There. I'd said it. The realization that had been clawing at me since it dawned upon me earlier that morning at Luathara. I could feel the tears burning my eyes and the painful ache swelling in my throat. Aiden. My beautiful little brother, who I had always felt connected to but had never really understood why. Until now. Somehow, he was Danua’s natural child, just as I was.
“What do you want me to say, Meghan?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. That was Danua, my mother, always calm and collected; heartless, callous, uncaring of the feelings of others. And to think, I'd been moved when she'd shown some compassion at our last parting.
“I want to know the truth! How is it that my foster parents think he is their son? Who is his father? Tell me!” I demanded.
Danua’s mouth twitched and finally, finally, the mask she always wore began to crumble. She let out a soul-deep, ancient sigh and melted into her throne, pressing her forehead against a palm.
“I didn’t lie to you about your father. I merely left Aiden out of it when I told you of your heritage.”
She looked up and smiled at me, her eyes shining. My breath caught in my throat. Danua was showing emotion; she was finally letting me see that side of her the Dagda and Cade had always assured me was there.
“You have the same father Meghan, I have loved none but him these past twenty years and more.”
My heart lurched. Aiden and I, we were siblings, full-blooded siblings. I wanted to cry out in joy, but then I remembered why I had come here in the first place. The Morrigan had taken him. She was able to bring him to Eile because he wasn’t human. Because he was Faelorehn like me.
The anger at my mother vanished and I looked back up towards the throne. We had to tell the rest of the Tuatha De that the Morrigan had sent her message loud and clear. We had to work out a plan on how to get Aiden back, but I had more questions for my mother.
“How could I not know he was Faelorehn? And why don’t his eyes change like mine?”
My voice was a whisper, but it carried well in this cavernous room. I heard Cade shift his feet just to the left of me, but I fought the temptation to look in his direction.
His thoughts brushed my mind. Beloved? he sent.
He had never called me that before and the sincerity behind the endearment tugged at my heartstrings. I doused my own words with calm when I responded, I am well Cade. I just need to get through this.
Danua took a breath and answered quietly, “Because of the geis I put on him.”
I felt my muscles tense and a cold dread filled the pit of my stomach. My mother must have sensed my reaction because she lifted a hand. “Only in the mortal world will he be restricted. In Eile, he will be healthy and whole. He will be able to speak and act like a normal child.”
“What did you do to him?” I asked, my voice a harsh whisper.
She looked up at me, her eyes haunted once again. “I suppressed his magic completely. This is why his eyes never changed like yours. Your brother had a very strong aura when he was born, and since it was such a big part of him, I had to hide it from the other mortals.” She sighed heavily. “I had made that mistake with you. People notice you Meghan, because of your Otherworldliness. I would go back and do the same for you if I had known it would have helped you fit in more.”
A hot tear made its way down my cheek. “Why would you do that to him? Do you have any idea what it was like for him the last nine years? Growing up as an autistic child in the mortal world?”
How could she do such a thing to her own son?
As if she could read my mind, Danua stood up in one swift movement, the room growing darker as her magic reacted to her sudden change in mood.
“I did it to protect him, just as I did it to protect you! Think Meghan, think! I made it so your magic would be with you, small and dormant, but with you. And look at the trouble it caused. Aiden had more power than you when he was born. Imagine what it might have done to him were it allowed to sleep unchecked! His magic might have come to life on its own, despite the drain the mortal world brings upon it.”
I reeled back as if slapped. Aiden? More powerful than me? My skin prickled with pride and fear at the same time. What might he be capable of? What would happen if the wrong people found out about his potential? What if the Morrigan knew about his power . . . ?
I gasped and my knees buckled. Cade was at my side before I knew it, gathering me up in his arms, pressing my head gently against his shoulder as he murmured my name between words of comfort.
“I don’t think she knows,” Danua whispered. "The Morrigan. I received a letter this morning, and I'm assuming you received a similar message, or else you would not have burst in here like this."
She sounded closer, and when I had the strength to look past Cade’s embrace, I saw that she had stepped down from the dais. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the pain. Oh Aiden . . . The Morrigan had been so desperate to have my power and now she had Aiden. He was only a little boy. How could he protect himself from her?
A gentle touch ran down my arm, and I could feel Cade carefully drawing me away from him. I turned towards the touch and found my mother’s eyes, so like Aiden’s, gazing at me. For the first time in my life, I forced myself to look deeper than the surface. I drew in a breath as I finally found what I had been looking for for so long. Beneath the hard shell of a queen who had ruled an immortal race for centuries there lived a woman who had been torn from the man she loved and had been forced to give up her children to keep them safe. I knew then that Danua wore her aloof, harsh demeanor as a suit of armor, to protect her heart from the terrible reality of the world.
A sob escaped my throat and I took my hands from Cade’s shoulders and fell into my mother’s embrace.
“I am so sorry my daughter,” she whispered against my hair. “I am so sorry for everything. We will find him Meghan, my heart, we will find him and somehow we will be a family once again. I will bring you both here and we will be a family. Please, just let me in, give me a chance to prove to you how much I love you and Aiden.”
I cried and I cried as she held me, all of her hard angles becoming soft and welcoming. I stood there and poured my heart out as she hushed me and rocked me and soothed away all my pain.
-Nineteen-
Atonement
I can’t tell you how much time passed before I finally pulled myself together, but at some point my mind started registering lucid thought once again. I peeled myself away from my mother and sniffled. I could barely detect Cade, once again standing in the shadows of the room.
I was very grateful that Danua and I had somehow finally breached the chasm in our relationship, but the flimsy rope bridge that stretched between us was a far cry from the steel and concrete structure it needed to be.
“Tell me," I said as I exhaled a deep breath. "Tell me everything.”
“Meghan,” Danua said quietly.
“No!” I hissed, “I need to know, please!”
I clutched my arms to myself, shivering at the bite of cold air that filled the cavernous space. My mother sighed and gestured towards the chairs at the end of the room. I moved numbly along, trying to organize the questions in my head. Once we were both settled before the fire, I opened my mouth and said, “What happened to the baby Aiden replaced?”
I feared the answer to this question the most, so I figured it was best to get it out of the way. Mom had been pregnant, I had been old enough to remember that, so there had to have been a baby.
When Danua failed to answer me, I feared the worst. Before I could ask again, she finally answered in a small voice, “She was stillborn.”
“Oh no,” I said, “did you . . ?”
Danua gave me a harsh glance, her clear eyes slicing through the thick air. “No Meghan, I did nothing to make such a thing come about.”
She sighed and began to rub her forehead with one hand. “I always knew what was happening with you, did you know that? I had someone watching you, making sure you were happy. Wh
en your foster mother got pregnant with her fifth child, I had every intention of sending my own unborn baby into your world.”
She looked up and smiled at me, her own eyes filling with tears. “Your foster parents had already had twins, so it wouldn’t be too unbelievable if they had twins again. My plan was to make it look like Aiden and their own child had come into the world together.”
“How?” I asked, my throat feeling raw. “How could you pull something like that off? The doctors would know if Mom had been pregnant with twins.”
“Meghan, there are so many ways to use glamour, some of which you haven’t learned yet,” she said almost to herself. “Glamour powerful enough to erase or even change memories.”
She glanced up at me, her eyes sad but determined. “I would have had my most trusted advisors and assistants change the memories of all those involved in the birth of the infant and Aiden’s joining it, but I learned early on in the pregnancy that the baby would not be born alive. I had a trusted friend use glamour to disguise herself as one of the nurses, then quickly change the memories of all those in the delivery room. Your foster mother never even knew her child had been stillborn.”
It was all so horrifying. My mom, who had raised me as her own, who loved all of her sons beyond description, had lost a baby and didn’t even know it. I wanted to jump up and slap Danua, to scream at her and tell her what a monster she was, but at the same time I wanted to thank her. What would life have been like for my parents if she hadn’t given them Aiden? Would the Elams now have a cloud of sorrow and loss hanging over them? Would my brothers have turned out differently because my parents would always, in some way, be mourning the loss of their child? I shuddered at the thought, but there was still more I wanted to know.
“What happened to the baby?”
“She was buried properly in the cemetery of your town, with other infants who had been abandoned or parentless.”
I shot up then, anger coursing through me once again. “She wasn’t unwanted! How could you!?”
Danua stayed seated, her hands folded in her lap, her forlorn face gazing up at me. I wanted to shake her, and I was about to step forward to do so, but Cade materialized in front of me and wrapped me up in his arms. I couldn’t hold the emotional wave back any longer. I broke down into tears, again, sobbing freely as he rocked me and spoke my name softly.
“You should have let her hit me Caedehn,” Danua said from her seat. “I deserve it more than anyone.”
"No, my queen," Cade murmured over his shoulder, "she would have regretted it."
I forced the anger and the tears to fade away as Cade comforted me. I was livid and hurt and confused. I wanted to claw Danua's eyes out, but another part of me wanted to hold her close. She had opened up to me only a few minutes ago, and despite all the times I'd told myself I didn't give a damn about what she thought, her willingness to let me in was like a balm to my soul. We all made mistakes and most of us spent the rest of our lives trying to make up for the worst of them. My mother, the high queen of Eile, was no different than anyone else. She was trying to right a wrong she had made a long time ago and I could either continue to hold it against her or I could help her through it.
Sniffing back my tears, I pushed Cade gently away, smiling weakly up into his worried face.
It's okay Cade. I've got this.
Are you sure? he asked as he brushed a hand down my cheek.
He had finally removed his gloves and his fingers were warm and rough. I shivered slightly from his touch and reached up to take his hand.
I lifted his fingers to my mouth and brushed his knuckles with my lips. It's just a lot to take in at once, but I can get through this.
His fingers squeezed mine before releasing my hand.
“Meghan, I know you think that the Morrigan is after your magic, that this whole mess is your fault, but you’re wrong. It isn’t about you, it’s about me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up a hand, halting whatever speech I was about to make.
“No,” she said harshly, her eyes growing hard again. “No, you wanted to know everything and so you shall. I lied to you Meghan, I know this, now give me a chance to make amends. Your father is Fomorian, I did not lie about that, but I wasn’t honest about the details of our relationship.”
She gazed up at me, her eyes growing soft once more. She quickly flicked her glance towards Cade before looking at me and continuing once again, “As you have now gathered, I did not stop seeing him after you were born. He crossed over into our world to visit me, and I crossed over into his. We tried so hard to stay apart Meghan, but we couldn’t.”
She glanced up from her lap and grinned crookedly as she looked at Cade again. “I can only imagine you understand what I’m talking about.”
The soul-deep burn of my anger subsided a little. Was she no longer so averse to Cade? And then a strange, but very likely, thought invaded my mind. Danua had been so against Cade because she didn’t want us to end up like her and my father, separated by the inconvenient conventions of society. I should have been furious at her, but if I listened to her words without letting my emotions tarnish them, then all I could see before me was a woman trying to protect her own heart and those her heart belonged to. Not a queen, not a powerful Faelorehn goddess, but a mother. My mother. And just like that, all my anger fled.
“The last time I saw your father was the day after Aiden was born. He was the one who took him to the mortal world and made sure he became part of your foster family.”
Fresh tears filled my eyes, but my hatred and distrust was gone.
“I know you cannot forgive me Meghan, but please, for Aiden’s sake and your own, please believe me.”
I stepped away from Cade and he let me go. I knelt down in front of my mother, the all-powerful Danua, and took her hands in mine.
“I believe you mother, I believe you.”
She cried out, standing up and pulling me into her arms as she did so. We both had tears in our eyes as we stood there, making that bridge stronger and allowing our hearts to heal, if only a little. I felt light on my feet as I finally allowed myself to forgive my mother, and although I welcomed the feeling like a gentle winter rain, the acrid sting of severe anger threatened to spike through me once more. One wound had been repaired, but another was still torn wide open. The Morrigan had my little brother; Danua's son, and from the sudden rush of magic swirling around us, I could tell the high queen of Eile was thinking along the same lines as I was.
"Now," she eventually said, holding me at arm's length and screwing her beautiful face up into an expression of vengeance, "we get back your brother and knock so much power out of the Morrigan that she'll be nothing more than a legend for the next thousand years."
* * *
The moment my mother and I recomposed ourselves, Danua asked Cade to inform the Tuatha De to meet in her counsel room as soon as possible.
Cade gave her a short, formal bow then cast me a reassuring look before quietly stepping out of the room.
Once Cade was gone, silence descended upon us like a heavy frost. Yes, Danua and I had just taken that first step in healing our mother-daughter relationship, but it would take time for us to get used to each other. When a heavy log fell in the fireplace, crackling and sending up a flurry of sparks, the high queen cleared her throat and said, "Shall we?"
She held out a hand, indicating a door that I knew led to her council room. Nodding, I went ahead of her, opening the door and stepping into the familiar room from those several nights ago when I saw the Tuatha De gathered together for the first time. At the moment, the large room was silent, the huge, oval table sleeping like a beast in the darkness. In the next few minutes my mother used her glamour to light the candles and the fire, then summoned someone to bring us tea.
Danua sat in her chair, the one with the highest back, and gestured for me to sit next to her.
"And now we wait," she said simply as she took a sip of her steaming tea from a delicate c
up.
I copied her, but before long the oppressive silence returned. I had absolutely no idea what to say to her. I wanted so badly to ask her about my father, but when I opened my mouth, the words just wouldn't come. You've just been through an emotional blender Meghan, and now it's about to be set on high speed. No wonder you can't speak. Thank you, conscience . . .
Instead of trying to come up with a meaningless conversation, I glanced out the window. An icy rain pelted the landscape, painting it in various shades of grey. I alternated between chewing on my fingernails and drinking my tea, trying so very hard not to think about what I knew was coming. This meeting that was about to commence would be it. We were going to war. And not only did I have to worry about protecting Cade and myself, but I had to worry about Aiden too.
Without knowing it, I took a deep breath and released a huge sigh.
"I know Meghan," my mother said softly, causing me to start.
I turned my eyes to her. Carefully, she set her teacup back on its saucer, the delicate chirp of porcelain meeting porcelain ridiculously loud.
"This is a terrible test on someone so young, but I want you to know, no matter what happens in the coming days, I am very proud of you."
Suddenly, I was blinking back tears again. I wanted to believe her, but her behavior from several months ago, when we had met for the first time, and even more recently, had me doubting.
Danua only smiled and shook her head, tears gleaming in her own eyes. "I was a fool, my dear daughter. Seeing you made me think of myself, so many years ago when I was young, and the anger I expressed was more towards myself than towards you. But you stood up to me; you refused to budge. You are far stronger than you think Meghan. Don't you ever forget that."
The tears streamed down my face, and as I lifted my sleeve to wipe them away, the door burst open and in poured Cade and the Dagda.
For some reason, seeing Cade's foster father sent one final fissure through the dam and the flood burst free. I jumped up from my seat and threw my arms around him.
Luathara - Book Three of the Otherworld Trilogy Page 26