Abhainn's Kiss

by Carolan Ivey

  “Abby, you don’t have a choice! You have to go now!”

  “No! I won’t sacrifice you for a silly Gathering.” She threw her arms around him, trembling.

  He squeezed her tight to him and sighed. “Aw, Abby. I hate to do this to you, but… I love you.”

  Another hiccup. “What?” She drew back and stared at him.

  He grinned at her and tucked her head under his chin.

  “I love you.”

  And he launched them both over the edge of the cliff and into the sea.

  Even before they hit the water, Michael felt her turn them over so she would hit the water first. Hitting the surface of the ocean from that height should have broken a few bones, but her springy Fae body absorbed the shock. When their heads broke the surface, he hauled in great breaths of air and discovered she had already towed him well beyond the dangerous breakers.

  “See?” he shouted above the crashing waves. “Your people are the Fae of the Waters! This is where you belong!”

  Stunned surprise warred with mortal fear in her eyes. She glanced back at the cliff, as if she were contemplating trying to scale it and get back to dry land. “Oh no, you don’t!” He grabbed her and turned her toward Avalon. “There it is, Abby. We can make it. I’ll hang onto you so you can have your arms free—just remember to let me breathe once in a while. Okay?”

  She could only manage a quick little nod in answer. And a hiccup.

  The fires of Avalon flared brighter, and the sound of deep-throated drums throbbed on the air. He wrapped both arms around her waist.

  “Now, Abby! Go!”

  He wondered if taking off in the space shuttle felt anything like this. He could never have guessed she would swim so fast underwater that he had to close his eyes to keep his eyelids from turning inside out.

  As she became accustomed to the water, she swam faster and faster, surfacing every few seconds to let him breathe, then diving under again to race like a torpedo, dead-on for Avalon.

  We’re going to make it, he exulted to himself. We’re going to…

  She faltered.

  He buried his forehead into the back of her neck, pleading silently, Hang on, Abby. You can do this. You’re almost there. He held tighter to her waist, silently willing more of his strength into her.

  No, stop it, Mícheál. You will have none left for yourself.

  Take it, Abby. Drown me if you have to, but take it. No matter what, you have to make it.

  No!

  Don’t let them win! Do it!

  The ocean, the air around him dimmed, compressing to one pinpoint of light somewhere deep in his brain.

  When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a silver shore—alone. Above, up on the mountain, the fires burned and the drums throbbed.

  Michael looked down at his hands.

  The only thing clutched in them was Abhainn’s crystal necklace.

  His heart heavy, Michael’s feet dragged to a stop just outside the biggest, widest stone circle he had ever seen. It resembled Stonehenge, only this structure made Stonehenge look like a playpen.

  He leaned against the nearest stone. It vibrated with the beat of the drums, as if it, too, wanted to join the dance going on just in front of it. Too weary and heartsore to stand it any longer, he pushed away from the stone and lifted a foot to step inside the circle, Nuala’s warning be damned.

  Someone shouted, and the drums stopped, their thunder echoing away down the mountain. Every eye turned toward him. Thousands of Fae—thousands upon thousands. In every shape and size, no two alike. One of each race, just as Nuala had said. Some looked like they had just stepped out of a Tolkien novel. Others looked like nothing even the maddest artist could dream up.

  “Abby, you should see this,” he whispered. He took another step, but found his way blocked by a troll. Two of them, in fact. Michael’s gaze sharpened. There seemed to be an inordinate number of trolls in the crowd, despite the fact only one of them was supposed to be here.

  “Ye are no’ welcome here, human,” the troll sneered, the words dripping with contempt as thick as the snot dripping from its nose.

  A tall, magnificent woman approached. Her eyes flashed many colors, and she wore robes of shimmering green. Her hair shone silver above a face of indeterminate age. “The last time I looked, troll, you were not in charge here.”

  “Open your eyes, Old Mother,” came another voice from across the circle. Another woman, equally as tall but imposing in a way that made Michael’s skin crawl, glided into the picture. More trolls escorted her, rudely knocking bystanders out of her way. “The high hour approaches, and the Great Circle is incomplete.”

  The Old Mother lifted her chin. “There is still time, Berchta. We will be patient a little longer.”

  Berchta laughed, a sound not unlike the stuffed-up-Pug breath of her minions. “The Asrai will not come. They are no more. Hiding their cowardly selves in the darkness for so long, they shriveled and died out long ago.”

  “No,” Michael stated. “There was one.”

  All eyes turned to him once more. He closed his fist around the crystal pendant, feeling the edges dig into his palm. Drawing a deep breath, he took another step into the circle.

  “Stop,” snarled Berchta. “He is contaminating these proceedings. Remove him!”

  The Lady raised one graceful hand. “He will be allowed to speak. You bring us news of the Asrai, human?” Her eyes twinkled expectantly. He steeled himself to give the news that would certainly extinguish that spark.

  Emotion choked his words. “I bring word…of her death.” He raised his hand and let the crystal pendant dangle from his fingers, its facets catching the firelight.

  Cries of dismay filled the air from the Old Mother’s side of the circle. She closed her eyes, but no grief marked her face. She seemed to be listening for something far away.

  Michael plowed on.

  “She disappeared into the ocean, within a hundred feet of these shores, trying to reach Avalon in time to heal the circle. To heal,” his voice broke, “the earth, and the rift between our peoples. I was told that if she did not live to see this night, that I was to bring this token.”

  In the silence, Berchta began to laugh. “The balance of power has shifted at last, Old Mother. Your time is done.”

  The Lady opened her eyes and, incredibly, she smiled. She looked up at the moon. “The high hour has not yet come.”

  “It does not matter!” The evil one snarled. “The Asrai are finished. This human has seen the last of them die. It is your turn, Lady, to leave your high place by the altar stone, just as you ousted me two thousand years ago.”

  As if she hadn’t heard, the Lady held out her hand. Reverently, she took the crystal from him and lay it on the flower-covered altar stone. She glided smoothly around to the corner of the stone, and lay her hand on a chipped off corner. Her strong gaze penetrated clear to his heart.

  “You carry with you another stone. Where is it?”

  For a second, his mind blanked. Then he remembered. “You mean…my grandmother’s weeping rock?”

  The one that sank into the sea when he’d shrugged out of his rucksack.

  “That ‘rock’, as you call it, belongs here,” she said, touching the broken edge again. Many generations of your time ago, a human man with a broken heart struck this altar. Through treachery, he had lost his king—and the Asrai woman he loved. He vowed with his blood and upon this very stone that he would reveal the one who had led them astray, so that it appeared they both had betrayed their people.”

  The Lady reached out and touched the cut on his arm. The wound sealed, but not before a puff of black smoke issued from it, taking with it all traces of sickness and pain. The puff rose into the air and flew toward Berchta. The dark queen flinched, but the smoke angled away from her head and disappeared into the blood-red stone at the head of her staff.

  “And by your blood, it appears that vow has been fulfilled,” said the Lady. The Faery host murmured in surpr
ise.

  Berchta’s face purpled.

  Blaen of CraighMhor’s blood and mine. It is the same. The revelation brought him no joy. Instead, his heart fell into his stomach. “But the stone is…is lost, ma’am,” he said in a low voice. “It fell into the sea during an attack by the Larvae.”

  A treasure now lost to him, to this Circle, just like Abhainn.

  He dropped his head and whispered desolately, “I’m sorry, Lady. I have failed you, and I have failed Abhainn. I swore to bring her safely to this place, no matter what the cost. In the end, it was she who saved me. She paid the highest price.”

  Still unable to meet the Lady’s eye, he held his arms out from his sides, palms up in supplication.

  “I offer myself in service to Avalon.”

  A collective gasp was followed by a growing din of exclamations and chatter, all in languages he couldn’t understand. Apparently this kind of thing didn’t happen every millennium.

  He sneaked a peek out of the corner of his eye. Berchta looked none too pleased with his announcement and was watching him closely, shushing the trolls that chattered around her.

  The Lady’s quiet voice cut through the chatter.

  “You realize that no human has set foot on Avalon for over a thousand years?”

  “Yes.”

  “That for a thousand years, no human has believed—truly believed—our world exists right alongside theirs? That no living human has memory of the time when we walked together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should you be any different, then?” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Is it not possible that you think you are simply lost in a dream, or suffering from some obscure mental illness?”

  He had to laugh, in spite of his grief, at his own words coming back to haunt him. He winked back at her and shrugged, letting his hands fall to his sides. “It’s possible, I suppose. But then why did I haul that rock around with me all those years, if some part of me didn’t believe… didn’t hope…my grandmother’s stories were true?”

  Creases wreathed the Lady’s face as she laughed and held out her hands to him.

  “Come, Mìcheál CraighMhor. You have brought the Asrai talisman that proves Abhainn’s good intention. The altar’s missing piece is lost, but you offer yourself in its place. This does honor to the memory of Blaen of CraighMhor, and his oath. Come now. Join the circle. Dance with us.”

  Berchta laughed. “Old One, you are a fool. He will never agree to such folly! And even if he did, one puny human will never repair what is broken.”

  The Lady ignored her and continued to hold out her hands toward him. A slow smile spread across his face, in answer to hers.

  “I know this legend,” he said quietly. “Once I join the dance, I can never return. Or if I do, I may find several generations have come and gone while I danced.”

  “Perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But at least those generations will have an Earth to call home. A healthy one. Come. Dance for her,” she urged, a strange light leaping into her eyes. “Dance for Abhainn.”

  He felt something release inside him, and the boy within him bade him throw up his arms and call for the drums.

  The music thrummed through his body, moving him without his consciously having to think about it. He forgot about the fact that he couldn’t dance, not in his own world. But here, it didn’t matter. He turned his face up toward the moon, closed his eyes and abandoned himself to the beat, feeling the brush of other dancing bodies close beside him, hearing the laughing voices of the Fae cheering him on.

  A drop of cool water landed on his face. Then another. And another.

  The boy in him allowed him to pretend that each drop was a kiss from Abhainn. That the scent of it on his skin was the scent she had left behind on him after their lovemaking.

  He clearly saw her in his mind’s eye, laughing in that way he had once thought silly and foolish. She had known it all along. It was he who had been foolish, for not seeing the world through her eyes sooner.

  It didn’t matter now. Soon he would see a new world unfolding, a healing one, and he would see it through eyes she had opened.

  A pair of small arms clamped around his neck. A pair of small hands pulled his face down from its tipped-back position.

  “Open your eyes, fool.” Her voice.

  He opened them. Abhainn face, plastered round with wet hair, laughed up at him.

  The rain continued to fall from the clear night sky. Water puddled then rose up to form small, slender Fae, all with Abhainn’s wild pale hair and green eyes. More and more of them rose from the water, until Berchta and her minions were pressed aside. One by one, the trolls disappeared down various cracks and crevices of the earth. Finally, only one remained, crowded out to the edge of the circle along with his fuming dark queen.

  Abhainn leaped into his arms. He fell to his knees, more from sheer emotion than the force of her weight. He clutched her to him, eyes squeezed shut against the tears, afraid this was all a dream and she would disappear if he let go.

  “I thought I had lost you,” he choked. “I thought you were dead.”

  She laughed through her own tears and leaned her forehead against his. “My people found me,” she rejoiced, motioning to the large number of Asrai now filling out the jolly circle. “Some of us learned to survive. They found me and taught me that though we were at the mercy of the waters, by banding together we could avoid the oblivion of our kin. We have been waiting for this night, they tell me. The night that a human would take the first step toward healing the earth—by simply believing.”

  The Lady pulled them both to their feet.

  “We needed more than just the Asrai to heal the Great Circle,” she said. “Berchta knew this. That is why she cast her foul spell upon Ardaith and Blaen. In one stroke, she planned to eliminate the Asrai and tip the balance of favor of evil, and also sever the last fragile bonds between our worlds. But the Asrai were not as weak as she thought. As long as one human retained the ability to dream, there was always hope.”

  Michael frowned in Berchta’s direction. “But if she’s the one who caused this mess, she should be banished.”

  The Old Mother smiled. “Stay your wrath, knight. She has her place in the Circle. Her place in the delicate balance between dark and light. Berchta will have, as your people say, ‘her day in court’. Worry not.”

  Michael hugged Abhainn closer and shrugged. “All right. We won’t. Now. Where do we start with this ‘healing the earth’ thing?”

  The Lady threw back her head and laughed. “With a kiss, fool. Know you nothing?”

  Epilogue

  Looking through the portal, Cadwyn smiled as she watched the dance of the Great Circle. Between her busy fingers, Abhainn’s lifethread swelled with joy…and some new energy Cadwyn had never before felt.

  On her right side, the spinner of Michael Craig’s lifethread looked up at her and grinned. It had taken some doing, but she had managed to work his strong thread across the gaping split between the human and Fae webs, where it readily intertwined and held fast to Abhainn’s anchor. Encouraged by her success, more spinners were winding out their threads across the gap, both Fae and human. Cadwyn could see that it would not be long before the rift would be fully healed. Already, all over the web of life, colors brightened and lifelights shone cleaner.

  She heard another wooden stool scrape up beside her. She glanced over her shoulder, surprised to see a new spinner settle at her left side.

  “I was told to come sit by you,” said the young spinner anxiously. “I am told there is a new lifethread to spin.” In her lap, she reverently cradled a bowl of Sunrise.

  Abhainn’s lifethread leaped in her hands, curving strongly toward the bowl, bulging outward like a pregnant belly. Michael’s spinner whooped in surprise as his thread almost pulled her off her stool. The bowl of Sunrise grew bright, almost blinding.

  Cadwyn’s breath caught. A child is to be born.

  She held out Abhainn’s thread toward the
new spinner and pointed to a particularly bright spot upon it.

  “Begin here.”

  About the Author

  To learn more about Carolan Ivey, please visit www.carolanivey.com. Send an email to Carolan at books@carolanivey.com or check out her blog to join in the fun with other readers as well as Carolan! http://www.carolanivey.blogspot.com. To get the latest news about Carolan’s upcoming releases, and to be automatically entered in all her prize drawings, join her mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wild-ivey

  Only the brave will answer the Call…

  The Heron’s Call

  © 2006 Isabo Kelly

  Kael Zyhn is a Heron sword mage and the first of his kind to forge a mage sword in more than a generation. But the trance that took him just before forging the sword disrupted Kael’s first meeting with his raynia, his soul twin. Twelve years later, he’s recovered from his ordeal and ready to claim his mate. Only to discover she wants nothing to do with him.

  Rowena, an Aleanian sword sworn, can’t forgive her long absent raynei for deserting her all those years ago. But she admits that she needs him to survive her latest mission. Unfortunately, the longer she’s in Kael’s presence, the more she wants him, despite the protests of her damaged heart.

  To succeed in her quest, Rowena must learn to trust Kael. But can she dare trust him with her heart again? And will she risk his life by giving in to her desires?

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Heron’s Call.

  Rowena twisted in her bedroll, restless and uncomfortable on the hard-packed earth. Frustration gnawed at her. It was that blasted dream again. The dark bulk of him rising above her, the scrape of callused fingers over her nipples, the feel of his hard cock thrusting into her. She rolled her eyes at the memory and a groan escaped between her clenched teeth. She hated the dream. Especially when she had no chance of experiencing those sensations in real life. Thanks to him.