty would get. “Yes,” I said cautiously.
“That is for you to determine,” she said simply. She gathered the edges of the cloth and tied them closed, then tied the bundle to my belt. “You are prepared now. You have all you need … should you be worthy.”
“Do you doubt that I am?” I asked her. I hadn’t meant to ask it outright, but she was here, and we were alone.
To my surprise, she seemed to consider the question.
“I don’t know,” she answered finally. “I fear your presence here, sorceress. I fear what you were and what you might be. Some of your futures are as dark as your past, and this land … remembers old slights. What you will see during this rite—” She bit the words off and shook her head. “Forgive me, it was not my place to speak of what is to come.”
“Some of my futures?” I pressed, but she shook her head determinedly and refused to speak as she led the way back outside.
There were more of them gathered now, dim shapes in the fog that resolved themselves into Taliesen, and Daiman, and Farbod. Behind them, I thought I saw others—giants and trees and glimmers of light that seemed to have come from nowhere, but as the mist shifted, they disappeared.
Was it real? Was any of it real?
“Come.” Taliesen beckoned me forward. “You have come here to undergo the rite of the druids. Understand that this will only give you a key to the path forward—it guarantees nothing about your ability to walk it.”
I met his eyes. “I understand.”
His gaze traveled over my robe and the bundle of herbs. “You have eaten the bannock?”
“I have.” I had the hysterical urge to ask if I’d been poisoned, and pressed my lips shut.
“Then go forward.”
I stepped forward hesitantly. It occurred to me that I didn’t have the first idea what kind of rite this was. Endure pain? Summon some form of magic?
Whatever it was, nothing seemed to be happening.
And then I noticed the mist twining up the edges of my robe. Somewhere, I heard a voice—whether male or female, I could not say. I didn’t hear it with my ears.
I saw a woman, beckoning you to another world. The mist was cold—very, very cold, and it smelled of salt.
And I knew then, without any doubt, that something was terribly wrong. How I knew, I couldn’t say—but I was sure of it.
I turned quickly, and saw Morgana’s eyes, alight with interest. Beside her, Daiman’s face was worried.
I hadn’t said goodbye. Panic washed through me. I opened my mouth—
The next moment, I was drowning.
Chapter Nine
There was no light. The saltwater crushed me, driving what little air remained from my lungs in an explosion of bubbles. There was a roaring in my ears and the wide, slow currents of the ocean tumbled me over slowly. I had never realized how big the sea was, but in the ebb and flow of such massive waves, I saw myself now, utterly despairing, as a tiny speck in an unutterably vast blackness.
If I’d ever known which way was up, I didn’t now—and it was so dark, so terribly dark, that I knew I could never find my way to the surface before my body betrayed me.
Sooner or later, my willpower would fail and my lungs would gasp in saltwater, and I would be lost. Panic clouded my mind into a single, unproductive need: air. I needed air.
I didn’t have air, part of me snarled, but the rest of me didn’t give a damn. I should open my mouth. I should open my mouth. I should open my mouth, breathe in through my nose, I needed air, I needed air, I needed air.
I thrashed desperately. I was trying to swim up, but what if I was swimming down? The robes were dragging at me.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t let myself breathe.
I was going to die here. And I hadn’t said goodbye.
My hands and feet collided as I pulled myself through the black. The sea was so vast, and it didn’t care if I died. I was just one more tiny organism. It didn’t care.
But the domhan fior cared. The domhan fior would do its best to give me what I needed.
I didn’t have the time to decide if this was the stupidest idea I’d ever had. It was literally the only idea I had, and that meant it was better than doing nothing, as far as I was concerned.
My head was going hazy, and with the last of my strength, I tried to stumble into the other world—as well as one could stumble while underwater, at any rate. I tried even as I felt my body give out at last and the stinging jerk of saltwater into my nose and mouth.
I burst into the nothingness of air and promptly fell on my face on a sheet of rock.
I didn’t care. I dug my fingers into the cracks in the rocks and vomited up the seawater I’d swallowed. My nose was on fire, my throat was aching, and I couldn’t even tell if my eyes were open, given how many stars were swimming in my vision.
I was coughing so hard I could barely draw breath, and when a wave slid up my legs and over my mouth, I was still too weak to keep from breathing in again.
I spluttered and clung to the rock with weak fingers, but the wave trailed away again without dragging me back into the water.
At long last, I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The ground directly beneath me was rock, akin to the Burren: long grooves scored it, running this way and that, some worn smooth and shallow by time. Behind me—I craned my head—there was only open ocean.
I shuddered, and pushed myself up to crawl up the beach. I didn’t care how stupid I looked. I was too weak to stand, and I was determined to get away from that water.
I had enough sense about me to note that the water was at ebb tide, but I still kept going until well after the high water mark before I let myself topple over on my back and stare up at the sky.
Okay, so I
had passed the first test.
I tried to force myself to think. I couldn’t go back to the real world without first checking where I was, for fear I would be underwater again. I would need to try the navigation Daiman had taught me. I trailed my fingers through one of the long grooves in the rock and tried to think.
So I needed to survive, and I needed to get home.
This really seemed like an awfully involved rite for people who weren’t supposed to have any druidic training at all. How was any new recruit expected to know to slip into the domhan fior? Were they just expected to know that the water around them was only a part of one world, and that there were many? Were they really expected to think of that fact in the seconds they had before their air ran out.
It seemed risky to me.
I wasn’t in charge of it, though. I groaned and rubbed at my face, and then remembered that Taliesen and his cohort might well be watching me somehow.
That got me moving when nothing else would have. I sat up and plucked weakly at the rough robe. It was sopping wet, and was only going to make me colder if I left it on, but I wasn’t particularly keen on wandering around naked while under observation.
I was still considering this when I heard the growl.
I went very still. With the wind tumbling in off the waves, it wasn’t immediately apparent where the noise was coming from, and I didn’t want to move too suddenly in case whatever this was hadn’t yet noticed me.
Because ‘whatever this was’ had one obvious characteristic: it was a large animal that hunted its prey. Several million years of instinct told me that much.
I raised my eyes to the left without moving my head and scanned my field of vision—
It was directly in front of me.
It took everything I had not to scream. There, rising out of the water not fifty yards from the shore, was a massive beast. Water cascaded down over its head and shoulders as its long tread brought it up the sea floor toward me.
It was shaped like a human … sort of. Its head hardly emerged from its shoulders. All I could see were two yellow eyes glowing against the deep sea green of its skin. And to tell the truth, I didn’t even know if it had skin. Its form was covered in trailing seaweed and barnacles, so thick that I half-expected to see fishes flop out of the thicket of greenery and into the water as it emerged.
