Rise of the Magi (32 page)

“The purest of souls, oh, yes.” That alien vibe took her again, rolling beneath her flesh, changing her skin ever so slightly from cream to mud.

My heart broke for him, but the sick lump in my gut suggested I might see Alseides in her true form if I kept pushing. “What did you do to get him? Kill someone? Take away someone he loved?”

“He was already wounded when he came to me.” While I blinked, she’d moved closer, her hidden beast closer to the surface.

“Talawen said the Old Ones would rather have been burned to death than return to you. You might have deluded yourself into thinking they want to be your slaves, to walk the earth again, but you’d be wrong.” Her skin had darkened to slate gray, showing patterns of bark. “I think maybe they’re more afraid of you than me, and that’s why they went dormant in the first place, so you wouldn’t make them do anything terrible.” Her middle fingers had elongated to wooden whips. “I think they know what you are, totally bat-nuts crazy, and they hope I kick your ass into submission like the Goddess wants me to.”

There was no longer any mistaking her for anything aside from an Other—terrifying and capable of the destruction she threatened us all with.

“They love me absolutely, and will obey my command, as will you. I tried speaking to you woman to woman, to appeal to your strength, your potential, to be queen to more than your pathetic little troop of fae and brazen humans. I offer you everything you’ve ever wanted. Yes, you are headstrong, as Nix warned, used to getting your way, but you will do my bidding, and you will do it now.”

Yeah, and the sun will grow wings and fly away.
“You and your little freak kid can go to hell.”

A smile of pure pride swept her lips. “Parthalan gave me a beautiful, powerful child. Juliet has been such a useful tool to me. Even the Great Mother left the prison door open to the little ones. Everyone always overlooks the child, and your men will give us many, many more.”

29

The child.
Everyone overlooks the child.
Alseides words rattled through my head, expanding until I thought my skull would crack.

“
It has also occurred to me that perhaps this little one might have a part in your answer as well,”
Laerni had said.

Could Garret have more to do than being my anchor? Had Alseides inadvertently given me the answer I’d been staring at all along? That the Goddess had given me the one weapon the Magi wouldn’t have anticipated.

I dropped my shields completely and let Garret spread into me like the dawn over a frosted lake, melting me at my core. My son’s love filled up every crevice where shadow once inhabited me. How could I have kept him out for so long? Tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t care. Alseides could take my pain and make me feel safe, but it wasn’t real. My child was real. His love was real, and even from within my womb, he fought to keep me safe.

His anger spiked as if he’d been trying to get my attention for hours and had degraded to throwing a mini-me-sized tantrum. “
Okay, shhh
,” I whispered to him, muting him a little so I could think.
“I’m sorry. I’m listening now.”
If Alseides knew I’d opened myself to Garret, she didn’t let on.

A flash of night and silver moonlight appeared in my peripheral vision, faded as if I’d been caught half in reality and half in Alseides’ fantasy. I caught a brief scream and a blaze of lightning splitting a tree down its center before it disappeared. “You’re losing this fight, Alseides. I think one of your sisters just fell into a pile of kindling.”

“I’ve lost nothing!” Her voice ripped open the air and teased the fine hairs on my body to attention.

Her influence grew like a bloody tide in my senses, but I held on to Garret, matched my heartbeat to his to bring us closer in tune with one another.
What do you want me to do, baby?
He hadn’t the words, and I couldn’t decipher the emotions crashing around in my soul.

He and I needed to finish with Alseides, so I concentrated everything on him.
She’ll hurt Liam
, my voice of reason whispered to me.
She’ll tell you lies.
Although Liam’s face had disappeared from my memory, I knew he was important, that he loved me, and I loved him, but I didn’t try to hold on to anything but Garret.

Everything vanished from my thoughts.

Alseides glided across the grass as the cheerful birdsong relaxed me.

I wouldn’t listen to her. I didn’t know why, exactly, but it was important that I didn’t believe whatever she was about to tell me.

Upon reaching me, she kissed my forehead and petted my hair. “Do not fret, my sister, for you are mine now, and I will take care of you always. Awaken my sisters so that they may help me heal this world. Become our sun.”

A wave of euphoria drained me of tension, leaving me floating in Alseides presence, but it was no longer bliss. It was a lie.

Pretend. She has to believe.

“Now,” she said. “They’re coming.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.” I kissed her cheek. She half smiled as if unsure whether or not I spoke the truth.

Garret directed me with emotion and nudges. I turned my face up to the sky, pulling in energy from above as I ignited into my Light form.

Night fell.

Silhouettes rushed in every direction. The faces seemed somehow familiar, but I had no names or emotions to glue them together. Shrieks and shouts of ‘Lila!’ sounded distant, insignificant, like ants shouting at a god to spare them.
Don’t be afraid
, I thought at them. The ground fell away as I ascended, pulsing with power.

The energy came too fast, much faster than I meant it to. I sensed every animal for a hundred miles stumble as I absorbed all they were. Startled minds sent cries ricocheting through my head. The Old Ones, thousands of them, stretched for miles, all locked in their own wooden prisons. Some wanted to be freed. Most wanted to be left in peace. My flesh grew brighter with every passing second, radiating heat that could have melted concrete. It was terrifying and wonderful. In that moment, I could become their sun. Their provider. Protector. They would worship me.

“Lila, don’t—”
a familiar voice shouted inside my head before Alseides bombarded me with another wave of endorphins. Who had it been? He sounded afraid and sad.

Liam,
my distant voice told me.

Something flopped like a land-bound fish in my belly. Garret’s temper flared, searing me from the inside out.
Daddy
, he thought at me well enough I caught the word.

“Liam!” I squinted through my own fire. Fighting carried on in sporadic groups across the valley and into the woods, leaving bodies scattered from end to end, but I couldn’t see who had fallen.

Meline and her group stood in an even larger circle directly beneath my personal fireball. I couldn’t locate Juliet or Alseides anywhere among those who rolled and tumbled, who ducked arrows and shot lighting from their palms, but two of the trees moved like black swords cutting swaths through my company. Since one had fallen, one of them had to be Alseides in her dryad form.

My body continued to draw power from everyone below, the sun and the moon, and no amount of trying made it stop, like I’d become a black hole, sucking everything into me. Willing myself to shut it down had no effect, but clued me into the danger I posed with the amount of energy I’d consumed. Had Alseides done something to me? Or was it more of the all-or-nothing issues I’d been having recently?

A knowing sense passed from Garret to me like a band of soft mental kisses. He wanted me to keep going, but what did he want me to do? Even if I didn’t intend to use my energy, it would have to go somewhere. I couldn’t expel what I’d taken without destroying everyone, maybe the earth itself, cleaving it right down the middle with the sheer force of it. Expelling a small fraction of the amount I already held had created Iress. If I let go, Alseides would consume everything, just like in Brígh’s vision. I had to hold onto it until I figured out what Garret wanted.

The fog lifted a little. I searched the fray for the humans, for Richard and James.
Oh, shit.
I’d risen as fire. How could I have been so stupid? The Host would have told the Mountie and the Fed to send the planes. Had they already dispatched his weapon? If I only had minutes, I needed to use every second to figure out what to do. I needed time to figure out what Garret wanted me to do, what the Goddess intended for him to do before it was too late.

I screamed, “Parthalan!” the sound cracking into the night like a thousand guns, silencing everything below for a span of a few breaths. Not that I seemed to be breathing, more burning, surviving on the fuel of others.

In the east, a black form shot into a sky turned from night to day by my own fire.
Parthalan.
He darted toward me, soaring, drawing one wing over his eyes as he drew near.

“Mistress?” he hissed, his tone laced with sorrow.

A sob burst from me, and when it passed, I said, “Tell James to abort. Then you get as many of ours out of here as you can. Yank them out kicking and screaming if you have to, but get them as far away from here as you can. You and the Host. Now, Parthalan. It will be the last I ever ask of you. They took your life from you, and I will make sure they never hurt another soul.”

“I will not fail you.” As he streaked across the sky, the forest erupted with Sluagh, and in their talons, fae and witches screamed to be returned to the fight.

The rumble of a jet engine drew near.
No, wait. Please! I just need a little more time!

My own fire blinded me to the ground and everyone I loved as Garret burned hot within me
.

“Come back to me,”
Brígh had said as I’d left to talk with James and Richard.

Why did they all trust me to find a way?

“Because you care enough to take away our pain
,” her voice piped up again
.

“The Goddess didn’t put her faith and power in yeh for shits and giggles,”
Willa had said

“Who do you choose to be?”
Laerni’s wisdom joined the parade.

A flash on the horizon began as a dot of color before expanding and rolling across the sky like orange lightning.

As I opened my mind and gathered up Liam, Laerni, my family and friends, my home—all I’d tucked away in my heart—a moment of perfect clarity dawned on me.

I choose to be a mother and a wife, friend and lover, strong shoulder and soft heart. I choose to take the pain from another and cry their tears for them. I choose love over power. I choose to follow the light and embrace the night, for without true darkness, we can’t appreciate the dawn when it finally breaks. Without trial, there can be no growth of spirit, no test of faith.

A trail of fire from the package the jet dropped left a bloody scar across the clouds.

I locked onto Garret’s spirit deep within me, coaxing him to tell me what he so desperately wanted me to know.

A horde of black winged creatures rocketed into the sky toward the incoming fire.

I’d come so far only to fail.
I’m so sorry, Liam.

A breath passed. Two. Three.

Numbness settled in.

At least with my destruction, the Magi would remain in prison. I only needed to resist Alseides’ temptation.

We’ll meet you in the realm of the spirits.

The sonic boom from an explosion slammed into me, knocking me back, and maybe apart. Above, white clouds turned red, rolling and tumbling.

“Parthalan!” I cried, knowing it was too late. His warm presence vanished from the world and from my senses, like a flame snuffed out, leaving only darkness—even through the barriers I used to link to the Host. He’d given his life for me again, and my heart splintered.

All doubt vanished as I re-centered myself. I would not let his sacrifice go to waste. Swallowing my grief, I focused back on Garret.
I’m ready. Show me.

Flapping of wings erupted below me, drumming against the air. A giant white form appeared yards away.
Liam.
As owl, his large, yellow eyes held far too much intelligence for a mere beast. He seemed to be trying to say something to me, circling around and around, squawking, before flying right at me. He wouldn’t know I’d found my anchor and had broken free from Alseides
.

“
Liam, no! It’s all right!” When he reached the aura of my energy, it flared, sending him shrieking, falling, spiralling down, down until he thudded to the ground in a sprawl of white feathers.

Oh, Goddess!

Close to hyperventilating and choking on my own fire, I wailed into the night. I’d hurt him, just like in my nightmares. I couldn’t punch through my power to find him within our bond.
I’ve killed him. Oh, Goddess, please! No!

I am the storm.
Where my heart should have been, only a bleeding wound remained, throbbing, burning until I couldn’t stand it.

A mutinous voice told me she could make it all go away. Alseides influence surged again, stronger, teasing me with bliss, with promises of ultimate power, of safety I’d never find on my own.

I shook my head as if that could expel her from my mind, but her claws were in deep. Streaks of lightning shot from my limbs and forked in every direction. Connected. Hooked like a battery to the Magi’s sparks, I could force my Will on them, pull them to consciousness, make them whole like I’d done to my people before.

“Do it,”
Alseides commanded inside my head.
“Nobody will ever hurt you again. Give me your pain.”

The Goddess gave you the one gift she, herself, does not possess
, an echo of Laerni’s voice spoke up in my mind.

My head and heart emptied of all but one thought. It would have been so easy to give in, to take the road without pain, but that wasn’t who I was, who I’d become. Had the Goddess given the gift of Will to the one person who wouldn’t be seduced by its power? Had she known the life Alseides would give me, make me fear my own abilities, grow stubborn as I learned to survive, and know the sweet taste of love and family after fighting so hard to get it?