The man pressed his hand against my belly, staring at me through tear-drenched lashes. “Fight for him. Remember, I love you. The fae love you. Our son loves you.”
I glanced down to find my abdomen swollen and heavy with a baby.
A blink.
Daylight switched on.
Everyone vanished except for Alseides.
When I reached down to my flat stomach, the vibrancy of my psychedelic fantasy stole away the chaos.
“You must help us, Lila.” Alseides’ ancient eyes filled with grief as she tugged me toward the edge of the trees. “They care nothing for you. They left you alone in the forest to die because they’re ashamed of you, and now they seek to destroy you themselves. They mean to kill my daughter. Even now, Juliet fights for her life. They’ve imprisoned us here, and done unspeakable things to my sisters. Free them from their bonds. Help me destroy the walls that keep us here.”
Flashes of a battle lit up my eyes. A woman’s gentle voice told me something important, but what? Still rubbing my stomach, I said, “Have I lost someone? I feel … empty.”
A touch of Alseides fingertip to my forehead made the air tremble around me and seemed to transcend my flesh to open something deep within. Light in a golden hue streamed down my arms, burning in my heart like a pulsing, newborn sun. Yes, that’s what I’ve been looking for. My Light. I laughed at the sight of it. At the thrumming potential I could sense in my fingertips.
“I will make you whole again,” she promised. “Awaken my sisters, and we will worship you. We will never leave you. We would die for you and keep you safe from all harm. Reach out and feel them. Will them to live. Set us free to heal this world.”
I smiled as my Light consumed me. They would worship me, give me a home, and a family I’d lost so long ago. I’d be safe forever as I’d always dreamed. They would look to me for everything: life, love, protection, and I would die for them. Energy teased my flesh, offering itself for the taking from everywhere and everything. “Yes. Yes, I understand now.” Laughter spilled from my lips, a joyous, twinkling sound. “I’ll become your sun. I’ll set you free.”
27
Alseides darted glances over each shoulder. A tiny shred of fear entered her eyes, but I couldn’t understand why. Everything was okay. Everything was right and good and safe. Wasn’t it?
“Go, then, quickly, and become who you are meant to be, who the Great Mother wants you to be,” she said. “Bring a new birth upon this world, and we will love you.”
“You’ll love me,” I echoed her, feeling as if my heart would burst from knowing someone so beautiful, so ancient and wise, could care for me. I let go of my resistance and opened myself, both pushing out my plea for power and beginning to draw without waiting for permission. A tiny voice shouted at me from within, that it was wrong, but how could it be?
I found many minds, all wound up with mixtures of rage and terror, pain and despair. Where were they? All strong. So close yet I couldn’t see them. Without a doubt, I could take everything from them, drain the ones who came to hurt me, to hurt Alseides, and leave them empty, nothing. It didn’t matter. Their loss would hold no meaning.
“You will be our new sun, Lila.” Alseides issued a promise of ultimate power that jerked my spirit to attention and made my body come alive. “The ultimate power. Nobody will ever be able to hurt you again.”
A sense of safety and belonging settled over me, opening me even farther for the energy to pour in.
Night.
A jab of pain doubled me over as the battle broke around me again. Twisted bunches of white hair fell around my shoulders as a black face with opaque eyes hovered over me. “It’s Gallagher, Lila. Are you in there? Lower your shields, and let Liam in, dammit!”
Chanting filled the atmosphere, lifting a weight from my mind enough my eyes widened with the onslaught of recognition. Voices I knew, faces I loved, and a tiny heartbeat racing against mine. A foot kicked the underside of my ribs. “Garret?”
“Yes,” Gallagher said, laughing and crying at the same time. “Now look for your bond with Liam. Laerni thinks he will be your anchor. Reach out to him before Alseides interferes again.”
“Oh, Goddess, Alseides! Where is she?” I gripped the collar of his dirty, white shirt and pulled him closer. When I opened myself in search of Liam, only static returned. “My head is too fuzzy.”
“The magic is interfering. Bring Liam within the circle!” Gallagher shouted to Parthalan who flew by like a nightmare.
“How do I keep getting here? Why can’t I remember anything when I’m there?”
“You don’t go anywhere. I believe Alseides used Juliet to take your mind. Meline and the witches have been able to break through a few times so far. There are more witches here now, which is why you’re beginning to remember. Alseides hasn’t taken her human form since we broke free of their guards, and there are so many trees here we can’t find which one of them is her. Her mind is hidden from me.”
“Shit. When I came through the portal, I touched Juliet, and then … how do I stop it?” Sickness ran cold through my soul as Andrew rushed by like a god of war, his bloody face stretched tight with rage to drive anyone back who tried to approach the circle of witches around Gallagher and me. Andrew was relentless, almost didn’t seem real, more like a deadly machine as he cut a swath through dirty creatures wielding spears.
“What’s taking Liam so long? Without him … please don’t let her take me again. I almost … I’ll do what she asks if you let her take me again. Please!”
“One of the Sluagh will bring him. He searches for Alseides in a rage of the like I’ve never seen before, since we discovered the extent to which she has interfered with the fae.” Gallagher’s jaw flexed, and his expression turned fierce. “She sent Parthalan to kill your family, seduced him as she’s trying to seduce you. He remembers now, and is sickened by it. She orchestrated your life so that you would have wounds so deep only she could heal them. If she takes you under completely you’ll be lost to us, as Nix is lost to us. You’ll do anything she asks, hold no remorse and retain no memory of those you love.”
My pulse was a thunderous echo in my ears. Along with Juliet, Nix had played me from the start. Had he even known what he was doing? Or been under Alseides complete mastery? The memory of Nix kissing Alseides induced a wicked urge to break his neck. I didn’t want to think about how long he’d been under her spell.
Every horrific event in my life lit up like a beacon. It didn’t stretch my mind too far to think maybe she’d had Rourke kill Liam’s sisters, and been the one behind Liam’s mother torturing and killing Nix’s father to render him helpless to her charms. Had Alseides whispered in Parthalan’s ear to set the humans against one another before the world went to shit? Had everything been thanks to the fucking Magi? Bile rose before I choked it back.
Another mental sweep for Liam turned up nothing but crushing silence. “Where are you?”
“He draws near.” Gallagher closed his eyes. “Remain open to him.”
The Goddess figured into what had been happening, too, didn’t she? The prophecy came from her, delivered through my grandmother. She must have known Alseides would hear it, find just what she’d been waiting for, and eventually get me into their realm. The Goddess wanted me to be there. I could feel it thrumming in a distant corner of my mind. Did she design me as the perfect weapon to go against her own daughters? A trap of sorts? If so, how? I’d bled. I’d been hurt, betrayed, shot, nearly had my soul torn out, but I’d survived. I’d found home, a family. A husband.
“She feeds on your wounds and makes them bleed before soothing them,” Gallagher said. “This is her power. She’s taken Nix so thoroughly, he believes with his entire soul that she loves him, that he would fade into madness without her. He’s willing to die for her even now. In his mind, I find only peace and calm, like he�
��s nothing but a robot programmed to do her bidding. The Nix we know is a lie. The Magi altered his mental pathways with such precision, I don’t know when they actually took him under.” Taking my face in his hands, Gallagher stared me down. “You are stronger than he ever was. Our survival will come down to a battle of wills, not of power or physical blows, but your will against hers. Yours must be stronger, or all will be lost.”
I’d been prepared for every fight but that one. No power. No ass-kicking. How could I keep my head on straight when she kept twisting it so easily? I had to find a way, feel it out. A search for Laerni, both visual and metaphysical, turned up nothing. Where are you? I need you! She must have heard me, because her voice rang out over the war cries in the same nerve-pumping song she’d sung on our way to the pond.
“She didn’t come through the portal. How did she get here?”
“Once you were taken, the portal released her. Nix knocked Parthalan out, so it was a few minutes before he arrived, too, as furious as I’ve ever seen him.”
“Where’s Liam?” I scanned the valley and spotted him on the far side, running straight for me, a screaming Cas beside him, eyes wild, shirt ripped, muscles taut.
Cute and innocent Cas had disappeared to leave a hardened man on a mission and in the grips of blood lust. They both heaved their shoulders into fur-clad, dirt-stained men and women. Tall, thin outlines that appeared to be a melding of tree and woman slashed at Cas with fingers like long, wooden whips. Seeing Liam so far away, surrounded by death, I’d have surrendered my life in that moment to deliver him from it. Before he reached me, Nix blindsided him and piled him to the ground.
“No!” My scream rattled the hills.
Gallagher threw himself on me as I launched toward them, while Meline shouted, “Stay in the circle! If you bring your Light, it’ll break! Only you can fix this, Lila, and you need to do it fast.”
I blinked through a red haze, and everyone disappeared.
Daylight broke across me like a million watt dawn.
Alseides stood before me. The shadows surged harder beneath her skin like a sea serpent rolling so close to the surface it bent the water around its body. She brought my knuckles to her lips and kissed them. “You must hurry. Help me heal this world before it destroys itself completely.”
There was something I needed to remember, the edge of impending disaster teasing my peripheral vision. “Something’s wrong. Someone needs me.”
“We need you!”
“Lila,” a familiar male voice whispered in my mind. “My name is Gallagher. Liam is here beside you, too. Come back to us. Fight for us!”
Liam! I fought to hold onto his face, to Gallagher’s voice with violent desperation.
Alseides screeched and morphed as she grew darker, driving me back a step.
Night.
Screams and death cries ripped open the atmosphere. As the fog lifted from my mind, the continued echoes of Gallagher’s voice rattled through me. A quick search of the chaos located him just outside the circle, anchored to the grass by a tangle of ivy around his legs.
Liam wasn’t anywhere I could see.
Juliet pulled on Nix’s hand while pointing to Gallagher. “Kill him! He’s trying to interfere with Mother’s plan.”
My heart tried to explode out of my throat, stalling all attempts to speak.
Nix came forward loosely holding a blade in his palm, lips parted, danger radiating from his dead eyes as if he’d fled and something else made of pure evil drove him.
“Don’t you dare touch him, Nix,” I said in a near growl. “I know you’ve been hurt. I know Alseides makes the pain go away, but it’s not real. I don’t believe you’re lost. You can fight her. Gallagher was your friend for decades, and even if you were acting some of the time, I know you care for him.” I had to believe he did, that some part of Nix had been real.
The glaze over Nix’s eyes seemed to thicken, but he made no indication that he could hear me.
Gallagher frowned. His shoulders sagged for a moment before he straightened and stared haunted eyes at me in a way that made me shudder. “It has been an honor serving you, Lila Gray. By the spirits, we will meet again.”
Oh, Goddess! No!
I toed the line of the witch’s ward beside Meline, unable to take the idea of standing idle while my faithful friend died, no matter what was at stake. As if I’d summoned him, Parthalan appeared from my left like a nightmare. Blood dripped from his black beak as he broke into feathers to get to Gallagher faster, but an arrow plunged into his shoulder before he arrived, taking him to the ground.
Someone screamed as Nix moved forward with painfully slow steps, the thick steel knife pointed at Gallagher. It was me; I screamed, and would have launched at him if Cas hadn’t thrown his arms around me from behind and held me to his chest. “You have to live, Lila. We have to go home to Brígh, or she’ll be so mad. I want to be mated and give her a child, to be the best uncle to Garret I know how to be. I know you can do this. Please, you have to.” As fast as he’d come to me, he ran off again toward Gallagher, but Juliet stepped into his path.
I knew I had to stay in the circle, but my power threatened to break me to pieces. I kept enough sense to remember what Meline had said about my Light breaking the circle, my energy spinning and bucking and fizzling as it reached my outer self.
Cas screamed as Juliet taunted him, cutting off his every attempt to get around her without touching the little freak.
Nix planted his foot and drove the knife forward right at Gallagher’s heart, who knelt there with a peaceful look on his dark face.
Time stopped for me, my legs like lead poles as Nix’s blade neared Gallagher’s chest.
“No!” I shook my head, my heart on fire.
The shriek of pain that resulted didn’t belong to Gallagher, but to Laerni. She’d winked into existence in front of my aide. Holding the black stone in the palm of her hand, she stared down at Nix who continued to grip the handle of the knife sticking out from under her ribs.
“Laerni!” I wailed, crushed by the sight before me, at Juliet who laughed as she neared them.
“Let me heal her!”
“She has chosen death,” Juliet said, flicking her fingers in dismissal. “So be it.”
Laerni coughed, spraying blood down her white dress and onto Nix. Gallagher roared and struggled in his bindings behind her. Tears rolled in silver rivers down his cheeks. The stricken gape of Nix’s jaw let me know whatever spell he’d been under had shattered. Laerni’s knees buckled, and she dropped to the grass, a hand over Nix’s to keep it on the blade, which she used to tug him closer.
She reached up and cupped his cheek while offering a bloody smile. “You understand now, don’t you, Mannix? I barely know this man, yet I lay down my life for him despite my crushing fear. You ask yourself why, yet you already know. A life that is not your own is no life at all. Pain and suffering are part of living, and to escape it through lies will leave you dead inside. I choose to do what’s right, and will pay with my life. Who do you choose to be?”
Letting out a sound of grief, he jerked away from her, staring down at his hands as if horrified by the sight of them. “Oh, Goddess, what have I done?”
28
Meline had been joined by several other witches in a larger circle around me, as I reached for Laerni, desperate to stop the wheezing of her lungs, the pain contorting her face, Cas once again holding me. All of them bled from the nose. What was I missing? How could I stop it?
Parthalan had made it back to his feet and danced around Juliet to keep her away from Gallagher, who had almost freed himself from the vines. The resemblance between Juliet and Parthalan was so obvious with them together it made me burn that I hadn’t put it together before. Father and daughter. What did it all mean?
Panting, Liam stepped across
the ward and blocked the elf from my sight. “Don’t look,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “Look at me. Laerni says she wants this, to find her way back to Alogason and not to feel sorry for her. She says to find your anchor. Do you know what she means?”
I cried out, at the sight of him, so close yet still a million miles from home, from safety. A black hole lay between us that would soon eat us all if I didn’t stop it. I opened myself a little to him, and to my son, let their love seep through me like liquid starlight. A prickle in my mind let me know Alseides was about to take me again. “I’m sorry.” I kissed him hard and deep, pressing his hand against my stomach. “I love you. I will not lose him. I will not lose you.” I turned and brought Cas into my arms, too. “Any of you.”
Daylight broke.
Alseides wild eyes softened, her presence welcoming and calm, driving out everything and leaving me blissfully silent again. My insides untied themselves. Faces faded into the white noise in my head. All that remained outside of the two of us was a second heartbeat I could feel in my lungs.
Heartbeat? Baby. Garret!
“They’ve never loved you the way I will. He hates you for endangering your child.”
Through my bond with my son, I found others who dwelled in my heart. As if a switch had been thrown, my life invaded me all at once. I reached out and found Liam’s spark, dim but there, and I wrapped imagined fingers around it and held on for my life. Stretching my senses, I searched for Laerni, but couldn’t find her. Oh, Goddess, don’t let her die! “Let me heal the elf, and we’ll talk,” I said, my voice low and strained.
“Very direct.” Alseides smile, one of pride, caused my soul to sigh like a groupie meeting her rock star idol for the first time. “I like direct.”
Rise of the Magi Page 24