by Ren Curylo
“Oh, but she will,” Muirgan said. “I left her a note at our meeting place telling her exactly where your Lilitu palace is. She will be here in no time.”
“You…” Erish fought the panic that rose on her face. She looked around the room as if searching for an escape.
“Your guards won’t hold her off for long, Erish,” Muirgan said. “They will be no match for a goddess. Unless you want the wholesale slaughter of your people you had better figure out a way to deal with this.”
“What do you want?” Erish asked suspiciously.
“I want you to run for your life, Queen,” she said. “I don’t wish any harm to befall your people, but I do want you to pay for what you’ve done to me. And I think that will be served by seeing you flee from Chéile until she either catches you or gives up the fight.”
“Oh, mo dhia,” Erish said.
“I don’t think your goddess will help you now,” Muirgan said with a smile. “You see, Chéile hates Moriko almost as much as she hates you.”
“Why?” Erish said.
“Because, Ársa loves Moriko better than he does Chéile. Chéile is a jealous and vengeful goddess. If you hope to escape her, you had better flee remarkably fast.”
Erish drew in a deep breath. Her hands shook as she rose from her throne. She fled to her bedroom, leaving Muirgan standing alone in the room. Muirgan smiled and turned to leave the palace.
Durada was waiting outside the door when she opened it. The pink haired woman peeked inside and asked, “Where is Queen Erish?”
Muirgan shrugged. “She ran to her chamber. Perhaps you should check on her.” She stood and watched the guard run toward her queen’s bedchamber before she let herself out of the building and hurriedly began her journey back to the Faerie portal.
She arrived back at Springmeadow with barely an hour to spare before their meeting. She sat on the ground to rest under the shading limbs of the large tree with the knothole where she had removed her hidden human clothing the day before.
At almost half an hour early, the air crackled and snapped in the middle of the clearing. Muirgan rose to her feet, knowing this signaled Chéile’s impending arrival.
Seconds later, the goddess appeared. She looked around her, not spotting Muirgan in the shade of the forest at first.
“Oh, there you are,” Chéile said, finding her at last. “I thought you were late.”
“I’m not late,” Muirgan said peevishly. “Even if you weren’t half an hour early, I would not be late.”
“Where is Erish? Did you find out where she lives?” Chéile asked ignoring her.
“I did,” Muirgan said. “She lives in a grove in the central part of Mirus Province on Corath.”
“Are you sure of this? Has she met my husband there?”
“Oh,” Muirgan said, “she meets your husband all over. They are a regular thing in that province. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find her.” Muirgan described in minute detail what the Lilitu Grove looked like and precisely how to find it.
Chéile was grinning widely; her eyes gleamed as she looked at Muirgan. She laughed as she bounced up and down a few times. “Oh, this is joyous,” she crowed. “I can get my revenge on her at last.”
Muirgan smiled. So can I.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” Chéile said quickly. “I need to get there and find her right away. Don’t worry, Muirgan,” she added, “your loyalty to me will not go unrewarded.”
“I have one request of you, my lady,” Muirgan said.
“What is that?” Chéile asked.
“I would like you to grant me the ability to Travel to Blackpool on the coast of Catormad. There is someone there to whom I owe a debt.”
Chéile frowned. She reached into her pocket to see what she could use as a charm. She pulled out a small, square bead with a hole through the middle. It was swirls of black, red, and deep purple. She had stolen it from Anoba’s room a few weeks before. She had forgotten it and it had somehow managed to stay in her pocket even through laundering.
Chéile took it and turned her back. She rubbed it between her palms and mumbled something in Elfish. She felt the bead grow warm as she rubbed it. After a few moments, she kissed the bead and curled her fingers into a fist around it.
“There you are,” she said, as she handed the stone to Muirgan.
“This will work?” the Selkie asked.
“Of course it will,” Chéile said confidently. “Just hold it in your hand and think of your destination. It will take you there. But, mind you, don’t squander it. It will only work once. If you go before you’re ready, you will have to find your own way there next time. And also you will have to find your own way out.”
“Leaving Blackpool is no problem,” Muirgan said.
Chéile waited in the clearing and watched Muirgan walk away down the narrow trail leading toward the ocean. She would have Traveled away immediately, but her spotty skills in that department embarrassed her. She didn’t want any inhabitant of Lerien to realize she wasn’t as powerful a goddess as Moriko. She wondered if the charm she had given the woman would even work. Quickly deciding she didn’t care, she breathed a sigh of relief when Muirgan was out of sight and she stood quite alone in the clearing. Imber 16, 763 Lilitu Grove
Mirus Province Corath, Lerien
Chéile Chéile still struggled with her Traveling skills. Most of the time they were hit or miss—mostly miss. After four tries to Travel from Springmeadow to Mirus, she finally gave up and returned to Na Réaltaí. She could at least use the portal from there.
She stalked from her chamber to the portal room, stomping and glaring as she went. Her hair was a bit of a mess and her face was set in a grimace. She shook her head, berating herself for being such a pathetic goddess that she couldn’t even Travel properly.
A wave of early pregnancy nausea overtook her and she broke out in a clammy sweat. Her heart always softened a bit no matter her mood, when she thought of her children. She caressed her belly as she rushed into the transportation room. Once you come out, I’ll dedicate myself to learning to Travel so I can do it with ease any time or place I please.
She stepped up to the portal and set her destination into the control panel. The door slid open and she stepped inside the clear cylinder. The door closed, shutting her inside the tight confines. A puff of air blew into her face as she felt herself start to waver. The room outside the clear wall blurred and she exited Na Réaltaí without ceremony.
Her destination was a tiny clearing in a wooded area. She was disoriented for a few minutes, not knowing which way she needed to go. She stopped and calmed herself, concentrating on slowing her breathing and gathering her thoughts. Muirgan had been meticulous with her description. Chéile believed she would recognize Erish when she saw her. She focused on her prey and let her instincts guide her, following the trail as if it were a physical thing she could see and smell.
In a matter of minutes, she came to a grove with big grasscovered mounds. There were a number of them here, all different sizes. The biggest one in the center back was striking. As Chéile drew nearer and circled around the grove, she realized there were doors and windows in the mounds. These are houses. She gasped at the realization. She didn’t see anyone stirring and she wondered if this place was abandoned. Had something happened? Had the Lilitu abandoned their homes?
She prepared herself for battle as she stepped into the grove. She was ready for anything, but most of all she was ready for a gout of blood from Ársa’s lover, Erish.
No one accosted her as she strode across the grove toward the largest mound. It’s where I would live, if I were queen of the Lilitu, she reasoned. As she neared the door in the large mound, two guards appeared suddenly in front of her, popping in from some unseen place. They looked exactly alike, rosy pink hair, blue eyes and paler skin than Chéile’s herself.
“Halt,” one of the women barked.
“Who are you and what do you want?” the other said sternly. Chéile stopped and
stared at them for a moment, quietly
deciding whether to blast them to bits and proceed on her way or answer their questions and let them live. Finally, she decided they had nothing to do with anything and it was no skin off her nose to let them live. “I need to see your queen,” she said. She stood quietly waiting for them to respond.
“Our queen,” one of them spat, “has run off like a coward. We are waiting for her daughter to arrive to take her place and declare her abdicated.”
“Erish?” Chéile said with a slightly escalating, shrill tone. “Erish has run off?”
“Yes,” one of the guards said.
“A woman came to see her and when she finished talking to her, Erish ran off.”
“A woman? What did she look like?”
“Brown hair, brown eyes, reasonably attractive for a human,” the other guard said.
“Well, assuming she was human,” the first guard said. “She smelled a bit off. Rather fishy, if you ask me.”
“Fishy?” Chéile echoed. “She smelled fishy?”
“Yes,” the guard said.
“Did she have a brown pelt or skin of some kind tied around her waist?”
“No,” the guard said. She paused and frowned. “She had a bag with something soft in it. She said it was her coat.”
“Muirgan,” Chéile snarled. “That double-crossing whore.”
“Aye,” the guard said, snapping her fingers. “That’s what she said her name was.”
Chéile growled. “Where is Erish?” she said, grinding the words out one at a time, haltingly.
Her tone frightened the guards, for they stepped back with wide eyes. “We don’t know, ma’am,” they said together.
“We’ve sent out a patrol looking for her.” The guard on the left shifted nervously as she stared at Chéile with slightly narrowed eyes.
“And to look for her daughter, to take over in her absence,” the other said.
Chéile turned and lifted her fist. She screamed in rage and pushed her fist through the air, downward, with a ground-shaking force. One of the smaller mounds exploded. The force of the blast took the roof off the place next to it. Lilitu began to run from the buildings screaming.
The guard on the left raised her sword, swinging it toward Chéile, jumping up and forward as she did so. The tip of it grazed the Elfin woman’s neck, drawing a bead of blood as it moved past.
Chéile shouted and slapped her hand to her neck in surprise. The second pink haired guard took advantage of the intruder’s distraction to swing her sword forward, aiming at the woman’s belly. If Chéile hadn’t moved back in a quick hop, it would have eviscerated her. Chéile, viewing them as a threat for the first time, moved her hands toward them both as if she were shoving them, hard, backward. Both Durada and Talya abruptly sat down on the ground with enough force to rattle their teeth.
Chéile narrowed her ice blue eyes and swept her hand past them, swiping the swords from their hands, before she turned to focus her rage on another three roofs near her and three grassy thatches burst into flames. She waved her hand and set a strong wind in motion, causing the flames to leap from one grassy roof to another. As the inhabitants came pouring from their homes, the guards ran for water buckets to try to stop the fire from spreading.
Chéile blew the flames into the trees, lighting the leaves and boughs on fire. She turned her attention to the largest building in the grove and exploded it, blasting the roof up into the trees before it came crashing down, collapsing the walls. Men screamed from inside and the scene grew more chaotic as Chéile continued her rampage.
A red-haired, green-eyed Lilitu hurled herself into Chéile, knocking her to the ground. The woman was small but big enough to overbalance her with a running tackle. Chéile grunted as she hit the ground. The Lilitu sat straddling her stomach and Chéile thought she could feel the fetus inside stiffen in protest. It is too early for the baby to come. She’s killing it. How will I keep Ársa at my side if this bitch kills his heir?
She was suddenly terrified, but pride tinged her terror at what she had accomplished in the Lilitu Grove. If she could find a way to channel that kind of power without having it stem from complete rage she would show both Erish and Moriko what happened to people who mess with her.
Chéile pushed the woman to the ground and got up. As she moved backward in quick retreat, a pain gripped her and she doubled over. As she did, she realized she was outnumbered, even with so many of the Lilitu putting out the fires she had started. I have to get out of here. Chéile fervently hoped that her sketchy Traveling abilities wouldn’t let her down as she concentrated on her chamber in Na Réaltaí.
“She’s leaving, Adamen,” one of the pink haired guards shouted to the red-haired woman. “Stop her.”
The red-haired woman rushed toward Chéile, her fingertips outstretched. She moved as fast as she could, reaching as far as possible. She managed to dig her nails into her assailant, shredding the flesh of her right arm as the goddess wavered and vanished from the Lilitu Grove.
Becoming solid in her bedchamber on Na Réaltaí was the sweetest sense of being Chéile had ever felt. She breathed a sigh of relief that was short-lived as another pain shot through her. She doubled over again and this time, she didn’t manage to keep her feet under her. She bowled over onto her bed, calling for Tola to bring a medic.
2 days later
Imber 18, 763 Na Réaltaí
Ársa Ársa slammed the report his assistant had given him down on his desk in rage and disgust. He contacted several Envoy members on his gan-sreang for more details of what had happened two days earlier.
Satisfied that he knew enough, he rose and instantly traveled to his wife’s private chamber. He wanted nothing more than to wring her blasted neck but he knew that couldn’t happen. She was, after all, pregnant and Anoba had told him that this child was important to The Prophecy. He wanted to punch his fist through a wall at the mere thought of that wretched prophecy.
Ársa didn’t wait for an invitation, nor did he knoc k. He appeared in Chéile’s room unannounced. She jumped and screamed as he came solid in her room at the foot of her bed.
What the fuck is she doing? She was sitting cross-legged on her wide, soft bed, painstakingly picking fingernail slivers from a rumpled tissue and dropping them into a jar.
“Mo dhia, Ársa,” she said, looking up at him briefly before returning to her task. She dropped the last few nail clippings in the jar, placed the stopper in it, and set it on her nightstand before turning back to him.
“What the Ifreann do you think you’re doing, Chéile?” “I think I’m sitting on my bed minding my own business, Ársa,” she said smugly. “What the Ifreann do you think you’re doing?”
“Don’t be glib, Chéile,” Ársa said.
“Don’t you ever knock anymore?”
“I’ll knock the fucking door off its rails if you don’t watch it,” Ársa snarled. “What are you doing going off and burning down the Lilitu Grove?”
“Oh, that,” Chéile said with a shrug. “I thought you were fired up over something important.”
“You killed twenty-seven of their males, and at least half a dozen of their women, Chéile, not to mention completely destroying all their homes.”
“They had it coming,” she said nonchalantly.
“You’re a heartless bitch,” Ársa said, glowering at her. “You’re lucky Moriko hasn’t come up here and done me the honor of removing your head from your neck.”
Chéile glared at him, lifted her chin haughtily, and looked away. “You’re the one who should take something away from this, Ársa, not I.”
“And what is that, Chéile?”
“Don’t cheat on me.”
“What the Ifreann would that have to do with the Lilitu Grove?” he asked, perplexed.
Chéile snorted. “Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Ársa shook his head. “I’m baffled, Chéile, because I don’t know
what you’re talking about.”
“I know all about you and Erish. That dirty slut ran off when she knew I was coming for her. I can’t think of anything that speaks to her guilt more than that.”
“I would say it speaks of her fear far more than her guilt. I am not having, nor have I ever had an affair with Erish.”
Chéile looked at him sharply. “You sound almost believable, Ársa,” she said at last. “However, I have it on good authority that you’re not only a cheat but you’re a liar.”
“And you’re a vicious idiot.”
Chéile shrugged. “I have a right to avenge such a wrongdoing as infidelity. Since I can’t do anything to you about it, you being the god of the gods and all, I have to take it where I can get it. I’ll hound Erish to the grave, so you should tell her to stand up and take her lumps. If she cares a hoot about her people, that’s what she’ll do.”
Realizing the conversation wasn’t getting him anywhere and was increasing his foul mood, he said, “I’m putting in a request to the Justice Panel to have them indict you,” Ársa said.
Chéile looked at him with her cool blue eyes and offered him a crooked smile. “It won’t do you any good,” she said. “You need a unanimous agreement for them to do anything. You won’t get it,” she said.
“What makes you think I won’t?”
“Well,” she drawled, standing up beside her bed. “I happen to know that in this quarter, the Justice Panel is comprised of at least one person who won’t side against me. They swore in the current panel last week, and one of them is Vedran. He doesn’t like the Fae one bit more than I do,” she said smugly.
“If this one fails in its duty, I’ll present the same case to the next panel and the one after that until I find one who will convict you and put you in prison where you belong.”
Chéile gave him a simpering pout. “Do you want your first child to be born in prison, Ársa?”
“Don’t use that fetus you’re carrying as a pawn,” he said.
“Oh, whatever, Ársa. Is that all you came to say? I’m tired of this conversation, now.”