by E E Everly
“How long have we been resting?” I asked. Dad’s shield of light expanded with me as I stood and rubbed my chest. It felt all right. I didn’t feel as if I were being crushed under an elephant’s foot.
I searched within myself. Their infusion of light must have done something because the flecks of black in my heart-center were back to where they were supposed to be, like little sunspots.
“For about two hours,” Dad said.
“Two hours! We have to get a move on.”
They rose to their feet and stretched.
“That’s enough, you lazy blewogs.” I pushed on Dad’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“Are you sure you’re fine?” Dad asked.
“Yes.” Cystenian, I’m coming.
Dad looked worried.
Bronwen touched his upper arm. “I think she’s fine, Vaughan.”
“Yep, crisis averted.” I stepped outside Dad’s shield, and the cold hit me. “Dang.” I shivered but snapped my wings open and jumped into the sky.
FORTY-EIGHT
Outside Talfryn, the desert spanned the border of the western world, separating it from the land mass in the east, the place called Morvith, where civil war was happening. We’d been flying for hours, which felt like days, over the dry, sun-soaked desert.
I was parched and limp and weary from the hot air that made me feel as if I were flying through an oven.
Eventually we crested a cliff that separated the desert from barren volcanic lands.
From bright white sand to dismal gray ash and soot.
Uffern is just ahead, Dad said after a short while.
It’s not as if I could miss it. Its smoking volcanic peak jutted into the sky. The sides of the volcano sloped down but leveled off in front of a cave, or what was supposed to be a cave entrance. The opening, barely large enough for a person to step into the side of the mountain, had been blocked with volcanic rock, and an invisible seal, I was told, had been placed over it.
No one’s there, I said as we made a lap around the volcano.
Don’t let your eyes deceive you. They’re there. Yasbail and Rhosyn are cloaked.
Cloaked? As in invisible? Just great.
Cloaking is spiritual concealment, Dad said. She’s hiding her light.
You mean she can’t be discerned?
Yes.
That means Cystenian is cloaked too, right? I asked.
Most likely, if they are together. Father’s been trying to find Yasbail for some time, Dad said. This meeting at Uffern gives her a time and place for him to corner her.
What do you mean “find” her?
Yasbail keeps herself and Rhosyn cloaked at all times from Meuric. He can’t find her unless she chooses to reveal herself.
Yeesh. Does she hate him that much? I asked.
She doesn’t hate him. They just don’t see eye to eye on most things.
And I thought I was a brat sometimes.
Anerah, you are far from a brat, Dad said.
Should we expect an attack from Yasbail?
Not if she wants you to bond with Cystenian. I don’t think Yas will harm you. At least not yet.
That was comforting.
Bronwen stayed close to Dad as we descended onto the volcanic rock. Shards of black, razor-sharp rock glistened like glass. I landed as carefully as I could. Dad swooped in right beside me, with Bronwen behind him.
Our wings flashed out of sight.
“So this is it.” I toed a volcanic rock. “What do we do now? Wait?”
The stench of sulfur filled my nostrils. Waves of heat lifted into the air.
“Does this thing ever go off?” I asked.
“Not since it’s been the Dark Master’s prison, so, no, not for several millennia.” Dad glanced at Bronwen. She made no movement but appeared tense.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered. “Did you let Meuric know we’re here?”
“As we descended,” Dad said.
“Good. We’re going to need him to rein in his daughter.”
“Have patience. He’ll get here. Be ready in the meantime. I guarantee Uffern is watched. Yasbail would have been alerted as soon as we landed.” Dad flexed his fingers and rotated his wrists, ready for a fight. “Just stay back from the entrance.”
Come on, Gramps. Edgy, I scanned the area and then closed my eyes and searched for Cystenian’s light. Nothing and no one came to my senses, which made me wonder if Cystenian could feel my emotional bond at all, if he were cloaked as well.
It’s possible that he hasn’t been feeling your bond, depending on the strength of the cloaking spell.
What? I asked. Then why the encouragement before?
To give you hope. To give him hope. He might have been sensing your emotions. It was worth a try. “Cerys says Meuric is waiting for Yas to show,” Dad said with a hushed voice. “If he pops in before they arrive, they won’t reveal themselves.”
“Good idea. But I don’t like how precise that forces the timing of his arrival.”
“Have faith. He will show after she arrives.”
I looked at Bronwen with large eyes.
“Focus.” She furrowed her brows as if she were honing her inner sight. “Be ready.”
What were we going to do? Were we going to fight? I had nothing but hopes that I could somehow talk them out of this. My mother at least. Surely once she saw me, she would have compassion on us.
I think she plans to kill Cystenian, not you. That would be her compassion, Dad said.
That’s not compassion! I exclaimed.
I didn’t say her line of reasoning was correct.
So she’s unbalanced.
Sharing a soul will do that to someone, Dad said.
Uffern coughed up a particularly huge plume of smoke. I shivered despite the heat. Somewhere deep below me was a prison, where the most sinister immortal being alive resided, stripped of his immortal body.
And my aunt wanted to become his Vessel.
She was insane. Definitely. I didn’t have to meet her to come to that conclusion.
The air grew thick around us. It became more difficult to breathe.
“What’s happening?” I whirled around, expecting to see a great sorceress or mage working vile magic.
Yeah, I’d read too much fantasy.
Starting at the ground about twenty feet away, surrounding us and the entrance at Uffern, the air became a wall of colors undulating and growing upward into the sky.
“No,” Dad said. “Don’t let it close.”
Immediately Dad and Bronwen attacked the growing wall with light that streamed right from their palms. They concentrated their power as if they were blasting a wall with water from a pressure washer. Some areas of color broke apart, but they seeped together again as fast as they crumbled. Dad and Bronwen strained as if they were pushing up a fallen beam. As the colors arced higher despite their efforts, it rounded into a dome over us.
Whoever was casting the magic was sealing us in.
Once the dome was complete, the energy crackled and the colors disappeared with a snap. Dad and Bronwen dropped their arms, looking defeated.
“We’re trapped,” I said, stating the obvious.
Dad nodded. “They were too powerful.”
“What about our reinforcements?”
“Let’s hope they can bring down the barrier.” Dad walked to where the dome had snapped into place. He rubbed his palms over the sky as if rubbing a glass window. He couldn’t press through. “Father is strong. He and his men should be able to counter this.” We should conserve our strength, he said to me. Without warning, Dad punched the dome. Light flashed beneath the impact and disappeared. Dad shook his fist out. “It’s solid.”
I groaned. Was a punch really a good way to test that? “You should tell Gramps—I mean, Meuric—to come now.” Dread had circled my body. My arms ached with nervous tension.
“It’s too soon. Yas won’t show.”
“Can Meuric ether-jump through the barrier?”
Bronwen asked.
“Yas would have thought of that,” Dad said.
“Wonderful,” I replied.
The air vibrated about fifteen feet in front of us, right near the seal to Uffern. Three people flicked into existence, two women, one with a hold on Cystenian. Had they been there the entire time or could they breach their own barrier by teleporting? If they could, they might vanish as soon as Meuric showed up.
I’m waiting to call him, until we have Cystenian, Dad said. If Yas has learned to ether jump, especially around a barrier she controls, then we will lose her, and Cystenian.
The woman holding Cystenian let go of him, and he tripped and fell forward onto his knees. He grimaced as shards of obsidian cut into his clothes, right into his skin. His hands were bound behind him, with what, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t rope.
I flinched, wanting to go to him, but Dad held me back with a hand to my shoulder. He’s bound with a thread of dark matter. He won’t be able to break it, Dad said, not in the state he’s in.
Cystenian’s face was bruised and bloody. His right eye, swollen shut. Blood from his face stained his tan shirt. My anger flared, and darkness leapt across the light in my heart-center.
I was angling for a fight.
The women were fierce. Clothed like warrior princesses in leather and metal. Bands around their wrists and circlets around their upper arms gleamed. Heavy cloaks hung limply behind them, fast taking on the humidity from the atmosphere.
The two women had deep skin tones. Dark brown eyes. Even their facial features were similar, from their tiny, straight noses and slim jaws to their smooth eyebrows. Burgundy lip color sharpened their mouths. They did not smile, more like smirk.
They could have been twins if it wasn’t for one major difference. Their hair. Though long and coiled in many braids befitting a warrior princess, one of them had glossy brown locks, and the other, rich blood red.
I knew instinctively who the latter was. “Mother,” I said to the redhead.
“Your intuition serves you well,” she said and added an unnerving smile.
“It’s not hard to guess.” I rolled my eyes as I channeled bratty teenager. “The hair coloring.”
The brunette, Yasbail, with her arm stretched toward Cystenian, seemed to have an invisible hold on him, because he hadn’t risen. He was paralyzed, with his knees on the sharp rocks. He had to be in pain. “Shall we make fast introductions?” She nodded at Dad. “Vaughan, your daughter is simply ravishing.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Anerah, darling, it’s a pleasure.”
“I can’t honestly say the same,” I said. “I’m not interested in a show and pleasant words. Free Cystenian, and we can continue this family reunion some other time.” Like never.
Yasbail stared me down, as if she was trying to figure me out.
Bronwen edged forward, the concern for her brother hard in her eyes. Dad lifted a hand. “Yas, there’s no way I’ll allow the seal to break. Give up this pointless endeavor.”
Rhosyn’s eyes bore into Bronwen’s. Her intensity was creepy. When she spoke to Bronwen, with an eerily mystical tone, chills raced up my spine. “Yes, I see it just as I did so long ago. Your heart yearns for Vaughan’s. I remember well how it broke the night he made love to me. I remember the tears that fell when you found out, the weeping, the heartbreak.”
Bronwen’s face paled.
I turned on Rhosyn with fury. “You are disgusting. Sick.”
“Bronwen’s precious love for Vaughan has always been forbidden. Her parents wouldn’t have allowed such a union.” Rhosyn rolled her shoulders in a seductive manor. At least it seemed seductive, but it kind of gave me the impression she had to pee. “I did you a favor,” she said to Bronwen.
“You and Vaughan shouldn’t have been together. Your union was an abomination,” Bronwen hissed.
“Bron, don’t.” Dad’s eyes locked with hers, and an unspoken warning passed between them.
As Rhosyn trailed a hand down her neck and toyed with her clavicle, I grimaced with revulsion. Any love affair with Rhosyn was an abomination, whether spelled by fae or consensual. My poor father.
“Enough,” Yasbail said. “It doesn’t matter whose soulmate bonded with whose cousin, and who broke whose heart. That’s the dangers of fae magic. They don’t care if you’re related.”
“Cousin? Related?” My stomach turned. Bronwen grabbed my wrist. Her grip sent enough emotion into me to understand that I should leave the matter for later. But the pieces had clicked. Dad had said that Yasbail and Rhosyn were cousins a while ago. Dad was Rhosyn’s cousin too, a clear fact that I had overlooked, that Dad hadn’t bothered clarifying. The fae had spelled him to bond with Rhosyn, family relations be damned.
I shivered, more disturbed than I had ever been in my entire life. Please don’t tell me they are first cousins.
“Yasbail, that’s enough.” Dad’s voice rang with authority.
Yasbail smirked. “You’re absolutely right. We’re wasting time, and you are stalling.” Yasbail grabbed Cystenian by the back of his shirt and yanked him to his feet. She pulled him against her chest and spoke softly in his ear as she gripped his throat. “Cystenian, love, you know what I want.” She pressed her body to his and rubbed her free hand up his chest, purring as if she were in heat. “One little link.”
Cystenian didn’t seem aware of his surroundings as he grunted in response. Was his brain gorked? Had he scrambled his memories? His eyelids fluttered, showing only the whites of his eyes. He leaned into Yasbail as if his right leg was injured and he needed her support. Trails of fresh blood soaked the fronts of his shins where he had fallen.
Bronwen released an anguished sob. I echoed her pain in my heart, but I tried not to show it.
“Come, Anerah.” Rhosyn beckoned with her hand. She sauntered forward a step and tilted her head. “Come, sweetheart. Come to Momma. Once the seal is broken, we’ll be together. You and me.”
“And your twisted twin? I don’t think so,” I said.
When Rhosyn stepped forward, Dad lifted his hands. Energy surged from his heart-center to his fingertips, but he held it inside.
Rhosyn chuckled. “Vaughan, you’ve always been a hothead. We don’t wish to fight. When Yas is the Vessel, we will unite the regions without bloodshed.”
“You mean to make them bow to you or die,” Bronwen said. “That’s not freedom. That’s enslavement.”
“People are dying now,” Yasbail snarled. “This war has raged for centuries. It must stop. The Dark Master will unite us.” She tightened her hold on Cystenian’s throat.
“A corrupt creator will not lead a people to peace.” Bronwen tensed as Cystenian reacted with a gasp of pain.
“Neither will all the peace treaties and wishful thinking. Mortal men are bickering fools.” Yasbail thrust Cystenian forward, holding him up by his neck alone. It was strange how I zeroed in on the cut muscles of her arms. She could tear Cystenian limb from limb if given the chance. “Come. Enough of this. You will merge your lights. Now!”
“I’ll… go to her,” Cystenian grunted. “I’ll… do it.”
Her? Did he not remember my name? I heard no recognition in his voice.
At least he was responsive.
But he looked more like a zombie than a man. His skin was sallow and purpling.
“That’s right, Cystenian. You remember what we talked about, what you must do,” Yasbail said.
“No, Cystenian.” I stepped in front of Dad and Bronwen. “They’ll kill you.”
Cystenian didn’t even have the strength to look at me. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!” Tears bit at my eyes. I almost didn’t care if Uffern opened. I just wanted Cystenian home and safe. “Isn’t there any other way?”
“There is no other way, sweetheart,” Rhosyn cooed. “He’s an emrys. You’re a half-emrys. Both of you are from the right bloodlines. There’s no way around this. It will happen.”
“You just have to let it,” Yasbail sai
d.
“Release my arms. We’ll exchange light,” Cystenian said, shocking all of us.
FORTY-NINE
“No!” Dad and I shouted at the same time.
I did not expect her to, but Yasbail relinquished his binds. Cystenian stumbled, and I dashed forward to catch him. He fell into my arms.
“Cystenian… Cystenian.” I carefully smoothed my hands over his back, afraid I’d injure him with every touch.
“I’m fine.” He leaned into me as if he knew me, as if he was comfortable with me. That gave me some hope. Bronwen ducked under his arm and took some of his weight. I lifted his face to mine, studying the damage. His wounds were so fresh that I couldn’t tell if his light had begun his healing.
He’s here, Dad said. I called him as soon as you had Cystenian.
Meuric? I gazed to where I thought the dome began. About twenty feet away, and most likely on the other side of the dome, three men stood. The dark-haired one in the middle disappeared but returned about two seconds later with two more men. Then he disappeared again.
He can travel with only two at a time? I asked as Gramps flashed in and out of my view. He looked as young as Dad, but unlike Dad’s lighter hair, Meuric’s was coal black and shorn tight against his scalp. He looked every bit the warrior, from the gear on his body, to the sword on his hip.
Yes. Even as Dad responded, the growing numbers of men lifted their arms and began shooting streams of energy at the barrier. Their powers were a mix of darkness and light. I supposed they had to use the two energies together to counter the power supporting the dome Yas and Rho had cast. As the half-emrys worked, their energy spread over the dome, but I didn’t see any break yet.
Anerah, even if they break the barrier down, Cystenian won’t have the strength to fly. Dad stepped around us to make a comforting block between Rhosyn and Yasbail and us.
I was afraid of that. What are we going to do?
Bronwen and I will fight. You and Cystenian stay back. Meuric will take you home once he breaks through the barrier.
