by KB Anne
“I’m not sure if we’re welcome.” I’m definitely not feeling the Gallean love, that’s for sure.
“Oh, don’t be a poor sport again just because I found my key much faster than you.”
“It took me hours to find it.”
“Whatever. You survived. Think of it as character building.”
“Speaking of character building, now that you know Maria isn’t some teenage girl you were looking to get a piece of . . .”
He throws up his hands. “Hold up, I wasn’t trying to get into her pants. She was trying to get into mine.”
“You totally were.”
“Well, maybe.”
“I thought you were saving yourself for your swan.”
“From what everybody tells me, I won’t find her until I shed my mortality and return to the Otherworld. I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning to pick up a full-time residency in the Otherworld anytime soon.”
“No, definitely not.”
“Exactly. I’ve got years—maybe decades—before I rejoin my true love. Am I supposed to wait around for her, or am I allowed to have some fun? Being the God of Love, I feel it’s my obligation to have some fun.”
“Looking for any excuse to get some action.”
“Maybe.”
“Following the stereotype that gods are sex-crazed lunatics?”
“Takes one to know one.”
I shove him through another energy field. “I was referring to Breas.”
He pulls me through. “Right, Breas.”
We pass through one more energy field on our way to Gallean’s keep. In the seomra de rúin we only saw the keep from the inside. But somehow, when Scott saw the outside of it today, he just knew what it was.
The high stone walls keep out as many uninvited guests as I suspect they keep in. That’s if Gallean’s bear persona doesn’t scare the holy crud out of anyone who attempts to approach the keep. I’m not looking forward to meeting the bear again, but then again, I always get along better with animals than people, so who knows? Maybe this will be a “Come to Gigi” moment for us both.
“Do you hear that?” Scott says in a low voice. “It sounds like he’s talking to somebody.”
The quiet muttering fills the empty spaces left in the silence of the early evening. “Maybe he’s talking to himself like you do. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
He stops and listens. “No, no! He’s definitely talking to someone.”
I peek down the long tunnel to the courtyard of the keep, but before I can get a good look, Scott pulls me back against the wall.
“That’s rude.”
“Says the eavesdropper. Listen, if he doesn’t want to be observed, then he ought to shut the doors.” I point at the hulking wooden doors standing open on either side of the tunnel.
“I’m not really sure what the protocol is when you enter an all-powerful sorcerer’s lair.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s a wizard. Sorcerer sounds too Disney. Just knock.”
“Knock, knock,” he shouts.
Gallean, in wizard form, appears in the opening at the end of the tunnel. He looks at us for a long time. So long, in fact, that I kinda wish the bear had shown up. Finally he says, “The Shadow Moon is not for another three days. How is it you’ve arrived?”
“We’ve been asking ourselves that same question for the past half hour,” Scott says. “I blame Gigi. She always finds the loophole to most situations. But such as it is, we’re here now.”
I watch the wizard closely. He’s not shifting into a bear, but he’s not pleased with our presence. I don’t mean to be cocky, but we are reincarnated gods, and that doesn’t happen very often, so I don’t know why he would be hesitant about letting us into his keep. He should be welcoming us with open arms. Maybe even throwing a party. Or at least tossing a handful of confetti.
Scott picks up on Gallean’s hesitation too. “Is it bad timing? Are you otherwise engaged?”
Gallean puts his back to us, which is pretty rude, especially since he keeps talking. “It’s fine. Clarissa and Amorin did not inform me of your early arrival.”
I keep my mouth shut. It’s probably best to let Scott do all the talking. He likes to do that anyway.
“We left rather unexpectedly.”
“Will the story be long?” Gallean asks, sounding bored. I get that we’re early, but geez, isn’t he the least bit curious about how we got here? He keeps glancing around the keep as if he’s looking for someone or something to save him from a long, drawn-out tale. I’m guessing either Granda gave him a heads up on our banter or he’s lived by himself for so long that he has no patience for conversation of any kind. Scott and I will be a challenge in many different respects to him.
“Gigi was thinking about her missing boyfriend. She touched a painting of him, and we disappeared and wound up here.”
“Remarkable,” Gallean says to himself. “Quite remarkable.”
My stomach growls, reminding me that we haven’t eaten since breakfast. “Not to be rude, but we conducted a tracking spell, which led us on a search for the missing boyfriend and inadvertently traveled through a portal to wind up here, and we haven’t eaten all day. We’re starving.”
Gallean strolls over to his fire pit. The picked-over remains of what appears to be some kind of bird cling to a roasting stick. “Of course,” he says, sliding the bones into the fire.
I watch the flames consume the rather large carcass. He is a sizable man, but that’s a lot of meat for one person even if he is a bear.
“Are you sure we aren’t interrupting anything?”
A sheen of sweat drips from his brow, but it’s not from the heat of the fire. What was he doing before we got there?
He pokes the coals with a long, rather intimidating iron poker. “No, definitely not. Let me get you something.” He disappears inside his keep.
Meanwhile, Scott makes himself comfortable on the same bench he sat at in the seomra de rúin when I was too busy finding a key to sit. I have the strangest feeling that somebody else is standing in the courtyard with us. I keep looking around, but I don’t see anyone.
Gallean returns with dried strips of meat, cheese, and bread. I’m guessing there aren’t many vegetarians in the Shadow Realm.
“Are you sure we aren’t interrupting? I feel like someone else is here.”
In the far corner of the keep, next to the tunnel where Gallean appeared after he shifted into a man from a bear, I swear I see an energy field similar to Madigan’s.
Gallean steps in front of me, effectively blocking my view before glancing over both of his shoulders in an exaggerated, almost comical motion. “Nobody but me.”
His reaction and his entire body language are out of character. Not that we became best friends during our first visit, but he definitely seemed more serious then.
“Whatever you say,” I mumble under my breath and tear off a piece of bread with my fingers.
As Scott engages him in conversation, I worry about our early arrival. I don’t know how long we’ll be in the Shadow Realm, or what we’ll learn, or even how we’ll even get back to the Earthly Realm. I hope that the time away from our search for Alaric and Lizzie doesn’t mean the end of their lives. I don’t want to continue finding and losing Alaric again and again in each of my reincarnations. I want to be able to be with him in this one.
You will, Gigi. You will.
13
Nine of Wands
Anger boiled in Caer’s veins, promising to erupt at the slightest provocation, for she desired revenge above all else. With the brother and sister’s early arrival, her training had abruptly ended. She did not dispute that the skills she’d learned over the past few days would assist her when she went up against Balor, but she needed more. Going against the enemy ill-equipped would lead to an early death, and though she wasn’t afraid of dying, she didn’t want to.
Gallean had insisted that she stand in the far corner. Initially it rankled her to be forced into
hiding, but it would prove an effective vantage point to determine which one to dispatch first. Regardless of the wizard’s warning about not killing them, she’d end them both.
He led the pair into the keep, much the same as he had done for her after he’d made himself known to her. She was surprised at the size of the sister. She was much smaller than Caer remembered. Her behavior in the battle with the bear and her indignant search for the key had made her seem much larger, more of a comparable opponent. But now, watching her enter the keep, Caer wasn’t sure how she had even gotten to the Land of Shadows, let alone why Gallean had agreed to train her. She was unimpressive in every way. She didn’t even carry a sword, bow, or weapons belt. She’d prove an easy target.
The brother continued to apologize to Gallean for their early arrival. He didn’t know how they had arrived before the Shadow Moon, but the prospect of training with the wizard brought light to his persona. His eyes sparkled with excitement, even with his apologies. She’d forgotten the way the brother’s appearance made parts of her body tingle. She supposed, had she not wanted to kill him, she would have considered him handsome. Now he just stood in the way of her survival.
He constantly adjusted his body to ensure he could protect his sister if Gallean were to attack. His strong build and quick feet demonstrated a high level of physical prowess. He would not be easy to kill even if he was untrained.
Auras shimmered around each of them, hinting that they were more than they appeared to be. Her initial assessment of the sister had been false. She was powerful even without weapons. The sister may not be able to conduct magic in the Land of Shadows, but her skills would develop and surpass the brother’s with very little training.
Gallean led them over to the fire. The sister took Caer’s seat from earlier and the brother sat nearby. Gallean had told her that they were the only two who could help her. Caer would not take that chance. She couldn’t risk them gaining power as a result of Gallean’s training when he ought to be training her. She’d kill the sister first, then worry about the brother.
She gripped the handle of her sword. It would serve her well. Once the brother and sister were gone, Gallean would thank her, and then they could proceed with her studies. With the wizard’s back to her, she took a step toward them. The sister glanced in her direction. She couldn’t have heard Caer move—Caer prided herself on her stealth—but she squinted her eyes all the same and studied the space. If she had gained mastery of some of her abilities, she might be able to see Caer as Gallean had.
Caer thought about slicing the sister’s throat just as Balor had done to her father. But if the sister jerked at all, or if the brother intervened, there was a possibility that the sister could remain alive. So the head then.
With a dull blade, one needed exact precision and tremendous effort to ensure success. Caer sharpened her blades every day. If the motion was swift and true, the head would cut clear off. With the element of surprise on her side and the wizard occupied in conversation, she raised her arms above her head, sword at the ready, and stalked toward the sister.
Without even looking in Caer’s direction, Gallean placed himself in front of the sister, blocking her line of attack. Caer adjusted her position and leapt at her.
The wizard shifted around to face her. Without him muttering a word or making any marked movement, an invisible prison locked around her, effectively immobilizing her in attack position, arms raised over her head, legs outstretched in a long stride.
Neither the brother nor the sister were phased by Gallean turning his back on them, nor did they sense that their lives had been threatened. Even the sister ceased looking in Caer’s direction. She guessed the wizard had laid an additional protection of invisibility on her. He didn’t want the brother or the sister to discover his other student’s presence any more than Caer wanted them in the Land of Shadows.
Her joints ached as she stood frozen, forced to watch the brother and sister plead for nourishment after she had provided a plump pheasant each morning since her training began. They were worse than the beggars she came across in the village.
The wizard cast a glance in her direction on his way into the kitchen. His eyes promised punishment at the next available opportunity, and though she didn’t like being unable to move, she knew it was better than whatever retribution the wizard would take.
He soon returned with a heaping plate of meats, bread, and cheese for his new guests. She watched with disgust as the sister tore bread apart with her fingers before eating it, as if it was too much effort to rip it off with her teeth. To Caer, it was a sign of weakness and inhospitality. The wizard didn’t seem to agree. The manner in which he studied the brother and sister’s every action and reaction suggested he was preparing to be their teacher.
He called them by their forenames, Scott and Gigi. Neither name hinted at legendary power. Not like Cu Chulainn, the great warrior Mathair Mhór had raised long before Caer came to live with her. He was a man worthy of the bards’ affections. Perhaps someday she would be too, but it wasn’t the promise of legends and myth that drove her.
Soon after the meal, the brother and sister hinted at their exhaustion and need for rest. Gallean cast a shrewd glance at Caer before leading them to the opposite end of the keep, most likely to one of the rooms he had offered her only days before. She had chosen not to stay because of her need for solitude in order to reflect on what the wizard had shared with her. Now, she regretted her decision. Either the brother or the sister would be sleeping in the very bed she had planned to stay in tonight if the wizard had offered again.
The loss of a night’s sleep in a bed added another blow to her already bruised ego. It had been years since she’d slept in one. The nest of pine boughs, branches, and leaves she had created in the cave provided an adequate night’s sleep, but it was nothing like the warmth and the comfort she had experienced in her own bed at Mathair Mhór’s cottage.
She keenly felt the many losses of her life at that moment. The wizard casting her away when something shiny and new appeared was the crushing blow. Tears streamed down her face. The most awful part of the immobilization was that she couldn’t swipe them off. They etched streaks across her cheeks as they trailed down her lips and into her throat.
Soon Gallean returned. He didn’t shift into the bear, although he was more terrifying now than the shocking beast had ever been.
“You almost killed the only two who can help you,” he growled.
More tears fell down her face. This time for the disappointment reflected in the wizard’s eyes. Being frozen, she didn’t think she could speak, but she had to try. He had to understand.
As if reading her thoughts, he waved his hand, freeing her lips.
“I need you to train me, but with them here, my training is finished,” she burst out.
“You will watch just as you have for many years.”
It was a cruel reminder that he had known of her presence from the very beginning. All those nights when she’d cried herself to sleep . . . and other nights, when she couldn’t sleep because of monsters in the dark—both real and imagined. She would have savored every moment with the wizard had he taken her in instead of the brother and sister. The training she would have received by his side would have prepared her for every foe she’d ever encounter, but her fate had changed.
“After their arrival in the seomra de rúin, you shifted from warrior training to that bizarre energy dance. A dance will not save me. I do not possess magic. I do not have the skills that you do. I do not have the ability to manipulate energy and use it to my advantage.”
His eyes skewered her where she stood. “You possess your own forms of power. Just as powerful. Just as dangerous.”
She wished she could move. The emotion filling her throat almost choked her. “Then train me!”
“It is my duty to teach them. I’ve agreed to it, and I do not go back on my word.”
Caer read between the lines. Understanding dawned on her. “And there’s n
o duty to teach me. I get it. I’m disposable. Toss me out as you did the carcass of the pheasant I brought you this morning. What did they bring you? They will only take. They do not know how to give.”
He crossed his arms, resembling the warrior she believed him to be. “And what is it that you know of them?”
“I know that my training has ended before it even began, and that is enough.”
The wizard stood for a long time. She could tell he wrestled with what he should share with her and what he should keep locked away. She wished he would get on with it already. The ache in every one of her frozen muscles would break her before whatever it was he had to say did.
“The three of you possess your own forms of power. To unite the trí cumhacht, the three powers, is to put the circle at risk.”
To suggest that the three of them were connected and bound together in some way went beyond her comprehension.
“You mustn’t try to kill the sister or the brother again. If your attempt at harm had succeeded, it would have brought disgrace upon me.”
The venom in his voice slithered over her. Her face grew hot with the shame of it, but like the petulant child, she couldn’t let him see her embarrassment. “I didn’t succeed, though, did I?”
“No, and you won’t have the opportunity to do it again. You must rid yourself of this place before the brother and sister discover you.”
“I thought you said I could observe you training them.”
“The sister has detected your energy. I was able to add another layer, but I will be unable to if I’m distracted with their training. You will watch from outside the keep, just as before.”
“Dismissed to hide in the shadows,” she said. Now that she had been brought into the light, the thought of returning to the darkness filled her with bitterness. “I’d rather perish on my own than be forced to hide again.”
At this point Caer would’ve stomped off, but she was still immobilized by Gallean. Frustration at not being able to escape roared through her. “Unleash me,” she growled.