by P. C. Cast
How had that happened? She could rationalize away her ability to comfort the dying warriors. Maybe all they’d needed was someone’s hand to hold—someone to tell them they didn’t have anything to fear, and to give them a glimpse, no matter how phony, of a divine power who knew they were coming and was waiting to welcome them to eternity. Alex was obviously good at doing that. Which made sense, because she was definitely experienced with dead folks, and that was really just the next step.
So Alex being there had comforted them. But what about what had happened next? She’d witnessed their spirits joyfully moving on—each and every one of them.
Yes, she’d seen spirits move on before. Lots of times, actually. But not every time one appeared to her. More often than not, the ghost had stuff to say, be it gossip or a comment about her fashion choice. Sometimes they just wanted to talk.
Today had been different. Was it because, here in this ancient place where magic was still firmly attached to the earth, Alex herself was different?
Shivering, she scooted down so that the water lapped around her shoulders. She leaned back against the thick moss that covered the sloping bank of the little pool. It felt like a carpet and, suddenly exhausted beyond words, she turned her head so that her cheek rested against it. Alex drew a deep breath and, as she let it out, whispered the thought that had circled incessantly around the edges of her mind. “Could there really be a goddess in this world? Could I be attached to her?”
Electricity trembled through the soft moss, warming it against Alex’s cheek. She froze, then slowly, tentatively, raised her hand from the water and lay it on the moss beside her face. Another rush of warmth shivered through her, rushing into Alex from the cradling earth.
“You’re here, aren’t you, Andraste? Somehow you’re in the earth and you found me.”
The warmth that filled Alex intensified, bringing with it a jolt of energy. A sense of belonging washed through her, making her breath catch and tears of happiness pool in her eyes.
“I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but thank you. Thank you so much!” Alex said.
“The how is that the goddess is in the earth all around us, and the why is that you are special to her and she has chosen to work through you,” Caradoc said.
Chapter 13
A lex started as if Caradoc’s voice had been a gunshot. She sat straight up, and then, realizing she was completely naked, ducked down into the water as far as the shallow pool would allow.
“I brought you clean clothes.” Caradoc was looking everywhere but at her.
“Well, leave them on the bank and go away!” she called, crossing her arms over breasts she knew the crystalline water did little to cover.
“Yes, well, of course.” Sounding almost as awkward and mortified as she felt, he quickly tossed the clothes beside the pool and turned his back to her.
She waited a heartbeat or two to be sure he was going to stay that way, then hurried out of the water and, teeth chattering, struggled to pull on the clean chemise and tunic over her wet body. When she was decent again she grabbed her old chemise and used the inner, and cleanest part to dry her hair. All this time the tall druid stood silently with his back to her.
“Okay, I’m d-d-dressed,” she said, teeth still chattering violently.
Caradoc swung slowly to face her. “You’re cold. You should return to Boudica’s tent. It is warm in there and—”
“No!” Alex interrupted, not sure for a moment why she had such an adverse reaction to the thought of going to the tent. And then she listened to her heart and her instincts and she knew. “No,” she repeated. “I want to be out here for a while more.”
Caradoc nodded. “You have found it, haven’t you?”
“It?”
“The power of the earth. It’s especially strong where the trees are ancient, as they are in this forest.”
“Yes, I suppose I have,” Alex said.
“Do you want to be alone?”
“Are you going to accuse me of being a spy again?”
“No. I won’t be doing that,” Caradoc stated.
“Then, no. I don’t want to be alone,” she told him.
“You could come with me,” he said softly.
Alex glanced back toward the camp and the tents that waited there.
Caradoc’s lips tilted up. “I mean to my campsite. It is different than those.” When she hesitated he added, “I have a fire there, as well as food and mead.”
His mention of food reminded Alex that she hadn’t eaten anything at all that day, and that she was ravenous.
“Food and mead sounds good.” She didn’t add that spending time with him sounded good, too.
“This way,” the druid said, and he followed the little stream, leading her deeper into the forest.
He’d been right; his campsite was different than the others. There was no tent, only a large leather hide tacked up by long, thick branches so that it made an awning from a huge oak tree. Under the shelter was a pallet of furs. Caradoc’s campfire was banked, but it took hardly any time for him to rekindle it with dried leaves and coax it alive again, which he did after situating Alex on a fallen log near the fire, and handing her a bronze mug filled with mead. He opened the lid of a metal pot that perched on a bed of rocks by the fire, and stirred the contents, releasing the satisfying aroma of stew into the air.
“It’ll be warm soon,” he told Alex. Then he poured himself a goblet of mead and sat beside her on their makeshift bench. Caradoc cleared his throat. “You did well today.”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Alex paused and then added, “And the best thing I’ve ever done.”
He nodded. “The goddess moved through you today.”
“I hope so.”
“How can you doubt it?”
Alex knew she should keep her mouth shut, but all of this—this world and its goddess—were so new to her that she felt raw and exposed, far more so than when she’d been naked. And Caradoc was a druid—he knew about the power of the earth and the workings of the goddess who was so close to them here. More than anything else, Alex craved answers to the questions milling in her mind.
“I’m not from here. You already know that.” She began slowly, but as she spoke, her words came more easily and she felt as if she was unburdening her heart. “I’m sorry I can’t explain to you where I’m from, but I can tell you that none of this is there. The power in the earth, even the goddess, is mostly ignored.” His look was a mix of horror and disbelief. “I know. It must seem strange and maybe even impossible to you, but it’s true.”
“But you are a Soul Speaker! How can you come from a place that doesn’t acknowledge the goddess and doesn’t feel the power of the earth?”
“I don’t know how it happened. I do know I’ve never felt like I belonged where I’m from. I scared people,” Alex admitted.
Caradoc tilted his head and studied her. “You must have lived a lonely life.”
He didn’t say the words in a pitying tone, but just made a statement, as if it were an undeniable truth.
“Yes, I did,” Alex admitted, for the first time in her life.
His amber eyes held hers. “That is over for you now.”
If only that were true, Alex thought, but she couldn’t say the words aloud.
“You were in my dream again last night,” Caradoc said.
She blinked in surprise. “You were in mine, too.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “At the water cave?”
She nodded.
Caradoc closed his eyes as if he was in pain.
“I’m guessing today makes us even,” Alex said.
He opened his eyes and raised his brows questioningly.
“I saw you naked last night, and today you saw me naked.”
His lips twitched as if he considered smiling. “Will you call me ‘wolf’ again if I say I prefer your type of nakedness?”
Alex felt her cheeks get warm. “Yes, I might.”
H
is smile came then, softening his handsome face and reminding Alex that he was a decade younger than her, which made her cheeks grow even warmer.
Caradoc took her hand in his, holding it carefully, as if he was afraid she might bolt away if he made any sudden moves.
“I would like to begin again with you,” he said.
“Why?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Because we’ve seen each other naked?”
“No, Blonwen, because we both know what it is to be homeless and then to perhaps find a new place to belong. I also believe there is much we can learn from one another.”
“Such as?” Alex tried not to lose herself in his eyes and his touch, but the warmth of his body was like a drug she craved…
“There is much I could teach you about the spirits within the earth, and how to harness the power of the goddess found there.”
“And what do I teach you?” she asked breathlessly.
“You teach me how to find my center again.” He lifted her hand and, never taking his gaze from hers, pressed his lips to her palm.
At that instant Alex wanted to forget about the damn medallion pieces and the modern world and Time Raiders. She only wanted to drown in Caradoc—to pull his mouth down to hers and, as he’d said, begin anew with him in this wonderful, magical place.
His lips traveled from her palm to the pulse point at her wrist. Against her skin he said, “And I will admit that I did like your nakedness better than my own.” Then he bent and gently pressed his lips to hers. There was passion in the kiss, but it simmered, waiting for Alex to turn up the heat as she became more and more comfortable with him. He was giving her time to trust him, to come to believe that his words and his touch were real, and not something that would turn to anger and accusations again.
Alex kissed him back, slowly and gently, exploring again the already familiar taste and texture of him. She didn’t want to be anywhere else but here with Caradoc. She didn’t want to think of anything but this magical druid and his world, one she desperately wanted to make her own.
And how do you start a life with him in a new world if you betray your old world?
The thought drifted, unwelcome, through her mind. Alex stiffened and pulled back.
Unshaken by her withdrawal, he smiled at her and touched her cheek. “The first lesson I can teach you is that you must ground and renew yourself after you have been an instrument of the goddess.” Caradoc stood and began ladling steaming stew onto a plate for her. “You instinctively renewed yourself already by cleansing in the stream and by drawing power from the earth to you.” He handed her the plate and filled one for himself. “Grounding yourself happens when you take in food and drink. It helps to remind your spirit that it still belongs to an earthly, mortal shell.”
Instead of there being an awkwardness between them because Alex had ended the kiss, Caradoc’s words helped to create the beginnings of an easy camaraderie. He spoke to her as they ate, all the while allowing his thigh to brush against hers and his eyes to linger on her lips. Between bites of stew Alex became even more intrigued with the druid.
“That’s how I found you,” he explained. “I thought you would be cleansing yourself, and the stream did, indeed, lead me to you.”
“I didn’t know. I just went there automatically.”
Caradoc nodded. “The goddess takes care of her own.”
“Caradoc, has she really touched me?” Alex spoke so softly he had to lean closer to her to catch her words. “Am I really a priestess of Andraste?”
“What I saw today assures me that you are. Can you not truly tell that for yourself?”
“I think so. I want to believe it, to understand how…” A flicker of movement from the other side of the campfire stopped her words. Caradoc’s mother materialized in her beautiful robin’s egg blue tunic.
“What is it?” he asked.
Alex suppressed a sigh. “Your mother.”
“Truly?” He looked around the campfire. “Mother, is there something you require of me? I am confused as to why you haven’t joined the goddess in her rolling meadows.”
Caradoc’s mother smiled warmly at her son. Tell my selkie not to worry for me. I am still about the goddess’s business.
“She says don’t worry. She’s doing stuff for the goddess.”
But there is that which he can do for me, as well as Andraste.
“There is something she needs you to do, though.”
Caradoc nodded, clearly eager to do his mother’s bidding. Alex suppressed a smile, thinking that it was a good sign when a man doted on his mother, especially if she was a ghost and not a mother-in-law living in the upstairs bedroom.
I need my son to lead you through Londinium so that you might find the Roman tax collector, Catus, and retrieve that which you have been sent to find.
Alex sobered instantly at the spirit’s word.
Tell him, and move quickly. Londinium is burning….
The spirit’s semisubstantial form wavered, then disappeared.
Alex turned to face Caradoc. “Your mother wants you to take me into Londinium. I have to find the tax collector, Catus.”
“The Roman who ordered Boudica beaten and her daughters raped?”
Alex nodded.
“Why would you want to find him?”
Please, oh please, don’t turn away from me again. Don’t think that I’m acting against Boudica just because I can’t tell you everything. “He has the other medallion piece that matches the one in Boudica’s torque. I have to return it to her.” And then I have to get both of them back to the future.
Caradoc gazed steadily at her for a long time before he murmured, “There is more to this than you’re telling me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Alex answered him anyway. “Yes, but I give you my word that what I’m telling you is the truth.” She thought a second and then added, “Your mother called you her selkie.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “That was her pet name for me.”
“So you believe that she really was here and she really did tell me to pass on to you what she said?”
Caradoc touched Alex’s cheek. “I believed you before you said the pet name. I just…” He paused and then began again. “This is difficult for me. I know you are not telling me everything, but I feel compelled to help you.” He caressed her neck and rubbed his thumb along her collarbone. “I feel compelled to be with you.”
“I need your help, Caradoc,” Alex said.
“Someday I hope you will come to me because you need more than my help.” He bent and kissed her softly, then stood and held out a hand to her. “I will take you to Londinium to find Catus, so that you can return the medallion to our queen’s torque.”
Alex took his hand and, feeling like a traitor, went with the druid to find their horses.
Chapter 14
I f there was a hell in this world, Londinium must have been its twin. The city was on fire, a nightmare dreamscape of suffering and disaster juxtaposed with victory and vengeance. The stench of battle nauseated Alex. It was the cloyingly sweet metallic aroma of blood and death, fear and triumph.
She hated everything about it, and it frightened her to her very soul. Celtic warriors cheered and lurched drunkenly down the streets. It was victory, but it wasn’t what Alex had imagined victory would look like. It was violent and ugly and base. The good guys had won, but in winning they seemed to have lost what had held them apart from the cruelty of the Romans. They looted and sacked and even raped. And then they set the city on fire.
“We need to leave,” Caradoc yelled above the noise of the dying city. “This is too dangerous. Later we’ll—”
“No!” Alex grabbed his arm and made him meet her gaze. “We have to find Catus and the medallion piece. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t have to.”
The druid still looked as if he was ready to pick her up, throw her back on her horse and ride with her out of there.
“I don’t want to be here, either,” she
told him fervently. “I don’t want to see this! But finding the medallion and returning it to where it belongs is more important than what I want. Help me, Caradoc. I don’t want to go on without you, but I will if I have no other choice.”
That got through to him. Obviously, he wasn’t going to leave her alone in the ruined city. He clenched his jaw, nodded shortly, walked up to the next terrified citizen he found hiding in the rubble, and grabbed the man by his tunic.
“Spare me, master!” the man screamed. “I am but a slave! Not even a Roman. I—”
“I only want information,” Caradoc interrupted. “Where would I find the tax collector, Catus?”
Even in his terror, the man lifted his lip in a sneer. “When they realized the barbarian queen was going to take the city, Catus and his ilk ran to their god’s temple and barricaded themselves within, may they rot in the farthest depths of their accursed Underworld.”
“How do I find the temple?”
The slave pointed down a wide road littered with bodies and debris. “There, at the end of that street, is the temple of Jupiter.”
Caradoc let go of the man. He and Alex set off resolutely down the main street of Londinium. Alex kept her gaze straight ahead. She tried not to process what she was seeing, tried to convince her mind that her eyes were watching a movie, something that was terrifying and disturbing, but wasn’t really part of her. And her denial was almost working until Jupiter’s temple came into view.
It was utterly engulfed in flames. Terrified shrieks rose with the cloud of smoke that mushroomed from the temple.
“No!” Alex cried, running forward.
Caradoc ran beside her, keeping a tight hold on her when she got too close to the inferno that had once been a temple. Celtic warriors ringed the burning building, and these men and women weren’t taking part in the drunken revelry. They were grim-faced and bloodied, standing armed and dangerous as they watched the temple burn.
