by Laney McMann
I stood up, taller than him.
“Well …” He brushed his weathered hands together. “I think we are clear on the recourse of your fleeing, are we not?”
I glared at him, clamping my jaw. “We are.”
“Good.” He gave a curt nod and turned, leaving me staring after him, boiling over with hatred in the stupidly opulent room.
34
The inside of my quarters was as lavish as the sitting room had been. A dark ebony four-poster bed that had to have been hand carved sat under a barred window, left open onto the dusky sky outside. For all I knew, the sun never rose in the Shadow Realm.
Two nightstands with vases held some kind of red flowers. A desk, carved of the same rich wood as the bed, rested on the opposite wall, along with a matching dresser, upon which my leftover lunch remained untouched. Rough stone decorated all four surrounding walls; the entire castle seemed to be built from it. What struck me most, though, was how cold it was. Bone chilling, and with a stale smell, like no one had occupied the room—ever.
In the closet, a full array of clothes, all in my size, hung in perfect uniformity on cedar wood hangers. Jeans, white T-shirts, and navy blue button-down oxford shirts—not that I ever wore button-down oxford shirts, until the morning I’d woken up in the castle’s jail cell dressed in one.
Elethan is an idiot, if he thinks I’m actually staying here.
I closed the closet doors and walked to the dresser. A large round mirror hung above it, studded with small metal spikes. Looking at my reflection, I dragged my fingers over the Etching on my neck, still raised and startling red. I scraped what fingernails I had across the skin. Maybe I could cut it off, or at least disable its tracking ability somehow.
Rubbing the inside of my wrists together, Ogham to Ogham, the Arwen and the Dara heated up to a burn. With a grin, I placed the back of my right wrist against my neck. It sizzled and smoked, and I yanked my arm away, howling, a grin still touching my mouth.
Like the potions my grandmother had used when she’d tried to separate me from the Leanaan Sidhe, when the two opposing Oghams touched one another, some kind of negative chemical reaction happened.
Good and evil.
Shadow and light.
Me and Layla.
The knock on my door was faint; I wasn’t sure I’d even heard it. Another knock followed. Groaning, I plodded across the bedroom, swung the door open, and froze.
“Hey.” Layla stood in the threshold, waves of soft blonde hair falling over her shoulders. Her tank top hugged her small frame, hipbones showing slightly just above the low waistline of her shorts.
“Wha … what are you doing here?” After checking left and right down the corridor, I yanked her into my room, closed the door and locked it. “How’d—wha—how’d … I’m confused. Why aren’t you in the infirmary?”
“My grandmother broke the conjuring. See?” She showed me the back of her neck. It was clear of any brands; only light blonde wisps of hair adorned her neck.
I found myself leaning forward, wanting to kiss her, to breathe in the sweet smell of her skin, before I caught myself and backed up.
“When I woke up, you were gone. I was worried.” She sat down the bed and gazed up at me, her shirt creasing slightly over her chest.
I shifted my gaze away. “Okay … but, Lay, how’d you get in here?”
“Through the gate.” Her green eyes had little flecks of yellow around the irises and picked up bits of light in the darkened room.
“I … through the gate? I … um … wait.” I had a hard time not staring at her chest, remembering how she’d looked with just her bra on, like my brain had stopped functioning. Rubbing my eyes, I said, “You’re fine now?” That makes no sense.
“Yeah.” She grinned up at me. “Come here.”
I shook my head, trying to catch my speeding breath, unable to look away from her. She motioned for me to come forward with her finger, and my brain filled up with a hazy confusion like an overflowing cup. “But …” My reasoning caught up with itself with a sharp snap, and I rushed toward her. “You shouldn’t be here.” I scooted her off the bed in a panic. “You have to go. They’ll kill you, if they see you. I have no idea how you made it this far; I don’t understand. I have to get you back through the gates.”
“I thought you’d be glad to see me. Relieved, even,” she said with a hint of anger, as I hurried her toward the door.
“I am glad to see you. Ecstatic, actually. You have no idea.”
She put her arms around my waist, stopping my forward momentum. “Wait.”
Gazing down at her beautiful face, I touched her cheek, and she leaned into my hand and kissed my palm. My body warmed. “You can’t stay, Layla. This is insane.”
Her lips swept up my arm, my neck, to my jaw.
“Lay—”
She tugged on my bottom lip, teasing me, and pulled me closer.
“If they find out you’re here—”
“They won’t,” she said against my mouth. “I missed you.” Running her hands under my shirt and across my chest, she pulled my shirt off.
“Layla—”
“You don’t want me to?” Her fingers wrapped through my belt loops, and she tugged me toward the bed.
“I …” My eyes narrowed. “Not like this. Not here.”
“No one will know.” Still grinning, she lay back on the bed, beckoning me with her index finger.
My body went rigid all over, and I pushed away from her so fast her hair billowed out like a cloud around her head. “Get away from me.” I growled, hands open, feeding off the still air in the bedroom, my Oghams slithering across my body.
A wicked grin spread over Layla’s face. "Quick, aren't you? And still pining over that Tuatha Dé girl. I thought we settled this in the alley?" She sat up. "Teine is so ... boring." She rolled her eyes. "So ... plain. Anyway, you're one of us now. You should be with me. One of your own kind. Someone ... your own speed." She beckoned me forward with her finger again. "You know you want to.”
"If you're possessing Layla right now—if you've done anything to her, I will kill you.”
The Leanaan Sidhe chuckled. "Ooh, threats." She stood up and waved a bored hand. "Your beloved is just fine—well, as far as I know. She hasn't been harmed by me, anyway." She shrugged, and before my eyes, a layer of skin peeled off of her body, taking Layla's face along with it.
I looked away in disgust.
"Just a simple glamour—no possession. Promise." She drew a little X over her heart with her finger. "Can we talk now? Just you and me? I'll be good." She leaned forward. "Better than you could ever imagine."
I swung the bedroom door wide open. “Get. Out.”
“You’ll change your mind. I’m all you have now.” She smiled and walked toward me. “We used to have so much fun together. Remember?” She traced a finger over my chest as she walked past me across the threshold. “I remember.”
I slammed the door and locked it.
35
I waited in my room until the wee morning hours, hoping the Leanaan Sidhe, and the worst of the Fomore guards and servants roaming the castle, would have dispersed. After peering out of the bedroom door, I edged down a winding narrow corridor. With such high ceilings, every movement and footstep echoed like a bass drum. I slipped my shoes off. Barefoot, my tracks were silent against the cold stone floor, but finding my way in the dark, through an unfamiliar building, gave the impression of a never ending labyrinth. I tried to remember my steps from when the servant had escorted me to my quarters, and was almost positive that we took a winding route that passed the same set of doors three times. Doors I hadn’t come across yet.
An odd opalescent light bathed the castle’s interior, and a few times, I could have sworn I heard the faint sound of screams cutting through the oppressing silence. Following a corridor that dead-ended, I came into a grand ballroom. Gilded mirrors dotted rounded walls, the metal cords supporting their weight anchored into the stone in a mismatch of uneve
n angles. Crossing the room, my reflection glittered on all sides and reminded me of a Fun House where the reflections were distorted and twisted. It seemed like a bad omen. I’d decided if anyone saw me out and about, I’d feign sleep walking.
Two crystal chandeliers hung from the peeling, weathered ceiling. Continuing through the chamber, I made my way through an arched double doorway, and the familiar second-story landing came into view—right above Elethan’s study. A small shred of light, visible on the dark floor, came through the cracked door. I peeked inside.
Flickering black candles of all widths and heights rested haphazardly on every surface. Leather-bound books were piled high in stacks on the floor and over the King’s desk. Pages seemed to be opened at random, and several books had been unceremoniously shoved onto the high-rising bookcases, their spines sticking out or leaning sideways. It looked as if someone had been searching for something—in a hurry.
I stepped inside and closed the door, soundlessly, behind me. Striding closer to the towering shelves, I noticed one book in particular on the top row, nearest the ceiling. A reddish color gleamed off the cover in the candlelight. Sitting about half an inch out from its fellows, it rested alongside other volumes neatly lining the walls in thick coats of dust. Curious if it was the same book I’d seen before, I stepped onto the rolling ladder, climbed up, and pulled it down, surprised by how heavy it was. It reminded me of the book my mother had left me as a child. I’d cherished it, even slept with it, and begged my grandmother to read every fairy tale it contained over and over again. I tipped the book over, and read the cover.
History of The Ancients.
The same book Elethan had taken from me when he’d summoned me to his study days ago, sure that I wouldn’t be able to read the old text. I flipped it open and scanned the first few pages.
… and with the murder of the Ancient Fire Born King and Queen, the stars fell from the skies of Mag Mell, the Uprising devastating the race of Greater Gods.
I checked the cover again, making sure I’d read the title correctly.
History of The Ancients.
But … this story was just a fairy tale … a myth, a fable for young minds. I knew it well, having begged my grandmother to read it to me so many times. Closing the book, I scrambled down the ladder, and scoured the pages. Some were handwritten. Others were so smudged, I could barely make out the words. Ink drawings studded the margins—one of a dark, star-filled sky. A crumbled stone castle. Wings. Matching golden thrones, and a sketch of a woman in a long black feathered cloak. The Crone.
I turned to the next page, and the next. Notes had been written everywhere in black scrawled handwriting. The return of the Ancients. Fire. Morrigan. The children will rise again.
Continuing, my pulse sped, and three words, in reddish ink, short and succinct, stopped my heart from beating altogether.
Teine. Fire Goddess.
I dropped the book on the floor with a thud. The pages fluttered as if suspended in a breeze. The edges of my periphery blurred. Screams and shouts filtered into my thoughts, and the room shifted and swayed until I no longer stood in it, but at the bottom of a steep stone staircase.
As if watching a movie, I stood suspended, in another place—another time.
Stone steps led up to a castle, rocks and debris raining down overhead. Bodies laid scattered at my feet, blank wide eyes, set and staring. Screams broke out in the distance. A muffled cry caused my head to turn, and a young boy with light brown hair ran past me, as I stood like some unseen ghost.
Blood flowed freely from various cuts across his face and arms, but he kept up his frantic pace. His fine clothes hung in tatters, feet bare, body dirty and bruised. Explosions shook the atmosphere and tore the ground apart, causing the boy to lose his footing, tripping him up the stone stairs.
Overhead, thunder clouds roiled, turning the grey sky black. Sliced through with red strands of light, smoke choked the oxygen out of the air as fires encroached. Wings of bright gold and cream clouded my sight and offset the bleak scene. They converged from all sides overhead in a blurred mix of colors. Careening like giant vultures, the massive wings circled and swooped toward the ground before regrouping, keeping pace with the boy’s hurried, desperate run. He flung the oaken castle doors wide and came to a lurching halt, standing frozen on the threshold.
“You are too late,” a woman said, a cloak of shimmering black material wrapping her body. She gestured to a figure standing behind her—a wraith of a young girl in a torn yellow silk dress, scratches and cuts marking her bare shoulders and the smooth lines of her collarbone.
Her green eyes were hazed over as she stared straight ahead into nothing, as if blind, unaware. Striped with the color of coal, her golden locks hung in a tangle down her back. She turned, her face smudged with soot, expressionless—her darkened bloodshot eyes holding no hint of recognition.
“What have you done to her?” the boy screamed.
“She has met her fate,” the woman said, her shoes clapping off the stone floor.
The castle shook underfoot again. Pillars lining the interior walls losing their iron grip, as the ceiling began to give way, sending plumes of dust everywhere.
“No.” The boy took a step forward, further into the threat, his gaze locked on the girl. “Free her!”
“Or what?” The woman sneered and gathered her robe about her frame.
“I’ll give you anything,” the boy said. “Anything you want.”
She smiled an awful sneer. “I have everything I want.” Her footfall struck the floor and faded under the impending reverberation of destruction.
“No!” He faltered. “Please. Wait.”
“My warnings went unheard.” She continued her descent down the castle steps. “There was only one rightful heir to the crown.” She looked over her shoulder. “Now, there is no throne, and no need for you.”
The boy stood, fists balled, face reddening as the building collapsed around him. “Take me, then! Leave her alone!” Covered in dust and accumulating ash like a stone statue, he thrusted his hands toward the girl.
The Crone laughed without turning back. “I have already taken you both. Look around.”
Wings eclipsed the blackened sky like a swarm. “We have to get out of here!” a voice screamed from overhead.
The boy’s gaze shifted upward, toward the wings, for no more than a second, before he turned back to the inner hall. Fractures in the floor snaked outward, breaking apart the castle’s interior. Stumbling forward, the boy lost his footing. Yells grew louder. The roar and spit of approaching fire moved closer. Smoke infiltrated the stronghold’s walls. Unshielded, the girl stood alone, her blank, distant eyes, staring into nothing.
“Let her go!” someone yelled. “We’re too late!”
“No!” Another explosion rumbled the ground. Chunks of the ceiling impaled the stone floor, sending the boy to his knees.
Gold and cream swirled with smoke in a fluid movement of mixing grey colors. “She will be the death of us all. Leave her!” another voice screamed from above.
“I will not leave her here!” Weaving through the wreckage, the boy ran. Jumping over a widening crevice, pillars crashed down behind him. Cries rang throughout the hall—the sick crunch of bones being crushed. Muffled screams came from beneath fallen rubble, and reaching the girl, the boy yanked her sideways, into his arms.“Hold on to me.”
Wind and fire rushed through the castle like a summoned inferno as the castle walls collapsed.
“MacCoinnich!”
The room shifted back into soft, alarming focus, and I put out my arm to steady myself against Elethan’s desk. Voices rose from outside the study, and I snatched the book off the floor and sealed myself against the far library wall, behind the only curtain in the darkest spot of the room.
What in the hell just happened? What in the hell did I just see?
Sam entered the study, Elethan behind him, and his gaze roved the walls, passing over the place I stood, hidden behind
the curtain. “I swear I heard something.”
“It is an old castle, Samuel. Be on your way now, and alert the staff that MacKenzie’s dosage will need to be increased.”
“Dosage?”
“Do as I say, Samuel, or you may find that I forget our agreement.”
“Yes, My King.” Sam bowed and headed out of the room.
Elethan reached for the doorknob, holding it in his large hand, and stopped, his gaze moving toward the shelves, his desk, the books sitting in dusty stacks all over the floor, and finally toward the top of the ladder, where a gleaming line shone in the darkness off the clean ebony wood of the book shelf. Free from dust, it was clear a book had been removed.The book I had shoved underneath my shirt. “Well, well, what have you gotten into now, Son?”
I held my breath, unsure if he’d seen me—unmoving—like a life-sized stone carving.
The King walked toward the ladder and looked up. “It is as though I have a toddler. A child I must watch every second, so he does not injure himself or get into trouble.” He shook his head. “Are you here now? Hiding from your father?” His tone almost cooed.
Swallowing hard, I contemplated whether I should step out from behind the curtain. I wasn’t afraid, but I wasn’t willing to hand over the book either.
“Very well. If you wish to play hide and seek, we can play. After all, we did miss out on many aspects of your childhood. I shall search for you.”
The King turned and walked directly toward the only shadowed corner in the study—right at me. I shifted my feet as slowly as I could, trying to position myself farther back against the wall. The Ogham on my right shoulder rotated to the left, and with an odd sensation, seemed to lock in place. Long green lines slithered over my forearm as I looked down, and a burning heat traveled across my body in branded designs.
Elethan reached a hand out, inches from my face, threw the curtain aside, and stared, wide-eyed, past me, around me, but not at me, as if an invisible barrier draped my body from view.