Luathara - Book Three of the Otherworld Trilogy

by Johnson, Jenna Elizabeth

“Mind-speaking, or shil-sciar, is different than communicating with your spirit guide. First, the conversation takes place in a completely different part of your mind. When you share thoughts with Meridian, they appear on the surface, within the shallowest part of your conscious. Shil-sciar with another Faelorehn, however,”

  He paused and seemed to be reluctant to go on.

  “Mind-speaking, uh, shil-sciar, with another Faelorehn . . . ?” I prompted.

  Cade took a breath. “It requires something more. Trust, of the deepest kind, and complete honesty. One cannot lie when conversing using shil-sciar.”

  How . . . interesting, and daunting. I wondered how that worked, considering I’d lied often enough to myself. And people lied all the time in regular conversation, why couldn’t they do the same with mind-speaking? Maybe it was a Faelorehn thing and not a human one.

  The sound of Cade’s voice again prompted me to leave my thoughts for later.

  “When we use shil-sciar our thoughts, our internal words, come from the same place where our emotions reside, so mind-spoken words are the purest form of conversation, even more pure than words spoken aloud in the most sincere way. The words often show up as writing, appearing and disappearing across the darkness of the mind.”

  “Like typing on a keyboard?” I asked.

  Cade nodded. “It’s slightly different with each individual. The words are also accompanied by a feeling of who the person is and tinged with the color of the emotion they are conveying.”

  I crinkled my eyebrows.

  Cade's mouth quirked in a smile. “It’s an indescribable sense. The only two people I mind-speak with, at the moment, are the Dagda and my sister. I can tell them apart by the feeling that I get when I receive their words in my mind.”

  I nodded. I guess that made sense. After all, I got a different feeling each time I interacted with my brothers and parents. They were all feelings of love, but they were all different in their own way.

  “Anything else I should know?” I asked.

  “Yes. The words are also accompanied by colors. Each color represents the emotion the speaker is feeling. Reds often depict forms of distress, blues represent calm, yellow caution and so on. You’ll come to learn them as you get better at mind-speaking.”

  “So, how does it work?”

  “First, I need you to find the place in your mind that is most perceptive to magic.”

  I gave him a look. How was I supposed to do that?

  Cade smiled and said, “Close your eyes and seek out your Faelorehn power. Remember how I showed you how to find it when we were in Eile?”

  Oh, I remembered. It was the first time he had kissed me. Well, the first time he had kissed me when I had been fully aware of it. I shivered and then my skin grew hot as my mind conjured up the memory.

  I gulped. “Uh huh,” I whispered.

  Cade moved closer to me. “It’s almost the same thing, only instead of trying to feel it, you are going to try and see it. Close your eyes.”

  Okay . . . Shrugging I did as I was told.

  “Concentrate on the feel of your magic. It won’t be very strong since you’ve been in the mortal world for so long, but it will be there.”

  I focused, trying to block out everything but the darkness of my mind. Slowly, a small pinprick of light came into view. It grew brighter until I was seeing a blue flame glowing in the darkness. It warmed my heart and made me smile. My magic.

  “Have you found it?” Cade asked.

  “Yes,” I said with a smile, still keeping my eyes closed.

  “Good. Now I need you to look away from your magic, into the darkness just beside it.”

  I did as he asked, feeling a bit reluctant to leave my beautiful fae power behind.

  “Okay,” I said, “all I see is darkness now.”

  The words, Very good Meghan, scrawled across the dark space, pale blue in color, accompanied by the whispering echo of Cade’s voice.

  I gasped and my eyes flew open. I stared at him, my face surely white with shock. Yes, I had heard his voice, but not with my ears. What the hell . . . ?

  Cade held up a hand, his own face looking uncertain. Don’t be alarmed. This is mind-speaking. I want you to try to project your own words towards me. You have to think about what you want to say, find the dark spot next to your magic, and then say them, in your mind.

  Once my initial shock wore off, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. I found the dark cavity next to my magic and thought of something to tell Cade. How is this possible? I sent.

  Cade’s words and essence blossomed, a warm yellow in my mind. It is because of our Faelorehn glamour.

  This is so weird, I sent back, wondering what color my words were in his head.

  It is strange at first, but you’ll get used to it. Shil-sciar can be a very useful skill, especially once we reach the Otherworld.

  I gulped, trying not to think about the Otherworld.

  Until then, Cade continued, we will practice.

  Okay, what shall we talk about? I asked, starting to like this way of talking. It was odd, no doubt about it, but it was nice as well.

  I can tell you a little more about your glamour and how to use it. The essence of our magic, like I told you once before, stems from the earth but is cultivated in our blood. We borrow from the earth, and being in Eile makes our glamour more powerful, yet it is in the blood where our magic is most potent. That is why some of the tribes of ancient Ireland made blood sacrifices; they thought they could harness the power of Faelorehn magic through the blood of animals. Unfortunately most earth born creatures don’t contain nearly as much magic as those from the Otherworld. It is often said that a wounded Faelorehn is far more dangerous than one that is not. An open wound has the potential to release an incredible amount of magic since the skin is not there to keep it in check. Think of it as an electrical wire that is encased in rubber. You won’t get shocked unless you touch the bare wire. Your blood is the conductor and your skin helps keep it in check.

  I listened to Cade’s lesson, letting his words flow into my mind. I had never thought of magic as electrical, but I guess it made sense.

  When you call upon your magic, and if you are very still and concentrate hard enough, you can sometimes feel it coursing through your veins, along with your blood.

  Another thing you need to know is that using your glamour can be dangerous for you. Magic is something that must be carefully administered and controlled. If you use too much at once, it can damage you, even kill you.

  Worry tainted the pale red words Cade scrawled across my mind, and I realized he was telling me this not only because it was something I should know, but because I had been careless with my magic before. Not that I could have known any better. I thought about how I had overcome the Morrigan’s faelah army after Cade’s defeat, careful to keep those thoughts away from the place in my mind that would project them towards Cade. Could I have killed myself that day?

  I swallowed. How do you know if you are using too much?

  Cade moved closer to me and I could feel the heat pouring off of him. I resisted the urge to close the distance between us and simply sat there, willing my heartbeat to slow down. He placed a hand over the spot where my magic resided, next to my heart. My mouth went dry and my heart sped up.

  Whenever you need to use a large amount of magic, always remember to bring it into your inner sight so that you can monitor it. Meghan,

  Cade’s words stopped flowing into my mind and he placed his hands on both my shoulders, turning me so that I faced him. He looked into my eyes, his own a deep, golden green. I wondered what color mine were at the moment.

  Meghan, never, ever, let your magic burn out. If the flame that represents your glamour ever becomes faint and starts to flicker like a candle about to extinguish itself, you stop whatever it is you are doing and pull your magic back into yourself. To let your magic burn out is to die.

  The grip on my shoulders tightened and I actually cried out.

/>   “I understand,” I croaked as I tried to pull away from him.

  Cade released me, taking several steps back. He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Meghan, I’m sorry,” he said aloud. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, it’s just-”

  He sighed again as I stood back and rubbed my shoulder. He had gripped me pretty hard.

  “It’s just?” I prompted.

  He glanced up at me, his eyes even darker than before, his mouth cut in a grim line. “It’s so easy to over-extend your power, especially if you have not had proper training in how to utilize it. If anything ever happened to you because you didn’t know how to rein in your glamour, I’d . . .”

  “You’d what?” I asked immediately, the slight pain in my shoulders forgotten as my heart raced to catch up with my thoughts.

  Cade lifted his head once again and gazed at me, the look in his eyes so beguiling that I almost started drooling.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, but at that very moment Bradley decided to scream at the top of his lungs from somewhere up the equestrian trail.

  “MEGHAN!!! Mom says dinner’s ready!”

  Cade straightened immediately, losing his intense composure.

  No, no, no! What were you going to say?! I wanted to scream at him.

  Instead I gritted my teeth and we started up the trail. I was dying to know what he had been about to say, but I guess it could wait for later. Perhaps we could find a private moment this weekend while at the lake. Then again, did I want to risk Robyn, Tully and the boys overhearing? But if it involved another declaration of love followed by a passionate kiss, I don't think I'd care very much who was there to see it.

  -Four-

  Truth

  Lopez Lake was crowded with the usual family vacationers, looking for a weekend away from lying around the house. The buzz of motorboats and the muffled sounds of radios playing across the campsites drifted through the window of Cade’s Trans Am as we rumbled slowly through the camping area. Robyn, Tully, Thomas and Will were meeting us there, and as we drew closer and closer to our destination, the knots in my stomach became even tighter. The night before, Cade joined me in my room after everyone went to bed so we could discuss the camping trip and the meeting of my friends.

  “I want to tell them everything,” I’d said nervously. “Well, not everything. I want them to know the truth about what I am. They have been my closest friends all through high school and they deserve to know why they won’t be seeing me so much anymore.”

  I had kept my head down, talking to my hands as they worried away at the tattered cuffs of my sweatshirt’s sleeves. Cade had gently taken one of them, distracting me from my nervous fretting, and squeezed my fingers.

  “Then you should tell them, and I’ll help you.”

  He kept my hand in his for a long time before dropping it, and once again I'd wondered about the big question that was my constant shadow. Would we just go on forever pretending like nothing had happened between us? I tried to forget it as I'd tossed and turned in my bed after Cade left, wondering if he was doing the same thing in the guest room upstairs. Eventually, I managed to force the thoughts from my mind, again, and fell into a fitful sleep.

  “This looks like the place,” Cade said, jerking me out of my reflection.

  He turned his car down a paved lane that ended in a cul-de-sac of sorts mere yards from one of the lake’s small inlets. I noted the numbers of the campsites until I spotted the one that matched the name scrawled on the paper I held: Toro, site eight. If the sign hadn't been an indication, the image of Will and Thomas struggling with a partially raised tent while Robyn and Tully looked on in mild disapproval would have cinched it.

  Cade rolled up next to Thomas’s van (on loan for the weekend) and killed the engine. I’d been too busy finding amusement at my friends’ expense that I had completely forgotten that I was about to spend a night alone with Cade with only my friends to chaperone us. Friends who knew nothing about him, nor how I had met him . . . My heart shuddered to a stop as the last rumble of the Trans Am’s engine came to an end. Not even Robyn knew how I'd met Cade. For some reason, she had been so dazzled by his Otherworldly beauty that she'd kept her boundless curiosity alive only on the tidbits I was willing to feed her.

  Okay, she had asked me once where I had found him, but I had flippantly responded that he had found me. Sooner or later my friends were going to want to know more about my good-looking, mysterious pseudo-boyfriend, and I would have to either invent something or bite the bullet and do what I'd planned to do all along: tell them the truth. For some reason, informing my friends that I was an immortal, Otherworldly being who'd met Cade while being attacked by monsters seemed far less daunting than admitting I wasn't all that clear on what our relationship status was. Yeah, and just what did that say about my sanity?

  I took a deep breath and climbed out of the car, putting on my best smile as my high school buddies came to greet us. In all honesty, I still wasn’t ready to tell them about my unusual ancestry, but I had a weird feeling that Cade and I weren’t going to leave this camping trip without something happening that would give us no choice.

  * * *

  To my immense relief, no one charged at me spouting questions regarding Cade and his sudden appearance. They all had been aware of his existence for a little while (or, according to everyone but Robyn, his feigned existence), so his appearance wasn’t too shocking. Last spring, Cade was supposed to go with me to prom and he would have met everyone then, but that was before his mother sprung her neat little trap and kind of ruined my whole weekend. Now, as the two of us slowly walked up the short drive to the campsite, I would finally get the chance to show them I hadn't invented him after all.

  “Meghan! Cade! So glad you guys could make it!”

  Robyn dropped the tent stakes she’d been holding and came sauntering over. Though not as short as my best friend Tully, I still had quite a few inches on her and I had to bend down to give her a hug. Robyn let go of me and I looked up at everyone else, expecting the same casual, Aw-shucks-how's-your-summer-been? expressions on their faces. What I saw instead made me want to laugh out loud. Tully, Will and Thomas stood ramrod still, their eyes wide and their mouths open in different stages of shock. Their gazes were fixed on Cade, like a Pointer spotting a duck. I covered my mouth to hide my amusement. Yes, even in his civilian clothes Cade had that effect.

  Robyn hadn’t given Cade a hug, but she did give him a once over. I noticed admiration on her face, but it wasn’t the dumbstruck look she had plastered on him the first few times they'd met.

  I cleared my throat. “Cade, you know Robyn of course, and this is Will, Thomas and Tully.”

  I gestured towards my mute friends as I named them. Cade smiled politely and nodded at each of them in turn.

  “Pleased to meet you all,” Cade said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  He indicated the tent and, as if some hypnotist somewhere snapped his fingers, Tully and the boys became alive with purpose, instructing Cade on how he could be of assistance. I glanced at Robyn, but she only gave me one of her sly looks.

  “I’ll get our stuff out of the car,” I blurted, and turned on my heel before she could start interrogating me.

  Half an hour later the tent was up, our food organized in the cooler, and our camping gear stored securely inside our canvas abode. The tent itself was big enough to hold eight people and had two smaller rooms off to the sides, their fabric doors rolled back to let it air out before nightfall.

  “I moved yours and Cade’s stuff to one of the side rooms, you know, in case you two want some privacy.”

  Robyn winked at me and I gritted my teeth. It didn’t help stop the blush, however. I pushed past her and went to join Will and Thomas, who had taken out their fold up chairs and were each enjoying a soda. I plopped down next to them and released a great sigh.

  “In case you’re wondering,” Will said after taking a loud sip of his
drink and pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, “your boyfriend decided to take a walk.”

  I had been leaning back in my chair, my eyes closed against the warm sun above. Upon hearing Will’s comment, I did a full body cringe and leaned forward, my hair falling into my face, as I glared at him.

  “He isn't my boyfriend. He’s just a friend.”

  Yes, I wanted him to be my boyfriend, but I couldn’t tell my friends that without talking to Cade first. The last thing I needed to do was ruin our friendship by going around and telling people something that might not be the truth.

  “Well, if that’s the case, can I have him?” Thomas asked.

  My annoyance disappeared in a flash and I cast him a quick look. He gave me his crooked grin, brown eyes dancing with mirth. I snorted out a laugh and in the next moment the tense mood had vanished.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Tully asked as she and Robyn came walking up the road.

  “How hot Cade is,” Thomas answered wistfully as he dug around for another drink in the cooler.

  Will groaned and rubbed his face, but I only smiled. I kind of felt sorry for him, getting stuck with all us girls and Thomas and the gorgeous son of a goddess and the Celtic version of Hercules. It was definitely going to be a long camping trip for him.

  Tully took a seat next to me and looked like she was about to ask me something when Cade appeared out of nowhere from the oak trees behind our tent. He startled all of us into a fit of laughter and when it died off, Will clapped his hands together and proclaimed it was time to start the fire so we could barbecue the chicken.

  Cade offered to help and Will begrudgingly accepted. Thomas, without an ounce of shame, offered to watch, which only resulted in Will casting him an annoyed glare. Not surprisingly, I had to stifle another laugh. Cade, to my relief, didn’t seem to notice his newest admirer and proceeded to make a teepee out of the wood they’d gathered earlier.

  I helped Robyn and Tully get the meat and vegetables ready, and since Cade was in the immediate vicinity, we kept our conversation to books, movies and the like, though I could almost feel the waves of curiosity rolling off of them, Tully especially. She had been my best friend since childhood, but ever since I stumbled into the swamp in the middle of the night and met Cade for the first time, we had been drifting apart. Not that it was anything she or I meant to do, it’s just how everything had turned out. I regretted keeping things from her, but I had done it for her own safety.