by Alexa Egan
“You have no idea who it might be?”
“No.”
“So I can’t stop it.”
“No.”
“Then it’s a problem for another day.”
“You would ignore an impending crisis to play at kiss-me-quick with a woman? Was the taste of her quim so pleasurable, you would forget who you are and what you seek to do, shapechanger?”
He swung around, anger almost, but not quite, causing him to forget with whom he spoke. Badb was an ally, not a friend. She could also be a terrible enemy if she chose. His fists fell useless to his side. He breathed a deep steady breath. “I know exactly what I seek to do and unless you’re here to help, you can fly back to Lucan and tell him all’s well and I’m not dead yet.”
“Yet is right. This is madness. Worse than madness since you walk into the mouth of the beast knowing exactly what you do.”
“Meeryn is N’thuil. She can help. If anyone understands the powers of Jai Idrish, it is she.”
“Or she can betray you to your doom.”
“My doom is set if I don’t make the attempt, though. Jai Idrish . . . Meeryn . . . they’re my only hope.”
“You still believe this unnatural instrument is the key to your freedom? It is not of this world nor a source of Fey magic. What makes you think it will be able to lift the curse upon you and your friends?”
“The old writings talk of its power. Ferontes alone states that—”
Badb waved off his words with a snort of disgust. “A blowhard who enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice and barely said anything worth hearing. What would he know?”
Here was a reminder, if Gray needed one, that the young woman in front of him was as foreign to this world as Idrin’s crystal sphere. She was true Fey. Being immortal, she’d lived through the Lost Days, when the walls between the mortal realm and the summer kingdom of Ynys Avalenn had yet to rise, when magic shimmered in the very air and to be born with the gift of sorcery or the power to shift was a privilege. King Arthur had been the last great king of the Other, the linchpin holding together all three races. With his murder, that fragile peace had unraveled like a skein of string. The Fey retreated behind their walls, most of the Imnada were rounded up and killed, and the Other hid their magic from a new and suspicious world.
Badb had seen it all and, unfortunately, held opinions about it all as well.
“The man didn’t have the sense the gods gave a housefly, but he could blabber on for hours as if he knew the answers to life.”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
She cast him a squelching look.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, pushing open the heavy oaken door.
The room they entered was black as pitch, no windows to pierce the Stygian gloom on the ground floor and only narrow arrow slits in the next two stories. Only the glimmer of her pale skin lit their passage up the twisting stairwell.
“And if Sir Dromon has his guards waiting to ambush you?” she asked.
“Does he?”
“You’re so prepared to trust a woman you barely remember—” She tossed her cap of curls with a sneer of contempt. “I’ll let you find out on your own.”
“Then stand aside so I might pass.”
She huffed, her feathers a ruffle of indignation. “Foolish shapechanger.”
They climbed the rest of the stairs in silence, the darkness fading to gray as they rounded the last landing and entered the topmost chamber. Four enormous stained glass windows, each depicting a different face of the Mother Goddess, were set within each wall of the sanctuary: the east and the maiden’s waxing moon of Piryeth; the south depicting the full moon of Silmith when the Mother’s light and the Imnada’s power were at their height; the aged crone’s moon of waning Berenth looked toward the bleak western moors. Only the fourth, north-facing window was empty of the Mother’s beauty. Instead a collage of blacks and grays symbolized the cloaked and faceless figure of Mordoroth and the night of no moon when the Mother fled the skies completely.
Cushioned benches were set beneath the windows. Once, streams of petitioners might have waited for an audience with the N’thuil. Now dust clung in the crannies of the dark carved wood, and the cushions bore a disused, forgotten appearance as if few trod the steep flights of stairs anymore to seek answers. The Voice and Vessel of the Mother had little to do these days but polish the sphere and attend the Gather as the goddess’s representative.
The beauty of the windows, the graceful vaulting of the arched ceiling, and the ornate engravings of beasts and birds that ran the perimeter of the room combined to catch the eye and snatch the breath, but it was the crystal sphere resting upon a silver dais that pulled the gaze to the center of the chamber. It shimmered from within; each rough-hewn facet burning with a different milky shade from gossamer silver through deep creamy blue.
Gray paused for a moment at the threshold, drinking in the scene. An unsettling ache pressed beneath his rib cage, and his fingers curled under to dig into his palms until his breath moved easily in his lungs once more. He felt Jai Idrish’s immense power running beneath his feet, thickening the air, pushing the blood through his veins. The heart of the beast within him felt it too and woke from the deepest parts of his soul. The urge to stretch free of his human form and take to the skies tightened its grip on him until he must lean a shoulder against the wall and wait for the dizziness and desire to pass.
“This thing is not of any world I know. Nor of any world the Fey have knowledge of. I do not trust it.” Badb’s voice sounded in his ears as if from a great distance.
“Jai Idrish has kept the Imnada safe for millennia beyond counting. It’s the conduit to the goddess herself and the sentinel standing at the gateway to our ancestors.”
“Doors are only as good as they are strong or as long as the guard set to watch them remains vigilant. Can you guarantee this sphere of Idrin is both strong and protected?” Before he could answer her, Badb’s head tilted to one side, her bright eyes locked on some unseen vision. “Someone comes, shapechanger.”
A breeze swirled up from the stairwell as the door below was opened. “It’s Meeryn.”
He turned back to find the girl vanished and the crow winging toward the rafters, her voice drifting across the surface of his mind. I do not like it. Not at all. What you seek to do has not been done, what you seek to undo cannot be undone except by death. The scholars are blind and the mages see but glimpses. And there are darker things hidden within this crystal than a goddess, no matter they shine like her moon.”
“I have to try to wake Jai Idrish. It’s the only way to break the curse,” he called out to the circling bird just before it winked out of sight in a blink of Fey magic, leaving its warning to scrape the insides of his skull
Yes, but what if it is something else entirely that you wake? What then?
* * *
“It happened on the eve of Waterloo.”
“A battle?”
“A slaughter.”
Meeryn noticed with an emotion close to chagrin that Gray held himself carefully apart from her, as if even the slightest brushing of her muslin against his leather might open them both to a return of their uncontrollable heat. He might be right. Just recalling his skillful touch and hot mouth was enough to send shivers of delight up her spine and make her wet with desire. A reaction she’d not expected; Conal had been gentle, Gray was overpowering. Conal had been considerate, Gray took what he wanted. Conal had offered her soft words and tender emotion, Gray offered nothing beyond the friction of their bodies and the dazzling inferno it spawned.
She had wanted the love she’d found with Conal.
She’d not wanted this thunderous raging conflagration she found in Gray’s arms, but she knew if he reached for her again she would respond. It was blasted humiliating.
It thrilled her to her toes.
She pulled her mind from the gutter and focused on the sphere resting on its carved stone plinth—no, not resting, mocking. Jai Id
rish had teased her with a hint of its power, whispering to her, guiding her here with unseen hands as if nudging her forward to her chosen role. And when she had woken gasping and frightened, it had glowed with a light that blinded the circle of angry Ossine, bursting out from the tower with the brilliance of ten thousand lighthouse lamps.
That had been two months ago. Two long, silent, frustrating, months.
“. . . Adam’s pathing nearly ripped my brain apart. A mental scream of anguish like claws raking the inside of my skull. Somehow the sorcerer d’Espe knew what Adam was, he forced the shift upon him. Adam had no choice and it nearly drove him mad.”
The echoes of pain in Gray’s voice pulled Meeryn back to the conversation. She shuddered, imagining the horror of being compelled to assume her aspect. The twisting of her nature to something ugly and terrible. Then she pictured it happening day after day, night after night, in a never-ending agonizing cycle. That had been Gray’s fate . . . his curse, his life for the last two years.
The destruction of his clan mark and signum in one violent shredding of mind and charring of flesh had been a horror, but the bending of his powers to another’s will must have been the worst anguish of all.
“Adam lost control, lashed out against the Fey-blood magic as he’d been taught from the cradle. It was over by the time the three of us arrived, the bodies a slashed and mangled mess. He’d killed the entire household to protect our secret.”
“If only Adam had made certain d’Espe was dead, none of this would have happened. He never would have cursed you and the others. You’d never have been declared emnil and cast out of the clans. We would . . .” She dropped her eyes to her lap, noting the way her nails dug into her skirt, the racing of her pulse beneath the skin of he wrists. “Our lives would have turned out differently.”
“Would they? Or would you have rebelled against marriage to a man you’d not seen in years?” He touched her chin, forcing her gaze to his. Shadows pooled beneath his eyes, his lean, hard-angled face almost gaunt in the light of a single taper. “There’s only sorrow in wishing for a past that’s long gone or a turning in the path not taken. I have to look to the future now. My future. The clans’ future.”
Was that a future that included her? Did she want it to? No. She’d found passion with a man once. She’d also found heartbreak, sorrow, and loss. Best to stick to loneliness and be safe.
Safe worked.
Safe didn’t hurt.
“It’s taken me two long years, but freedom is finally within sight.”
She regarded the four scratched and dented disks spread between them. Were these really the fabled Fey-wrought disks that had imprisoned a kingslayer? They looked as if they’d been banging around in someone’s pocket with their loose change and a decade’s worth of lint.
“You think the combined power of the Gylferion and Jai Idrish will break the curse?”
“It’s more than a thought,” he answered defensively before shrugging. “And less than a certainty.”
“Either way, where did you manage to find these? They’ve been lost for centuries—centuries upon centuries. Most assume they’re just a shaman’s stories to while away a cold winter’s evening.”
“I’m hoping it was destiny that brought them together again, though Mac believes it was dumb luck, and David is sure I’ve been conned out of a fortune for a blacksmith’s forgeries.”
“I might have to side with St. Leger on this one,” she said, touching the chipped disk of bronze with a tentative forefinger. She expected a tingle, a jolt, a whisper on the wind. She merely sneezed.
“I’ve studied the texts and spoken with every scholar of ancient magics I could find. The theory is sound. If the vicious collision of warring magics spawned the curse, the same such collision should reverse it.” His tone clearly indicated this was not the first time he’d argued his position and it wouldn’t be the last. “The Gylferion were created by the Fey but it was Imnada blood spilled to complete their final tempering. Only in that way were they able to entrap the warlord Lucan for his crimes.”
“But what has Jai Idrish to do with it?”
“We’ve got the fuse. Now we need the spark.”
“You were a soldier. You must know what happens when a spark hits a shell. It breeds destruction.”
“It will work.”
“Jai Idrish has been silent for generations. Why should it wake for you now?”
“It’s not going to wake for me. It’s going to wake for you. The crystal is the heart of Imnada power and you are the heart of the crystal.”
Was this her chance to make a difference? To be N’thuil in deed as well as word?
If Gray broke the Fey-blood’s curse, the cause of his exile would be lifted as well. There would be no impediment to his reclaiming his place as heir. He would be welcomed back into the clans. The in-fighting and backstabbing and factional warfare would cease and the Imnada could face this new uncertain future with hope and a single will.
Her name would be written in the annals alongside those of Idrin the Traveler and Aneavala of the Palings, Yolethe the Hammer, who built the Crystal Tower, and Eurimesis Nine Spoons, who kept his people fed during famine and plague.
She would be Meeryn the Peacemaker. Or maybe Meeryn of the Wise Words. Or perhaps . . . Her eyes fell once more upon the crystal orb, its surface reflecting her face back at her a million times, and her confidence faltered. Who was she fooling? Meeryn the Sapskull was more like it.
“I’m a charlatan and a failure. Jai Idrish hasn’t done anything but sit there and laugh at my pathetic attempts.”
“Not tonight. Tonight we rattle the goddess from her sleep and make her pay attention.”
She laughed. “You’re mad enough to almost make me believe.”
He leaned forward, eyes alight with excitement. His breath soft on her cheek, his scent crisp and soapy and completely male. The night, the flickering candle, the soft confidences conspired against her. Safe was boring. Safe was her life to this point. Safe would not allow for a repeat of her exhilarating, stomach-turning, shout-it-to-the-skies, orgasmic pinnacle.
“That’s a start,” he murmured.
Her lashes fluttered across her cheeks, her lips parted, her arms braced against the seat, pulse racing.
“I timed our visit to fall between guard watches. If we’re to slip out as easily as we slipped in, we’d better get started.”
Hardly the declaration of yearning she’d been anticipating. She lifted her head to see him standing, eyes ablaze, body thrumming with nervous energy. “How do you know the watch’s schedule?” she asked.
But he was already placing one disk at each compass point; bronze to the maiden’s east and copper to the Mother’s south. To the west of Berenth’s crone he set the gold disk, and finally, he lay the silver disk of Morderoth beneath the north-facing window, where darkness hung thickest.
“The rest is up to you . . . and Jai Idrish,” he said, pulling her to her feet and toward the waiting crystal.
Dare she try? She glanced over at Gray, who stood legs braced, shoulders squared, and head up. As if he faced an enemy or his last chance at escape from certain death. The bigger question was, dare she refuse?
Meeryn tried to relax. She rolled her shoulders, flexed her fingers, and closed her eyes. Not because she needed to, but because it kept her focus on the sphere and not on the man hovering behind her left shoulder like a storm cloud.
Stretching her mind, she let the outer world fall away as she sought a connection to the crystal’s heart, the core of its being. She probed deep within the empty expanse of nothing beyond and between her physical senses; searching for a gleam, a whisper, a presence beyond her own turbulent thoughts. Some hint that Jai Idrish hovered at the edge of wakefulness, waiting only for someone to nudge it to life. But all was dark and cold and empty.
By now, her brain seemed shaved thin as paper, her mind fraying. A painful throbbing started at her temples, spasming down into her spine. She tried re
treating, but shadows followed after her, the empty soulless infinity pouring through the holes she’d made in her mental search. She scrabbled to mend the rifts, but for each wound she repaired, ten more opened after her. Her ribs seemed to tighten, crushing her lungs, tightening around her heart. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She tried opening her eyes, screaming for help, but there were only the endless terrifying shadows rolling and curling toward her like a stormy ocean surf. She felt herself drowning, the crush of the shadows too much, snapping bones, sucking the last breath from her shredded lungs, she felt the last gasp of air leave her when . . .
A powerful slap to the side of her head knocked her to the floor, where she scraped her knees and slammed her left cheekbone into the edge of Jai Idrish’s altar. The shadows evaporated, driven away by the very tactile explosion of ear-ringing, jaw-bruising pain. At least all the shadows evaporated but one, which leaned concernedly over her, “Are you all right?”
She glanced up through a tangled fall of hair, her combs lost in the far corners of the room from the force of Gray’s so-called rescue. “That remains to be seen.”
He stepped back and held out a hand, which she took, only because she didn’t think she could make it to her feet without assistance. Otherwise she would have ignored it, but she couldn’t trust herself at this moment. She had the insane urge to throw herself in his arms and never let go. Doubtless a side effect of the knock to the head and lack of oxygen. It certainly wasn’t the memory of his hands on less proper parts of her making her stomach roll ominously and the room go all dizzy.
“You don’t look all right,” he said, examining her.
“I felt it, Gray. I bonded with the crystal. Just for a moment and a tenuous link at best, but I did it . . . Jai Idrish’s power lives despite its silence.” The room steadied, his hand fell away, and she brushed her skirts in a fruitless attempt to brush away the dust. Noticed the blood speckling the fabric. Felt her mouth.