“I met Salem.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “The god of the dusk? What are you talking about?”
“He’s not a god. At least not anymore. He’s a fae, here on earth. He’s the one who destroyed Ys. That’s how I found the athame. He had it.” My whole body was shaking, but I kept my tight grip on the hilt. “He told me something kinda interesting.”
“Do we really have time for this?”
“It was about how you raised my mother from the dead.”
Golden light beamed from his eyes, and those tattoos started moving on his skin again. He took a step closer as his god side took over.
“Oh, is the Ankou taking over for you?” I said. “Get a tough question and you let your alter ego handle it.”
“I raised your mother from the dead to rule as queen of Nova Ys. I was too busy in Acre to oversee it, and I thought maybe … it would work.”
My knees felt weak as understanding dawned in my mind. It was true.
“That’s the crime you committed,” I said. “The crime against the gods. That’s what it was. My mother? And you didn’t think I should know that my mother had come back from the dead?”
Good enough to fuck. Not good enough to tell the truth.
“I didn’t tell you because it was a long time ago, and it didn’t work. She lived for less than a day, then she returned to the realm of death. It’s why I can’t control the Ankou anymore. I gave up a piece of my soul when I brought your mother back. The transgression sent me into multiple hell worlds, one after another. Only a few minutes passed here on earth, but it felt like an eternity to me. I felt a part of my soul ripping from my body. It was the most exquisite agony. That piece of my soul remains missing, and it was all for nothing. All for a few hours of life.”
I stared at him. “Don’t you think you should have told me about something like this?”
“There was no reason to tell you. It’s over. She’s gone.”
“If she’s still dead, then why did Salem say he’s looking for her? He seems like he knows things, and he thinks she’s alive.”
Lyr held out his hand. “Give me the athame, Aenor. We’re running out of time.”
Liar, liar, liar.
Still pointing the athame at him, I took a step back.
Could I really relinquish all this power to him? If I gave the athame to him, I had to trust that he’d do as promised—defeat the fuath, help me get Gina back.
And yet I’d known all along that he cloaked the truth in shadows.
“Did you know Melisande is working with the fuath?” I said. “I am the one who cut off her wings.”
He froze where he stood, and anger darkened his features.
“She wasn’t possessed like the rest,” I said. “Melisande said she would be queen in Nova Ys. She said she was promised a crown by the true ruler of Nova Ys, and that she would be queen.”
He was still holding his hand out to me, a muscle tightening in his jaw. “We can talk about this later.” He glanced to his right. “The fuath are here. Look. We’re out of time.”
I took my eyes off him for one second, glancing at the grassy park.
Midir, Gwydion, and the rest were running for us, swords drawn. My heart slammed against my ribs.
Lyr’s body glowed with gold. He flicked his hand, and the knights stumbled, falling to the grassy earth. He’d slowed them down, but they wouldn’t stay down forever.
I took a step closer to him, ready to take a leap of faith and hand him the athame. But the sound of music stopped me in my tracks. It drifted from the cave just behind me—a song I knew nearly as well as my own, but one I hadn’t heard in a hundred years. The tinkling of bells over a low melody. It was the music of Ys.
It was also my mother’s song. She was here.
Well, crown me in flowers and call me a king. Lyr had lied. Again.
“She’s here,” I whispered.
He moved for me—too fast. I slammed him with an attack spell, channeled through the athame. Then, I turned and ran into the cave, athame in hand. Spurred on by its power, I moved faster than I ever had.
Knowing Lyr, the attack wouldn’t set him back by much. But I had magical speed on my side, and now the cover of darkness.
My mother’s music reverberated off the walls, and I followed it.
“Aenor!” Lyr’s furious bellow echoed off the rocks, interrupting the music.
Liar, liar, liar.
I imagined him with Melisande, sitting on twin thrones, ruling my kingdom after I’d handed them the key to the Meriadoc power like an idiot. He’d promised her my throne.
That cleaving feeling in my chest was my heart breaking. For the briefest of moments, I’d thought maybe Lyr was someone I could trust. How dumb was I?
Let a man get close to you and he will rip out your belly.
“Aenor!” His voice echoed off the stone.
A golden glow at the end of the tunnel lit the way, and I flew toward it like a moth to a flame.
Fast as lightning, I shot into a rocky hall, with torches that cast dancing shadows over the stone. It smelled of burning flesh and sulfur.
It smelled like the cave where Salem had chained me up. A shallow stream of water ran through the cavern.
A heavy wooden door slammed closed, sealing up the opening.
I whirled, and my heart clenched. My breath was coming as fast as a frightened rabbit’s. A slamming door never seemed like a great omen. Especially when the torches dimmed a little.
But my mother’s music surrounded me like a cocoon, calming me.
When her thin figure stepped from the shadows, my heart leapt.
My mother wore the same yellowed wedding dress she’d always worn, stained with my father’s dried blood. She wore narcissus flowers in her hair, like she always had. Her green eyes shone in the torchlight, and her crown of pearls and seagrass gleamed on her silver-blue hair.
Tears stung my eyes. “Mama?”
She smiled at me, face radiant. “Aenor.”
We’d found each other again, and everything would be okay.
Except Lyr was already pounding on the door.
Chapter 37
My mother stood there, watching me. A hundred years ago, she’d have been pulling me close, stroking my hair. Maybe she was in shock, just as I was.
The tone of the music shifted a little, darker now. My skin grew cold.
I could hardly breathe. “Mama, why didn’t you look for me? How long have you been alive?”
“A few months. But I was looking for something else.”
An ache built between my ribs. “What?”
She beamed. “My kingdom.”
Since I’d run from Lyr, pain had taken root in my chest. Now, the roots grew deeper, climbing around my heart. Her kingdom was so important she couldn’t let me know she was alive?
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Why are you in Jerusalem? We’re nowhere near Ys.”
I couldn’t make everything add up. If Lyr had wanted power so badly, why bring her back at all?
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. He was banging on the wooden door, the sound echoing.
She gestured at the cavern. “I came here because this is Salem’s home. His true home. I thought I’d find him here, in this cave of blood and bones. I have a score to settle with him. I wanted the sea power. The magic you once had.” She nodded at the athame. “I wanted that back, too. And then, I wanted to vaporize him into dust for what he did to us.”
I still clung to the athame, like it was the only stable thing about this situation. Even the rock beneath my feet felt like it could give way at any moment. I was caught completely off guard here. “Wait. Go back. You wanted my power from Salem? For yourself?”
“Well, I am the queen.” For the first time, I noticed her nails—long, shiny black nails, pointed at the tips. Like metallic claws; like Beira’s claws. She’d never had them before.
This all just felt wrong. “I saw Salem today.” I sounded unsure of myself. I’d
never had that much doubt in my voice before, not with my mother. “I didn’t know who to blame until today. I called him the Nameless One.”
“He was to blame, yes.” Her green eyes narrowed. “But he’s not the only one to blame, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
Her body had gone eerily still. “Don’t you remember? Of course, I suppose you don’t. You were drunk that day.” She sighed. “You were always drunk on dandelion wine. Useless, really. The gods blessed you with immense power, and you wasted it. The day Salem came to Ys, you had the power to stop him. Maybe you couldn’t kill him, but you could have stopped him. You let me die instead. So, you must understand that you didn’t deserve that power. I would wield it better.”
All ability to speak seemed to desert me. I felt like she’d punched me in the stomach, but one thought was starting to crystallize in my mind. “You were in control of the fuath, then. You’re the person trying to get to Nova Ys, trying to capture Lyr.”
“Oh, yes.”
My knuckles turned white gripping the athame, and my thumb slid into the small indent. It was the perfect size for something I’d seen not that long ago…. “Which means you were watching me. You ordered them to kidnap Gina.”
She shrugged. “I wanted you to shoot Lyr again and hand him over to me, but perhaps I chose the wrong tactic. Perhaps I could have persuaded you with … motherly love.” Her cold laughter echoed off the rocks. “In any case, he’s come to me now, hasn’t he? Everything has come right to me.”
“Where is Gina?” I asked.
A sharp tendril of anger curled through me.
She wasn’t my mother anymore. She was an abomination. It was Lyr’s fault, but that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that the abomination knew where Gina was.
“Where’s Gina?” I asked again.
Lyr’s pounding on the door boomed through the cavern.
My mother sighed. “The human? Who cares? Aenor, I didn’t come here to kill you. I came here to rip Salem’s spine out of his throat and burn him to ash, to scatter him in the Mediterranean. I’ll do that soon enough. But Lyr is more important, I suppose.”
I stared at her. “Where the fuck is Gina?”
“Language!” she chided.
“The fuath you control have been trying to kill me, you know.” Slowly, the pieces started shifting together in my mind. “Did you tell Melisande she could be queen of Nova Ys?”
She shrugged. “I needed someone to help me access the knights. She wouldn’t kill Lyr, but she helped me break the magical barriers in the fortress. I promised her she’d be queen. I told her that all I wanted was my athame. She believed me.” She chuckled, seemingly at her own genius. “I look forward to killing her. I wanted to rip off her wings, too, but it seems you got there first. You and I are very similar in some ways.”
My heart was twisting in two. Here before me was my mother, corrupted and warped by death. I felt like a little girl again, but one with a broken heart. “You shouldn’t be alive.”
She frowned at me. “I’ve only just realized--what in the gods’ names happened to your accent?” Her gaze swept up and down my body. “And where are the rest of your clothes? Are you drunk again, Aenor?”
I took a step away from her, staring at the brown bloodstain on her dress. Once, it had been as familiar as home to me. A gruesome comfort. This was, after all, the woman who’d soothed me when I had nightmares, who’d threaded my hair with flowers when I wanted to look beautiful, who’d sweetened my water with mint when I was feeling sick. And that macabre dress had always been a part of her.
Now, the stain on her dress just seemed twisted. “I don’t understand why Lyr didn’t tell me you were alive.”
I said it more to myself than to her, but her eyes brightened. She flashed me a small, sad smile. “Well, he didn’t know, did he? He brought me back from the dead, because he knew I was the true ruler of Ys. He was always loyal, Lyr. He always believed in me. He knew that Nova Ys needed me to rule. I was the true queen. But after he brought me back, he decided there was something wrong with me, the fool. An abomination. Do I seem evil to you?”
“You do, yes.” I shot a quick glance at the door. Was Lyr going to break it down?
“Lyr decided I was too evil for this earth,” my mother went on, “and he killed me again. He’s as bad as Salem. He cut my head off. I plan to do the same to him.” Her brilliant smile gleamed in the dim light, its heartbreaking beauty almost making me forget what she really was. “But I didn’t stay dead, did I? The rules don’t apply to me anymore. I’ll rule over Ys even more brilliantly than I once did. I’m a queen with unlimited power. And it will be even better when I control the sea.”
The Daughter of the House of Meriadoc.
The prophecy rang in my mind. It wasn’t about me. It was about my mother. That little green stone that Lyr possessed was meant to stop her, not me. Lyr hadn’t understood, because he thought she was dead.
“Where is Gina, Mama? She has nothing to do with Nova Ys, and you should not be using her as leverage.”
“The fuath told you. If you delivered Lyr to me, I’d return Gina to you. But you didn’t give him over, did you? I knew you were capable of it. You’re a Morgen. You could have enchanted him and shot him with iron. Again. But you didn’t. So, if anything were to happen to Gina, you’d only have yourself to blame.”
Her beauty hides her true nature. Her heart turns to ash, her soul infected by evil.
It wasn’t my dad’s blood poisoning me. It was the crime against the gods, poisoning Mama.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Lyr’s fist pounded against the door.
She of the House of Meriadoc will bring a reign of death.
The door started to splinter with the force of Lyr’s pounding. Mama glanced at it, completely unperturbed. “Did you know that the Ankou has been ruling in my place? He wears a crown. The gall of him. I think I’ll nail him to a tree like his mum.” Her laugh was like two rocks rubbing together. “Let’s see who’s the abomination then.”
“Definitely the one nailing someone to a tree is the abomination, so that wouldn’t disprove it, like, at all.”
Her green eyes flashed with rage. “In any case, perhaps then he’ll tell me how to get to Nova Ys, once I’ve hurt him so much he can barely remember his name. Then I’ll get my kingdom.”
Mine, a voice in my mind roared. My kingdom.
My mother was a living nightmare, and her body was beginning to glow with a powerful, pearly magic.
Lyr’s fist was fracturing the door, and she smiled at it. “I came here for Salem, and so did you, even if you didn’t know his name. I came here to kill him. You came here to get your athame back. It seems he’s drawn us all in, like planets orbiting a star. We’ve all converged. Either Salem is a force of nature, or the gods are blessing me by giving me everything I want at once.”
What she wanted was to nail Lyr to a tree until he told her the truth. And he was coming right to her.
“Lyr!” I shouted. “Run!”
I didn’t want to see what she’d do to him.
He didn’t listen to me, because listening to me wasn’t his style. The door shattered, and he rushed in.
“The stone!” I shouted to him. “I need it.”
Without asking a single question, Lyr tossed the green stone to me. I caught it, snapped it into the hilt, and power charged down my arm.
Enraged, my mother started to run for me, but Lyr stepped in front of me protectively.
Golden light beamed from his body, wrapping around her in tendrils like vines.
I started chanting in the dialect of Ys, working on the most powerful attack spell that I knew. “Egoriel glasgor lieroral—”
My mother cut me off, shrieking a spell of her own, and murky magic stained the air around her like ink sliding through water.
Her spell’s impact hit me immediately, and nausea began to climb in my gut. It felt like she was making me rot from the inside out. Her ma
gic revolted me, and I clutched my gut.
I stepped out from behind Lyr, working on my spell. I would need a clear shot at her, shooting the magic through the athame.
Now that I was closer to her, I could see her eyes weren’t the same color. They were the murky green of seawater, and the light in them moved like phosphorescence of the deep.
“I should have killed you at birth,” she hissed.
A flash of light filled the room as Lyr’s spell strengthened, the magic wrapping around my mother’s neck.
“I’m sorry that I brought you back.” Lyr jerked her up in the air with his magic.
“Egoriel glasgor lieroral ban—” The spell started to charge down my arm, crackling with ancient power.
But my mother wasn’t done. She threw back her head, opened her mouth, and screamed—a high-pitched song; music to curdle your blood and turn your bones to ash. With her voice, my nerves exploded in pain.
Gods have mercy, make it stop. Lyr was trying to crush her throat, and his grip looked brutal, but it didn’t seem to stop her shriek.
Then, called up by her shrieking song, salty water slowly began to rise up my throat, stopping me from completing my spell. I gagged as it climbed up my esophagus and filled my lungs. Pain spread through my chest.
I fell to my hands and knees, vomiting up rotten seawater onto the floor.
I couldn’t drown—not in the sea.
And yet I was drowning here, in a cave, at the hands of my own mother.
Chapter 38
Lyr dropped my mother to the floor, and she fell onto her backside. Her crown slipped over her eyes; the roar she unleashed bellowed off the cave walls. But her spell was still choking us.
Lyr was drowning, too, on his knees, eyes bulging. Somehow, his magic still spun from his fingertips, twining around my mother. Her chest started to bulge, like her ribs were about to explode.
I gagged up more seawater, desperate for air. I needed to breathe—oh, gods, I just needed a breath of air.
I glanced up again, and Lyr was trying to rip her heart out of her chest. I didn’t want to see it, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
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