Read Warrior’s Redemption Online
Authors: Melissa Mayhue
There are many people who play a part in the final form of each and every book I write. Without them, the stories wouldn’t be the same.
For this book, I owe special thanks to these people:
Martin Mayhue—for the time and effort it took to actually brew up a batch of the Viking Bog Myrtle Beer so that I would know what I was talking about when I tried to describe it.
Nicholas Wade-Mayhue—whose artistic ability brought my vision to life in the form of the tattoo Odin’s descendants wear.
Megan Mayhue of TrinketsNTidbits.com—whose talent with beaded jewelry yielded beautiful designs to represent the series.
Teresa Redmond-Ott—whose love for all animals is infectious and who graciously taught me more about chickens than I’d ever thought to ask.
Elaine Spencer—whose advice and guidance I value.
And
Megan McKeever—without whom my books just wouldn’t be the same.
T
OM
G
REEN
C
OUNTY,
T
EXAS
F
IFTEEN
Y
EARS
A
GO
F
AIRIES ABSOLUTELY WERE
real. Dani didn’t care what Aunt Jean claimed.
After Mrs. Palmer down at the new library had loaned her those wonderful books this past summer, she’d known it wasn’t just her imagination. Lots of people believed in them. She’d spent the entire vacation between fourth and fifth grades reading all about Faeries.
“Dani?” Aunt Jean’s voice carried all the way down to the chicken coops. “Dani! You better hurry up with those eggs, little girl, if you expect to get breakfast in you before the school bus gets here.”
Dani grabbed the one egg that had been laid already, dodging the grumpy old brown hen’s beak, and hurried back toward the farmhouse. She’d have to gather again when she got home from school, but at least Emma Hen had come through early, as usual.
A furtive glance toward the empty corner next to
the steps as she approached the house warned her of what was to come.
“Get your hands washed and sit yourself down.”
Aunt Jean’s no-nonsense expression was firmly in place, and Dani quickly did as she was told, slipping into her spot at the old kitchen table as her aunt slid a warm plate in front of her.
“What did I tell you about setting a saucer of milk out by the steps?” Aunt Jean waited, arms folded in front of her.
“Not to,” Dani mumbled around her first bite of thick toast. “Draws snakes.”
“So it’s not that you forgot. You’ve just decided you’re not going to mind me, is that it? You’re just trying to be bad?”
“No, ma’am, I’m not trying to be bad. I promise.” The Faeries liked milk and bread. It encouraged them to stay.” My book said—”
“Nuh-uh.” Aunt Jean turned back to the stove, scrambling Dani’s egg, her gray curls swaying with the stubborn shaking of her head. “I don’t want another word of that fairy nonsense, you hear me? There’s no such thing as a fairy, but rattlers are real enough. Those damn snakes will smell that milk a mile off and next thing you know, you or me will be getting ourselves snakebit. And then what?”
“The Faeries would keep us safe, if you’d let me feed them,” Dani muttered, tearing a corner off her toast and dropping it into her lap. If her aunt would just believe, the Faeries would hear all their wishes and make them come true. “I read that in one of my books.”
“Danielle Faye Dearmon!” Aunt Jean turned around from the stove and leaned across the table. “I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense from you. Not everything in books is true just because somebody wrote it down. I’m serious as a heart attack about this, little girl. I want your promise right now that you won’t put any more milk out by the steps for these damned imaginary fairies of yours or else I’m going to have to paddle your butt, you understand me? I want your promise on it, Dani. I want it now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Dani didn’t hesitate with her response. She had no choice. Her aunt was really serious this time. She almost never pulled out the “paddle your butt” threat. “I promise.”
She meant to keep the promise, too. No more milk by the porch steps. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t hunt down a new spot to feed the Faeries when she got home from school this afternoon. A better spot. One that Aunt Jean wouldn’t find.
Because no matter that Aunt Jean was the best substitute mama on the face of the planet, in this one thing, she was completely wrong.
Faeries were absolutely real, and Dani meant to make sure she stayed on their good side.
L
AND OF THE
F
AERIE
1294 (
AS
C
ALCULATED BY
M
ORTALS
)
H
OWLS ECHOED THROUGH
the forest of Wyddecol, so protracted and pain-ridden they tortured Elesyria’s eardrums. Like those of some animal in its death throes, the screams pitched from fury to terror and back again.
She ran faster through the trees, seeking in vain to escape the torment of those sounds. Knowing she could never outrun that which came from her own throat.
It was her agony, her torment that tore the screams from her lungs as if the pain were a living creature eating at her innards.
Her daughter, her only child, her beautiful Isabella had disappeared from the World of Man.
On she ran, unseeing, dodging by instinct the low-hanging branches and fallen limbs. On, deeper into the forest, until at last she broke through into a clearing. Ahead lay the Temple of Danu, golden in its perpetual shaft of sunlight, encircled by its ring of massive stones.
Elesyria pushed herself harder, maintaining her pace up the long marble staircase. Not even at the doorway did she slow. No stopping to shed her sandals, no washing her feet, no bending low to show reverence at the doorway to the inner sanctum. Not this time. This time, for the first time ever, she simply didn’t care.
Her precious Isabella was gone from the World of Man.
“Show yourself, I demand it! How could you allow this to happen?” she accused, ignoring the hysterical echo of her own words in the cavernous, rounded room. “You promised. She was to be cared for if I would but leave her with the Mortals and return to your service. You promised!”
She screamed the final words, her voice cracking as she sank to her knees. The tears, until now strangely absent, at last found their release, rolling down her cheeks to splatter on the white stone floor at her knees. “You promised,” she accused one final time, her words no more than a whisper against the canvas of her grief.
“You would demand my presence in your world, Daughter of Danu?”
The words echoed off the arc of the room’s high ceiling, bouncing, tumbling in a harmonious melody of sound.
“I would,” Elesyria answered without hesitation. She had no care for the ancient protocols. No time to travel to the trance world. No desire to honor the bitch Goddess who had betrayed her.
In front of her a pale green mist coalesced, writhing and bubbling, shifting from one form to another until at last a tall, beautiful woman emerged. The Goddess, the Earth Mother, had arrived.
“Then I can only assume these are the direst of times. What troubles you, my child?”
“The loss of
my
child.” Elesyria rose to her feet, well aware she breached all acceptable behavior in doing so. Eye contact with the Goddess was too painful, so she fixed her gaze on the other woman’s chin. “Isabella is dead. You’ve broken your promise to me.”
The Goddess lifted her hand as if to catch a handful of air in the room before rubbing her thumb against her fingers, much in the way a merchant might sample the feel of a fine silk.
“Isabella lives.”
“Impossible!” Elesyria had been to the curtain between the worlds that very morning. She’d stood there as so often she did, stretching out her magic to caress the essence of the daughter she’d left behind. Only this time, there had been nothing. “She’s not in the World of Man. I felt for her myself. That which had been her is gone.”
“Nevertheless, Isabella’s soul has not returned to the Fountain. She lives.”
“How can that be?” Elesyria’s legs buckled, too weak to hold her weight, and she dropped to her knees. “The place where I felt for her is as empty as my heart.”
The Goddess lifted both arms and the mist returned, swirling in a sphere between her hands. It
moved as if alive, frantic with a billion life-forms, its color shifting from the palest green to a brilliant emerald and back again. Then the Goddess clapped her hands together and the mist disappeared as quickly as it had formed.
“Not only does she live, she has joined with her SoulMate. Though, as you say, she is not in the time and place where you left her.”
“What does that mean?”
The Goddess shrugged, palms held upward. “I cannot yet say. I know only what I feel when I search the Myst.”
Elesyria’s mind reeled in confusion. Isabella’s space on the Mortal Plain was empty. She’d felt that for herself. And yet, the Goddess claimed her daughter lived. Lived and had found the one happiness every Fae sought: her own SoulMate!
“I need answers,” she whispered, as much to herself as to the Goddess standing nearby.
“Indeed you do. Go with my blessings.”
Her
blessings
? Not enough. Not by half.
Elesyria raised her head, coming as close to meeting the Earth Mother’s eyes as she dared. “After all the years I’ve dedicated to your service, Goddess, I want more than your blessings. I want to travel through the curtain with the power to punish any who harmed my child.”
“Crossing over with your Magic intact is forbidden by your High Council.”
If the Goddess thought to dissuade her with something so trivial, she was seriously mistaken.
“I’ve no more care for the politics of Fae than I
have for those of Man. I care only for the child grown to woman whom I left behind when I returned to my service in your temple. I must know the truth of her fate. I want to travel through the curtain. With my Magic.”
“And if you find your daughter has not been harmed? If you find it is as I have indicated?”
If, pray the Goddess, Isabella lived happily joined to her SoulMate, as the Goddess insisted? “Then I want the power to reward those who aided her.”
The visage in front of her shimmered from green to gold and back again.
“In offering reward as freely as you threaten punishment, Elesyria, you demonstrate your wisdom. So be it. You may retain your powers to use for this purpose and this purpose only. Your years of faithful service watching over my followers have earned at least this much from me. As you go forth, I will set in motion what I can to assist. Travel to the place where your daughter should be. Seek out the Tinklers when you arrive. They are my eyes and ears in the World of Man. If any can guide you to the truth, surely it will be they.”
“Thank you, Earth Mother.”
Elesyria bowed her head, honoring the Goddess before her. When she lifted her eyes once again, she was alone.
Rising to her feet, she squared her shoulders and hurried from the chamber, already seeing the spot where she would cross over in her mind’s eye.
She would find the Tinklers the Goddess had spoken of and she would know the truth. She prayed the result would require her to use her Magic for the benefit of one who had helped her daughter, but if not?
Woe be unto any who had lifted a hand to bring harm down upon Isabella. They would feel her wrath even if it should shake the very foundations of the Mortals’ world.
C
ASTLE
M
AC
G
AHAN
, S
COTLAND
1294
H
AD IT BEEN
only this morning he’d dared to complain aloud that his life couldn’t possibly get any more complicated?
Malcolm MacDowylt, beleaguered laird of the MacGahan clan, pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose and wished to the gods he’d never stepped foot out of his bedchamber this day. The bird that had flown into his open window at sunrise should have been warning enough of the gods’ intent at mischief. Foolishly, he’d ignored the sign and carried on.
Walk softly and have a care for your tongue, lad, lest you stir the anger of the old gods.
His father’s voice echoed in his mind, naught but a memory now.
Aye, the old gods were busy this day. Neither his heavy burden of guilt nor the cursed drought that had plagued the land for months, threatening a winter of starvation for his people, had satisfied the denizens of Asgard. Not even his younger brother’s arrival this
very morning with the distressing news of his father’s passing and his sister’s resulting peril had satisfied their perverse pastime of plaguing him.
No, their judgment of his failures made clear their anger was in full bloom. Now, as if to drive home the spear of their discontent, they’d sent this
woman
to torment him.
“Am I to be kept waiting in attendance upon your daydreaming for the entire night, or will you send a servant to prepare my chamber?”
Of all the penance he might have expected the old gods to demand of him, he’d never imagined they would send Isabella’s mother to torment him.
So much for his ability to imagine the worst. The truth of the matter stood before him in all her arrogant glory. Elesyria Al´ Byrn clearly expected his meek compliance with her demands.
What choice had been left him? None. At least none that was honorable, and he would consider no others.
“As those who brought you here have seemingly left without you”—if they’d ever been there to begin with!—“I can hardly turn you out into the mercy of the night, now can I?”