by Laney McMann
“The Gatekeeper? She was just here. I was talking to her before you came in about getting into the Shadow Realm.” Raising my head toward the ceiling, I spun in place again.
“Wait … you saw her?” He raised an eyebrow, letting his hands fall to his sides.
“Yeah …”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I was talking to her.” Did he not hear me the first time?
“Layla … Agrona is a Bean si.”
“Okay …”
“A Banshee?”
I raised an eyebrow.
He sighed like I was the densest person in the world. “Banshee only show themselves to someone who is about to die.”
What? All the warmth drained from my body.
Justice took my coffee mug. “We need to move.” He threw the cup toward the leaning kitchen sink. “You said you saw blood? I thought your whole communication thing with Max wasn’t working anymore?”
“It hasn’t been. I don’t know if what I’m seeing … I don’t know if any of it’s real.” I wasn’t going to tell him about the dreams. About a Max I didn’t know.
“Maybe Max has figured something out—some way to get in contact with you. I don’t know, but either way, I don’t like the sound of blood. Or you thinking you saw Agrona.” He shoo’d me like I was some wild animal he didn’t want to touch but couldn’t quite wrangle.
Laughter cackled through the house like an echo, and I turned my gaze toward the highest point in the ceiling, where Agrona showed herself, perched upside down like a spider.
“The gargoyle is back. What do gargoyles know? Wives tales and legends. Myths and scarecrows.” She laughed and scampered toward a hole in the roof. Moonlight bled through it, illuminating the remnants of the house. She bounded across the opening. “The Shadow Realm, she seeks. My help. The Twin Souls. Mairsale’s boy. My choice who shall lay eyes upon me, not the gargoyles.”
Agrona made her way down the far wall on all fours, mumbling, eyes toward Justice with clear dislike, before she rose to stand before us, her threadbare shawl draping her skeletal shoulders.
“You see her, too, right?” I veered back toward Justice while keeping Agrona in my sight line.
“Unfortunately.” He didn’t look at me. “What do you know about the Shadow Realm?” he asked.
“Ev-er-y-thing.” Her red eyes lit up with a deranged glare.
“And you can get us in?” He shifted his weight.
“There is no us. There is only … her.” She inclined her head toward me with what seemed to be … affection.
“Layla and I go together.” Justice took a step directly in front of me.
“Then you find your doorway.” Her lopsided grin hitched up at the corner of her sagging mouth.
“Fine. I didn’t ask for anyone’s help.”
“The girl did.” Her eyes twinkled. “And the girl … knows. Doesn’t she?” She crouched down on all fours and crept her spidery crawl in my direction. Her red-eyed gaze roved across my face. “She knows what it will take to save the one she loves. It lives inside her. I feel it—even now as she attempts to hide it from us. It’s there.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “The blood lives in her veins.”
My breathing increased as the fear she seemed to be trying to invoke simmered, causing my Oghams to slither and move, and heat to puddle in my hands.
“I will help her. Niece of The Morrigan. Wielder of war. The one with the Ancient’s Oghams.” Her gaze swept across the Etchings on my shoulders and wrists. “I will help The Raven.”
“Yeah … great. So, uh, thanks, but we’re good.” Justice took hold of my elbow, tearing me away from Agrona’s willful stare. “What a whack-job,” he said, steering me toward the back door. “Completely nuts. Your grandmother said she couldn’t be trusted. Just listen to the way she talks.” He shook his head. “Let’s freaking go, already.”
I looked back over my shoulder, only to see the slow shake of Agrona’s head, the reddish hue of her downward gaze holding onto mine. Before I could speak, she vanished. I yanked my arm from Justice’s grasp. “She can help us.”
“Stop. Just stop.” He held up his hands, palms out. “I get it. You’re desperate. I’m kinda on board with you there, but we’ve got a map.” He pulled it out of his jeans pocket. “And we’ve got a plan. One that we need to follow from here on out before we both get killed.”
Surrendering to his logic, I allowed him to carry me again, and we soared from Max’s dilapidated house, going at less than supersonic speed for once. I glanced back for a fleeting second, and Agrona stood on the ground below, only a shadow against the darkened shoreline. Her voice, soft as a lullaby, sang into my thoughts.
Blood of my Kin –
I call you by name.
Wake and rise from within –
True wielder of the flame.
Repeat the words, Princess, and you shall find your doorway. You shall find your beloved.
The chant repeated, unthinking in my head, and pain stabbed through the base of my skull like a spear rent with fire.
As though I’d never seen the light of day before—not truly—my vision sharpened, senses awakened, and electric energy surged through my body. I glanced down again, and every pore, every wrinkle, sagging line, and gruesome detail on Agrona’s face came into startlingly clear focus.
The Raven’s caw split the sky, escaping from my throat, and I slipped from Justice’s hold.
18
Max
The bolt on my cell door scraped back, and I turned toward the massive Fomore guard standing in the open door.
“Is mian leis an Rí a labhairt.” The King wishes to speak with you in his study.
I pushed to my feet from the cot in the jail cell.
“Is mian leis an Rí a labhairt.” The guard repeated as if I didn’t understand him the first time—or my standing up hadn’t made it clear.
“Tá mé ag ina seasamh anseo, nach bhfuil mé?” I‘m standing here, aren‘t I?
I thought it rolled its eyes before ushering me along the second-story landing, but it was hard to tell since its eyes were solid black. Following the guard down a concealed spiral staircase hidden within the stone wall, we dead-ended at a wooden door carved with arcane symbols. Most were Celtic in nature, but some were dark—evil. Bold, harsh lines cut and gashed across the wood as if they’d been burned with a branding iron.
The guard placed the palm of his hand over an odd shaped eye symbol and mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath. The door creaked open with a heavy lurch.
I stood, speechless, in the threshold.
Lined with floor to ceiling shelves made of ebony wood and off-white stone, Elethan’s study was filled with books, and resembled a library—a very fine, very old, library. A wooden ladder with metal wheels slotted into tracks ran the entire perimeter of the room, giving access to the highest shelves. Most of the books looked hundreds of years old with worn and peeling spines. Thick coats of dust caked the larger leather-bound volumes. I wondered what kinds of histories all the old books held—what secrets they had to tell. As a little boy, my grandmother had always read to me. Every night, I’d begged her to repeat the same old stories, over and over.
“Suigh.” Sit. The guard pointed toward a chair and shut the study door behind him, closing me in.
I turned toward the books all lined in neat rows, and my gaze lifted to one book, sticking out a bit from the others, as if it had been taken down and brushed off before being slid back into place. With my wrists still bound behind my back, I crept over, carefully climbing up the ladder, taking care not to fall down it.
The leather-bound book’s binding was cracked and peeled across the spine, and in long, black scrawling lines, History of The Ancients, was handwritten in old Irish. I edged it off the dusty shelf with my shoulder, and its heavy weight sent it straight to the floor, its pages falling open.
Footsteps clapped against the stone floor on the other side of the door, and the King ent
ered his study. His gaze traveled from me toward the floor.
My blood pressure rose at the sight of him.
He held up a hand. “I do not wish to fight,” he said in a fatherly way. “You don’t have to look at me like that. Most of these books are written in the old text.” Walking into the room, his stance relaxed. “I believe your generation speaks modern Irish. These books are far before your time. You only need ask, if you wish to look at something.” Picking the fallen book up off the floor, he checked the spine.
I took the few steps back down the ladder, unsure why his demeanor had changed since our first meeting.
“History of the Ancients? I am sure I can find more interesting material for your age, if you would like? Something that you can actually read.” He motioned toward a wooden armchair facing a large desk of solid black stone; semi-circular in build, it mimicked the shape of the chamber beyond the study.
“I can read the old language just fine.” I smiled in a self-satisfied way, having little choice but to take the seat in front of him.
He grinned. “How thoughtful of your guardian to teach you the ancient tongue.”
“She didn’t teach it to me. I’ve always known it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “How enlightening. It seems we should start over. I apologize for my abrupt behavior earlier.” He sounded human and looked younger—less of a stern ruler and more of a normal man. “I could not confirm you existed until a few days ago. Perhaps I have not handled the news as well as I should have.” He sat down, straightening papers across his desk. “I am curious—your name, MacKenzie. Were you ever told its meaning?”
The question sounded genuine, but I had no intention of engaging in commentary. “No.”
He nodded slightly. “By your guardian, perhaps?”
I shook my head. “You asked me into your study to talk about the meaning of my name?”
He chuckled. “It means Born of Fire.” Grinning, he rose to his feet. “Smart woman, your guardian. Interesting that she should chose that name in particular.” He shrugged. “But no matter. I do not wish to fight or talk about your name. It is just a name. I wish to create a new beginning. You are the Prince of this realm.” He raised his hand toward the ceiling. “This is your home.”
“I have a home. You took me away from it.” My tone was even as I stared at him. His eyebrows resembled mine, growing in medium arches, and his eyes, as well, especially his eyes. My eyes.
“Your home should have been here with your family. With me.” What sounded like yearning laced his words and took me back slightly. He stared down toward his folded, weathered hands. A warrior’s hands—like mine. “I would like for you to stay. Here. With me.” There was no harshness in his tone, no malice or anger.
“You’re serious? You’ve just kept me imprisoned for days—weeks—threatened Layla … and you want me to stay here?” I pushed to my feet and turned to the side. “My wrists are still bound.”
He sighed. “I apologize.” He gave a quick nod with his head. A guard flanking the doorway came forward and removed the ropes around my wrists. “Why do you call the girl Layla? It is not her name.”
I rubbed the tears across my flesh and looked at him, surprised by the question and why he would care. “Because her father asked me to. I’ve called her Layla since we were little. It’s her name to me.”
“He asked you as a means to keep her hidden?”
“Why do you care?”
“Please, do not misunderstand, Son. I am simply trying to take everything in. Forgive me for intruding. As I said, I would like to make amends.”
“Well, you can save the good father act. It’s not like I don’t know you hunt the Fire Born. Here I am.” I threw my arms open wide and tested the air between my hands. “Your prize.” I glared at him.
His eyes widened. “Hunt them? The Fire Born? Oh, goodness, no. You have misunderstood, Son. The Ancient Fire Born are a race to be revered. Our ancestors. I would not be standing here, if it were not for them. Nor would you, or any of us.” His brow knitted. “No, I am not sure where you learned that, but I would never hunt the Ancients.” He chuckled. “The strongest of all powers known to the Gods. The Greats. Our Creators.” He shook his head like the idea of hunting them was absurd.
My hands dropped to my sides, taken aback completely. Everything I’d been told—everything I’d learned—came back to the Fomorians as hunters of power. Hunters of the Light Bearer and the Fire Born to gain their power.
“Why hunt us, then? Me?”
“My people hunt the Light Bearer. We do wish to dismantle the World of Light—the Tuatha Dé along with it. I will not lie, there is a long fought history between our races, but the Fire Born?” He shook his head. “Heavens, no. That would be hunting my own flesh and blood. Why on earth would anyone do such a thing? And it was never you I was hunting in the first place. It was the Light Bearer herself. You were simply the guardian in my way, so to speak. Until I found out you were both Fire Born, well, how could I have known otherwise? The Ancient race has not existed for many millennia.”
I sat back down, staring at him, his words shocking me into silence.
“You being the Light Bearer’s guardian, as well as my son, was a surprise to say the least.”
“You said you couldn’t confirm my existence until a few days ago? How long have you known about me?” The tone of my voice, without meaning to, came out like I was eight years old. I coughed, clearing my throat.
The King took a deep breath. “I have had my suspicions for quite some time, but I was unable to get close enough to be sure. As I have said, The Tuatha Dé have done a good job with you. Protecting you. I had the most brilliant idea to … ally myself, temporarily, you see, with the Vampyre Fae. It worked.” He shrugged, as if we were playing a fun game. “She was able to get close to you. Several times, I believe.” He winked at me. “It was simply a matter of time after that. The effects of her poison should be gone now. It was only temporary, as I said. I doubt you will find her charms able to seduce you again. Unless … you desire it.”
“I don’t,” I answered too quickly. “I don’t … desire it.”
He grinned. “I thought not. Vampyre Fae.” He shuddered. “Horrible creatures, Fae. Never to be trusted for long. Why the Tuatha Dé associate with them, I do not know.”
“So, my neck will stop stinging now?” I asked, ignoring his jabs at my fae grandmother.
He glanced at me. “It should. I would be happy to have our medical staff look at it, if it continues to bother you.”
Medical staff?
“Now,” he breathed, “in light of the current change of events, I have made a decision. I will lay down my arms against the Tuatha Dé—call off the hunt on the girl. She is safe, by the way, no harm has been done to her.”
Thank god. I exhaled and rested my head in my hands.
“I apologize if I led you to believe otherwise.”
I couldn’t answer, or look up, as an intense relief rushed over me.
“No matter how wrong the Tuatha Dé were—how much they have taken away from you—from your childhood, no less, from us … I will do what is right by you. I see how much the girl means to you. If only you give me the chance to prove that I am not the monster you believe me to be. Rule by my side. One step at a time, and I will pull back.”
“Why?” My eyes narrowed. “You hate them.”
He inclined his head. “That is so. Teine, however, was not raised in the Otherworld. She knows very little of her people, or her role amongst them. She is not my enemy, per se. She simply carries the Light. And furthermore, I would do it for you.”
The sincerity in his tone threw me, and a massive lump rose in my throat, along with the complete inability to speak. It was if I was nine years old and had just ridden my dirt bike through my grandmother’s rose bushes again, and had no idea what to say or how to defend myself, as her parental gaze penetrated mine.
I continued to stare across the desk at my flesh and blo
od. He was asking me to stay with him. Live with him. My father. I forced down the lodge embedded in my trachea. I already had a parent.
The fact that my grandmother was only my guardian, and not my blood, had jolted me when I’d first learned it, but it meant nothing to me anymore. She was the only mother I’d ever known. The one who read stories to me and tucked me in at night. Kissed my elbow when I’d scratched it open a dozen times riding my bike too close to the chain-link fence. The one who made me blueberry pie whenever I asked. She was the only parent I cared to have.
Still, sitting in my father’s presence, I couldn’t bring myself to move, or fight, or run, or yell. I’d dreamt about him, wondered where he was. Who he was. Why he left. I cleared my throat. “You’re telling me, if I stay here, Layla will be safe? Her people? That’s what you want me to believe?”
“I give you my word. They will remain untouched by my hands.” He strode to the fireplace mantel, the only place in his study not lined in bookshelves. “I want what any father would want—his son by his side.”
I continued staring at him. I couldn’t stop myself. “Your word means nothing to me,” I blurted out. “I don’t even know you.”
He gave a small smile and bowed his head. “This is true. And I do not blame you for distrusting me. I have given you no reason to believe anything I say. But I hope, in time, you will come to understand that I stand by my word.”
In a slight daze, I said, “I can’t. Stay, I mean. Layla needs me. I need her.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Does it matter? If you mean what you say, feel the way you’re telling me—if your words are genuine—you’ll call this whole thing off. Stop the war. End this pointless fight with the Tuatha Dé. You may be my father, but they’re my family. They raised me. I won’t just abandon them.”
“I am not asking that of you. Only that you severe theTie with Teine. Understand me, Son. They stole our lands. Cursed us into darkness. Stole you. Those are not easily forgotten truths.”
“You killed their King. Layla’s father—”