Divine by Blood

by P. C. Cast

  “Light Bringer…Adsagsona’s Chosen…Daughter of the Goddess…”

  Morrigan drew a deep, fortifying breath and turned around. The huge chamber was filled with people. With a sense of shock Morrigan wondered how long she had been standing there, oblivious to everything except the mosaic of the Goddess. Clearly it had been enough time for everyone to hear that she was there, and a shitload of people to rush in to stare at her. As if it had just been waiting for her full attention, Morrigan’s innate shyness speared through her, almost paralyzing in its intensity. Years of drama class had given her the tools to act beyond her fear of crowds and her hatred of speaking in public, but it couldn’t erase what she was in the core of her being—a shy young woman who had always wanted to fit in more than she wanted to stand out. And now an entire roomful of strangers from an unknown world were gawking at her…

  No, Morrigan told herself severely. Don’t be so cynical. They’re not gawking. They’re just excited. And the world wasn’t unknown—it was really her world, the one in which she could fit in and finally belong.

  They worship you, as is your right…echoed through her mind, and she tried to ignore the little thrill the words gave her. People were actually worshipping her! That was nothing to be freaked out about—it was cool. (Wasn’t it?)

  It is your right…your destiny…Again, a thrill passed through Morrigan. Was that Adsagsona’s voice? It seemed logical—even right, that the Goddess would be reassuring her. She’d brought her here. Home to Partholon where she belonged.

  Hadn’t she?

  With an effort, Morrigan pulled her attention from her inner turmoil so she could focus on the introduction Birkita was making.

  “Light Bringer, I would like to present to you the Sidetha’s Cave Master, Perth, and his mate, Mistress Shayla,” Birkita said, moving once again to her side.

  Morrigan had to force herself not to automatically (and nervously) hold out her hand for the couple to shake, and was very glad she’d suppressed the notion when the man bowed to her and the woman dropped into a graceful curtsy.

  “We are honored by your presence,” Perth said.

  “Adsagsona has blessed us greatly,” Shayla said.

  “Th-thank you,” Morrigan managed to mumble, overwhelmed that these two people, who were old enough to be her parents and dressed so richly in fur and jewels that they must be like the king and queen of the Sidetha, were bowing to her.

  “Please,” Perth said, motioning her to the place at the head of the table. “Join us at the seat of honor.”

  “Which will be yours for as long as you gift us with your presence,” Shayla said. Her regal smile displayed white teeth so perfect they would be envied by any twenty-first century dentist.

  Morrigan muttered another thank-you, this time without stuttering, and was taking the offered seat when she noticed that, though Brina had stretched out proprietarily beside her chair, Birkita had curtsied and was gracefully backing away from the head table.

  “No, Birkita, wait!” Morrigan blurted, causing conversation at the surrounding tables to stop, and the people who were already glancing at her to stare. She swallowed nervously and continued. “I don’t want you to go.” Then, as an afterthought, Morrigan turned to the royal-looking couple who were sitting beside her. “If that’s fine with you.”

  “Of course, as you wish,” Shayla said smoothly. “As a priestess of Adsagsona, Birkita is always welcome at our table.”

  Morrigan couldn’t help but notice that though Shayla’s words sounded welcoming, Birkita’s face flushed, and as she moved hesitantly into the chair beside Morrigan, she stared down at her plate with obvious discomfort. Okay, so Birkita wasn’t actually her grandma, but she looked so much like her, Morrigan couldn’t help but already feel protective of her, and no-damn-body was going to upset G-ma. Morrigan’s temper spiked, defensive and angry.

  “Good, I’m glad Birkita’s welcome at this table, because where I go, she goes.” Morrigan met Shayla’s cool gaze and gave her best fake smile. “She’s important to Adsagsona, and she’s important to me.” The big cat licked Morrigan’s ankle, causing her to jump and add, “The cat, too. The cat’s with me, too.”

  It was Shayla’s turn to blush, and Morrigan felt a sense of accomplishment when the beautiful, richly dressed woman nodded uncomfortably, and mumbled, “Of course, my Lady, it will be as you wish,” and then got oh, so busy motioning for people to begin serving them.

  “Careful,” Birkita whispered under cover of the resumed conversations around them. “The Master and his mate are very powerful.”

  Morrigan felt her anger stir again at the worry and what sounded like fear in Birkita’s voice. “Really?” she whispered back. “Can they do this?” Abruptly, Morrigan stood, causing the conversation all around them to stop again. Without looking at anyone, or thinking too much about the impulse she was following, Morrigan hurried the few steps over to the cave wall behind them on which rested the beautiful mosaic of Adsagsona. She raised her hand, pressing it against the smooth rock, and closed her eyes, probing with her inner senses through the skin of the cave, seeking…calling…until she found a vein of selenite crystal that ran from the wall, up across the ceiling, and down the other side of the chamber. “Light for me, please,” Morrigan said softly to the rock.

  We hear and obey, Light Bringer!

  The response was immediate and powerful. A sizzle of energy zapped from her palm into the stone and Morrigan could feel the crystals illuminating like happy grade-school kids running out to play at recess. Before she opened her eyes and turned around, the gasps of the crowd told her all she needed to know. She lifted her chin, set her face into what she hoped was a calm, goddesslike mask and faced the room. This time she expected everyone’s stares. Okay, fine. It was fine. She would just pretend that she was onstage. She used her diaphragm and pitched her voice to carry, just as she had in the senior play, and using a purposeful pun on her new title said, “I thought I’d bring a little light to dinner.”

  Morrigan was pleased to notice Shayla’s and Perth’s twin expressions of shock as they, along with everyone except Birkita and the women from the Encampment Room, who were scattered about at lesser tables, gazed upward at the selenite crystals that were embedded in the distant ceiling, which now glittered and twinkled like fanciful stars. When she returned to her seat the conversations around her were hushed and the looks were less curious and more reverent.

  “That should show them,” she said under her breath to Birkita, and was surprised by the sad look the woman gave her. It was the same wordless, contemplative look her grandma gave her whenever Morrigan had done something to disappoint her. Not a big disappointment, like flunking a test or getting a speeding ticket, but something small and private, like forgetting to say please or thank-you, or laughing at someone else’s embarrassment. Morrigan was instantly chastised, and then wondered why she should be. Birkita had obviously been upset by Shayla. Actually, the more Morrigan watched the queenly-looking woman, the more she noticed how haughty both she and Perth acted. It wasn’t really anything they said. It was just an air about them—how they motioned for more food and drink, and how they seemed to hold themselves apart from everyone, even she and Birkita, who were sitting closest to the couple. The conversations that had resumed didn’t touch them, and Morrigan imagined that they were somehow separated from everyone else by a transparent, but icy, wall. Clearly, they were respected, but Morrigan’s gut told her that they weren’t liked. So why should she feel bad about standing up to, and, yes, even intimidating them? She shouldn’t. She wouldn’t. She’d just eat her dinner and—

  Morrigan realized that Shayla was watching her intently with those cold blue eyes. Something about the Sidetha Mistress’s gaze gave her a creepy, walk-over-your-grave feeling. Morrigan made herself give Shayla a friendly smile.

  “You look very familiar.” Shayla spoke in a casual, conversational tone, which completely contradicted the sharp expression in her eyes. “Were you, perhaps,
trained at the Temple of the Muse?”

  “Our Mistress was schooled at the Temple of the Muse. It is unusual for a Sidetha to leave the caves for that long, but Shayla is an unusual woman, as is our daughter, Geally, who has followed her mother’s tradition and is in her third year of being educated by the Muse,” Perth said. He patted his wife’s hand warmly in a gesture that would have seemed affectionate had Morrigan not been looking into Shayla’s eyes at that moment, and very clearly seen the look of revulsion that passed quickly across the woman’s beautiful face.

  “Uh, no, I’ve never been to the Temple of the Muse,” she said, wondering what was really going on inside that marriage (not that it was any of her business). Then added hastily, “But congratulations on being educated by the Muse.” Whatever that meant.

  “You are not, of course, Sidetha, but have you visited our caves before?” Shayla asked. With a fluttery little movement, she extracted her hand from under her husband’s.

  “No. I’ve never been here before.” Morrigan snuck a glance at Birkita, but the older woman avoided eye contact. Surely Birkita had told people that she had appeared through the boulder, hadn’t she? Morrigan didn’t feel comfortable explaining that she was from a whole other world, but she certainly hadn’t meant to pretend she’d just walked in through the front door of their cave. Hell! She didn’t even know if the cave had a front door.

  “Strange that you look so familiar…” Shayla let the sentence trail off and went back to her meal, but Morrigan could feel the looks she continued to slide her way.

  “I don’t like them. They make my skin crawl,” she whispered to Birkita, cutting her eyes at Perth and Shayla. When the older woman paled, Morrigan lightened her tone and said, “But I do like Brina,” and promptly snuck the big cat a piece of something that tasted and looked a lot like fried chicken.

  Birkita looked relieved to have the subject changed and Morrigan admitted to herself that she was glad to lighten up the conversation, too. Between bites of her own chicken, Birkita said, “You probably know, my Lady, that brina means protector in the Old Language.” She smiled at the cat, who was stretched out possessively at Morrigan’s feet, eyes half-lidded and purring contentedly. “Brina has long protected the Usgaran, but has never been particularly fond of one priestess over another. That is, until now. Now it seems she will protect you along with the Usgaran.”

  “Brina is amazing,” Morrigan said around a full mouth, and tickled the cat on the top of her head. She swallowed and took a quick drink. “Birkita, you mentioned an Usgaran? What is that?” She kinda remembered Birkita using the word, but she couldn’t think of its meaning.

  Before Birkita could respond, Shayla’s voice, suddenly way too sweet and silky, replied for her. “How is it that a High Priestess of Adsagsona is unfamiliar with the Usgaran?”

  Birkita surprised Morrigan by immediately speaking up. “Mistress, the Light Bringer is from afar—a Keep called Oklahoma.” She tripped only slightly over the long, unfamiliar word. “Perhaps there, the room that holds the sacred crystal is called by another name?”

  The table looked at her expectantly.

  “The Encampment Room,” Morrigan said, feeling definitely out of her element. “That’s what we call it in Oklahoma.”

  “Oklahoma?” Perth sounded baffled. “I have never heard of such a Keep. Where is its location?”

  Morrigan’s palms started to sweat and she, once again, silently thanked G-pa for forcing her into all of those years of drama class. Improvisation—that’s all this was. “Oklahoma is far away. In the West. Southwest actually.”

  Still frowning, Perth said, “The Sidetha do not make a habit of leaving our lands, but I am not totally ignorant of the rest of Partholon. There is no Oklahoma Keep in the southwest. I don’t believe there is an Oklahoma Keep in all of Partholon.”

  “It’s not in Partholon.” Which definitely was not a lie, she thought smugly.

  There were gasps of surprise all around her as she heard murmurs of “Not in Partholon!” and “The Light Bringer is from across the B’an Sea!”

  “Yes, Oklahoma is far away from Partholon, and that’s why a lot of this—” Morrigan made a dramatic, sweeping gesture “—is strange to me. So, I’ll need your help learning the names of things and the way your, uh, Keep works.”

  Even though Shayla’s laugh was humorless, several people at the closest tables echoed it. “The Caves of the Sidetha are not a mere Keep. We are a Realm of our own, ruled by our own—though we do pay homage to Epona’s Chosen,” she added as almost an afterthought. Then her gaze sharpened and Morrigan felt a vague but real sense of danger in the next question she asked. “Were there no cave Realms in Oklahoma?”

  “Of course there were caves there,” Morrigan said, sticking to the truth, which—as her grandparents had taught her—was usually the best road to take. “They’re called Oklahoma’s Alabaster Caverns.”

  “And Adsagsona? Were you the Goddess’s Light Bringer in Oklahoma’s Alabaster Caverns, too?” Shayla asked with a sly edge to her voice.

  The truth, Morrigan reminded herself, ignoring the fluttering of anger that seemed to move through her mind, independent of her own will. I stay with the truth as much as I possibly can.

  “The crystals spoke to me in Oklahoma, and they also lit for me, but I didn’t know about Adsagsona. Until I came here, I thought…” Morrigan hesitated and then finished in a rush, “I thought I was Epona’s Chosen.”

  Instead of freaking out the group of people, what Morrigan finally admitted to them and to herself seemed to resonate with the Sidetha—or maybe it was the honest emotion that filled her voice, and the sadness that was so apparent on her face. Whichever, the people understood. They talked in hushed voices and nodded their heads. Even Shayla and Perth looked mollified.

  Birkita’s hand covered hers briefly. “The ways of the gods and goddesses are sometimes difficult to understand and hard to follow. It would be unimaginable to be Chosen by Adsagsona and touched as a Light Bringer, but held apart from your goddess. Like her people, Adsagsona is loath to leave the Caves of the Sidetha. It shows the depth of her love for you that Adsagsona found you in Oklahoma, took you from the dark, lonely place in which you dwelled and brought you to join her people—your people.” Her touch and her words were so familiar in their kindness that Morrigan had to blink away tears of homesickness. “Hail, Adsagsona!” Birkita said, and her joyful cry was echoed by many of the women scattered throughout the chamber.

  Morrigan noticed that Shayla and Perth mouthed the words but did not actually speak the Goddess’s name. Weird…

  The rest of the meal passed with a lot less drama. Shayla and Perth were lost in a private conversation with one another. Morrigan asked Birkita to tell her about the mosaics decorating the huge chamber, and she was able to relax and eat while her grandma’s voice chattered about art and stone.

  She had just finished eating, and had to suppress the urge to stretch and yawn like Brina was doing, but Birkita’s keen eyes caught hers. “My Lady, you are still weary from your journey here,” she said.

  “I wanted you to show me around, but I think you’re right. I’m still a lot more tired than I thought.” Then she turned to the royal couple and forced herself to smile and not sound sarcastic. “It was nice to meet you. Thank you for the meal, and for making me welcome.”

  “You said that you did not know you had been Chosen by Adsagsona when you were in Oklahoma.” Morrigan had begun to stand when Shayla’s cool voice stopped her.

  “That’s right. I didn’t know about Adsagsona then.” Morrigan answered the Mistress of the Sidetha warily. “But now I do. I know she brought me here, and here is where I belong.”

  “Well, then, if you are Adsagsona’s High Priestess as well as her Light Bringer you will want to perform the Goddess’s Dark Moon Ritual tomorrow night.”

  Having no clue about a dark moon anything Morrigan scrambled to find something to say. Thankfully, Birkita spoke into the awkward silence.r />
  “If Morrigan is Adsagsona’s Light Bringer and High Priestess?” There was an unexpectedly steely edge to Birkita’s voice. “She traveled through the sacred crystal to arrive in the heart of the Usgaran, just as I foretold she would because the Goddess foretold her arrival through my dreams. The spirits of the cave speak to her and acknowledge her as Light Bringer. And we have all witnessed that she can call alive the light within the crystal.” Birkita pointed up at the still-glowing ceiling. “I mean no disrespect to you, Mistress, but there is no question that Morrigan is High Priestess of Adsagsona.”

  “Of course there isn’t.” Shayla’s tone was patronizing. “Obviously she’s a Light Bringer. I didn’t mean to sound like I was questioning that. Actually I was honoring her and showing proper respect for our new High Priestess by mentioning the ritual. I assumed that Morrigan would be taking your position, or are you still maintaining the position of High Priestess? I thought there can be only one. Or am I wrong? I certainly could be.” Her laugh was high and sarcastic. “I am, after all, not as well versed in the mysteries of the gods and goddesses as are you. I’m much too busy with the more mundane job of the day-to-day business of our Realm.”