by KB Anne
The sight of the wizard calmed her. The last remnants of her troubled sleep disappeared as she followed him through the tunnel. She didn’t know why the gruff wizard calmed her nerves. He didn’t hug or speak to her gently. He laid no magic spell upon her. She supposed she craved company more than nourishment. That’s why she had waited to eat the pheasant.
A heavy cauldron sat amidst hot red logs in the fire pit. The wizard had been expecting her. Mathair Mhór always had a fire ready along with the proper utensils needed to skin or pluck whatever prey Caer brought home.
Gallean plunged the bird into the boiling pot of water to scald the feathers, making it easier to pluck. “How did you rest last night?”
“Not well.”
“And what troubles the young warrior?”
It would be easy to lie to him and not mention the truth about her past, about who was after her, but she was sure the wizard already knew.
“I was haunted by the death of my father.”
He sat on a log and quickly pulled at the feathers. “You witnessed your father’s death?”
Gallean’s gift of sight annoyed her. Why ask questions he already knew? “You knew that, didn’t you.”
“I see many things,” he said, spearing the pheasant with a long stick and resting it across the fire on two spikes. “But I don’t see everything.”
“It was a man.” No, it had been too long since she even thought of him as a man. She didn’t believe there was any humanity left in him, if there ever was. “He was a monster,” was all she could say.
“And what did you see?”
“I saw him slice my father’s throat.”
“Why did you run from him?”
“I was scared. He wanted to possess me. He wanted me for his own.”
“How do you know that?”
She suspected Gallean was trying to get to the root of what was troubling her, but she didn’t want to go there. She couldn’t. All she knew was that Balor wanted to possess her. She just knew.
Gallean adjusted the bird to roast the other side. She watched him as she thought about Balor and how she knew he wanted her.
They sat in a long silence, but it was not uncomfortable. It wasn’t like the night before, when she had sat alone, longing for companionship. Finally, she spoke. “It was his eye.”
“Which one?”
“The one that looked at me. I was hiding in the tunnel like a coward. Balor knew I was watching him. I wondered what was beneath the leather patch. If there was an empty eye socket or an eyeball with no pupil. Or something else. That’s when he looked at me with his good eye. It was gray. Lifeless. It felt like it bored into my brain.”
“And what did it see?”
“It saw a girl terrified for her father because she knew what was coming next and still hid like a coward.”
Gallean poked at the hot coals to ensure a well-roasted meal. Caer thought their conversation was finished, but then in a quiet voice he said, “What did he see in you?”
Caer had already answered him. “He saw me,” she said, stubbornly frustrated that he wasn’t understanding what she was saying.
“But who are you?”
“I’m a girl. I am just a girl.”
He turned away from the fire to face her. “Are you?”
Tears welled in her eyes. She swiped them away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do,” he said. His words wrapped around her and pulled her into an embrace without ever touching her. “You’re tugging at those white tufts right now.”
When Caer realized what she was doing, she shoved her hands beneath her legs. “What does it mean? What does it mark me as?”
Gallean’s chest rose and fell. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and she wondered if he would even answer her. “It marks you as different.”
That she already knew. “Different in what way?”
He pursed his lips. She could tell he was deciding how much to tell her. “There is more you can do.”
Her vocal cords tightened. A distant memory tried to surface, but she forced it down. She wanted Gallean to tell her. “What else can I do?”
He tore off a leg from the bird and handed it to her. “That’s not for me to reveal. It is for you discover on your own.”
Her mouth watered as she studied the leg. “But what if I don’t know how? What if I never know?”
He smiled at her before speaking. “You will. It was written in the stars that you will make the discovery.”
Mathair Mhór used to tell her that too. After the death of her father, her life rattled with riddles.
“Your guardian said that too, didn’t she?” he asked before biting into the other leg.
The mind-reading ability frustrated her, but he had confirmed what she long suspected. Neither Mathair Mhór nor Gallean knew the truth of her otherness. How was she supposed to discover it without a guide?
“In time,” Gallean said, reading her thoughts again. “In time.”
* * *
They spent the next several days training from morning to evening, practicing how to use the sword as an extension of the body and how to swing a blade with deadly accuracy. The dull ache of exhaustion gnawed at her muscles, but she didn’t want to stop. She knew she only had until the Shadow Moon before the brother and sister arrived, and she needed to learn as much as she possibly could from Gallean. Her future was wrought with mystery. She needed to spend her present in training.
She tried not to think about what her life would be like once the brother and sister arrived. After spending almost a week with the wizard, living alone did not bring her comfort.
“Concentrate,” Gallean roared. “When you don’t concentrate, you put yourself at risk.” He jabbed at her stomach. She parried his attack and returned her own rally of swordplay. He fell away from her as she continued to bombard him.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s it. Always concentrate. Do not let yourself get distracted when you are in the midst of battle.”
“But—”
He came at her again, putting her on the defensive. “There are no buts. You fight to win and then you get out. Do not stay past your time. Do not underestimate their skill, and do not overestimate yours.”
The sun dropped past the high wall of the keep and still they fought. Him always instructing, always attacking. Caer always coming at him with more. Her cup continued to fill, and yet, it had not run over.
She angled her sword, ready to come at him with intense concentration. She would knock the old wizard off his feet to demonstrate her mastery of the day’s lesson. She rushed at his left, feinted, and went for his right. She swung at his feet, but before the blade made contact, he threw his hand at her, launching her through the air. Her body smashed against the oak tree. Her arms and legs flew backward around the tree from the impact, and the air whooshed out of her lungs. Her bottom hit the stone floor, adding further insult. When she finally caught her breath, she growled, “What the . . . ?”
He threw up his hand again. Her lips pinned together. “Somebody is here,” he said in a low, deep voice that traveled through the air to her.
Fear clamped down on her chest. How could someone have passed through his three energy barriers? They kept everyone out except her.
Panic stole her regained breath. Balor. Could he have found her? She had thought his reach could not extend beyond the borders of the Land of Shadows. It had been foolish of her to suppose such. He would find her no matter how far she traveled.
“It is not your monster. You will have time to fight that one.”
“Then who is it?” she hissed under her breath. He waved his hand in the air for silence. And as his faithful student, she waited for him to motion her to speak again.
He shifted his body in the direction of the main tunnel to the exterior of his keep. The very one Caer had always snuck down. The only one where entrance could be granted or denied. He tilted his head as if he could hear more clearly that way.
>
Caer wondered if he would shift into the bear. She had seen the bear plenty of times from a distance but had never seen the transformation from human to other.
His body stiffened. “You have to get out of here now.”
Anger and sadness combined together. “Where am I to go?”
He rushed over to her. “The same place you were before. The same place that you’ve been hiding for many years. The very place you slept last night.”
The thought of leaving him and their training was more than she was capable of. She took hold of her anger instead and prepared to wield it. “I thought you said I could stay here.”
He lifted his head and inhaled. Caer did the same. “It appears that the brother and sister have arrived before they were due.”
Caer’s muscles tightened. Her fingers dug into the handle of the sword. Her taste of joy was ruined. The brother and sister needed to die. She firmed her grip on the handle and advanced toward the tunnel.
An invisible wall stopped her from continuing.
“You will not kill them,” the wizard said in a tone that spoke of danger and violence to anyone who attempted it.
She tried to empty her head of thoughts. He must not read her intention. His mind probed hers and she struggled to push him out. Her jaw twitched with the effort.
“They will not be harmed,” he murmured, almost as if he was spelling her.
She could feel when she successfully expelled him from her mind and lifted her chin in defiance, but she remained quiet, as if waiting for his instruction.
“You must not become too comfortable in your surroundings at any time,” he said, his voice traveling to her. His eyes widened. The brother and sister were near. “You need to go invisible.”
Rebellion bloomed within her. “I thought you said I wasn’t truly invisible.
“Most people are unable to detect the difference in the energies in the air.”
“Knock, knock,” a male voice shouted from outside of the keep.
“Now,” he growled as he approached the tunnel.
Caer pulled the energy around her and shifted into invisible. Animosity toward the brother and sister welled up inside her. They had arrived ahead of schedule, ruining her training and destroying her one chance at learning how to protect herself from the monster who hunted her. She wanted to kill them. It mattered not that Gallean had said they were the only ones that could help her. They needed to be destroyed. She’d risk Gallean’s punishment. It would pale in comparison with what Balor had planned for her.
The years between her father’s death and now had been long. Not a moment could be wasted. The brother and sister must be eliminated.
11
Did You See That?
I’m completely expecting to see Madigan standing before us with his hands shoved in his pockets and his proverbial tail shoved between his legs, but I don’t see him. Not one freaking part of him.
“Are you still here?” Scott shouts, thinking that maybe Madigan hid behind a tree or crawled under a rock or something.
Just when a reincarnated goddess thinks it’s safe to go outside, some new mystical being or magical ability reveals itself. Er, in this case, doesn’t reveal himself.
“I’m here,” he says. We both jump because he sounds like he’s literally right next to us.
Scott was one of those kids who wanted to touch everything when Uncle Mark, now known as “Dad,” took us shopping. I did too, but while Scott was the kid everyone smiled at and gave a lollipop to because he was just so darn cute and would only “look with his eyes,” I was the reason there were signs posted that said, “Keep an eye on your children” and “If you break it, you bought it.” But Scott’s the one dying to get his hands on Madigan. Who gets the lollipop now?
“Can I, um . . . do you mind if I reach out and try to touch you?” Scott says to the empty space in front of us. It would be a creepy request if it wasn’t Scott asking with wide-eyed, childlike amazement.
“Sure. I’ve never had anybody ask me that before. Truth is, I’ve never told anybody I could do this before.”
His confession makes me realize just how much trust and faith he’s placed in us as well.
Scott slowly reaches his hands out. You know when you wake up at night and have to go to the bathroom, but you don’t want to turn on the light and blind yourself, so you sorta zombie-walk and wind up smashing your toe? He looks just like that. One by one he extends his fingers. Then he extends his arms, but not fully, because he winds up finding Madigan. “Oh my gods,” he says under his breath. “Wow.”
The wonder in his voice makes me want to reach out and touch Madigan too. Especially since the space in front of me doesn’t look like a single person is there. It’s just nothingness. And Madigan is definitely not breakable.
“Can I touch?”
“Yeah, sure,” Madigan says, sounding much braver than he does when he’s visible. I guess if I could become invisible, I might be braver too. I reach out both hands, and since my arms are shorter than Scott’s, I wind up going full Frankenstein’s monster and shuffle forward before smacking right into him.
He yelps in surprise as I fall backward, landing on my ass.
“Are you okay?” Two giant hands wrap around my twiggy arms, and it’s my turn to yelp because there’s no body—or face or hands for that matter—because he is fecking invisible.
I let Madigan help me up since I’m kinda in shock. Not regular Madigan, but invisible Madigan, which makes it even cooler. “Holy shit! That’s awesome. How do you do that?”
I stare at the space where Madigan would be standing. Patterns of energy, albeit invisible energy, swirl around where his body is supposed to be. I reach out and touch the energy field, forgetting that there’s a real person standing there and not a magical anomaly.
He laughs. “Hey, that’s my stomach.”
I snap my hand back. “Oops, sorry.”
“That was rude,” Scott says indignantly.
Surprise, surprise. Now that Madigan possesses a superhero ability, Scott trusts him completely. Or at least thinks Madigan’s worth more effort. Frankly, the only way Madigan could be any cooler in Scott’s eyes now would be if he turned green. Scott also harbors a Hulk crush.
“Like you didn’t do it too. Madigan, can you reappear just as easily?”
As soon as I finish my question, he appears in front of us.
“Wow,” Scott says again. He’s a man of limited vocabulary this afternoon. Lucky for all of us, I’ve got my wits about me.
“How do you disappear?”
Madigan purses his lips. I try to get a read on him. I know it’s wrong, but hey, if you had mind-reading abilities, wouldn’t you use them too?
Eventually, after trying to put an explanation into words, he lifts his shoulders. “I dunno.”
Scott’s still tongue-tied, so I continue peppering him with questions. “How did you discover you could do it? How old were you?”
His face darkens. The cheerful guy disappears, replaced by a sad one.
“Apologies for Gigi. She asks wildly inappropriate and often too personal questions. You don’t have to tell us if you’re not comfortable with it.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’s okay. I trust you. It’s just that it trudges up my past, and I haven’t thought about my old family for a long time.”
So many questions, but before I can ask another one, Scott pipes back in. “Not to be a jerk or anything, but why didn’t you tell us about the skill from the very beginning? All those times you went to their house to fetch clothing—you were always invisible, weren’t you.”
Again Madigan looks sheepish. “You knew I was a werewolf, and we didn’t talk about that.”
“Yeah, but why didn’t you say something before?”
Madigan reaches down and picks up a rock. He lobs it back and forth between his hands. “It’s just that . . . my parents didn’t approve. They thought I was a changeling swapped out for their baby because
one time when my ma was changing my diaper, I disappeared. They thought I was a fairy baby, and that fairies stole their real baby to be their servant. They blamed me any time anything went missing. One day, I was but five or six, my da tried to punish me for stealing some bread. I disappeared before he could lay a hand on me and left.”
Scott and I both reach out our hands for him and send him soothing thoughts. I think of the time we both touched Ryan when he was in the hospital. We didn’t realize it then, but I think we pushed calmness into him too.
“Were you born a werewolf?”
Gi, do you think it’s really the best time to ask?
Yes, I do.
“Carman found me wandering the countryside. She made me believe that . . .” he hesitates.
Sure, I’d spent some time with Carman, and of course she’d helped raise Alaric, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Anything we could learn about her could help us figure out what to do with Maria. “What, Madigan?”
“That I could become part of their family since my own abandoned me. All I had to do was . . .”
Scott and I lean forward. I know Alaric’s werewolf origin story—his mother was impregnated by Clayone. But I don’t know anyone else’s. Carman’s manual provided details of the different ways to make a werewolf, but after seeing the dungeons and the claw marks in the cells, and with the stench of death hanging heavy, I’d guess there were far more failures than successes.
One of her successes was standing in front of us.
Scott rubs his hands together in an effort to change the subject. As much as he wants to know Madigan’s creation story, he thinks it might be too soon. Madigan revealing his invisibility was enough. “How about we grab a bite to eat and unload for a while.”
Madigan smiles. “I appreciate you trying to distract me, but let’s try to find Alaric first. He’s my alpha. I need him.”
“He’s your best friend too, isn’t he.”
“’Tis true.” A lone tear trails down his massive cheek. “Let’s get on with it then,” he says cheerfully, as if his disappearing act revelation had no impact on Scott and me whatsoever. I guess he’s right too. Now that he’s out of the invisibility closet, there’s nothing left to do but find Alaric.