Across the Sea (Islands in the Mist Series Book 2)
Page 32
“Mother,” Arhianna whispered, pulling away, “this is where I belong. I know it—in my heart and in my bones. These are my people.”
“What do you mean, these are your people?” Lucia cried. She glared at Bran. “Help me!”
“Let her speak,” Bran said, his face white. “Then we’ll talk.”
Lucia wanted to kill her husband, but he looked as if he were in so much pain already, she relented.
“Hraban was my grandfather.” Arhianna looked over at her father. “He told me I look like my grandmother, except that I have hair of fire, instead of gold. He knew her name, and he knew the pendant. He said she stole it from him, many years ago, and disappeared.”
Bran nodded in agreement. “You do look like her,” he said softly. He sighed heavily. “My mother was kidnapped by invaders. We assumed they were Saxons. No one knew where she was taken. Somehow, she escaped and returned home. Some moons later I was born.”
“He was your father, wasn’t he?” Arhianna asked.
“He was.”
Lucia grew faint. Fourteen years I’ve worried—how to prevent this catastrophe, how I could save them—and now, she wants to stay with the enemy? After the entire clan has risked their lives to save her? She could not bring herself to accept it.
“I have to think,” she said, not knowing what else to say. She turned and walked away, tears blurring her vision.
***
“Queen Lucia?”
Lucia felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Taliesin standing behind her. She had been sobbing for some time. Bran had come, but she had sent him away.
She smiled and wiped the tears from her face.
He touched her hand gently. “Will you walk with me? I want to show you something.”
Lucia nodded. She let Taliesin take her hand and stood up. He led her away from the shore deep into a forest.
“It’s beautiful here,” Lucia said, in awe of the trees around them. The air was fresh and clean, and the sound of the birds singing put her mind at ease.
“There’s a place here that’s very much like our Grove at home. I want you to see it.”
They ventured farther in until they came upon a giant ash tree so majestic, that Lucia could not help but gasp in wonder. Taliesin raised his arms triumphantly beneath it.
“Oh, Taliesin!” Her head was tilted back so far she could barely get the words out.
Taliesin sat down in the middle of the Grove facing the ash. “Please come and sit with me, like we used to at home.”
She did as Taliesin asked, and then he brought out Arhianna’s pendant. “Arhianna’s pendant has a name—the Brisingamen,” he told her. “It comes from this land, as Arhianna said. King Bran’s mother stole it from Hraban, and took it with her. Now, it has come home.” He turned it over in his hands, peering into it. “I’ve discovered something very special about it—something not everyone can see. Neither Seren nor Arhianna could—but I believe you might be able to.”
“See what?”
Taliesin put the pendant in her palm. “Hold it up, and look at the tree through the stone,” he instructed. “Look deeply, and tell me what you see.”
Lucia peered into the stone, at first only seeing its tiny cracks and bubbles, but when she began to look through it at the tree, it changed. “You’re right…something’s happening…” she whispered.
The stone began to show her worlds around the Ash, hanging like fruit upon its limbs or clutched within its roots. As she peered more closely at them, she could see they each featured a grove with a sacred tree at its center. As she gazed from one to the next, a parade of images appeared. She saw a beautiful girl picking silver apples in one, and an old crone stirring a pot beneath a yew in another. Yet a third revealed a type of tree she had never seen before, standing within a dry and yellow land where it appeared the sun never set.
Taliesin took her hand, and gazed into the stone beside her. “Now, watch closely.” He began to sing, and as he did, the inside of the stone seemed to melt into liquid. It began to move and shift, responding to his voice, until the shifting was happening not just within the stone, but all around them.
The grove began to twist and change, until the trees started to look familiar. Then, to Lucia’s shock, Islwyn’s hut began to wink in and out of view, not far from where they sat. She dared not look over at it, for fear of breaking the spell, but watched it solidify from the corner of her eye.
Once things stopped moving, Taliesin released her hand and stood up. “We’re home.” He turned about, motioning to everything around them. “This is how King Bran’s mother escaped. The Ash is connected to our Oak.”
Lucia was dumbfounded. She walked over to Islwyn’s hut to peer in the door. She could smell the herbs from inside.
“And there are others, Queen Lucia—other trees like ours—and they are all connected. The Brisingamen is the key to opening the doors between them. Do you understand?”
Lucia was not certain whether she did or not. “So, we’re home? Truly home?”
“Yes,” Taliesin confirmed. “But we can’t stay. There would be no way to explain this to the others. Not yet.”
“No,” she agreed, shaking her head. “There wouldn’t be.”
“Shall we go back?”
Lucia nodded. They sat down to gaze back into the stone, and Taliesin sang them back to the world of the Ash. She felt quite dizzy after they arrived, similar to how she felt after shadow-walking.
“Sit until you feel solid again,” Taliesin advised. “Squeeze my hand when you’re ready.”
Once she had recovered, she squeezed his hand and they stood up together.
He smiled at her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded. “So you see, we’ll be far closer than you thought.”
“We?” she asked, knitting her brows.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I’m going to stay here with Arhianna.”
A wave of relief washed over Lucia. “You are?”
“Yes, but not only for her.” He paused, looking up into the branches of the Ash in wonder. “There is something about this place that calls to me as well—a deep magic I wish to understand.”
Lucia nodded and kissed his forehead. “I’ll miss you both so much. Promise me you’ll sing her home if she’s in danger.”
“I promise to watch over her.”
She squeezed Taliesin’s hand. “Then I shall give her my blessing, and learn to live without her.”
They left the Ash behind and made their way back, Lucia’s heart growing heavier with each step.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.M. Hofer’s first novel, Islands in the Mist, was one of five semi-finalists out of two-thousand in the Fantasy genre of the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. Across the Sea is the second book in the Islands in the Mist series. Both Islands in the Mist and Across the Sea are also available as audio productions through Audible, narrated by the accomplished Irish actor, Mr. John Keating.
If you enjoyed Across the Sea, Ms. Hofer invites you to post a review on Amazon, and humbly thanks you in advance for your readership and support.
Visit her world at www.jmhofer.com.