“We cross.”
Head held high, Danu lifts both hands to eye level, and the mists part in response, revealing a white skiff hovering in the distance. With a flick of her finger, the small vessel bounds forward, flying to meet us like a swift summer cloud across a limpid sky. It isn’t until its shallow hull gently bumps against the ground at our feet that I realize the boat isn’t suspended in thin air, but floating on such clear water it appears invisible.
Water sloshes inside the skiff as I trail Danu into the vessel, and I plop down heavily onto the single seating board before I can capsize us.
“Steady,” Danu says.
A pale green light bursts from her fingertips, and the skiff bullets back the way it came, cutting through the water towards a bulbous island with nary a sound. I look one last time over my shoulder at the line of white creatures crowding along the shore, and release a long-held breath.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Penitents,” Danu says.
“Penitence for what?”
“That is their burden to wear.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes at her. “Is that why I couldn’t grow up here? Because this place is some sort of…purgatory?”
“We’re almost there,” Danu says instead.
I grunt in annoyance. What’s the point of bringing me here if she’s going to spend the entire time talking in riddles?
The boat moors itself gently along the island’s shore, and Danu steps lithely onto solid ground, motioning for me to do the same. I wrinkle my nose at the familiar scent that seems to permeate the place—it is the smell of summer blooms and freshly mowed grass, of soft breezes and starry nights.
“Welcome home,” Danu says softly.
I resist the urge to throw insults at her, focusing instead on not tripping over the island’s strange ground that looks to be entirely made up of knotted roots and twisted vines. We make our way from the dock up the steep and winding path. Sometimes, I also have to use my hands to not tumble back down to the lake, and it seems like ages before the ground flattens out. I want to ask Danu where she’s taking me, what the point of this little expedition is, but every time I try, she slips out of view.
Finally, after ducking under another gnarly branch, and climbing over a strange boulder of bark, I see it.
The tree is large, larger even than Myrdwinn’s Apple Tree, and half as tall, but its leaves glisten as if cut from the purest emeralds, fruit hanging heavily from its overreaching boughs like giant amethysts.
My gaze drops to the trunk’s wide base, taking in the thick roots that snake their way out, twisting and twining across the ground to form the entire island, like a giant Celtic knot.
“What are we doing here?” I ask apprehensively as Danu finally stops beneath the tree’s thick canopy.
To my surprise, Danu cups my hands in hers. I shiver at the warm touch, unable to pull away as she takes in the inky stains that span from the tip of my fingers to my elbows.
“There is much healing to be done,” she says. “The darkness has become a part of you.” Her eyes travel up to my face, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she’s actually feeling sorry for me. “Take care, Morgan, that it does not take you over entirely.”
“What is that even supposed to mean?” I ask, stung.
I put my hands in my pockets, finding the ogham Mordred gave me tucked inside the right one. My fingers close around the cool gem, and I find myself taking strange comfort from it, as if my brother were lending me his strength. Even here.
The island’s scent is stronger here, beneath the branches, headier, reminding me of the Samhain festivities when I attended Lugh’s party, and drank some of that—
“Don’t tell me these are the fruit used to make ambrosia,” I say, under a flash of inspiration.
“Just so,” Danu says. “It is sustenance for my people.”
My eyes go round at the implication. Sustenance. Mordred talked before of how the Fey, Lugh included, couldn’t survive without receiving energy from the Lord or Lady of their Demesne, like a bunch of parasites.
“You’re saying you’re feeding all of them with juice from your ogham?” I ask, feeling a little sick.
“I led them to this land, it is my duty to see that they are taken care of.” Danu’s eyes grow distant. “Without it, many would have long perished. Absorbing power through the elements is enough to survive, for a while at least, but not to thrive and prosper.”
I snort in disgust. “So you have them partake in cannibalistic rituals, lovely.”
“It is,” she says, not picking up on my sarcasm. “What is life, but the transference of energy? I simply choose to give mine of my own free will.”
I look away, hating how logical she makes it sound. But to admit it means I might end up agreeing to more of her ideas, and next thing I know, we’ll be talking like we’re really mother and daughter.
And I’m not ready for that. I don’t know that I ever will.
I yelp as the ground suddenly shifts beneath me, the massive root lifting me up to one of the tree’s low-lying branches.
“Have one,” Danu says.
I swallow hard. “I think I’ll pass.”
“It will assuage your hunger.”
“I’m not hungry.” I grimace as the lie twists at my grumbling intestines.
“You may be part human, Morgan, but you also need Fey nourishment.”
Another of the tree’s roots lifts Danu up until her eyes are level with mine, and she plucks a large fig to present it to me. “If you do not replenish yourself, Carman will have no trouble defeating you. And I may not be strong enough to save you again.”
I press my lips together, hating her for bringing that up. I knew, the moment I stepped on this island, that it’s thanks to Danu that I’m still alive. It’s what Nibs hinted at down in Hell. What Papillon implied. And, if I’m perfectly honest with myself, something I had long suspected, though always discarded.
Why, indeed, bother rescuing me at all, when she’s the one who abandoned me in the first place?
The question burns at the tip of my tongue, but at the last second, I wimp out, and snatch the fruit from Danu’s extended hand instead.
“Is that how you tempted my father to sleep with you, by getting him drunk?” I ask.
Without waiting for an answer, I take a large bite out of the fig, and have to stop my eyes from rolling back in ecstasy. Sweet juice drips profusely down my chin as I tear into the rest of the fruit, my previous qualms about it evaporated.
Before I know it, I’m reaching for another of the tree’s scintillating figs, devouring it in seconds. Then another, and a fourth, until my stomach feels blissfully full. I’m already reaching for a fifth one, sticky fingers grazing the fruit’s luminescent peel, when the root drops back down to the ground, nearly sending me toppling over.
“Hey, I wazna done!” I exclaim in outrage.
I blink slowly, taken aback by my slurred speech, then shrug. A deep furrow cuts between Danu’s eyebrows, but at this moment, I couldn’t care a rat’s ass what she thinks of me.
“Come here,” she says.
A command—not that of a mother to a child, but of a queen to her subject. I jut my chin forward.
“Dunwanna.”
Danu’s frown deepens. “When was your last meal?”
I try to think back. There was my running with Arthur and his kiss—I giggle to myself at that—and the battle before that, some time at Lugh’s place where I ended up watching Arthur sleep like some kind of creepy stalker… I shake my head to dispel the wooziness.
“Izz bin a while,” I manage to say, over-pronouncing each syllable to regain some semblance of dignity.
Danu lets out a long sigh. “Then if you could come over, please, there is some water here to quench your thirst. And perhaps it will clear your head some as well.”
I totter on my spot, considering her request, trying to find the catch. Finally, not finding any, I lurch forwar
d.
“Here,” she says, showing me an oval basin of crystalline water carved at the base of the tree’s thick trunk.
I lean over drunkenly, until I find myself staring at a pair of familiar eyes, so very like my own but for the blue woads that circle them.
I hiccup in surprise. Mordred?
Chapter 29
“What is he doing down there?” I ask.
“Your brother is ever a part of you, as you are of him,” Danu says. She hesitates before adding, “As both of you are a part of me. It is only natural he would be the first one you see.”
“Is this why you brought me here? To talk to me about Mordred?”
I speak more harshly than I intended, angered at myself for feeling disappointed. Why did I even think she’d care about me at all after all this time?
“You are both my beloved children,” Danu says.
I jerk away from her reaching fingers, no longer feeling the pleasant buzz from the figs I ate. “Giving birth to us doesn’t give you the right to call yourself our mother,” I say. “You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve us!”
“Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t keep you here, Morgana,” Danu says with a flicker of annoyance—the first real emotion I’ve seen from her thus far. “Keeping either of you here would not only have put you in danger, but would have placed the rest of my people in jeopardy as well.”
“I was in danger out there!” I retort, wiping angrily at the tears that have sprung unbidden to my eyes. “Be honest. What you really mean is that you care more about all these other Fey and demons, because you feel guilty. And you are. It’s your fault they’re all stuck down here. All because of your delusions of grandeur. You really shouldn’t have had us at all!”
“I can tell you are still but a child or you would not be voicing these half-formed opinions you have based on hearsay and spurious historical accounts,” Danu says icily. “But you will not use that tone of voice with me again.”
“Then why don’t you enlighten me, oh Almighty Lucifer, destroyer of worlds? What is it that I missed?”
Danu makes a slight grimace. “I am not Abaddon[24],” she says.
I wave her words away. “Not much of a difference to me, is there?”
Hurt flashes across her face. “I may have had your father take you away from here, but I never abandoned you.”
“Did my father even know who or what you really are?” I ask.
“He did,” Danu says after a long pause.
I watch her intently for any sign of deceit, but I’ve never been good at reading people, and I don’t know if Mordred’s ability to lie was inherited from her. Yet, even if what she says is true, it doesn’t make me feel any better.
“So what do you want from me?” I say at last.
Danu motions back to the water basin. “Drink,” she says.
With a tired sigh, I roll up my sleeves and plunge my hands into the spring water, averting my eyes should I still see Mordred’s face in there, only to pull them back out immediately.
“It burns!” I exclaim.
“Cleansing is not usually meant to be enjoyed,” Danu says. “You’ve let the poison get far, further than I had thought.”
“I didn’t let anything do this,” I say through gritted teeth. Why does she keep on accusing me like this?
Without another word, Danu grabs my hands and forces them back into the water. Heat blazes up my arms, and I have to grit my teeth not to scream. A shudder runs through me as the water’s surface clouds over, turning black. But this time I keep my hands still, watching as the poison slowly drains from me, and I wonder if this means I’ll be able to use my powers normally again.
“I think that should do it,” Danu says after a long while.
Biting on my lip, I finally sit back on my haunches, and stare. Gone are the inky spots that were coating my forearms like a pair of long gloves. I turn my hands around, marveling at the sight of the thin blue veins peeking from under my lily-white skin, the scar on my palm visible for the first time since Dean gave it to me.
“Is this for real?” I whisper.
Danu’s finger traces the old wound’s edges. “I am afraid this one shall not disappear so easily. It cut too deep.”
“Go away!”
I start at Mordred’s distorted voice, and look back down into the tree well’s now black waters. I can see him standing sideways to me, casting furtive glances to a spot out of the water’s vision. I lean closer to the pool, my knuckles going white around the smooth bark.
Mordred catches my movement, and waves me away impatiently.
“I said to go away, Morgan,” he growls.
I frown. His voice sounds off through the water, but there’s something eerily familiar about it too. Something that brings me back to all those long-gone internal conversations that carried me through years of loneliness and hard times…
“It’s you,” I breathe in shock. How did I not catch on until now? “You were my guardian angel?”
Mordred cracks a wry smile.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I fancied I was a little more memorable than that,” Mordred says with a deprecating gesture.
He turns the rest of the way and I have to bite back a shout of horror. Half of Mordred’s tattooed face is now ravaged, as if a beast has clawed him across the left side, leaving deep, purplish gouges behind.
“How did that happen?” I find myself asking in a shaky voice. “Why?”
“You know very well why,” Mordred says.
“But how could…” My throat convulses. “You’re supposed to heal,” I finally say under my breath.
“There are some wounds that cannot be easily mended,” Mordred says, sounding just like Danu.
He suddenly grows tense, shoulders bunching up as he hears something I cannot.
“Come here!” I say urgently, wishing I could seize him through the scrying pool. “Danu will save you, just like—”
Mordred’s eyes swivel back to me, cold and distant.
“Is that where you are?” A sardonic smile tugs at his full lips. “Then you can tell the old hag I’m taking care of things. That prophecy of hers? I’m gonna make sure it happens.”
He stops speaking as a large shadow falls upon him. Worry flitters over his face, quickly replaced by his usual arrogant look.
“Go away. Now!” he says, turning his back to me, and obstructing my view.
“I can smell her!”
Fear prickles down my back, and I find myself holding my breath. Carman’s there with him. Then Mordred starts screaming.
“Mordred!” I shout.
Angry red welts burst across my arms, as if I’ve been burned, and Danu’s slender fingers quickly disrupt the water’s calm surface, dissolving the vision within.
“Bring it back!” I shout at her, eyes darting over the dark pool in a vain attempt to catch another glimpse of my brother. “We have to stop her!”
“I interfered in her designs, and she is not one to forgive others for her failures,” Danu says.
“So you’re just going to stand here while she’s torturing your son?” I snarl at her.
“I unfortunately have no power where they stand,” she says, and I know, without her saying so, that they must be back in Hell. “My last such attempt cost me much,” she continues, “and I am afraid that the next show of force I pull may very well be my last.”
A flicker of unease traverses me. Is she saying that she’s…dying? Surely not! She’s a Fey, the mightiest of all the fallen angels. And yet… I recall Lugh’s reaction at finding us here, the hints Papillon’s given me…
Danu points to my arms, returning my attention to the present moment. Already the blisters are vanishing, as if this is all a strange dream I’m having.
“The link between you two is strong,” she says, “a fact Carman has used to her advantage. But the sword can cut both ways.” She looks at me through thick eyelashes. “For what one has done, the other can und
o.”
I frown. “What is that supposed to…” My voice trails off, and I straighten my back. “You’re talking about the Siege Perilous, aren’t you? Could it be”—I swallow hard—“could it be we don’t need Mordred to be sitting on it to destroy it?”
“But note that the destruction of such a powerful Fey object would bring about the annihilation of Avalon and everyone within,” Danu says, implicitly agreeing with me.
“Everyone?” I make myself ask.
Danu nods, looking suddenly tired.
“But then we’re doomed no matter what,” I say, panic rearing inside me.
“Do not let fear keep you from what must be done,” Danu says, “and do not fear who you are.”
“Accept that I’m the devil’s bastard, is that it? You’ve already got Mordred for that, it seems. Yet you’re not even willing to lift a finger to help him.”
“You cannot deny where you come from, and the responsibilities that come with it.”
“You mean the responsibilities you refuse to bear yourself?”
Danu’s nostrils flare out. “Perhaps it would help you see more clearly if I told you about your father.”
My heart thumps a little faster at his mention, and I find myself leaning into her words.
“You may have heard already,” she continues, “but your father was a great knight, one of the best of his time, rivaled only by Sir Tristan, Lady Ysolt, and the Pendragon.”
“Arthur’s father?” I ask in disbelief. From what I’ve seen, Luther seemed more into hogging money rather than fighting the Fey himself.
“The very one. It may surprise you, but all four were very close to each other growing up.” Danu smiles wanly. “What differentiated Gorlois from the others was his curiosity and willingness to see beyond conventions. Of course, this open-mindedness is something he acquired over time, after having already enslaved hundreds of my people.” Her head tilts to one side, eyes lost in some distant past. “But come around he did.”
“You mean you’re the one who made him see the light, huh?” I ask, unable to miss the irony.
“I did bring him here,” Danu says softly.
Curse of the Fey: A Modern Arthurian Legend (Morgana Trilogy Book 3) Page 27
