Feeling came back into her fingers and toes first, sharp tingling caused her to stretch the joints to ease the discomfort. The prickling radiated to the lower extremities. Inhaling through her teeth, she gritted against the pain as she flexed her toes, her calves, against the contracting muscles.
Memories came flooding back unbidden and a new nausea bubbled up. She tried to swallow the bile that was knowledge. Knowledge of the truth. Why? Why couldn’t she go back to the way it was before? It was easier to mourn Liam, the husband she thought she remembered. Those memories were gone. Did she even remember them? It must have been easier than this, to know without a doubt the man he was. What happened? How did he do this to her? How was he capable?
Sunshine and sweetness replaced by moodiness and sullenness in turn, losing patience and roaring at nothing, as if someone flipped a switch after we returned from our honeymoon. Shock when he first hit me, a stinging slap to the cheek, leaving a partially swollen eye. I never pleased him. He was always waiting for something, observing, rarely patient.
Once-soft memories of intimate, tender moments shared between husband and wife, replaced by moments of shame and humiliation. Face shoved into the pillow as he pumped into me from behind. Always behind.
Hospitals. A variety of emergency rooms. Never giving anyone a hint. Black eyes, bruised sides, broken bones … so many broken ribs. The reasons varied, accidents all, or most. There was that time he made me report it as an assault. Of course, not by him.
Then I got pregnant.
He seemed so … pleased with himself for a time.
He stopped hitting me. Stopped touching me. Stopped looking at me.
All I felt was relief.
Snap.
I didn’t even see him. Realization and knowledge hit me at the same time as the boot to my lower back at the top of the stairs.
She glanced around and gasped, Alexander was floating face down. Gaining her feet, she trudged through the knee-deep water, but slipped into the deeper center, she swam to where he lay, “Alex. Alex. Please.” She grabbed his shirt and heaved his body over. Buoying his head up against her chest, she hooked an arm under his and backpedaled out of the water. The reed-covered bank was near, but the hard part of dragging his limp body was here too. She scrambled around, clasping him under the arms. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she cried out in frustration, “Damn it. You are not going to die on me.”
She stood over him, hands clasped still in his armpits, struggling. Planting her feet in the grass she leaned back to move his body infinitesimally. The muscles in her arms screamed as she bent to get a firmer grip again. How long had he been like this? Was it too late? She pulled until just his feet trailed in the water. The surface of the bank would have to do. Damn, why hadn’t she kept current on CPR training? How did it go again? She felt for a pulse in the wrist, nothing, in the neck—nothing. She ripped open his shirt, tearing the tails from the waistband of his jeans. Her ear was on his chest but she couldn’t hear anything. She straightened. “God, damn it.” To the cacophony of the forest, she screamed, “Shut up.”
Chest compressions were next. One, two, three … “Come on, please. Don’t die.” Nine, ten, eleven.
“Most curious.”
Brenawyn craned her neck continuing the chest compressions to find Oghma and a woman, even more beautiful, behind a tree not far off. “Help me. Please. He’s … he’s … I can’t even say it. Please.”
Oghma slightly bowed his head and retreated leaving the new woman staring inquisitively.
“Why do you do this thing?” she said, flipping her hand to include her actions.
“I’m trying to save him.”
“He canna be saved.”
“No, don’t say that.” Brenawyn positioned his head, pinching his nostrils and blew into his mouth, twice. “Oh, God, please, please.”
She had seen Alex come back to life once before. Her grandmother claimed he was immortal. But they weren’t in the real world any longer. They were here in Tir-Na-Nog. Fairyland. Did the same rules apply here? Brenawyn couldn’t be sure. And this goddess was saying he could not be saved. It couldn’t be true. Brenawyn frantically resumed her compressions.
She didn’t hear the woman approach, but she was there, putting a hand on her shoulder to pull her away. Brenawyn rounded on her, “Please, do something. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything, child? Forfeit all ye ken. Take yer rightful place as priestess? Dae what ye can ta restore balance?”
“Yes, anything. Just save him.”
“I will need a token from ye ta seal the covenant.”
“Take it, whatever you want, it’s yours.” Her arms were screaming. “Do it.”
“In time.” A jeweled dagger appeared, “I am called Nimue, goddess of the moon.” She took Alex’s limp arm, slicing across his palm. The blood barely oozed from the wound and Brenawyn threw herself, ear to his chest, no heartbeat.
“Please, do it now, and I’ll give you all you want and more.”
But Nimue didn’t hasten her movements, she took Brenawyn’s wrist, yanked it toward her, and sliced across the palm. Brenawyn didn’t feel it, but next thing she knew Nimue was pressing the wounds together. “By yer vow yer fates are intertwined.” She grabbed a lock of Brenawyn’s hair under her right ear and with a swipe of the blade cut it close to her scalp.
Outraged at the further violation, Brenawyn pulled her head away. “Hey, enough. Save him now.”
Nimue ran her fingers down the length of the lock and looped it around her arm, tying in loosely around her armored bicep. “A token o’ yer oath. Be glad it wasna more. Now repeat after me.”
Brenawyn harrumphed, and pleaded, “Please!”
“Repeat.”
“Yes, Yes, anything.”
“I gi’ my blood oath,” Nimue paused when hesitation registered on Brenawyn’s face. “Dae ye want me ta save his life?”
“Yes, all right. I give my blood oath.”
“Good. Ta protect Alexander Morgan Sinclair, son o’ Robert Sinclair, grandson o’ Donald Sinclair, claiming him as my own.” She looked over at Brenawyn. “Say it.”
Brenawyn rushed through the words, “To protect Alexander Sinclair, son of Robert Sinclair, grandson of Donald Sinclair, claiming him as my own.”
“His life is more sacred and dear than my own, and if I am ta fail, may I wander endlessly without the eternal reward.”
“And, I have your promise that you’ll do everything you can to save him?”
“Hurry, girl. His light dwindles as ye hesitate.”
Brenawyn tore her eyes away to start chest compressions again as she repeated the last lines.
Nimue batted Brenawyn away and placed her hand on his chest. Scrolls lit up her arm and Alex’s red defensive ones responded. His chest rose, pushing her hand up until his back was bowed, arms out akimbo. He groaned, the first sign of life, and Brenawyn let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, relieved.
Nimue eased him back down, curiously, she brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead and bent to kiss his forehead. “He canna be saved, but he still lives. He exists for the pleasure o’ the Hunter.”
“I don’t understand.”
A smile played on her lips, “Alexander Morgan Sinclair is the favored quarry o’ the Wild Hunt. He will be pursued throughout time because he has shown himself ta be … interesting.”
Brenawyn put her hand on his chest to assure herself that he, in fact, lived. He was hot. Too hot? The question ran through her mind. His chest rose and fell in shallow yet even breaths. Hesitant to break the connection, she turned to look over her shoulder, “The Wild Hunt? What is the Wild Hunt?”
“Why is it that ye ken nothing? Ha’ ye no’ learned? Who was yer teacher? This lack o’ education canna be abided.”
“Teachers? There were many throughout the years but somehow I don’t think this is what you are referring to. In what way is my education lacking?”
“Ye are unfamiliar
with yer gods.”
“No. I am familiar, quite familiar, with my God.”
“Doona anger me, child. Doona assume anything from my meager appearance. I appear this way because t’is the only way yer puny mind can process my existence.” Nimue looked at her reflection in the water and held her hands out. Almost absentmindedly, she traced the lines of the palm of her hand, and scowled in disgust. “It is insufficient.” Getting to her feet, she strode away, then twisted back to face Brenawyn, “I am magnificent, blindingly beautiful in my power. All the gods are uniquely so, but ye humans and yer delicate minds. So many went mad with the revelation. Ye are useless, yer race, in so many ways. So flawed. Living the life o’ a single flame, consuming all around ye, until the very end as if ye ken it was yer last, ye glow brighter for a few infinitesimal moments and then, ye are dust again. Ye struggle so against the inevitable, but t’is … most interesting.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
“T’is no’ for ye ta kin the ponderings o’ a god. Come, I will serve as yer teacher in this.”
“No, what happens if he needs me. I have to stay here.”
“Suit yerself then.”
With a sudden sensation of freefalling, Brenawyn found herself on the mossy ground in the familiar copse of trees staring up at the night sky through the branches with her heart ready to explode in her chest. She gasped for air. Disoriented from the connection loss, she sat and saw her grandmother’s house in the distance. She crawled to Alex when he started to stir. She did what she could in her weakened condition to turn him on his side, helping him to vomit out ingested water and bile. Odd, to be vomiting water as one almost drowned, because he was completely dry. He collapsed again, but his chest rose and fell with regularity and his pulse was steady.
“Be calm, he stirs. Are ye ready for the lesson ta begin?”
Brenawyn jumped and swung to face Nimue, who had obviously followed them through. “If you are omnipotent, why are you being so magnanimous? A mere human—who insulted your very existence?”
Her eyes glowed iridescent and her jaw tightened. “It has been agreed, though it pleases me no’. Even with extended life as the high priestess, yer life will be over before the leaves on the Tree o’ Knowledge in Tir-Na-Nog fall for the season. All beings are chained by fate. Yer fate has been written, but it is no’ the only possibility. The covenant,” brushing the ends of her lock of hair, “makes it a stronger prospect, but we must no’ falter in our aims for the alternative is unacceptable.
“Once was a time that we were strong, a time before the Great War that had us retreat ta Tir-Na-Nog. This was the beginning o’ our downfall, helped by yer ancestor. We found it curious, her struggle to save the child. She was unwise ta do so, many were angered by her abuse o’ her meager talents. A great argument resulted. Some called for her death, ta be sacrificed as old—some still do. Calling on powers only a god possesses! The insolence! Ta attempt the Phoenix, an incantation reserved for the perpetuation o’ beliefs. And perhaps if it was just her action, her blasphemy, she would ha’ been compelled ta sacrifice herself if not for the other factor.
“Which was?”
“Brighit was Cernunnos’ lover. She was burned a’ the stake for her beliefs by those that professed belief in yer merciful deity. Before she died, she offered her child ta the universe. The Phoenix again, but only half—the other half. Again, cast for love.”
“So, it comes down to a matter of supply and demand?”
“Hmm?”
“Supply and demand. According to the story, the soul is released and because my grandmother called out for what? Help? Whatever. It’s not as if I believe this, but for argument’s sake, she lit the overhead register light? Called AAA? Called for your help, essentially, and it was granted? Why?”
“As I said before, we ken it was love that motivated her, just as it was for Brighit, which we found out too late, but that’s whaur yer protector comes in.”
“Love? So what?”
“Doona be so flippant. The concept is interesting. What one o’ ye will dae for this so-called love. It interested us and thaurfore we granted the fusion o’ soul and body in utero. The result—ye. Or so he believes. Though, for argument’s sake, he has thought so several times ‘afore throughout these six hundred years.
“Alexander is six hundred years old?”
“In the eternal servitude o’ the Wild Hunt and thaurfore by extension, the Hunter, Cernunnos, yes, ta yer mind, he is just over six hundred years old, but within that time, has died dozens o’ times, subject ta the Hunt.”
“What? Wait, slow down … I’m getting confused.”
“I see this will take more time. Perhaps, I shall put the memories o’ these events in yer mind and be done with the ordeal o’ having ta explain in small words.”
“No,” she said, backing away from the goddess. “You will do no such thing. Stay out of my head, lady. God or no, stay out.”
“Child, ye doona yet kin, I can dae anything I please ta ye, Alexander, Leoncha, Maggie, or yer dog quivering on the door o’ yer abode. But for the sake o’ the agreement, I will try ta curb my impatience and let ye ‘process the new information’ as I believe he worded it.”
“Who worded it?”
“Alexander bargained for ye.”
“All right, we’ll come back to that. Tell me about the Wild Hunt. How is Alex involved?
“As long as thaur was memory, memory o’ the gods, we ha’ existed. No beginning and no end. But before this, the concept o’ fate existed solely. This is why the gods are subject ta fate as well. T’is the way o’ the universe. The universe requires balance, good paired with evil, light paired with dark. Polar opposites. This is one o’ the tenants o’ the universe’s make up. The Wild Hunt exists, in part, ta meet the demand o’ balance. Hunter paired with the hunted.”
“So bad versus good?”
“Is a lion evil when it tracks and brings down the gazelle? No. T’is just in both creatures’ nature ta be that which they are. So the Hunt is merely that, pursuit and capture on the field.”
“How did Alex become involved, because I gather you have been around for more than six hundred years?”
“Cernunnos was enraged at Brighit.”
“And he had her punished before he had time to realize she did what she did to save the child,” Brenawyn surmised.
“Aye, he seethed and ranted, and the underworld shook. He only saw the sacrilege, what he thought was sacrilege.”
“He thought she was aborting the pregnancy.”
“Hmm … aye, in a way. He thought she was discarding the honor o’ bearing a god’s child. By the time he figured it out, it was too late. The child’s soul was lost ta time and Brighit was insane, driven thaur by Cernunnos.”
Brenawyn walked to the edge of the clearing, keeping her back turned Nimue. It was against her instincts, but she needed time to process. The story Alex had told her in the car a few days ago, could it be true? In any other time, place, instance, she would chalk the whole thing up to wild imaginations. Hell, she had a vivid one herself, but too many unexplainable things had been happening of late. “Cernunnos found Alex, didn’t he?”
Brenawyn turned to find Nimue looking down at the prostrate form of Alex, “Alexander was raised ta be the next Shaman o’ the Order, the voluntary recipient o’ the memory o’ perpetual belief. He underwent the Rite o’ the Phoenix at the age o’ thirty. As Shaman, much like the priestess, his life is extended far beyond … ten times the span o’ a single human’s life or more, a perfect candidate for the search for the child.
At first, this seemed ta placate Cernunnos, but as yer centuries passed and no sign of the lost one, Cernunnos became unreasonable. It was interchangeably our fault, Brighit, humans and their fear o’ what they doona ken, and finally Alexander. After the third failed attempt at finding her, Cernunnos tore Alex’s soul from his body, the first declaration o’ new quarry, and the Hunt began. Even with his extended ye
ars as Druid Shaman, he was a mere mortal so the first Hunt ended shortly after it had begun. With the first resurrection, the first o’ many to transform him inta something else, he had heightened ability—a result of the completion o’ the Hunt ta be more o’ a challenge next time.
“How many times?”
“Often enough, but no’ consistently, though now that ye ha’ been found, perhaps Cernunnos will lose interest in him. Each time he has been brought back it was with additional abilities. Alexander is the most powerful Shaman that will ever live and yet he is chained at the neck unable ta help himself for all eternity despite his heightened abilities.”
“Can’t Cernunnos release him?”
“No. Once quarry, quarry he will remain, ever ta be tied ta the hunting grounds. Even a god canna break the bond. Alexander is now part o’ the eternal quest for balance.”
“What of his soul?”
“Once Cernunnos held that, though now it is beyond even him … destroyed by the machinations of devious minds. Doona be concerned for his soul. His destiny didna turn out as he hoped, but he kent the cost o’ the commitment. To say he would protect ye with his life doesna apply ta this situation, because in death he will come back stronger. He is devoted and relentless. He will protect ye until yer powers exceed his own.”
“So my vow was unnecessary?”
Brenawyn saw the answer reflected in the goddess slight smile and glowing eyes. A wave flew from her fingertips and hit Alex as he lay on the ground, immediately waking him. He slowly gained his feet, but when he did Brenawyn could see it wasn’t under his own power. His head hung between his shoulders and his body slumped as if an invisible force were holding him up.
“Hey, what are you … ”
“An example ta allay yer fears. Look and learn.” She turned her attention to Alex, “Look alive, Shaman, and show her what ye are.” His head snapped up and murder was emblazoned on his face.
Jaw set, “A’richt, Mother.”
“Mother?”
Alex sneered and nodded his head in disgust. “The dog and pony show is tired and how many times do I ha’ ta tell ye that I am no’ yers ta put on display.”
Reliquary's Choice: Book Two of The Celtic Prophecy Page 6