Rise of the Magi (33 page)

A spike of love surged again from my belly.
Yes
, it said.
Yes, Momma
.

Love or power? My life, or those of my people, of my friends, my mate? My son? To be worshiped, or to be loved—the real kind that came from the heart instead of from magic tricks?

There really was no choice at all. Alseides’ will was not stronger than mine. She fought out of hate and greed, out of a god complex that had consumed her.

I gritted my teeth and bellowed, “No!”

Sheer will alone let me hold still, not drawing and not expelling a drop of Light. For my people, I had to hold on.

Your mind only serves to remind you what you fight for, Lila Gray.

I fought for love I never dreamed of feeling. For Liam. For Garret.

I love you, baby boy.

An urge claimed me—to touch all the sparks connected to me. Not my urge but my son’s. Understanding bloomed bright and clear. He’d made me grab Neasa when she was being pissy, and had stolen her gift. When Tameryn tried to take Brígh, he’d used Neasa’s
cumhacht
on her, throwing despair in her face, and took her Sight.

“I understand.” I laughed, burning brighter. “I understand!”

With the Magi, I would be the vessel, and my boy would be the magnet. Laerni had been right all along. Garret was the key to the Magi’s undoing. He would take their power, and I’d help him do it.

Who did I choose to be? I would be the ending before the new beginning.

“You’re right, Alseides,” I said with that multi-layer voice of ultimate power. “Everyone always overlooks the child.”

“You’re mine! What are you doing?”
Alseides frantic voice rattled my inner world, a dim image of her overlaying the landscape as if she couldn’t quite pull me into her mind.

“I’m doing what our Goddess wants me to do, what she created me for.” My smile wouldn’t be contained. “You tried to take my pain, but it was a load of bull. You tried to give me the one thing I wanted most, to feel safe, but I don’t need you for that. In turn, I’m going to give you the peace you seek because, for some strange reason, your mother still cares what happens to you.”

Alseides roared in my mind. That ancient beast I’d sensed rolling beneath her skin came to the surface. Her projected image faded a bit more against the real world, skin darkening to show patterns of bark.

I let go of the power. Tendrils of Light streaked across the land, connecting to those tiny sparks I’d sensed in the Old Ones, in Alseides and her sisters, in Juliet. The Old Ones didn’t come to life or break free from the earth, only turned their imagined faces up to me and smiled. Lava entered my fingertips. Crawled up my arms with a slow burn—a familiar sensation I relished. Garret’s spirit scorched my center. It wasn’t pain but a brilliant, wonderful heat that was love and trust and determination rolled into one.

“Yes, baby. That’s it,”
I whispered to him.
A symphony of screams rose from the ground—agony, fear of the deadliest kind that could whiten a person’s hair just from the sound of it, like in my nightmares. Not from my people. From the Magi.

The lava ascending the length of my arms turned to searing agony as it neared my heart, invading my soul. I swelled and expanded to the point I couldn’t hold it any longer. Whatever connection Alseides kept with me remained active. In her psychedelic valley, her arms stretched skyward, lengthening, sprouting oak leaves at the ends of each branch. Face contorted in a scream, bark crawled over her skin, or rather her false skin evaporated leaving her true flesh behind. I absorbed her fear, her rage and left her at peace for the first time in her very long forever. The others I sensed radiated relief and joy as I pulled back from them. In the center of the valley, Alseides and Juliet stood in their natural wooden forms. Faces peaceful. Their spirits dormant, part of the earth, the elements.

A blast of relief sent the air from my lungs, but my high crashed almost instantly.
Too much power.
I’d risen even farther, pulsing and flicking like a dying star. The job had always been a one way ticket for both of us. I supposed I’d always known but couldn’t accept it. Suppressing a sob, I said,
“It’s done, baby. I’m so proud of you. I can’t hold it much longer. I love you.”

A blaze of golden mist erupted before my eyes, shifting and drawing near, caressing my forehead with a tendril of something warm.
Mother?

“Let go, child, and I will take you home.”
Fierce pride mingled with sorrow in her tone.

“Forgive me.”

“Home? Garret, too? Liam?”

“Your loves will never leave you again.”

We would meet in the realm of the spirits. Forever. After sampling one last breath of life, I released my iron fist from the energy I held back, letting it flow out unchecked. My body came apart, losing cohesion, like foam shifting and drifting apart on the surf.

An explosion of orange sparks and red flames ate the world as I closed my eyes and held my son with imagined arms.

30

I stood barefoot in a field of white. Somehow, I knew I’d been standing there a long time, staring into the peaceful, empty distance. Staring kept the hurt away, and my mind hurt. My heart hurt. My center ached as if something had been torn from me, leaving a bleeding, invisible wound in its place, but staring at the white muted it all. I liked it there. I thought I would stay forever.

A tug from a gentle breeze had me looking down. A teal dress danced around my knees, the only color in whatever strange place I found myself in. The fabric caressed me like the touch of a lover, tickling, stroking my body, inducing a flash of images in my mind: the touch of a man’s lips, strong arms holding me so tight I could scarcely breathe, a gaze that set me aflame while I held a book, a voice that could render me boneless with the mere whisper of my name, and a warm feeling in my heart his presence induced in me, one I had no name for, but terrifying and wonderful.

I touched my cheek and found it wet. Why was I crying? Had I lost something? Done something bad? Hurt someone?

A man appeared beside me. His black skin stood out against the starkness of the surroundings and of his hair in the same flawless white. It was twisted into bunches that fell around shoulders covered in a tweed suit jacket, a bow tie secured at his neck. His eyes, though they stared right at me, appeared opaque as if they’d lost their ability to see.

“Who … who are you?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know. He didn’t belong in my emptiness. My inner voice told me he’d reveal things that would kill me inside, would remind me of the hurt I’d forgotten in the serenity of the white place. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “No, whoever you are, go away. It’s peaceful here. I won’t let you take it away.”

“Gallagher. My name is Gallagher, and we’re … good friends.” He smiled and reached for me, but at my backwards step, retracted his hand. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Lila, but you keep running deeper. There is no need to fear me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, shaking off a niggle of memory, recognition of his voice speaking to me from far away. Had I heard him calling for me while I stared into the white wilderness? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

That smile again, a small laugh. “There were times when you probably wished that were true. Many, in fact.”

A flash of him tapping his temple, giving a grin that stirred even more memories hit me before I shut it down. Heart pounding, I turned and ran.

“Lila, please! We’ve been waiting for you to come home. Out there, in the distance, there’s happiness if you’d just reach for it.”

I came to a halt, wondering what he meant by that. Staring at him over my shoulder, I said, “Who’s waiting?” The moment I asked it, I wished I could take it back. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“Do you know why you’re wearing that dress today?” His voice, smooth and mellow, wrapped around me like a father’s tender embrace. “You’ve risen farther today than you have in months. You’re trying to come back to us, and I want to help you.”
Such a strange old man.

“It’s just a dress. It’s pretty. Why wouldn’t I want to wear it?”

“Someone gave it to you. Let yourself remember slowly. He had it made especially for you, and when he gave it to you, you both shared a tender moment. You’re trying to recall it, I can see it trying to break through your barriers. Let it. Tell me his name.”

“Stop it.” I turned on my heel and strode away, trying to flee the flashes of a man’s face that lit up my mind. Yellow swirls in laughing, powder-blue eyes. A bedroom chuckle full of promise and pleasure.

“You think you failed him. Is that it?” Gallagher asked, trailing after me at a distance. “You think he’s angry with you?”

“Well, why wouldn’t he be?” I stopped and pointed a shaking finger at him. More images slapped at me: a red sky, those blue eyes that held so much sorrow in a face of white feathers, a world covered in green and blood. Screams filled my ears, none of them mine, one of them his as he plummeted from the sky. “Stop it! Stop it!” Shaking my head, I continued on my path to nowhere. “No, no. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to remember what I did to him.”

“You did nothing but saved us. Not all of us, but those who perished gave their lives willingly.”

Coming to a halt again, I glared at Gallagher over my shoulder, my skin darkening with my growing anger. “I burned him, and he fell. I couldn’t hold it. Something went wrong when I let go. She told me to let go, and she’d take me home. Look around you, old man!” I gestured wildly with my arms to the white field. “Does this look like Iress to you? Where are the rest of the spirits? Does this look like home to you?”

He smiled at me, a bold curve of his black lips, showing lots of the white teeth behind them. “You remember Iress? You remember home?”

More mental pictures: a woman with pink ringlets, a little girl sitting on my foot, her orange pigtails bobbing in the breeze, a man with a shaved head who made me feel like punching something, or hugging him, I wasn’t sure which. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out and leave me alone.”

“You feel like you’re missing something, do you not?” Gallagher came to stand beside me, staring far before craning his head right toward me. “You know you’ve lost something, yet you don’t know what.”

Gaze lowered to my bare toes, I wrapped my arms around my middle. “How do you know that?” I glanced at him but couldn’t hold his clouded gaze. “Do you know what I’ve lost?”

“I do,” he said, nodding. “Quite well. In fact, he’s been most impatiently awaiting your return.”

“He? I don’t understand. The one who gave me the dress?”

“No. Someone else.”

A desperate desire to know had me fisting my hand in his suit collar and tugging him closer. “Tell me.”

He continued to smile as if I wasn’t shoving my face into his. “Tell me who gave you that dress, and I’ll help you get home.”

I shoved him away from me and made a good attempt at tearing my hair out as I paced, terrified of those sad eyes with swirls of yellow that haunted me right down to their hypnotic depths. “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead, so I don’t want to remember.”

“He’s not dead.”

“Lies. Don’t fucking lie to me, Gallagher! You know I hate it when people fucking lie!”

“Yes, yes! That sounds more like my Lila. Tell me his name, and I’ll prove to you he’s alive. I’ll show you where you’ve been these last months.”

“Months?” Hand to my throat, I swallowed a sob before it could be born. “How could it have been months?”

“Who gave you that dress?”

A touch of lips. His masculine aroma that could weaken my knees. “No.”

“He’s waiting for you.”

“Stop it! He’s dead!”

“Who gave you the dress, Lila? Tell me.”

My walls came crashing in, flooding me with sight and sound from days long past. “He hates me! I killed our son!” Sobs wracked my body, sending me to my knees in the grass. “I didn’t even get to hold him, see him, and he’s just … gone. She told me Garret and Liam would never leave me, but they’re both gone! I’ve lost Liam’s son, and he’ll never forgive me.”

Gallagher knelt and took me into his arms while I wailed into the nothing. My Garret. He was no longer inside of me, leaving a bleeding hole in my center. His little feet no longer pushed against my ribs. His emotions didn’t lay over mine like the warmest blanket in the world. My anchor to reality had vanished, taking my sanity with it.

“He lives, Lila. Garret is alive.” Gallagher took my face in his palms and lifted my face until our gazes met, passing his thumbs through my endless stream of tears. “Liam is alive, and they’re waiting for you to return to them. Their greatest hero, their greatest love, is all they need to find happiness again, if you’d only open your eyes and see them.” Gallagher chuckled. “Quite frankly, I got so tired of his grouchiness and the fact that he barely leaves your side enough to bathe and shave his scruff off, I decided to come in here after you at risk to life and limb.”

I studied Gallagher’s opaque eyes and found no deception in them as the floodgates continued to dump memories, unloading every painful detail on me. I’d done what the Goddess wanted, returned her children to their natural states, forgiven them, and left them to a peaceful existence, but something had gone wrong. Garret and I had become one for the briefest of time until I’d come apart at the cellular level and had become the sun Alseides had wanted. I’d touched her sisters, consumed their fear and their joy as I let them fade into what nature and the Great Mother wanted them to be.

For a moment, I just sat there, shaking. “I couldn’t hold it. When I came apart … how did anyone survive?”

“I borrowed Liam’s eyes that day as we all fought to give you time. Will you see the truth through them? Will you believe, then?”

I considered for a moment. “Are you and I dead? Is this where the spirits live? In this white place.”

“You’re changing the subject. And no, we’re not dead, though if I don’t succeed in bringing you back with me, I might wish that I was.”