I looked up at him. “You are my Griffin.”
A searing pulse went from one palm, through him to the other, spreading across his back, and he arched toward me, his head flung back as the tender nerves of his body were assaulted. His torso was taut, yet I managed to hold him, whatever flowed through me holding him in place. I saw the black ink appear over the edges of his shoulders.
I knew what was there – I didn’t need to look. It would be a copy of the intricate Griffin tattoo that Devyn had done just days before his death. His had been a choice, the artist human. Who the artist of this was I had no idea. Devyn himself, perhaps? Who had guided my hand?
Gideon sagged as the pain faded.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“You are my Griffin,” I repeated.
I pulled his head down. He was too drained to resist, his muscles exhausted.
I pressed my lips to his firmly. I laid a light finger on the tattoo of the butterfly which fluttered above his heart.
“I will come back,” I said. My promise to him. The waters surged restlessly. I needed to go now. If I tarried any longer my window would close, and Avalon would not have me.
“I will be here,” he said on a heavy breath.
I gave him a tremulous smile and stood up.
Avalon awaited, I hoped, otherwise I was going to drown and nothing would save my baby.
I stepped over the side of the boat into the waiting waters.
Chapter Fourteen
I plunged down into the turbulent waters, the cold of the lake a shocking slap as my impetus carried me down. I slowed, and the breath in my lungs began to seep out of me as I went further and further into the murky depths. I couldn’t see anything.
My lungs emptied, and still, I slid down ever deeper. Bubbles of panic started to rise through me as I denied my body its desire to kick for the surface.
It seemed brighter somehow, as if the storm above had stopped. The water was blue instead of black and I felt at peace with it, its calmness seeping into me as the silken tide pulled me along, my limbs growing lighter and sensation more and more distant. The light grew closer and brighter, and then she was there, her glowing hair floating around her, her head tilting to the side as she examined me.
A slight smile tugged at her mouth as she extended her hand.
“I’m Viviane,” she said. Her lips didn’t move, but her lilting voice was welcome in my head. Assuring me of friendship. Of acceptance. Of belonging here, with her.
“Where am I?” I asked, because I was no longer underwater.
I had washed up on a beach, the sand pale and sparkling, water lapping against the shore the waves seeming to delight in tripping over each other, little mischievous spouts of water playing like dolphins in the surf. A green valley stretched in front of me, the air shimmering as if with heat on a summer’s day, yet it was neither hot nor cold. A gentle breeze drifted off the coast and up into the valley, which seemed suspended in that glorious moment in between spring and summer. Lush and deliriously full of flowers, it was a paradise that seemed untouched but welcoming. A place to stay.
“Water is seductive. It lures you in. Initially there is a shock of awareness that it is not your natural environment, that you are not safe, but then it feels silky on your skin, invites you to play, and the temperature becomes more welcoming as you adjust to it.” Her soft words were lyrical, lilting along with the playful breeze in which floated many coloured butterflies, their paths crossing that of a swallow which soared, twin-tailed, into the blueness of the sky. “So too with Avalon. You must remember that you are not safe here, no matter how alluring it seems in the moment. Do you understand?”
“Mmm,” I said. I understood – or thought I did. I blinked as I attempted to decipher her warning. I needed to accomplish what I had come for and get back to land, back home. Back to Féile.
“I came for your help. Will you help me?”
I would help your daughter,” she assured me gently, “if it was within my gift, but regretfully it is not.”
Daughter. My attention snagged on the word. I examined her more closely. Did she…? Was it possible? No… She had said her name was Viviane. I searched for my mother’s name. She was referred to as the Lady of the Lake. Or Mother. But I felt I had heard it somewhere. Viviane… Was it possible?
She had pale skin and pale blue eyes which looked at me kindly. There was something of Rion in the way she held her head, as if she were continually contemplating the board. Preparing her next move. Assessing how best to position others.
She took my hand gently in hers.
“You must focus, Catriona,” she said. “You do not have long before Avalon tests your will.”
I pulled my wayward thoughts together. It took a concerted effort to remember why I was here. How long did I have?
“I need help to get Féile back.” I identified my task. “I’m not strong enough. I need to be able to wield more magic.”
“You are strong.” She smiled. “You were weakened in the years you lived over the Strand line. I would have healed it if I could, but I was betrayed. It has become corrupt, desperate, and it leached off you, weakened you, so your magic shielded your inner self. You must trust.”
“Trust who? Trust what?” I felt deliciously languid, as if my limbs were weightless. I relaxed on the couch beneath me. It was hard to retain any urgency while my body felt so good. When had we arrived here? A perfect white tent shielded us from the warmth of the sun, the sheets fluttering in the barely there breeze.
“Trust yourself, trust the power. It needs you, but you resist. You are afraid. It gives what is needed, and in return you must offer it what it needs.”
Ugh. Celts and their mystical non answers.
“No, you don’t understand. I need to help Féile. I’ve got to be able to access more power, the kind of power they say the Lady Evaine wielded.”
She laid a gentle hand on my chest. “You are afraid. I was afraid when I left you, and that is what you feel, that is what you remember when you feel the power gather within you. It is why you have more success allowing the power of the ley lines to flow through you and be cleansed but why you gather little to yourself. You do not believe, you do not trust.”
“Trust what? Believe what?” I sat upright, shaking off the languid sensation that had come over me, recalling my urgency, recalling the need for aid. I couldn’t begin to process that this woman might be my mother when what I needed so urgently she wasn’t giving me.
“Believe yourself, trust those you love.”
Believe myself? What, that I was more than some stupid girl being handed from one manipulative set of circumstances to the next? Trust those I love? Like her, like the people I had called my parents, like my lover… all of whom had left me? Right.
I could do those things later. For now, what I needed was to have the ability I hadn’t had when they came for me, when they came for Devyn, when they came for my daughter. I needed power to obliterate my enemies.
“Tell me how to gather more magic. Show me how to wield more,” I demanded of the woman who was speaking of healing when what I needed were weapons.
Her eyes creased in confused concern.
“You can gather all you need,” she repeated.
I pushed her hand away.
“I can’t. You did this to me. I knew no connection for too long,” I accused.
Her eyes opened wide. “I cut the bond between you and the Griffin to save you pain. I could not let you and him suffer the separation with it intact. I sought only to spare you.”
That was why Devyn and I had not been able to sense our bond, because she had severed the connection before she died.
“That’s not what I meant. I grew up behind the walls. They made it so I couldn’t touch magic. I started to learn too late. I’m not strong enough.” I would never be as adept as those who had gone before me. I struggled to achieve the connection that my predecessors must have had during the wars, when the great and
feared Lady of the Lake had saved the Britons. “I need to—”
“You need to do what I failed to achieve. You must heal the ley line of the corruption.” Her blue eyes locked with mine. “You are ready.”
“Ready for what?” This was not what I needed, yet I couldn’t help but follow where she led.
“I tried before but I could not. The balance must be restored.” She lifted my hand and turned it over, baring the tattoo so recently carved there. You are the key,” she said, her fingertip tracing a new pattern, three curls looping out from a central point, each chasing the one in front of it. “Present in belief, past in trust, future in love, held by courage.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, frustrated, the sensation of her touch as she traced out the new tattoo lingering.
“My present,” she said, smiling, absently cupping my cheek. “My sweet gift. I tried to give it then, to spare you this, but it was too early, and the circle was not complete. It was always meant to be one other than the first; the second is as true, but he had to be bound to the circle once the first was gone.”
She was making no sense. I winced at the flash of pain on my arm. I looked down and discovered the three spinning curls of the triskelion she had traced had appeared beside the new oath knot.
“Hurry. Time is running out.”
I felt a feather of a kiss on my cheek.
And then I looked up to an empty space where my mother had been. Had that really been my mother? I felt her loss. I also seemed to be alone once more, and no further along in achieving my goal. I had come here for aid and so far had been told what, to be ready and various bits of nonsense that I would never be able to unravel?
I stood and returned to the shore. How did I return to Gideon from here? Did I need to swim? Which direction was I supposed to take? There was nothing but sparkling blue water in any direction.
And then another woman was stepping out of the crystalline waters of the lake. This one looked less human than Viviane. Long silver hair moved in a nimbus around her, water sprites bobbing in the water nearby as she stepped out of the waves. Her skin was almost translucent and glowing.
“I am Nimue.” Her voice was so soft that it barely seemed to register in the air. It was possible she hadn’t spoken at all and that her words, her name, merely fluttered in my mind.
“I am Cass… Catriona.”
“You are all this and more.” Her eyes were a luminous violet, and they shone with a kind, accepting light.
“Can you help me?”
“Perhaps. What is it you seek?”
I seek…” I hesitated, wary of this woman in a way I hadn’t been of Viviane. Callum had warned me to choose my words carefully. What was asked for might be granted but it didn’t mean that I would obtain what I wanted. Asking for power did not mean I would get Féile back. “They have taken my daughter.”
“What would you have of me, child? Do you need a weapon? Or would you simply have us get her back for you?”
“I’m not sure what I need. You have provided weapons before, but I can’t just choose Féile. The land is dying and I would help if I can. Is there something I can ask for that gives me both?”
She arched a brow, a smile tilting her lips.
“There is. Excalibur is ready, but I don’t think you need a sword. I think you have everything you need,” she said. “You must have faith.”
Need. Rhodri had once said that the Griffin was whatever the lady needed him to be.
“Is Gideon the only way I can be restored?” What if I could free him from the bond that ties him to me so completely?
“Do you need him to be?” The silver of her hair floated in the air as if she were underwater; it was mesmerising. “The Griffin responds to necessity.”
“I don’t need him?” I heard myself ask abstractedly.
“Need, want, they are two sides of the same coin, or two coins of the same side, are they not?” She took my hand in hers and walked us along the beach, the waves lapping at her feet, endlessly reaching for her.
“Can you help me?” I asked again. Had I asked that already?
“The land grows weak in magic. Until the balance is restored, this is as much as we can do.” Her violet eyes dimmed in sorrow. “It is already too much for some – my sisters would prefer we hold on to what little is left.”
She stopped and placed her hand over my heart. “So strong, so hurt, you have all you need, and you need all you have. It is up to you how you use it. Choose wisely, as we can help no more.”
My heart suddenly felt whole. The scars that lay on it were mine, were part of me, and the way forward seemed so clear as I looked out across the water. I lifted my arms and twirled in the sheer joy of the moment. The lightness of my soul, the freedom of my body, the sun on my skin. I felt as if I were a water sprite pirouetting and dancing in the surf, captivated by the rush and ebb of the white water.
A figure caught my eye.
A dark shape in the distance drawing closer.
He ambled through the dunes toward me, his eyes dark and warm, fixed on mine as my eyes devoured him. Was this possible? Could it be? I waited until he stopped in front of me, afraid to move, afraid to look away in case he disappeared. Had Nimue left? I couldn’t take my eyes off the man to scan the beach to find out.
I lifted a hand to trace it down the side of his face. He was real. His lip quirked up in acknowledgement of my disbelief.
“You’re here.”
He smiled. “I told you I would always come back for you.”
He kissed me lightly.
“We can be together,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me under the golden sun. “Stay with me.”
Everything was perfect. He was here. We were together.
No. Something was missing.
She was… missing. Taken.
“You’re not real.” I pushed him away. It had to be a lie. Devyn, my Devyn, was a being constructed almost entirely of duty and honour. He would never try to convince me to stay, to abandon the people who were counting on me, to abandon the destiny that had been lost and was now regained.
“Why go back?” he asked. “Stay here with me. You’ll be safe. We can finally be together. Isn’t that what you want?”
Was it? It had been once. I had given up my world to follow him, to go where he led. I had defied my family, old and new, to be with him.
He pressed his lips to mine. The familiar movement was honey lazily drizzling on the arid wastes of my soul. The light and golden liquid melted across my heart. More than anything I wanted to revel in its luxuriousness; it was comfort and joy.
But it wasn’t real. And I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t alone. There was a thread that called to me, that led me home. That thread was real. It left the light and went into darkness, but it was anchored and it was true. I needed to follow it.
“Not Devyn,” I muttered against the lips that touched mine. This wasn’t real. It was a temptation to stay here in this beautiful, peaceful place with the man I had loved. With the man I had said goodbye to far too soon. He was gone, though, and I had said goodbye.
I was needed elsewhere. I breathed, forcing my focus onto that thread. At the other end were people I cared about, people who needed me: Gideon, the surly warrior; Féile, my beautiful daughter. Féile. My heart burst with remembered pain. And then butterflies floated around us, fluttering into the blue.
This was not Devyn. Devyn would never try to keep me from going after my daughter. Our daughter. They had stolen her. She would be afraid.
I grabbed onto that thread.
The lips moved more forcefully on mine and I felt pressure on my chest, air filling my lungs. Lips pressed forcefully against mine.
“Come back,” he whispered.
I pushed him away.
“Not Devyn,” I managed to say.
The darkness surrounded me.
And then I spluttered and rolled onto my side as water spewed out of my lungs.
Chapter Fifteen
I lay exhausted in the damp ground at the edge of the lake.
It was evening. Had I been gone for that many hours? I scanned the shore in front of me. Gideon sat glowering at me in the gloaming. His once customary sneer was an unexpected yet nonetheless welcome sight.
I smiled in relief – a smile that remained unanswered.
“Hey,” I managed croakily.
“Hey,” he echoed in palpable outrage.
What was I missing? I had done it, I had survived.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position. My clothes were wet and clung to me in the cold night air. It was freezing.
I felt the strange aftereffects of magic – not the clinical emptiness I usually felt after wrangling with the energy in the ley line, but tingly. I pulled myself over to the Griffin, tucking myself into him. He was hunched, his expression shuttered, but he pulled me close and held me there stiffly.
I had seen Devyn. But had it been real? Or had it been an illusion of Avalon? I thought I had been on dry land, but maybe I had been in the water this whole time. Viviane had warned me against the seduction of Avalon. Had Devyn – or the mirage of Devyn – been nothing more than a lure the water had sent to keep me there? If I had stayed longer would I have forgotten to leave?
“Forgetting and remembering,” I whispered out loud. There had been something I needed, that was what had brought me to the shores. Did I get it?
“You’re cold,” came a growl above me and I was hoisted off the ground by strong arms lifting me over to a fire crackling in a clearing a few feet from the lakeshore. My teeth were chattering violently when he put me down, and I huddled as close as I could to the fire. He stripped off my wet shift and wrapped me in a heavy cloak. He left me without a word, striding back to the shore, his back tense, braced as he watched the sun slip below the horizon. Some of the tension seemed to leave him and his shoulders dropped, his head bowed, before he returned to me. He sat behind me and wrapped himself around me.
As always, I felt comforted and renewed in his substantial presence. I soaked it in until I noticed he was tense and unyielding. I peeked over my shoulder, taking in the locked jaw and thinned lips.
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