by Sumida,Amy
My snigger turned into a full out laugh.
“It was an obvious lie, but Clotho is too tender hearted,” Re sighed. “She refused to fire him.”
“You probably scared him,” Azrael offered with a straight face. “If I saw your golden ass bobbing in my bushes, I'd be terrified.”
“Scared him?” Re gaped at my angel. “The sight of my golden ass, bobbing or otherwise, is something to be savored, I assure you.”
We all burst into laughter just as we reached the last door at the end of the hall. The door was over fifteen feet tall, tapering up into a sharp point, and it was open. We walked through it into a throne room which was devoid of all furniture except for three thrones, perched on an ebony dais at the end of the room. Behind the thrones was a floor to ceiling window with an amazing view of Wonderland. Upon the thrones sat the Moirai. Clotho was in the center chair, smiling brightly at us as we walked in. Her sisters, Lachesis and Atropos flanked her.
Each throne had a different symbol crowning its back. Clotho's was a red heart, Lachesis' a black spade, and Atropos had a white diamond. I loved it all, and I told them so as I strode towards them across the black and white checkered floor.
“I'm so glad to hear you say so,” Clotho stood up and fluffed out her wide skirts.
She was dressed as the Queen of Hearts, with a black velvet overdress, and a crimson silk underskirt showing through the split in front. Her wide, Elizabethan collar, was gold lace and lifted up around her elaborate hairdo to frame her round face.
“She did it for you,” Atropos grumbled from where she slouched in her own garish dress, ironically all white. It actually showed off her red hair nicely.
“You didn't,” I gaped at Clotho.
“We knew you were coming,” Clotho squished up her face in delighted victory, and leaned in to whisper. “And I saw how much you loved Pan's place.”
“You saw...” I blinked at her. “You were peeping through my threads?”
“We've been watching over you. We had to be sure you fixed the future,” Lachesis stood. She was in her usual gray toga. I wasn't all that surprised that she had refused to dress in one of Clotho's Wonderland costumes.
“I thought it was certain?” Azrael asked.
“It's back on track, that's what's certain,” Lachesis nodded as she joined us. She shot an angry look over her shoulder at Atropos. Atropos sighed and got up Lachesis continued, “Especially now that your star is healed. Well done, Godhunter.”
“Thank you,” I nodded.
“But your children seem to have fucked it all up,” Atropos muttered as she joined us.
My expression hardened, and I narrowed my eyes on Atropos. My eyes may have gone fiery as well because Atropos actually took a step back.
“Do not ever use such foul language when you refer to my children,” I said in a low, dangerous tone. “They're babies, they can't mess up anything. Not on purpose.”
Atropos' apple-green eyes went wide, “Sorry,” she whispered.
“What she meant to say,” Clotho piped up merrily, her round, sapphire eyes blinking too fast, betraying her unease, “is that Rian's sacrifice has made the future uncertain... for everyone. Not in a bad way, mind you, just in a way that has made things go hazy. Brevyn's birth has created issues.”
“We can't see a damn thing,” Lachesis snapped. “As soon as Alfheim crowned your boy, the future went fuzzy. We're flying blind here, Godhunter.”
“Then how did you know we were coming?” Re pointed out perceptively.
“We can see the immediate future,” Clotho corrected. “But we lose focus the further down the threads we look.”
“What about Kirill,” I took my husband's hand. “Can you see his thread?”
“Not far enough to help you,” Clotho said sadly.
“We know about the prophecy given to you by our Sister Fate,” Atropos was grim. “Badb has a unique gift, limited but strong. Very accurate because of its limitations.”
“Don't you dare tell me to simply prepare for his death,” I snapped at her.
“You should,” Atropos held up a hand when I started to snap again. “But not in the way you think.”
“We can't see the outcome, but the knowledge Morrigan has given you has helped us to come up with... well,” Clotho looked to Lachesis.
“We have some advice for you, but we must tread carefully when we deliver it,” Lachesis said gently.
“Tell us,” Trevor urged.
“Listen very closely to my words, Godhunter,” Lachesis spoke only to me. “You will need to recall them when he dies.”
“No-” I started, but she shook her head at me and I quieted.
“He will die, it's certain,” Clotho whispered. “No one can change that.”
The breath froze in my throat, and tears threatened to consume my vision. Kirill's hand squeezed mine supportively. Even faced with the certainty of his death, he still had faith in me. That should have been reassuring, but somehow it only made things worse.
“Stop trying to avoid it, it will only hurt him more,” Atropos added. “Death will find other ways of taking him, ways that will increase in creativity and gruesomeness with each failed attempt.”
“Like in Final Destination?” I asked, deflecting the pain with a joke, as usual.
“Listen to me!” Lachesis shouted, and my watery eyes fastened on her gaunt face. I blinked away the useless moisture. I had to Godhunter-up, this was Kirill's life we were talking about. “You must prepare for his death. Prepare: from the Latin Praeparare. The root of the word is pare: to cut away,” her hand drifted down to her scissors. “That's what you must do. Remove what hinders you, and you will save your husband.”
“But you just said he's going to die,” I whispered, my throat closing around the hateful words.
“And I also said to listen!” Lachesis snarled. “Remember to pare, Godhunter. That star of yours has more power than you know. With it, you can do the impossible. You can cut things away without fully releasing them.”
“I have no idea what the hell you're talking about,” I ground out.
“But you will,” Lachesis gave me one of her rare smiles. “I know that you will understand when you need to. For now, be at ease, Vervain,” she laid her hand on my shoulder and I gave a start, shocked by both the intimacy and her use of my given name. “We have faith in you.”
“I wish I was as confident in myself,” I grumbled.
“You don't have to be,” Kirill slipped his hand from mine and transferred it to my waist. He eased me against his chest, “Our faith vill support you.”
“I can't lose you,” I whispered into his neck. “Don't die, Kirill.”
“If I do, I shall return,” he kissed my forehead. “I promise you.”
I glanced up and saw the Moirai smiling at us in satisfaction, all three of them.
“And as for Brevyn,” I couldn't help getting one last jab in. They shouldn't have accused my children of any wrong doing. That wasn't cool. “When he was crowned, I felt the rightness of it. I had a glimpse of the design, the pattern we're all forming. But this energy driving us is beyond the control of the gods. It's beyond even the control of the Consciousness of Faerie or the Void. There is something maneuvering us all, but it isn't destiny. Fate is a fairy tale... and not a real one.”
All three Moirai jaws hit the floor.
Chapter Twenty
As we walked out of the tracing room and into Pride Palace, my smart watch buzzed. It was generally too difficult to carry a purse around on my adventures, so I'd made myself a smart watch with transmutation magic (I used the magic to make it, the watch doesn't have transmutation magic), and stuck my SIM card in it. Voila! I had a phone I could wear.
God territories got notoriously bad cell reception, but Torrent had connected a stream of Internet to my territory, and it made things much better. Still, phone calls came in a little scratchy, so we usually relied upon texting. Odin had taken well to this new form of communication, and
was good at making his messages succinct. Unlike Re, who would write me long paragraphs of text. Usually erotic paragraphs... pornographs, as I liked to call them.
“Get here now,” I read Odin's message from my watch face. I looked up at the others. “Does he mean Nuada's? Do we go to Ireland?” My watch chimed again, and I looked back down at it. “Nuada's,” I read and chuckled.
“Ireland it is,” Trevor shrugged.
“I think we'll sit this one out,” Horus took Hekate's hand.
“Yeah, I wanna head home,” Hekate nodded. “It's been a long day. But call us if you need us.”
“I totally understand,” I nodded to them. “Thanks, guys.”
It had been a long day, especially with me jumping back and forth through time. I sighed and trudged back into the tracing room with my men. It was a good thing I had god and faerie endurance.
We traced over to the cold cliff in Ireland which served as a literal jumping off point to enter Nuada's territory. Then I gave the standard, state-your-name knock. The air shimmered before us, and we stepped off the cliff, and onto Nuada's balcony.
Odin was waiting there for us with Thor, Nuada, and Morrigan.
“Oh. Hey,” I said to Morrigan.
She just glowered at me until Nuada smacked her in the arm. “Hey,” she muttered.
“My granddaughter is upset, forgive her rudeness,” Nuada sighed.
“All the clubs I've watched for all these months, and it had to be yours he used as a power source,” she grumbled.
“Of all the gin joints,” I nodded in commiseration. “I feel the same way about you, Bogie.”
“What?” she scowled at me.
“Never mind, I wanted to ask you about that,” I pointed at her. “First, what the hell did Bres do exactly? And second, why didn't you warn us instead of just standing outside my club, staring at it like an escaped mental patient?”
“First,” she said snidely, “he used the gathering of gods you so conveniently provided him with, to charge his tracer and tear a hole through the Aether. A hole which he used to free the monsters we locked away. And second, as I said before, I wasn't sure where he was going to strike. I didn't even know it was Bres who was going to do the deed. I thought Bres was dead, we all did. All I had to go on was a vague glimpse of a room full of gods with music blaring in the background, and a shining hole through the Aether.”
“We don't blare the music,” I huffed. “And you could have told me what it was all about when we were talking outside of Moonshine. We specifically asked you.”
“If you hadn't distracted me, it wouldn't have been an issue, and Tara wouldn't be in jeopardy,” she snapped.
“You were the one lurking outside of my club, right after I had a vision of you washing my husband's jacket,” I waved a hand towards Kirill. “What the hell was I supposed to do; say hey girl, wanna come in and lambada?” I growled back. “And who, in all creation, is Tara?”
“I already told you I had nothing to do with your vision,” Morrigan was getting up in my face, and the men around us were getting nervous. “Just as you had nothing to do with mine. And Tara is a where, not a who, you idiot.”
“Don't ever speak to my wife like that again,” Trevor growled, “or I'll make you into a where... a lot of wheres. There will be pieces of you there, and there, and there,” he pointed to spots around the terrace.
“Nice one, baby,” I gave Trevor a smile.
“Fuck you, mongrel,” Morrigan snarled. “You're not fast enough to lay a single claw on me.”
“Oh, that's it,” I said to Trevor as I punched the Morrigan in the face. “How's that for fast?”
Everyone gasped.
Morrigan backed up with the blow, and lifted her hand to her bleeding nose as if she had no idea what had just happened. She stared at her bloody fingers in disbelief. Then her eyes narrowed and she started forward. Nuada grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Not in my home, Morrigan,” Nuada said in a low tone, “and not to my guests. The laws of hospitality forbid it.”
“She attacked me,” Morrigan looked to Nuada with wide eyes. “And I didn't see it coming.”
“Under provocation,” Nuada sighed. “You know you deserved that,” he held up his hand, pulling it from her arm. “Cease! You have run wild on this chase, keeping pertinent information to yourself when you should have shared it. The Godhunter isn't the only one here who's upset with you for your withholding.”
“Grandfather,” Morrigan gaped at him. “I didn't have time-”
“You've been chasing these energy flows for months! You just said so,” Nuada shouted. “Don't tell me you had no time to speak to me about it. You deliberately tried to keep the Tuatha out of this, and that wasn't just poor judgment, it was vainglorious. It was traitorous.”
Silence again.
“I'm no traitor,” Morrigan whispered.
“I hold you responsible for their escape, Morrigan,” Nuada went on mercilessly. “If you had come to us, we would have prevented this together.”
“If she and her group of bumbling gods hadn't-” Morrigan started again but again, Nuada cut her off.
“Enough! You know as well as I that this is not Vervain's fault,” Nuada took a deep breath. “She would have helped you, had you but spoken to her.”
“Helped me?” Morrigan reared back, her beautiful face transforming into scathing repulsiveness. “I needed no help-” she saw her mistake too late, her eyes going wide as Nuada's gaze narrowed on her.
“And that is why I named you traitor,” Nuada said slowly. “We are the Tuatha Dé Dannan, the gods beloved by the Fey, and we do not act alone. Acting alone has damned us in the past. We know better now, or at least most of us do.”
“Grandfather, I meant no disrespect,” Morrigan scowled. “I only wanted-”
“I know what you wanted, Morrigan,” Nuada shook his head. “You wanted to punish your lover for leaving you. You let bitterness cloud your judgment, and now your people are in peril. Get yourself from my sight.”
“Grandfather,” she gaped at him.
“Leave my home this instant!”
The Morrigan exploded into feathers, like a busted pillow at a slumber party, and a crow went shooting out of the fallout. It flew off across the calm sea, shrieking mournfully as it went.
“Well, that went in a completely different direction than I'd expected,” I said into the stillness.
“Thank you for coming, Godhunter,” Nuada said as he walked through the settling feathers. They disappeared with a wave of his hand, which he then stuck out towards me. I shook it automatically. “I'd like you and your family to travel with me to Tara, and help me warn the Tuatha Dé Dannan of the Formorian threat.”
I blinked. First, I really appreciated his use of the word family. It was a diplomatic term for my husbands, boyfriend, and ex-boyfriend who was now, technically, my son-in-law. I myself would have been hard-pressed to come up with a word to describe us collectively, and I intended on using his word in the future. Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind. Second, I didn't really understand why he needed me.
“Um, I'm not sure what else I could tell your people,” I offered lamely. “Odin must have reported everything we saw to you.”
“It's not about what you say, it's about your presence,” Nuada said. “You're a fairy queen, and the Tuatha will respect your opinion as well as your words, even more than mine.”
“You guys really like faeries,” I made a disbelieving sound.
“We were like family once,” Nuada nodded. “The reason we fought the Formorians to begin with, had to do with the Fey.”
“I was told you were both close to the faeries,” I said lamely. “You and the Formorians.”
“We were,” Nuada sighed, turned, and gestured us all inside to the sitting area. We followed him in, and he waited for us to get settled before he continued. “The Formorians came to Ireland first. Back then, when we were beginning to establish relation
ships with humans, a lot of Atlanteans thought it prudent to use scare tactics to win the humans over.”
“Scare tactics?” Trevor frowned.
“Don't look at me like that, Wolf Prince,” Nuada chided. “It wasn't my people who went that route, and you hardly have room to judge.”
“Why would you say that?” Trevor asked in a deceptively casual tone.
“I've heard stories of the Froekn,” Nuada waved a hand diplomatically.
“Stories, eh?” Trevor's honey eyes lightened to wolf yellow. “Then you know nothing of the wolves.”
“Fenrir was driven from Atlantis,” I put a hand on my husband's and squeezed reassuringly. “He was pursued for many years, and his children suffered with him. He used no scare tactics on humans. He was too busy being frightened for his own family. Fenrir only became a god because humans saw him being pursued by gods, and they developed myths to explain it.”
“My father was turned into a wolf by human belief because he was hunted like one,” Trevor said grimly.
“I know of Fenrir's banishment. I'm sorry, but you'll find no sympathy with me,” Nuada glanced at Re and I stiffened, shooting Re a horrified look.
Re looked away guiltily.
“No,” I whispered. “Tell me it wasn't you.”
“We all made the decision to banish Fenrir,” Re admitted while Trevor went tense beneath my hand. “Fenrir was a revolutionary, a dissident who was delving too deep into things he shouldn't have.”
“Like the experiments you were doing?” I felt my jaw harden. “The ones that destroyed Atlantis? Were those the things he shouldn't have been delving into?”
“Yes,” Re sighed. “Vervain, you know how much I regret those years and all of my deluded decisions. Fenrir was just one among many.”
“Hold,” Nuada held up his silver hand. “I thought Fenrir had attacked a group of Atlantean nobles. We were told he assaulted the men, and forced himself upon several women, while their husbands watched helplessly.”
“That wasn't exactly true,” Re swallowed hard, and shot Trevor an apologetic look. “In my defense, I never approved of the methods we used to banish Fenrir.”