The Awakening

by Roberts, Nora

  Something howled, as if in pain, as the glass shattered.

  Water rushed over her, sent her tumbling. She kicked, slapped out with her hands, but she couldn’t find the way out. She knew to hold her breath in the water—Da had taught her to swim—but she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

  Hands gripped her, and panicked, she pushed, struggled, started to scream. She swallowed water, choked, then her head broke the surface.

  “I’ve got you, mo stór. Nan’s got you. Hold on to me, hold on to Nan.”

  She coughed up water, clung as Marg dragged them toward the bank of what was a curving river.

  “Fi! Help me.”

  Finola, pale pink wings spread, reached down, took Marg’s hand. She pulled them to the bank, swirled off a cloak to wrap a shivering Breen.

  “There now, poor little mite. You’re safe now.”

  “She’s not.” With sweeps of her hands, Marg dried and warmed her granddaughter. “Take her back, Finola, to where she will be. Take her to her mother. They need me here. Eian and the others need me with them.”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “No, please. Stay with Breen and Jennifer. Stay with them.”

  Still drenched from the river, Marg crouched, held Breen to her. “Go with Finola now, my baby. Your mother’s waiting for you.”

  “You come! And Da.”

  “Soon. Take her, Fi. I’m needed.”

  “I’ll keep her safe.” Gathering the child, Finola lifted into the air.

  Wrapped in the cloak, held close in the faerie’s arms, Breen looked back. She saw her first glimpse of war, the terrible light and dark of it. And the screams rose up until she pressed her hands to her ears, and Finola swept her away.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Looking into the fire, Breen saw what her grandmother had seen. The carnage, the brutality. Blood soaked the ground; it spilled into the river to run red.

  She saw Finola fly toward a towering waterfall, carrying the child she’d been. And when the faerie flew through it, when Marg knew the child was away, she gathered herself.

  The dragon came at her call, an emerald and sapphire flash through the haze. She mounted, took up her sword, her wand. Merging her mind with the dragon’s, she flew into battle.

  A dozen gargoyles, black teeth snapping, charged through the thick woods and fog toward a line of Fey. She shot out with her wand, torching them even as she sliced and hacked with the sword at winged demons.

  Shrieks and screams echoed; drumbeats boomed.

  She knew some who fought in the air, on the ground, were enslaved or bewitched, taken from her world and others to build Odran’s army. With their minds trapped, they killed and died for him.

  She broke spells and chains when she could, ended lives when she couldn’t.

  The air thundered; the ground cracked. More dark poured out of it to meet sword, claw, power, and flame.

  The thunder of war rolled its violence across the land.

  She led a trio of dragon riders to the waterfall. “Hold the line! None get through but our own.”

  She rode through the smoke-choked air, higher, higher still, until she found the fresh. There, she pulled Eian into her mind, her heart, her blood, until she saw him with his chosen forces waging fury on Odran’s guards.

  She rode the wind, trusting those left behind to hold back the dark while she flew to its source.

  Atop the stone island, across the Dark Sea from the high, raw cliffs, stood the fortress Odran’s greed and power had built.

  Its black walls gleamed like glass, and glittering crystals crusted its turrets like spikes.

  Eian and his dragon riders battled Odran’s bat-winged demons while below more soldiers of Talamh cut bloody swaths through gargoyles, demon dogs, the bewitched, and the damned.

  Power stung the air, the clash of black to white burning it so that it smoked and trembled.

  Wild with rage, she flew into it, spinning her dragon so its tail cut through knife-edged wings to send bodies tumbling into the fury of the sea below.

  She fought side by side with her son, her hair streaming back, her power burning like a fever. She worked with him to draw those cursed guards away, lure them just enough away while Feys scaled the fortress.

  With wing, with claw, with power, with rope, they climbed.

  Her eyes met Eian’s. Together they threw power that whirled and spread blinding white, then coalesced into white fire that burst through the barred doors of the black castle.

  The Fey flooded in.

  “He’ll flee,” Marg called out.

  “Aye. He’ll try.”

  On his bloodred dragon, Eian flew toward the breach, and Marg after him.

  Inside, they met the chaos of war among the ruins of jewels and treasures stolen or conjured in blood for Odran’s pleasures.

  Slaves, collared like livestock, ran screaming or huddled in fear.

  They fought their way to the keep, through the stench of smoke and blood and the ooze of slayed demons.

  He knows where to find him, Marg thought. He can feel Odran while I cannot. It’s blood calling to blood.

  “He wants you to find him.” Terrified for her son, she screamed it out. “It’s a trap.”

  Eian, eyes storm gray, hair a flame, lifted his sword high. “It’s only a trap if you’re the prey.”

  On his dragon, his bold hair streaming behind, Eian streaked over the smoldering bodies of demons and into the keep. The stench of death, burning flesh, boiling blood fouled the air.

  Eyes stinging from the smoke, Marg guarded Eian’s flank, slashing, shooting fiery white light. Inside, gold columns, silver tiles glittered behind the haze of war. Wounded, facing death and defeat, Odran’s forces scattered on wing and scale and claw. Eian’s troops pursued, driving demons into the ground, sending them flaming over the high cliffs.

  There would be, could be, no surrender, Marg knew. The evil spawned here must be crushed. Any who escaped, wormed their way back into other worlds, would carry the tale of Eian O’Ceallaigh and his soldiers of Talamh.

  And would tremble as they spoke his name.

  So it must be.

  The keep, a maze of curves and plundered riches, echoed with the clash of swords, the shrieks and merciless spurts of flame. Desperate to keep her son in sight, Marg fought her way through even as the knife-edge of a black wing scored down her arm before she turned it to ash.

  There, in the throne room, he sat, wildly handsome and still on a towering throne adorned with the skulls and bones of those he’d slain in his relentless search for power.

  His golden hair fell shining to his shoulders under a crown of clear crystal and brilliant jewels. He wore gold, trews and tunic, belted with more jewels.

  And sat smiling the smile that had seduced a young woman reaching for love to shine over her own powers.

  Even now, she thought, even now he radiated sexuality and charm, almost irresistible through the stink of blood and death.

  “Ah, my beloved and my son.” His voice, deep, drugging, dangerous, seemed to stroke like a lover’s fingers. “Come now, come. Sit by my right and left hands as has always been meant.”

  “Stand,” Eian demanded, and leaped off his dragon, sword in hand. “Stand or meet your death on your arse.”

  “Such harsh words, such a price already paid in the blood of your people. And all for a whining brat you chose to make with a weak, powerless woman from a world beneath your rank. And all because I wished a bit of private time with my granddaughter—such as she is.”

  “She is more than you.” Marg stayed mounted, every sense tuned for the trap. “Stronger and brighter.”

  “Do you think so, beloved?” Odran spoke mildly. “She is my blood. She is mine by right, and so is whatever pitiful power she holds.”

  “She will never be yours.”

  Odran spared Eian a glance. “The day will come when I drink every drop of what she is.”

  “Stand,” Eian ordered again. His eyes, storm gray w
ith power, stared from a face streaked with blood and soot.

  “Your creatures bleed and burn as those who can slink back to their hells. Your palace of lies crumbles around you. The day has come for you to pay for what you did to my mother, to me, to my child. Draw your sword, Odran the Damned, and meet me like a man.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Odran stood. “But I am not a man. I am a god.”

  He threw out his arms. The gale he called blew Eian off his feet, nearly unseated Marg. For a moment, only a moment, she spun wild and without control.

  “I am not the prey,” Eian told her. “Be ready.”

  She saw the quick shock on Odran’s face as Eian lunged toward him. A moment was enough for demons, dozens of them, to crawl through the gold walls and silver floors.

  As she cried out for her son to mount again, dozens more Talamh forces raged into the throne room.

  Then a sword was in Odran’s hand, obsidian dark against Eian’s silver. The clash shook the columns, sent spiderwebs of cracks along the floor.

  “Lead them out!” Eian shouted. “Get everyone out.” And, pushing a hand into the air, he sent the roof of the keep spiraling up with a thunderous roar.

  Faeries poured through to slash at the demons and swoop up any Talamh forces that couldn’t take to the air on their own. Though her heart banged in her throat, Marg did as her son ordered.

  She led others out through the maze, casting light ahead to clear the path.

  She saw only snatches of the battle as she struggled to meld her thoughts with Eian’s. Odran’s eyes, she saw them, darker than the smoke and alive with raging hate.

  When she had the troops safely away, the wounded carried off to home, she whirled her dragon back.

  Before she reached the keep it imploded. The sheer violence of it stormed against her, through her.

  Still, she fought to drive the dragon forward.

  Then she saw him—her son, her boy—rising up above the smoking rubble. Bloody, smeared with ash, but alive.

  He dived toward her.

  “The waterfall!” he shouted. “Get through, get everyone through. The moment all are safe, we block the portal. I need you to help me close it.”

  “I’m with you. You’re hurt. You’re bleeding.”

  “So are you.” Across the air, he reached out, touched her hand. “I couldn’t risk letting you see what was in my mind. He might have seen, seen just enough to defend.”

  “You are taoiseach. And Odran?”

  “I don’t know, not for certain. He would have buried us both in that cursed place rather than see me live. Now he’s buried there. Gods will he stays buried.”

  “But he didn’t.” Marg spoke to Breen now. “Years passed, and we came to believe him gone. We blocked the portal into that world, and still, he slithered through. But you were safe. Your father made certain of it, for as long as he could.”

  “By taking me out of the world he loved.”

  “We cast spells for your protection, and some to dull memories so the heartbreak wouldn’t be so keen. His dearest friend lost his life in that battle. Kavan, father to Keegan, Aisling, and Harken. And so he gave Kavan’s widow and his children the farm. It would be in the best of hands, and they would be secure in a home. He would have given up the sword and staff, but after the Battle of the Black Castle, the people pleaded with him to retain them. So when he took you and your mother through the portal to the world she knew, and became yours, he remained taoiseach. He came back often, as often as he could, and kept the peace for as long as he could.”

  “How did he come back? He lived . . . There were never out-of-town gigs, were there? He never traveled for his music—for that first and abiding love.”

  “Know this.” Once again, Marg took Breen’s hand. “He loved you beyond measure. He loved Talamh. And so he gave up something he loved to be your father, to serve his people.”

  “He was a warrior. I saw as if I’d been there, because you were. I saw him. I never knew that part of him.”

  A warrior, Breen thought. A leader. A hero.

  “There was no need for you to know. Now there is.”

  “And I broke the glass of the cage. I did that.”

  “You did, aye, you did, a child of only three.”

  “How?”

  “It was in you, but until that moment, it was soft, it was sweet, and it was innocent. In that moment, when it was needed, you woke full and strong.”

  “I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what’s in me. I saw—but I still . . . Demons, like in books and movies. Gargoyles, alive and vicious. They exist.”

  “There are worlds where they exist,” Marg confirmed. “He brought them into what he claimed as his.”

  “You were . . . terrifying and magnificent. You rode a dragon, you had a sword and a wand. A magic wand?”

  “So you could call it. An extension of power. I am of the Wise, as you are.”

  “And my father was. My mother wasn’t—isn’t.”

  “No. She is what she wished, what she needed you to be. Human. Only human.”

  “I need to—” Rising, Breen circled the pretty, cozy room with its simmering fire and sparkling crystals. “What am I then? Half human, half something else? And Odran, my grandfather? He called himself a god. So he’s crazy as well as evil?”

  “He is many things. And while mad for power, he is not mad. A god he is.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” She had to sit again. “A god? What, like Thor?”

  Marg smiled at her, but the smile was weary. “Legends and lore, as I said, root in truth.”

  “But that’s . . . I was going to say impossible, but all of this is. But it’s not. If Odran’s a god, my father was—”

  “A demi-god. Born of the Wise and the gods. And you, mo stór, are of the Wise, the Sidhe, the gods, and the human. There is no one in this world or the world where you were reared like you.”

  “What does that make me? A freak?”

  “A treasure.”

  “Mairghread.” Sedric stepped out. “It’s enough for now. She has enough for now. You need food and rest.”

  Breen saw it as truth. Her grandmother looked pale and exhausted. She had to bite back at the questions that sprang up, desperate for answers.

  “It’s a lot. I need to think. I know you’re not lying to me because I saw. I’ve seen. But I can’t balance it.”

  “There’s bread and cheese while the stew finishes,” Sedric announced. “You’ll eat some.”

  Imperious, he turned and walked away.

  “Is he your familiar? That’s the term, isn’t it?”

  “He is my mate. I will never pledge again, but if I could do so, I would pledge to Sedric.”

  “Oh. So you’re . . . oh.”

  Marg’s face relaxed again, with some humor. “Such matters don’t stop in youth, my girl. He fought that day. He bled for you. He would give his life for yours if needs be. Because he is mine, I am his. And so, you are his.”

  So they ate bread and cheese in the warm kitchen with the door open to the air and the oncoming evening.

  And when questions, so many more questions, nagged at Breen, the steady stare in Sedric’s eyes made her hold them back.

  “I haven’t unpacked. I didn’t bring much, but I should take care of that. And you said there was a way I could write. I start early.”

  “I’ll show you.” Sedric rose, then brought Marg’s hand to his lips. “Rest awhile. You’ve had a trying day. Tomorrow’s soon enough for more.”

  “Don’t fuss.”

  “If fussing I did, you’d be abed with a potion for a full night’s sleep. Come, girl, I’ll show you what you need.”

  “Tomorrow’s soon enough,” Breen told Marg. “We’re all tired.”

  “Well done,” Sedric said as he led her back to her room. “There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for you, and some she must do troubles her heart.”

  “You knew my father.”

  “Knew, admired, resp
ected, loved. He was a son to me.”

  A son to him, Breen thought.

  “You’ve been with my grandmother a long time.”

  “As long as she would have me. I remember you as a bright, charming child with a strong will. It appears your time in the world of Earth dulled that will. But no matter,” he said lightly. “You have only to use it to shine it up again. For now, what you need for your work is here.”

  He gestured to the desk. On it she saw a tall stack of paper, and a pen. She walked over, lifted the pen—silver with a small red crystal on the top of the cap.

  “A fountain pen?”

  “More than that. Remember where you are. Your devices, as they’re called, won’t operate here. But this pen, conjured only for you, will never run out of ink. It will transfer your thoughts to the page, and in the manner you use for this blog you write, and the other stories and communications. It’s a very fine gift of storytelling you have, and this pen, these papers will assist you.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to write that way. And for the blog, I include photographs.”

  “You simply describe the image you wish to use, and it will be done. We have people who live on the other side of the portal. They’ll take what you write, and transcribe it to your device.”

  “People from here live in Ireland?”

  “And beyond. They must take a sacred oath, and live by it if they choose to dwell outside Talamh. For now, know that we revere storytellers here, and that you’re free to continue, in this way, while you visit.”

  He stepped back. “We’ll have our meal when you’re ready, but I ask you not to take too long. Marg will feel better with a good bowl of stew.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  With a nod, he stepped out, closed the door.

  Alone, she shook her head at the stack of paper, at the pen in her hand.

  “I guess it could’ve been a fricking quill.”

  She considered the blog delayed for a day, maybe two, then, curious, uncapped the pen. Still standing, she put the tip on the top paper.

  “If it was . . .”

  She saw the words, and the rest of the thought appear on the page as if typed in her chosen font.

  If it was good enough for Jane Austen. Oh my God! How is this—Stop!