Faery Tales: Six Novellas of Magic and Adventure (Faery Worlds Book 3)

by Phaedra Weldon

  I knew the morning I visited you after your first journey through the dolmarehn.

  For a second, all I could do was follow the rhythm of the music as I stared at him, doing my best to dredge up that particular memory. The day he visited me after my ill-conceived dash into the Otherworld … I wanted to groan. That had been my first introduction to the Celtic goddess of war. I had stupidly fallen for the Morrigan’s tricks, running headlong into the first of her many traps. Thinking Cade needed my help, I had blindly followed her without question only to find myself caught in the midst of a massacre once I’d crossed over. I had nearly died that day, and would have if not for Cade.

  Ugh, I managed. That wasn’t my proudest moment, you know, being so easily duped by the Morrigan. You would have been fine, and you wouldn’t have broken your geis if I had just stopped and listened to my common sense.

  My common sense had kicked in and convinced me that perhaps I hadn’t been making the wisest choice, only by then, it was too late.

  Cade lifted a hand to my face and gently brushed his thumb along my cheekbone. Suddenly, my old thoughts of regret vanished, and I felt myself growing still as I basked in his attention.

  But that is how I knew, Meghan. As much as I hated the idea of you taking such a risk for me, I realized that if you were willing to cross into a world you knew nothing about, understanding that danger of an unimaginable kind waited for you on the other side, in order to help me, that you were just the right person I had waited all my long life for.

  Cade moved in closer, leaning down and pressing his forehead to mine.

  You see, I was in denial for so long, Meghan. I had convinced myself I didn’t deserve you. Even with the not so subtle advice of my sister and foster father, it took me forever to realize you were exactly what I needed. I needed your strength to challenge my own. I needed your faith to guide my way. And I needed your love to open my heart.

  I took Cade’s face in my hands and met his eyes. But don’t you see, my love? I needed those things from you as well.

  I saw more than felt Cade’s answering approval as a wash of pale blue color flooding my subconscious. Then, we are well paired, are we not?

  “Yes,” I said aloud, “we are.”

  Smiling, I linked my arms behind his neck and laughed as he picked me up and spun me around. The merriment went on for several hours more. The whole lot of us only pausing long enough to eat something from the communal meal and take short breaks from our dancing. Eventually, the younger children were ordered to their beds, and those adults who had less energy than the others sought out their cabins. One by one, they bid me congratulations as they retired for the night. Finally, it was just me, Cade and Enorah left to watch the remains of the fire die down.

  “Would you two care for a cup of mead to celebrate?”

  Cade and I both nodded our approval, and Enorah disappeared for a few moments, returning with three ceramic mugs and a bottle.

  For several minutes, the three of us lounged before the now low-burning bonfire, laughing and reminiscing over our strange adventures together. Just before midnight, Enorah started to rise.

  “I need to check the perimeter one last time before going to bed,” she said, her speech slightly slurred.

  Like me, she had probably had one glass of mead too many. Oh well. I was happily warm and snuggled up next to Cade without a care in the world. At least, I was snuggled up next to Cade until he stood up, beating his sister to it.

  “Let me check the perimeter,” he offered, a little too steady on his feet for someone who had been enjoying as much, if not more, mead than his sister and me.

  Enorah only blinked dazedly at him, and he showed her a sharp smile. “Besides, I think there is something Meghan wants to talk to you about.”

  He gave me a quick look before striding from the fire pit and disappearing into the dark. I turned to regard Enorah, the light buzz of the alcohol beginning to wear off. She returned my look, her green eyes appearing brown in the firelight.

  “So,” she piped, draining the last of her mead before setting the cup down and lacing her fingers behind her head, “what ominous subject did you want to bring up in Cade’s absence.”

  For a while, I just stared at her. Only when she flashed her teeth in one of her characteristic smiles did I relax.

  “I’m only teasing you. Go ahead. What did you want to talk about?”

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I set my own mug down as well, not bothering to finish the last of its contents.

  “Nothing so daunting as you might guess,” I admitted.

  When Enorah continued to watch me, I let out a great sigh and turned my eyes to the sky above. Remarkably, it was clear tonight, the stars mere pinpricks of diamond dust scattered over deep blue velvet.

  “I would like for you to act as my Maid of Honor at the wedding.”

  Enorah, who had been tilting her head back as I had been doing earlier, leaned forward and gave me a surprised look.

  “Me?!” she asked, her tone one of shock.

  I huffed a small laugh. “Yes, you.”

  “But, what about your friends from the mortal world?”

  Obviously, I had shocked her with my question because she had forgotten that my friends, like the world they came from, were mortal. I sat up straight and crossed my arms casually, arching one brow.

  “Enorah, they aren’t Faelorehn. They can’t participate in my wedding unless we have it in the mortal world, and we’re not. It’s going to be at Luathara Castle.”

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  For the first time since meeting Cade’s sister, she looked somewhat embarrassed. My asking her to be my Maid of Honor must have really come as a great surprise to her. Afraid I might have offended her with my last statement, I blurted, “But I don’t want Robyn or Tully to be my Maid of Honor. They are my best friends from the mortal world, that’s true, and I honestly regret they won’t be able to attend my wedding, but you are my closest friend here, besides Cade and the Dagda. Enorah, you are going to be my sister! I can think of no one I’d rather have acting as my moral and emotional support when I marry your brother.”

  I gave her a smile and she returned it, relaxing a little. Her eyes were still a bit glassy from all the mead she’d consumed, so, trying to lighten the mood once more, I gave a little laugh and said, “And who knows, maybe one day you can return the favor and make me the Maid of Honor at your wedding.”

  I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows at her.

  Enorah only snorted and rolled her eyes. “Unlikely. The only person suitable to play the role of husband in my life would just as soon slit my throat.”

  My light mood darkened in a flash, and I gave her a disturbed look. What in Eile did she mean by that?

  Enorah must have realized she had said something she hadn’t meant to because her own carefree smile faded as her eyes turned away from mine, her brows furrowing in slight confusion.

  “Sorry, that was the mead talking,” she managed.

  She shook her head slightly and sat up, leaning forward as she pressed the heel of her hand to one eye. She took a deep breath and then glanced once more at me. The haunted, distant young woman she had been for a split second was long gone and the ever-gregarious Enorah was back.

  “Of course I’ll be your Maid of Honor, Meghan. You honor me just by asking.”

  I took in a breath to question her about what she had said before, but a familiar bark and the sound of footfalls announced Cade’s return with Fergus. For the next five minutes, the three of us worked together to put out the fire. When it was nothing more than a pile of hot ash, Enorah bid us goodnight and headed for her cabin.

  Cade and I soon followed suit, seeking out the small cottage that would be our quarters for the next few nights. As we settled in for the evening, I found myself curling up close against him in the rather small bed. I rested my head on his chest and pressed one hand flat against his warm skin.

  “How did the talk with Enorah go?”
his voice rumbled beneath my ear. “Did you ask her about being your Maid of Honor in the wedding?”

  I nodded, afraid to open my mouth and speak. If I did so, I would be tempted to ask him what Enorah might have meant with her bizarre comment from earlier. Did she mean she expected to spend the rest of her life alone, always caring for the Wildren but never starting a family of her own? Did it mean she didn’t have the patience for a husband? Or did it have a much darker connotation, some reference to a past I knew nothing about?

  I shuddered, and Cade wrapped his arms more securely around me.

  “What’s bothering you, Meghan?” he asked.

  Curse him. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.

  “Nothing, really,” I answered. “It’s just something your sister said.”

  He stopped running his hand up and down my back in a soothing gesture. “Oh?”

  I sighed and stretched out next to him. So much for keeping my thoughts to myself. “I made a light joke about me someday returning the favor, of being her Maid of Honor when she got married. Her response was a little unnerving, but then she tried to brush it off like it was nothing.”

  Cade grew even more still, and I could have sworn his skin went cold.

  “Cade?” I asked, moving my head so that I might see some of his face.

  “What exactly did she say, Meghan?” he pressed, his voice quiet but deep.

  I knew better than to keep things from him when he adopted that tone.

  “She said that whoever was willing to marry her would also be willing to slit her throat. But Cade, she must have been joking, even if it was a bad joke. She did have a lot of mead tonight.”

  Cade let out a long sigh and lifted both his hands to rub his face.

  “I thought she had put all that behind her,” he said, more to himself than me.

  “Cade?”

  His arms tightened around me once again, taking me by surprise. I felt him press a kiss to the top of my head, and he murmured, “Don’t worry about it, mohr faelorah. It most likely was the mead talking, as you suggested. She’ll be back to her old self in the morning, you’ll see.”

  As much as I wanted this new mystery solved, I also didn’t want to stir the pot. Whatever dark demons Enorah had buried in her past, they had almost managed to claw their way to the surface tonight. If pressing the issue gave them even the tiniest bit of leeway, then I would drop the subject. There was going to be a wedding in just over a month’s time, and so far, everyone we had informed had been overjoyed by the news. We needed this, not just me and Cade, but everyone we knew in Eile. After the hell we had gone through battling the Morrigan, we deserved a time of celebration, and I was more than ready to let the happiness outshine the sorrow.

  CADE

  I woke up with my arms and legs entangled with Meghan’s, and I smiled. Sharing the small bed in one of the spare cabins in the Weald meant we had to sleep practically on top of one another. Something I wasn’t at all bothered by. Cracking open an eyelid, I noticed that the light streaming in through the window was watered down in tones of deep grey and cobalt. Either it wasn’t quite dawn yet, or some heavy rainclouds had moved in overnight. Carefully, I extracted myself from Meghan, managing not to wake her up, and quickly got dressed.

  Outside, I discovered I had been correct on both accounts. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and thick, inky clouds darkened an already dark sky.

  “Cade!” a familiar voice called out from across the small creek running behind my cabin.

  I squinted against the weak light and recognized my sister’s tall figure. I waved back, then darted inside to leave Meghan a quick note before stepping out into the cool air once again. Enorah’s cabin was situated against a small rocky hillside along with a handful of other, multi-story buildings. These small houses were set aside for the few Faelorehn living in the Weald who had a husband, wife or significant other. Or, in Enorah’s case, happened to be looking after the entire lot of them and had therefore earned a small, private refuge to call her own.

  I managed to get beneath the roof of her small front porch before it started to pour.

  She crossed her arms and leaned against a post, shaking her head. “I had wanted to run weapons drills with the older students and ask Meghan if she’d be willing to talk with those who still haven’t been able to find their glamour yet. But this weather might just keep us locked indoors all day.”

  I flinched at my sister’s words. I wasn’t disturbed by her obsession with teaching children how to fight with dangerous weapons, that was a necessity in the Otherworld. Rather, I felt somewhat pained for those whom she deemed the late bloomers. Most children sensed at least a small portion of their glamour from the day they are born, only discovering the wealth of it before the age of five. Usually, some semi-traumatic event, most likely a fall from a short distance or an unexpected encounter with an unfamiliar wild animal, will wake it up. Faelorehn glamour is as integral to our kind as breathing is to everything else. It is a part of us and very necessary for our survival in this harsh world of monsters and magic. In rare cases, glamour stays dormant well past the toddler years. In Meghan’s case, it remained dark and lifeless far into her teenage years. But that was most likely due to the geis her mother had placed on her and the fact that she spent her entire childhood in the mortal world.

  “Since she is so well known now for her role in the war against the Morrigan, and since she, too, discovered her glamour late in life, I thought it would be a good morale booster for those who are feeling as if they don’t measure up.”

  I nodded, my eyes studying the grey-washed landscape before us. The deciduous trees had already started to leaf out, and the forest floor was beginning to turn green. Soon the buds would begin to open, and the birds and animals would bring forth offspring of their own to care for. But right now, this part of the Weald was in the middle of one of its transition periods, neither winter nor spring. The drenching rain would encourage the still-dormant parts of Eile to wake up to spring’s calling.

  “I’m sure she’d be happy to help. Perhaps the rains will taper off by nightfall, and she can speak with them around the dinner fire.”

  Enorah nodded and released a long sigh. She seemed alert enough, but there was also a cloak of exhaustion surrounding her. I imagined she was fighting the aftereffects of her overindulgence from the night before.

  “Meghan asked me to be her Maid of Honor, you know,” my sister finally said, so quietly I almost missed it.

  My mouth curved in a grin.

  She arched an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. “Your idea?”

  Shaking my head, I said, “No. Hers.”

  Enorah made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh.

  For several long seconds, we were silent. The musical sound of the rain drumming upon the slate roofs and slapping against the broad beech tree leaves above, created its own kind of peace. I wanted to let my mind get lost in the natural magic of Eile, to just close my eyes and drift for a while. My nights had not been as restful as I’d hoped. After defeating the Morrigan before winter, I thought the last lingering threads of her influence over me would have unraveled completely. But I guess that was the problem with bad memories. They aren’t concrete. They cannot be touched or broken into smaller pieces and thrown away. They pass as easily from one state of consciousness to the next, the way smoke filters through fog. I knew the same went for my sister, and for some reason, Meghan’s expression of friendship and respect last night put a hairline crack in that shell she’d built up around herself.

  After a time, I spoke. “The nightmares never really go away, do they, Enorah?”

  She didn’t answer me. She only stared out at the deluge, probably working her way through the same thoughts as me.

  When her silence continued, I said, “Even now that the Morrigan is gone, and her evil magic scattered, the memories linger. I thought finally destroying her would bring some comfort to my mind, but it hasn’t really.”

>   “But something must bring you comfort, Caedehn,” Enorah stated softly, in a tone that expressed she knew all too well what I was going through. She shared many of those horrible memories with me, after all.

  “Oh?” I said simply.

  She turned and gave me a soft smile only barely tinged by sadness. “Meghan. You may still be haunted by your past, but she is there to help take up some of the burden. Perhaps the both of you will never be completely healed, but you have one another to make your way through the darkness. You don’t have to face it alone.”

  I didn’t bring up her comment to Meghan. There was no point in doing so. I knew enough of my sister’s past to understand dwelling on it was never a good idea. Since the rain wasn’t letting up anytime soon, and since we had run out of things to say to one another, we both headed for the warm, dry safety of Enorah’s cabin. Inside awaited a wide open space with a kitchen of sorts tucked away in the far corner, a table large enough to seat four comfortably and a staircase pressed against a far wall leading to the upper section of the cottage. A fire blazed within the hearth which occupied one corner, and a kettle suspended from an iron hook screeched and spit steam.

  “Tea?” Enorah asked over her shoulder, making her way to the kettle with a folded dish towel.

  “Tea would be most appreciated, and breakfast, if you have it.”

  “I highly doubt I have enough food in this entire cabin to fill your stomach, brother,” she answered drily, as she added the hot water to a ceramic tea pot.

  Despite her claims, Enorah spent the next several minutes laying out muffins, butter and jam, as well as the tea pot and a few mugs.

  As she got busy frying some eggs over the archaic stove in the kitchen, we chatted about more pleasant things, like what I was wearing to the wedding, if she needed to find a dress and who all would be invited. I grudgingly took part in the conversation, even though I knew Enorah disliked discussing such things about as much as I did. The two of us would much rather be going over the latest faelah I’d killed or the newest defense move Enorah had taught her pupils. Perhaps we clung to this particular topic so stubbornly because it kept our minds away from those memories we worked so hard to forget.