by Sumida, Amy
“What was that?” I sat up straighter.
I said the fey return to-
“No, the bit about the source,” something had just clicked in my mind but I wasn't sure what it meant yet.
Everything must return to the source of its energy when it dies. Fey to the elements and humans to wherever they came from.
“And gods to their source of energy,” I whispered. “That means there has to be a source and therefore, there has to be a place for gods to go when they die.”
Of course there is, why wouldn't there be?
“Well none of the gods seem know about it,” I chewed at my lip. “Lucifer wrote some books where he mentioned an afterlife but most gods just call it the void and even then, they don't know where it is or what it's all about.”
So go ask this Lucifer guy.
“I think I will,” I laughed, “but you've just given me another clue and something to search for. Thank you for that.”
What are you going to search for?
“Duh,” I laughed at her. “The source of the soul.”
Epilogue
I've settled into life as the Queen of Fire and finally find myself able to enjoy it. I spend time with my fey now, even travel through the kingdom to see the villages and meet more of the fire fey. No one besides Fionnaghal is pregnant yet but I'm not worried. I know the magic healed them and it's only a matter of time.
Fionnaghal has started to show her pregnancy and the Hidden Ones are delighted. They've been talking to the children through her belly, as if they were already born. Laise set up a nursery in one of the caves off the main cavern, filled with things I have never seen before and have no idea what purpose they are meant to serve but it's warm and cozy and Fionnaghal loves it, so I do as well. I think it says a lot about how far the fire fey have come that Laise took as much joy in setting up Fionnaghal's nursery as she had with mine and Arach's.
The earth pixies have decided to remain with us for the time being. Although they were encouraged by King Cahal's message, one sidhe does not a kingdom make and they don't believe that the rest of the earth-fey will treat them as well as the King implied. I don't blame them, from what I've seen, a lot of the earth fey seem to have a stick up their ass. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Speaking of which, Queen Aalish and King Liam were imprisoned for their attempts at espionage. They were held for nine weeks in metal cells, cut off entirely from the earth element. I'm told it's a very uncomfortable experience. King Cian wanted to impress upon them the severity of the damage they could have wrought. He said that I'm integral to the welfare of the realm now and any actions against me were seen as actions against all of Faerie. Especially now that I've proven to be an avatar for Faerie and Faerie has proven what she can do with the elements. Pretty cool huh?
I'm not so sure how cool their vengeance is going to be though. Cause you know that woman is going to hold a grudge and cats are notorious for it. Go ahead and piss a cat off and see how long it takes before he stops pooping in your shoes. So I've got that to look forward to.
I haven't decided yet on the dragon baby thing but Arach insists that we have all the time in the world, which I guess we do. It's a good thing too because I don't think I'm ready to be a mother, it's hard enough to be a Queen.
Roarke has found five more cat-sidhe who chose to defect to Fire. Three men and two women. I was happy to host Faerie so she could change them all and we welcomed them into the House of Fire with open arms. Roarke's arms may have been just a tad more open to the ladies but hey, he's in charge of making a new race now, he has responsibilities... his words, not mine.
There have been some rumors about the other kingdoms feeling upset over the fire fey's returned fertility and my inability to help them. I actually offered King Guirmean the choice of helping him but he decided that it wasn't worth the risk. He didn't seem too concerned over it either but then again, if most of the water-fey are like him, they won't be in stasis for long. If only the other kingdoms were more open to change.
I did hear that the air pixies are much happier though so maybe I'm wrong about Air and Earth. Maybe all of them can change and all that was needed was a little nudge in the right direction. I don't have a good feeling about it though.
What I do have a good feeling about is Odin. I'm excited to return to my research in the God Realm with the new clue Faerie gave me. It's not going to be easy but at least now I have a direction and the assurance that Odin is not simply gone. I'm going to find him, even if I have to make a deal with the Devil to do it.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in the Godhunter series:
Into the Void
Chapter One
“It's alright,” Odin's voice was a cut across my heart. “You can let go now.”
And then he was there, standing before me, whole and healthy. He even had both of his amazing peacock blue eyes. His skin glowed softly and his smile was radiant. He was dressed in one of his old tunics, sleeveless to show off his muscular arms. He looked powerful and vibrant. Behind him was only murky darkness, a black mist that I couldn't see beyond.
“Let go of what?” I reached a hand out to him but he stepped back away from it.
“Me, Vervain, let go of me,” he waved a hand behind him to indicate the dark. “It feels good here, I'm content, and I want you to stop chasing me. You'll waste your life on research and your mind on thoughts of possibilities that aren't in fact possible.”
“No, you didn't give up on me,” I grit my teeth. “I won't give up on you. I'm going to find you.”
“No you're not,” his smile turned sad, “and I want you to know it's okay. I didn't die so you could mourn me, I died so you could live. Live, Vervain. It's okay to go on without me, I give you my blessing.”
“Mom,” another voice cut through the dark, pulling me away from Odin.
“No,” I lunged for my dead husband but he dispersed like smoke, his beautiful eyes the last to fade away.
“Mom, wake up.”
I blinked away the dream and looked up into the deep blue eyes of my son, mine and Odin's son from a past life, Vidar. He smiled anxiously and helped me into a seated position. I looked around with a little confusion, I was on a couch in the sitting room within the library of Pride Palace. There were no dark shadows in the corners and no Odin.
“Mom, are you alright?” Vidar's long dark hair swung forward as he moved to sit beside me. It hit me in the face and I batted it away fondly.
“Yes, I'm fine,” I rolled my neck, trying to relax the muscles tightened by my dream. “I guess I must have dozed off.”
“I found the book,” he opened a leather satchel on the floor and pulled out a large book bound in blue leather.
On its cover was a silver nine-pointed star. The same symbol that I held in my heart now. Or, if you listened to Faerie(which I only did because she got really annoying when I didn't), the symbol that had replaced my heart. Vidar put the book on my lap and smiled proudly. He'd been searching for it for awhile now, ever since Munin had showed me a memory of Odin receiving it from Mimir. This was the book that held the spells that Odin had used to bring me back from Hvergelmir, the Viking Well of Souls, after I had died as Sabine.
“Thank you,” I gave his hand a quick squeeze and then opened the book. “What the hell?” I gaped at the pages. “What language is this?”
“Old Norse,” Vidar laughed as he peered over my shoulder. “You didn't expect it to be in English, did you?”
“Yes, damn it,” I huffed. “I'm an American, I expect everything to be automatically translated into English for my benefit. And if someone doesn't understand English, all you have to do is shout it at them.”
“I can read it for you,” Vidar laughed and pulled the book into his lap. “What should I look for?”
“Anything to do with souls and the void,” I sighed in relief.
“Well that's easy,” he chuckled. “The book is on soul magic, everything in it has to do with souls.”
/> “Soul magic?” I frowned. “What else can you do with the soul besides put it back in a body?”
“Really? You're asking me that after that whole Andrasta thing?”
I shivered. Andrasta had been host to a hungry, lonely magic called the Darkness. It had needed fey elements to gain power, basically it needed to eat fey life-force(not souls, mind you but they were similar). Withered husks were all that were left when it was finished, no elemental spark to return to the source, nothing. They were consumed like food.
“I don't think I want to know,” I whispered. “Just see if you can find something about how to bring a soul back from the void.”
“Okay,” he nodded and started skimming the pages. “This might take awhile. What about the book Lucifer wrote? Did you find out anything useful yet?”
“Treatise of Territories,” I pulled it out from where I'd hidden it beneath a cushion.
“Mom, have you told Trevor and the others about this yet?” He eyed the cushion it had been hiding under.
“No,” I sighed, “I know I should tell them.”
“It's going to get difficult to explain when you start looking for Lucifer,” Vidar agreed. “Just tell them, they'll understand.”
“Who's looking for Lucifer?” Roarke laughed as he struck a pose in the doorway to the sitting room. “That would be a great movie title, wouldn't it? Looking for Lucifer.”
I smiled at him and shook my head fondly. The cat-sidhe had recently done me a great service and the end result of it had left him a changed man, quite literally. Faerie transmuted his basic makeup and turned him from an earth cat-sidhe to the first fire cat-sidhe in existence. He'd had to hide the changes from me for awhile because it would have interfered with time.
The Ring of Remembrance, left to me by my fey father, Finninan (fey father Finnian, doesn't that sound like a good-looking Irish priest? The fey Father Finninan. Actually he was a dragon-sidhe) allowed me to travel between the realms, returning to the exact time and place I'd left them from. To put it simply, I could be in both the God/Human Realms and the Faerie Realm continuously. Every time I left one realm, I would ask the ring to return me to the exact time I'd left the previous one but I couldn't take anyone along for the ride, couldn't use the ring to save a life, and couldn't return to a realm during a time I'd already experienced. Well I could, it was kind of what the ring was created for, but if I did travel back to a time and realm I'd already experienced, I'd simply merge with my past self and experience things all over again, without the option to change them. This, like I mentioned, was the reason for the ring's creation. The fey lived a long time and it could get hard to remember the past. The ring allowed them to go back and re-experience it.
Roarke however, traveled normally between the realms but Faerie's time always moves faster than time in the Human or God Realms. A day in the God Realm equals about a month in Faerie, so Roarke had actually been a fire cat-sidhe long before I went back and experienced those events for myself. Confusing? Try living it. Anyway, he had to hide his eyes behind a glamor because his once brilliant green cat eyes were now a fiery red, and if I'd seen that, it would have blown my mind, possibly literally, we didn't really know for sure.
But I knew now and so his eyes were out in full force, burning with the heat of the new element that gave him life.
“I'm looking for Lucifer,” I answered him. “He may be able to help in my quest to bring Odin back from the void.”
“You're going to bring him back to life?” Roarke perked up. “Fascinating. Can I come to meet the devil?”
“I don't think so,” I laughed. “I still haven't told Trevor, Kirill, or Azrael yet. I didn't want them thinking I'd lost my mind, or worse, thinking that I loved Odin more than them.”
“Well, I'd recommend you tell them with all haste,” Roarke was back to leaning against the wall. He started to casually inspect his pointed fingernails.
“Why is that?” I shot a suspicious glance at Vidar but he just narrowed his gaze on the cat-sidhe.
“Well, I'd think it would be obvious,” Roarke rolled his eyes. “If you're looking for Lucifer, shouldn't you just ask his son to introduce you?”
“His son?” I frowned.
“Azrael,” Roarke gave me a look that clearly said I was an idiot. “The Angel of Death. Your boyfriend.”
[Fluffer Nutter]
About the Author
Amy Sumida lives on an island in the Pacific Ocean where gods go to play. She sleeps in a fairy bed, high in the air, with two gravity-defying felines and upon waking, enjoys stabbing people with little needles, over and over, under the guise of making pretty pictures on their skin. She, like Vervain, has no filter but has been fortunate enough to find friends who appreciate this... or at least tell her they do. She bellydances and paints pictures on her walls but is happiest with her nose stuck in a book, her mind in a different world than this one, filled with fantastical men who unfortunately don't exist in our mundane reality. Thank the gods for fantasy.
She is the author of several books including the Godhunter series, Enchantress, The Vampire-Werewolf Connection, The Magic of Fabric, There's a Goddess Too, and Feeding the Lwas: a Vodou Cookbook. She also paints and her artwork can be purchased on Etsy.com. You can find her on facebook under both her name and Godhunter. She loves to hear from her fans, claiming that it's what keeps her writing.