Goddess Rising

by Alisha Ashton

  “In that case, we had better ensure you arrive in better shape than you did here,” Ailean declared.

  “He is right,” Taran agreed quietly.

  Everyone instantly dropped to silence, looking back and forth between Taran and Skye to gauge her reaction to his presence. Taran had joined the others to discuss this, but he was at the back of the group, keeping his distance from Skye. He kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke.

  “If you return to the place from which you escaped, and you arrive back in the wicked druids’ grasp in the same condition you were in when you came here – so wounded and weak you can barely stand, let alone defend yourself – they will kill you. They will claim your power. And all this will have been for naught,” Taran stated bluntly.

  Skye nodded thoughtfully and granted, “True.”

  “Why were you so wounded when you arrived?” Faolan asked.

  “Many of my injuries were from the torture I interrupted with my hasty exit. Thankfully, I will not have to worry about that part on the return trip. I also had not slept properly in over a week. My exhaustion drastically slowed my healing. If I am going to be jumping right back into captivity and the subsequent battle to escape, I will need to rest and recharge my power first.”

  Faolan nodded. “Then we shall make sure you are every bit as comfortable and well cared for as possible while you prepare.” He sat up straighter and grinned at the prospect. “Oh, I do look forward to the opportunity to care for my child – even if only briefly. You shall have to indulge an old wolf and tolerate my spoiling you.”

  Skye laughed and agreed. “I also need to figure out how to time travel without harming myself. A lot of the burns I sustained were purely because I am so new to using my power.”

  “YOU… are NEW to using your power?” Eògan stressed in astonishment. He glanced around at his brothers with wide eyes before muttering into his cup, “I would hate to get on your bad side once you master your craft.”

  “As hard as it may be to believe, yes, I am still a hopeless novice,” Skye assured.

  Realizing something important, Ailean’s face fell. “How old are you?” he asked cautiously.

  Skye bit her lip. Squinting slightly, she asked in all seriousness, “Which part?” Several of the men gave her a confused look, so she elaborated. “The Wolf and Goddess in me were passed down from Sitheag, from mother to daughter and on, remaining dormant until very recently. They have lived far longer than the woman.”

  “And what of the woman?” Faolan asked curiously. “How many annuals is she?”

  Skye looked around at the expectant faces and sighed. “24.”

  The men’s eyes widened as they exchanged surprised glances and mutterings. As she suspected, most of them had assumed she was their elder. She came from their distant future possessing powers and knowledge far beyond their own. It seemed a natural conclusion that she surpassed them in years as well. Hearing the substantially smaller number had them all reevaluating their initial impressions of her. It left them on unsure footing. By comparison to their own ages, they all suddenly saw her as a child.

  Skye suppressed a smile as she thought, if they think I’m young compared to them now, just wait until the next time we meet…

  She caught Taran’s gaze across the crowd, saw the deepening of the worried creases at the corners of his eyes and across his brow. Knowledge of her youth had added yet another level to the crushing guilt he felt for his actions, and the pain he felt for all that she had endured in such a short life. He looked down at the ground in shame.

  “I have the inborn abilities,” she went on, “but none of the experience or knowledge to go along with it. Most of what I do is just… intuitive. I do not have control over it yet. My power simply responds to perceived threats and tries to follow my subconscious needs. Like when I wanted to reach my Trinity and escape torture, but ended up unintentionally blasting myself back in time…”

  She added in her mind: …or when I accidentally went all Triple Goddess to layeth the smacketh down on Taran.

  “I only started using my power a month ago,” Skye confessed. “When we reach Sorcha, I will have to ask Her advice on how to better control it. There must be a way to protect my body from being harmed by my own magic. And I also need to figure out with Her how to protect my timeline. My presence here is guaranteed to change the way you all proceed from this point in your lives, but if things do not happen exactly the way they did the first time around, I may jump forward into a completely unrecognizable world.” She chewed her thumb nervously as she considered it.

  After a moment, Drostan spoke up, interrupting her thoughts. “Regarding the possibility that your presence here will somehow damage the future course of events…” he began with a doubtful look and shook his head. “I do not think you need to worry at all about that. I have just been given a vision. An extraordinarily calm vision.”

  Skye suspected she understood what he meant by a ‘calm vision’ – and why that was extraordinary – better than anyone present. It meant that he had received the images in his mind without ending up on the ground, writhing with a splitting headache.

  “The whispers are not concerned at all. Somehow… this will work out,” he said with a smile and nod of certainty. “Somehow, YOU, Skye, will work this out. Your arrival in this time, and all that you will do while you are here, have been preordained. It is fated. You have many things to accomplish here. Knowledge to gain. Events… and even individuals… to shape.” His eyes slowly strayed from hers to purposefully pass over Taran, then Ciaran, before returning to hers. “You will learn truths and skills here that you will need for your battles ahead. Fear not. This is all meant to be, Skye.”

  Latharn gave an impressed look. “If Drostan is so confident, I say you have nothing to worry over. Tell me, in your time, can you think of any indications that you had already been here? Anything at all?”

  Skye thought about it for a moment. “The cave. It had already been blown to bits and cleared out in my time. So, the spell I cast the other day had already happened.” Her brow arched as she looked over at her dark one. She smiled at him playfully. “And Ciaran… When he and I first met, he kept having these flashbacks that neither of us understood. Memories of us… together… in the cave.”

  Ailean let slip a loud bark of laughter before clamping a hand over his mouth, shaking his head, and giving a repentant look.

  Eògan bit his lips and desperately fought to hold his tongue. After turning bright red from the effort, he eventually lost the fight. He closed his eyes as he wheezed almost involuntarily, “It certainly sounded as if it was making a lasting impression on him.”

  Several more men lost their battles to suppress their laughter. Someone nearly choked to death on their mead. One of them even giggle-snorted.

  Skye gave them all a mock scowl before continuing. “Anyway… Neither of us could make any sense of the flashbacks. We called them ‘memories that could not possibly be memories.’ But now I realize they really were memories. His memories. When Ciaran saw me, they began struggling to surface.”

  Drostan considered her words, wholly disinterested in his brothers’ continued efforts to reign in their laughter. “It sounds as if the memories were locked up inside his head somehow. Did anyone else in your time remember coming in contact with you in their past? Anyone else that you have seen since arriving here?” Drostan asked curiously.

  Skye ran through the list in her head of everyone she had encountered in this time. Her eyes widened in realization as she said, “No. Not even Brandubh.”

  Faolan tilted his head to the side. “I thought you had never come up against him in your time,” he commented, but his voice was utterly free of accusation or suspicion. It was pure curiosity. He knew it must be a simple matter of miscommunication.

  Skye sighed and met her Wolf Father’s curious golden eyes. He was bound to dislike this. “I have not… At least, not face to face. While I was fighting off the nightmares and visions from t
he wicked druids in my time, though, I inadvertently discovered that I can connect with Brandubh in my dreams. It happened just before I came here.”

  Faolan’s lips curled slightly, baring his teeth in displeasure at the thought of Brandubh being able to reach her at will. “Can he enter your dreams?”

  Skye shook her head. “I have to be the one to seek him out. It feels like there is a one-way door of sorts that I control. I unintentionally opened it that time.”

  Faolan opened his mouth to say something… but stopped short. He frowned thoughtfully and took Skye’s hand in his. He held it overly-tightly – protectively – as his eyes wandered over her features. He still looked as if he wanted to say something, but for some reason, he did not. With his brow furrowed, his gaze became affixed to a far distant point in the night sky. The same direction as Brandubh had flown.

  Skye continued, though she was acutely aware of the fact that Faolan was lost in deep thought. She somehow resisted the urge to link with him to try to identify the cause of his current distress.

  “Like I said, my power usually does what it wants. I was looking for answers, my power decided to ask Brandubh directly, but he did not recognize me there. I would say it was due to the length of time that has passed, or that he could not tell it was me without all of this whitewashing and paint, but that does not fit. Possessing me is of the utmost importance to him. It is absolutely crucial in his eyes for some reason. He should have remembered me.”

  “Then it would seem all memories of your time here will be locked away from every single one of us. Even Brandubh. That is quite an undertaking,” Drostan breathed as he pondered the enormity of such a spell and the power required to accomplish such a thing.

  “With Sorcha and Skye working together, I can easily believe such a thing to be possible,” Faolan assured distractedly. After a moment, he turned and gave Skye a warm, if somewhat-forced, smile.

  Skye smiled back, but her mind was elsewhere as well. Her brows drew together as she thought back to when Sorcha had revealed Ciaran’s secret to her. What was it Sorcha had said? ‘I took the memory of it from Latharn…’ Sorcha had basically admitted this was a regular thing for Her – meddling in people’s minds. It was no real surprise then that She had brainwashed Faolan, too.

  But WHAT had Sorcha taken from Faolan? What all had she ‘recorded over’? What was She hiding that She did not even want Her own mate to know? And how much of his memory was artificial? How much of the clan’s origin story was based upon lies?

  27: Mending and Breaking

  Everyone agreed to try and get a good night’s sleep and wait until late morning to set out for the forest of Faol Seunta. It was a long trek and they wanted to be well rested in case they ran into any trouble.

  The men began filtering back into the cave, relighting fires and preparing bedding. Skye (and, subsequently, Ciaran) would be sleeping in a bed beside that of Faolan. She suspected this placement had something to do with his current state of mind. Faolan was acting differently. She could feel the wolf in him pacing in his mind, see it in his eyes. He seemed almost skittish – as if something was bothering him, but he could not quite put his finger on the source of the threat.

  Skye noted that Taran was still hanging back, still avoiding her gaze at all costs. His arm was still struggling to heal. She gritted her teeth. She was in the middle of an internal war over whether to just put her foot down and force him to let her heal his wounds when she overheard snippets of a curious conversation between three of her clansmen. She did not recognize them, though she was fairly certain two of them had been part of her envoy back in her own time. That meant they were trustworthy and honorable in Taran’s eyes. She redirected her attention to their words and slowly approached.

  “…only knows how long he has been with them and what all they have done to him. He is too gravely wounded. He would never survive the journey.”

  “True, but we have no other choice in the matter. We cannot leave him here to die, and we cannot take him to any of the tribes in the area. Have you looked at him?”

  “He is right. The tribes in these parts are far too superstitious. The fools would never take him in – even if we were not the ones asking. They would get one look at him, think him a witch, and turn him away – or FAR worse.”

  The tallest of the three, a wall of a red haired faol, gripped his head anxiously and stressed, “But he needs medicine. And food. And water. And I cannot give him any of those things if he cannot regain consciousness long enough to swallow them down properly. He just chokes when I try to get anything down his throat. I do not know how to help in the state he is in.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Skye asked curiously.

  All three men turned in surprise. They exchanged startled expressions over the fact that she was speaking with them directly.

  “Your Queen has asked you a question,” Ailean stated firmly.

  Skye smiled back at him, then at Ciaran and Eògan noting that they were all standing behind her. She should know better than to assume she had ever left their sight.

  “Go on,” Faolan ordered calmly, and everyone stood up straighter as he stepped up beside Skye. “Answer her, Ruarachan.”

  “Ruarachan?” she repeated as her eyes widened.

  She had to do a doubletake. She barely recognized him. His fiery red hair was still wild and thick, but it reached the center of his back and hung down around his face like a curtain. His beard covered half of his massive chest. His shy hazel eyes, however, those she knew. She met his gaze and smiled when he quickly looked away just as he would later in his lifetime.

  “I know you,” she said quietly and reached out, taking his large, warm hand. He looked a bit panicked by the contact, but she gazed up at him kindly. “You will be a member of my pack. Advisor, guardian, and dear friend to my King and me. It is so good to see another familiar face.”

  Ruarachan fought to control his breathing but nodded in acknowledgement of her words. He exhaled sharply in relief when she released his hand.

  Skye frowned, wondering over his reaction to her even in this time. She would have worried that she was overstepping boundaries if he showed any signs of fear, but this was something different. Something she could never place. Sighing, she looked up at him and gently asked, “Who were you speaking of before?”

  Ruarachan swallowed hard and kept his eyes locked on the ground as he answered. “A mortal boy, my Lady Queen. Not more than 8 years old. We found him here in the cave when we fought the wicked druids. They had been… attempting to experiment on him,” he added reluctantly. “The boy is gravely wounded.”

  Skye’s brows drew together when she heard it. The whispers… Their stirring could only mean something important was coming to pass. She was unsurprised to find Drostan’s eyes locked with hers from a distance. He could hear it, too.

  “Take me to him, please,” she urged and followed after Ruarachan.

  It did not escape her notice just how much effort these men had put into their attempts to help the small child. He was in terrible shape. The scent of blood and sickness was coming off of him in waves, but it was clear the faoil had been regularly cleaning and redressing his wounds. He had been bathed recently and was resting in a bed so plush, it looked like a fur-lined nest. Sadly, none of this could heal him. He was beyond their abilities to help.

  Skye climbed into the bed to kneel beside the boy and survey the damage to his frail body.

  “My name is Skye, dear boy. I am here to help you,” she soothed. She brushed the hair back from his sweaty, feverish brow and frowned when his eyes remained closed. She shuddered as the whispers grew in intensity in response.

  She exhaled slowly. She hoped this would work – she had never attempted to heal a mortal before, let alone one so fragile. She laid her hands upon him – one covering his brow, the other his heart, and bowed her head. Closing her eyes, she connected to him. Slowly and carefully, she allowed her power to seep into his body. She willed every cell
it touched to heal, every bone to mend, every wound to close. She purged the infection from his blood. She took his maddening level of pain into herself and let it dissipate.

  Several moments passed before she felt his heartbeat growing stronger beneath her hand. His fever broke, and he leaned into her touch in relief. She smiled as she opened her eyes and stroked his hair.

  “There, now. Do you feel better?” she asked sweetly.

  The boy’s eyes fluttered beneath their lids for a moment before finally opening to reveal… one brown, the other such a pallid shade of blue that it appeared white from a distance.

  Skye’s jaw dropped open.

  Yes. Thank you, bright lady, he answered through their link. Your white light has healed me.

  “Aodh?!” Skye gasped.

  “You know the boy, as well,” Faolan noted in surprise.

  Skye took a moment to be able to answer, she was far too busy recovering from her shock. “He… is my General… and my very dear friend,” she replied as the boy version of Aodh gazed up at her gratefully.

  “He will receive the bite then,” Ailean stated.

  “I do hope we give him a chance to grow up a bit before turning him,” Eògan commented incredulously. “He is just a wee scrap of a thing, really.”

  Skye laughed entirely too loud and for entirely too long at that seemingly innocent statement. When she finally managed to reign herself in, she found that everyone was staring at her as if she was crazy. She helped Aodh sit upright. As he burrowed closer against her side, she draped her arm around his narrow shoulders.

  “This ‘wee scrap’ of a boy is going to grow to be the largest, most fearsome-looking man in the entire clan,” she declared and laughed again as she marveled over baby-Aodh. She held his chin and grinned like an idiot over the happiness in his expression. “Aodh can communicate with me telepathically. He cannot speak as the rest of us, but he understands everything you say. You all will invent a language of hand signals, just for him. And Ciaran? He is going to absolutely adore you. When he is fully grown, he will make it a habit to lift you up and put you on his shoulder.”