by Laney McMann
"One day must pass," I said, continuing, " ... for the last to descend, merging the lost, unto which the reign will approach its end. On the thirty-first day, as Lilith comes, under the Crone's Waning Moon, undo what has been done." My sword arced back, and MacCoinnich supplied the final line. "The Children Born of Fire have come."
Layla staggered to her knees, her face ashen and bloody. "I am ... the true wielder of the flame."
A wall of fire erupted from the ground at the Morrigan's feet. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled back, screaming, but the flames were locked around her body like a cage. Spears of light quivered from the ground around her feet, a shimmering blaze of beautiful, deadly orange flame.
"One will kill ... the other." A blade gleamed in Layla's fist. "The Twin Souls are one ... again." The dagger flew from her hand just as the sword released from my grip. Its long edge cut clean across the Morrigan's neck. The dagger embedded into her heart, and she was swallowed by the flames.
Air rushed from Layla's lungs as she crumbled to the ground at my feet.
33
MAX
"Layla ... Lay, look at me." I couldn't catch my breath. "Come on, you're stronger than this. Open your eyes." I straddled her on the ground. Her head lolled to the side, dead and way too heavy. Blinding smoke blew in from the gates, blanketing the city, reminding me painfully of when Mag Mell fell into ruin. As a boy, hearing the angels cry.
Screams colored the scene with terror and loss as the Fomorian people still struggled to enter the Ancient city. Fires raged down the path, spreading in every direction.
"Layla, please." Trying to stop my hands from shaking, I touched her face, smeared with blood, and pulled her tight against my body, cradling her off the ground into my arms. Crows circled the scene from out of nowhere as if they'd been summoned, high pitched caws rising over the blaze and roar of the fire. They swooped down again and again, coming as close to Layla as they seemed to dare before rising up, black wings wide, floating amidst the smoke. I would have sworn they were screaming the name Teine.
The Crone lay on her side, feet away, still and unmoving, flames charring her skin. Her severed head with eyes wide toward the two-toned sky lay next to her body. The full and black moons shone down on the Demon blade that protruded from the Morrigan's chest. My sword, streaked with blood, rested flat on the ground near her broken body. Blooms of scarlet still bubbled from the wound in her chest.
Layla's color faded to chalk, her lips turning blue, and I realized my plan had failed. I'd managed to kill the Morrigan, but Layla was dying, too. The Morrigan had lashed out like she said she would and hurt Layla in a way I didn't know how to reach. Layla might as well have been dying by my own hand.
Screams continued in the distance as I rocked her back and forth, sitting on the ground. Shivers wracked her body, turning violent as snow began to fall, lacy flakes landing on her face, in her hair.
I tore her eternity bracelet from my bicep and secured it around her wrist. "I kept this safe for you." My voice came out uneven, fingers trembling on the entwined little ropes, which, even drenched in blood, gleamed like the bracelet was new. "I'll take you home. To your grandmother. I promised her I would bring you home. Hang on, just hang on. Don't leave me, Layla." Tears trailed down my face. "Don't go."
Blustery winds howled through the ruin, smoke and snow spinning in grey vortexes. Crows continued screeching, swooping down from above, and within their black shroud of wings, a White Raven joined the fray, flying in circles overhead. The passage from the book rang in my thoughts. Upon the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month, the black moon shall rise, and the ashes must fall, as the White Raven flies.
With a tilt of its head, the bird's black eyes seemed to take in the scene, Layla in my arms, and it hovered for a minute before landing a few feet away, eyes toward me.
The bird jumped forward, head tilted again, and its white wings spread wide as it rose into the sky. Loud squawking broke from its beak, and it lingered above me as if it wanted me to respond. Something in the way it stared was familiar. Another animal had stared at me the same way.
"Kaevnor?"
It cawed, high and light on the wind, and hovered in front of me again, smoke streaking past its white wings. I stood up, Layla gathered in my arms, and the bird flew toward the castle. I took flight after it.
Passing through the broken double doors that led into the Keep I remembered well, splintered pews lining what once was an ornate hall, the raven landed on the altar. It shifted its form, not into cat, which I half expected, but into a woman I knew, more spider than human.
Agrona.
I froze near the doors, eyeing her, and took a step back.
"You truly love the girl." Her red-eyed gaze shifted from me to Layla and back. "Have always loved her. For all these years, never have you swayed. Not truly. Not in your heart."
My eyes narrowed, as her gaze went back toward Layla's still face. "Who are you?"
She scurried down the steps from the altar on all fours, low to the ground, hands and feet filthy, and came forward before she rose before me. Her head tilted to the side, pain haunting her eyes. "Every form you have seen me to be is who I am, at this time, in this place."
Her gentle, rasping tone brought me a sense of calm I couldn't explain.
"You have done well. Followed the signs. Young eternal you are, but too many years have passed, the meaning passing with them. There is more to do. The split souls are mended, joined again, as they should be." She reached out with her wrinkled hand as if she wanted to touch me. I flinched back. She lowered her hand.
"Balance must be attained between the Twin Souls. Always a balance must be met. Agrona can help, but the boy must do his part as well, continue his path, for his part is not yet done. Hope is still within reach." Her gaze swept across Layla's body.
"What balance?"
"What lies on you must lie on the girl as well. Darkness and light, Other and Under, sun and moon. Night and day." She placed her fingers on the back of Layla's neck gently. "Here lies the Raven's Ogham, an Ogham you must possess." Her hand moved to the Fomorian Crest on the side of my neck. "The girl possesses your own blood Ogham, the Demon God's crest. Agrona made sure. Before the girl passed through the Shadow gates, Agrona made sure the girl had your Demon's mark. Knew the time would come. Helping. Always helping. Many years have passed. The time has returned."
What the hell?
"Balance must be attained," she said again. "The scales have been tipped. Now they must align. Like the moons in the night and daylight skies." Her gaze seared into mine. "The Oghams you possess, one is missing. One must be replaced. On the girl as well."
"Who are you?" I asked again.
She smiled, a sad, lopsided grin, and through the reddish hue of her eyes, the face of someone I recognized as if from a dream, showed through. Someone I remembered from another life. My other life. Clear grey eyes, golden skin, a gentle smile, all graced a youthful face before vanishing back into the banshee with dirty hands and draped in a tattered black shawl.
I could no longer breathe.
Her hand lifted and touched the base of my skull as she pressed gently. Fire inundated my body whole like a surge of electricity, holding me in place.
"Lay the girl down and repeat the words after me," she said.
"Blood of my Kin –
I call you by name.
Wake and rise from within –
True wielder of the flame."
I obeyed, repeating the words as she asked, and the base of my neck flared, fire rushed through my veins as white hot pain radiated down my spine and caused me to cry out. Eyes widened toward the banshee, I reached for the floor to stop my fall, on hands and knees, and the flapping of feathered wings wrapped my throat, suffocating me. Layla's eyes opened, one green, one blue, as she lay on the ground beside me, keeping my focus. No voices chimed in my thoughts, no one there to tell me I would be okay. MacCoinnich's voice, his presence, was gone. I lay down, weight giving
way underneath me.
My breaths grew shallower as Layla's sped. She gripped my hands, threading her fingers through mine. Her inner fire acted like a conductor, feeding heat into my core, burning through every cell. Color returned to her cheeks and lips, and my focus stayed on her, only her. Delicate, red-tipped golden feathers spread all over her skin, the most beautiful plumage. My heartbeat slowed in my chest, breath faltering as I watched them grow. If this was the end, it would be a good end. A deserved end. I could die in her eyes. Her hands in mine. Gladly die that way.
"No." Layla's voice rushed out. "Max!"
Her face, the face I loved more than anything, blurred before me—her fire, a fire I knew could destroy me if she'd wanted it to, consumed me from the inside out, burning through memory after receding memory. I heard her laughter on the wind, remembered the sunlight reflecting the gold of her hair, the way her eyes sparkled only for me. It was a beautiful way to die.
34
MAX
"Max!"
Layla's voice echoed around me, inside of me, in a dream. Her hands were on my face, my chest. Wind whistled in my ears, brushing across my skin, cooling my body. A gasp released from her lips, and she loomed over me, a red and orange blur, her hands still roaming my body, before her fingers thread through mine again. Maybe she was dying, too.
The heat on my neck, in my veins, increased, but I no longer felt like I was burning. Instead, the gentle flapping of the Raven's wings beat at the base of my skull, filling me not with fear but with connection. The truest, most intense connection I'd ever known. Layla took in a sharp, quick breath, and a flare of bright white caused my eyes to open wide. Massive flaming wings took shape on either side of her body. A phoenix rose above me. From the ashes of old, I thought with a bemused grin.
"My beautiful, beautiful Layla."
Breath left my lungs, peace washed over me, and my body was jolted back. Hard. Eyes opened wide. The castle loomed on all sides, the phoenix still hovered above me, the banshee stared down, and before I could register what was happening, why I was awake and alive, wings of fire erupted through my shoulder blades and lifted me off the ground.
Holy. Shit.
I eyed my surroundings, my body, made of flames, and Layla, a firebird next to me. Maybe we'd both gone straight to hell. My relationship to the Demon Gods in my second life had sent us into the depths of the Underworld. We were both dead in the fiery flames of Hades.
"Now, the Oghams," Agrona yelled below me, pulling my attention toward her. She must be in hell, too. She was a banshee. It made sense.
"We must hurry," she said. "The moons are fading, setting into the horizons. You cannot perform the ritual without their light. We must move. Quickly. Quickly. Down on the ground, extinguish the flames." She scurried on all fours across the broken floor and up the steps to the altar. Something quickly tugged at the base of my skull and my body slammed onto the ground, knocking my breath away. Righting myself, the phoenix was gone, and Layla stood over me, her mismatched eyes staring down, looking just as confused as I felt, but alive. She was alive.
"Hurry!" The banshee urged.
Pushing to my feet, unsure what the hell was going on or if I could even walk, I grabbed Layla's hand. She swayed, unsteady. Without a thought, I lifted her up in my arms and carried her to the dais at the front of the hall.
"In the throne," the banshee said. "The girl must sit in the throne. Here, here." She tapped the torn velvet seat with a wrinkled hand. "Hurry, the moons."
I glanced toward the high, broken windows, and the white moon was descending into the horizon.
"On one knee, Child. One knee."
I set Layla down in the throne, and her posture slumped, but she righted herself. Her eyes glazed, opening wider, breaths regulating, color still flooding her cheeks. I bowed in front of her on one knee.
"Clasp hands." Agrona forced our hands together, so each of us was holding the other by the wrist as if our hands and wrists had become snaked. "Yes, yes. Now, you must say the words," she prodded, impatient.
"What words?" My voice hitched, strained.
"The words. The only words that matter. Your words. If your words are not true, and the bond that joined you was created only by magical coercion, the brands will destroy you. If the words are true and said of your own free will, the brands' return will reunite your bond. All bonds."
Destroy us?
"Hurry, hurry now. Time is leaving."
The fall of daylight bled through what was left of the upper right windows of the castle, weak streams of orange-gold illuminating the cracks along the stone floor. On the opposite side, darkness seeped through the busted windows on my left, casting an unearthly beauty upon everything. The two moons had aligned, not over the grounds with the Morrigan calling upon them, but through the castle windows, upon the golden thrones, and over Layla's face. A sight that took my breath away. No one was more beautiful.
"I love you."
Layla stared at me. "I love you. Always loved you."
Golden and silver shreds of light snaked around our hands and wrists, binding them together, illuminated by the moons' glow. Heat bloomed above my heart and on the side of my throat, opposite the Fomorian crest. Layla had to have felt the same sensation because a gasp escaped her lips, and as I glanced at her neck, a new Ogham, one I'd never seen before, branded itself in a thick green line into her skin. A perfect circle.
Her hand went to her throat as mine went to my heart.
"The Aethereal ones," Agrona said. "The Children of the Heavens have returned." Her head bowed, and she knelt to the ground as if exhausted. "And with you, the Ancient city of Mag Mell."
With a screeching grind, the castle began repairing itself, cracks sealing and disappearing on the floor, pillars righting themselves to support the full weight of the caved roof. "The curse is broken." Her eyes filled with laughter and sorrow. "I am proud of you, MacCoinnich. So proud of you."
I tried to understand what she said—what was happening. I glanced from Layla, our hands gripped and glowing gold and silver in the moons' light, to the castle literally repairing itself, stones and pillars inching into place, and back toward Agrona. A woman in flowing golden robes stood in her place, with long, wavy brown hair cascading over her shoulders, and a slightly lined face and eyes of crystal grey.
MacCoinnich's mother. My mother. From forever ago. Before the Ancient city fell. Before MacCoinnich raced up the stone steps to save the girl he loved, the girl who was his betrothed—before they were both killed by the Morrigan's hand, buried in the crumbling ruin. My mother, the Queen of the Ancients. I stared at her in speechless shock.
She gave a sad smile. "I have been trying to lead you and Teine for a long time," she said. "The most I could within the confines of my own curse, a curse that addled my mind and body. I am sorry I could not do more. Your path has always been your own to walk, and you have walked it very well. I could not be more proud."
"Mother?" Memories, MacCoinnich's memories—my memories I had to keep reminding myself, for we were one now—flooded through my brain. So many memories I knew but didn't know, remembered but didn't remember.
Playing on the castle steps as a boy, climbing the gates of Mag Mell with my mother shouting at me to get down, running to the edge of the clouds to stare at the face of the mountains surrounding the city, walking the cobbled streets that rested at the base of the Keep, amused by all the peddlers yelling, trying to sell their wares—and Teine, the girl with long golden hair tinted with red, who climbed the castle steps alone, hands wringing in pristine white gloves, her patent leather shoes clapping off the stone floor between the pews I'd hid behind, watching her walk toward my mother sitting on her throne at the front of the hall. The girl, who I knew in that second, that instant, I would love forever, through a thousand lives or as many as I was granted. I would take them all, each and every one, as long as I could stand beside her—hold her hand and know she loved me, too.
The true words, the words I w
as supposed to say, wanted to say, needed to say, reached my lips.
With a watery blink, I tore my gaze away from my mother and onto Layla. "Marry me."
Her eyes widened.
"I never believed in eternity," I said. "Never thought it was possible, not really, but I swear I've loved you forever. In the life that came before this one, and in the lives I don't remember, I’ve loved you. Only you. And in every life from this one on, I'll love you still, and still. From the first moment I saw your face, I've known that. It's the only true thing I've ever known. There has only been you. Please, will you marry me?"
Tears fell down her cheeks, and her hand tightened on mine. "Yes." Her arms were around me, her face buried in the crook of my neck. "A thousand times, yes. I will."
35
LAYLA
The sun blazed through the treetops, crisp leaves from the beginning of fall crunching under my footsteps. The strange onslaught of winter disappeared as quickly as it had come, taking the snow with it.
Teine's presence was still constant deep inside of me, a part of me I knew would never leave. Someone I knew but didn't know, someone who was me but not me. My grandmother assured me that with time, I would get accustomed to her presence, maybe even welcome it. I hoped that it was true.
Max held my hand in his, spots of sunlight dancing across his face as we ambled through the forest taking in everything that only a few days ago, we thought we'd both lost. He seemed to be more at peace with the other half of his soul than I was. Agrona's transformation was what had thrown him. Not that I blamed him. A mother he knew from another life was back, alive and well. It would take a while for him to adjust, for both of us to adjust to all we'd been through— everything we'd learned and seen, protected, destroyed, and lost.
Max squeezed my hand, both of us remaining silent as we broke through the tree line. Our feet sunk in the thick wet grass of the open field, blanketed in purple flowers. Bees hummed from petal to petal, birds chirped overhead, and the rush of crashing water in the distance led us to the ledge overlooking the waterfall. It was a place along with so many others, I hadn't been sure I would ever see again. Our special place. So many memories overcame me as I stared at the water splashing off the rocks. Running through the tall grass with Max behind me. Jumping off the ledge and into the cool, sweet water of the falls. Max's face as sunlight danced across his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. The sound of his laughter as he called my name. The way his eyes reflected the sunlight like crystals.