Rise of the Magi (29 page)

I blinked, and a woman appeared several feet away, wearing not much at all. The instant I saw her bathed in moonlight, all veil of night vanished, leaving her vibrant and wild in the pink daylight, along with everything else visible in the tree-lined clearing. A sort of shadow overlaid her, as if her skin was only a façade to conceal something beneath—something brilliant, powerful and ancient as the bedrock. Black hair marbled with a rich, royal purple lay in a thick swath across bare shoulders.

“Who are you?” I asked in a whisper.

She smiled and lit up the atmosphere even more. “You may call me Alseides, and I am the mistress of these lands.” Eyes of a neon violet cut through the distance to steal the next breath I might have taken. Tiny silvery fur flaps covered her at the front, and another over her rear, while dark purple cloth draped across her upper half, leaving one breast uncovered. She exuded a presence that induced a primal desire to take a knee or abase myself before her.

She held her hand out. Before I could move to take it, a man with shoulder-length platinum blond hair strode out from behind me with a light step and a bright smile on his face. Where had he come from? Did I know him?

“Well done, Mannix,” she said.

Sliding his fingers into her black hair, he leaned down and kissed her as if searching for her bellybutton with his tongue. I averted my gaze from their moment, confused by the pain in my chest. Why would their affection bother me so much?

“We’re almost there, Alsei,” he said, his voice somehow familiar.

“Go now, and keep all away from our guest while I finish this.”

When I looked back at them, the man had gone, and for reasons I didn’t understand, I was glad he’d left. My fists ached as I opened and closed my fingers, but I couldn’t discern the reason.

I gazed around at the silent recital of fireflies in the perimeter of shadows, wincing as more disconnected memories lit my mind’s eye. Flashes of a tall woman with white hair, mauve skin and deep purple almond-shaped eyes that held knowledge from the beginning of time, crept through my brain. Her knowing smile warmed my heart and made me want to punch something. Had she come with me? Or was I looking for her?

“I think I’m looking for someone,” I said to the woman before me. “Will you take me to her? Is that why you were waiting for me?” The thought that such a Goddess would concern herself with me set my soul aglow.

“I’m simply waiting to welcome you, of course. You promised to help me, don’t you remember?” At my shaking head, she swept her arm toward a bench I hadn’t noticed beside me. “You must be tired after such a long journey. Please, sit, and we’ll talk for a while.”

I moved with leaden legs and lowered myself onto the seat, leaning down to rub my ankles. Why were they so sore? Had I walked there? “How did I get here? Did I come with someone?” The questions didn’t sound right on my tongue. I rubbed my flat belly, dully aware of an ache there. Had I fallen and bruised myself? A sense of loss fell over me before it vanished.

Alseides took a knee before me. Her ancient stare resettled on my face. Such wisdom and kindness I found there. “You insisted upon walking through the forest. You are so brave to face the dangers of the night alone.”

Alone?

“Lila Gray.”
A distant echo rang in my ears before it disappeared. The female voice sparked recognition that remained out of my grasp as to why. I gripped the bench and listened for more, but it never came. “Did you hear something?” I asked Alseides.

Flashing a smile to cure the world of darkness, she took my face in her hands, gazing over me with adoration. “You’ve been hurt so much in your life. It pains my heart.”

A great bleeding wound opened in my center, throbbing until I could feel nothing else. “It hurts.”

“You are a survivor. I see it in your eyes. To have been so young, to have listened as he destroyed your family. Most would have broken. Given up. But not you.”

A flash took me to a dirt crawlspace under a wooden floor and to my thirteen year old body. The scent of copper filled my nose. Screams ripped through me from above. “Mother? Mother!” I scratched at the wood, thrust up my foot and shoved with all I had, but it didn’t budge.

“Run, Lilabear, run!” she screamed back. Streamers of light blasted through the joints of the hardwood floor accompanied by a maniacal laugh.
Parthalan.
His name was Parthalan, and he killed them all.

“I can’t run.” Arms wrapped around my middle, I choked on a sob as the blood of my little sisters seeped through from above and coated my arms. “I have to try. I have to save them!”

“Hush, child. It’s all right now.” Alseides pleasant smile replaced the horror.

A question waited on my tongue, but the words wouldn’t come out. How had she known how my family died? Had we met before? In her presence, the sickness in my soul evaporated back to the humming silence.

“You know about war. Don’t you? So many humans hurt you even while you tried to help them.”

Yes
. I’d been alone for so long, wandering the wild places. So many guns and paranoid people who would kill for a scrap of food. Sensations of hands on my body from those who thought to take more from me than my clothes and food sent me off the bench. My instincts tried to evoke something to make the people go away, but nothing happened. What should I have been able to do? My skin should have looked different though I didn’t know how. Something seemed wrong, out of place, like a bone that needed to snap before I’d feel right again.

I blinked.

Night fell with the abruptness of a thrown switch. A man gripped my upper arms, his dark hair a mess, his stare hard and fierce. Stubble covered his strong chin. “Lila, snap out of it, dammit!”

A scream launched from my throat as I beat at him with my fists. “Where is she? Where’s Alseides?”

“It’s me, baby. Lila, stop, it’s—”

A quick shutter of my lids brought daylight and the psychedelic colors and serene twitters of birds to drive away the darkness. My brain hurt as if it had been squeezed for too long.

Alseides held her arms wide. “Memories are powerful beasts, are they not?”

“That was a memory?” I took a moment to allow the man’s face and voice to roll around in my mind. “I know him, don’t I? Not here”—I tapped my temple—“but here.” I palmed my heart that had swelled at the sight of him, but also hurt, too. “Who is he?” Emotion overwhelmed me as I collapsed against her, unable to control the shaking in my limbs. He’d been about to say his name, and it taunted me from one of the shards of memory blinking in and out. What had he done to me in the past? Why did he look so angry? I longed for the silence she’d given me. “Make it stop. I don’t want to remember.”

“I know, child. Give them to me—all of your wounds. Let me heal you.”

The tight knot of panic in my chest vanished in her arms, allowed me to float above the fear, serene and whole.

“We must hurry, now. There are people coming here to hurt you, to hurt all of us. We must be ready for when they come.”

The thought of anyone harming such a beautiful creature of the wilderness snapped me to attention. “What can I do? I’ve lost … something. A weapon, maybe?” Leaning back, I stared at my arms, waiting for something to happen that never did. “Will you help me find it?”

Night fell.

A war raged around me.

A sparkling red line encircled me on the grass in a ten-foot radius, and somehow I knew the three people standing on the other side had conjured it. Battle cries preceded a group of men slamming into a tall woman who appeared to be more tree than human, hacking at it with crude blades. Towering treetops bent and groaned as if they wished they could break free and fight, or maybe run. A handful of people lay bleeding nearby. “Find her,” one shouted. “Alseides has to be one of them.”

“What’s happening?” I said, backing away, my eyes unable to fill my brain in fast enough.

“Lila!” The same man I’d seen during my last flash returned with a bruise darkening his left cheek. He reached for me, but I recoiled. “It isn’t working, Meline. She doesn’t recognize us. You have to try harder!”

“Whatever that bitch is doing to her is too strong.” A woman, with eyes of purple fire, said. “Hurry up, Liam. We’re going to lose her again. Make her see you. Make her remember.” Eyes closed, she held the hands of a man and a woman while they hummed words in Latin.

“You have to remember me.” His voice stirred something deep in my soul. Turning to a man with feathers for hair and a face coated with blood, he said, “Don’t let that kid touch you, and keep her the hell away from my wife.”

Wife? Kid?
I searched the fray and found a black-haired girl staring up at the feathered man as their names shouted through my mind.
Parthalan! Juliet!
He killed my family, and she was Alseides daughter. “Touch her, and I’ll kill you,” I screeched, drowning in fear rising from wherever I’d buried it. When I moved forward, the other man clamped his arms around me and held me still.

Chest heaving, Parthalan turned to Juliet, to me, his eyes spread open in shock. “I-I see things I do not wish to see in my mind’s eye. I know this girl.”

“Ah, fuck, Parth! Tell me you didn’t,” the other said, still hovering over me like a wall of muscle. “Tell me you haven’t been here before. It was them? Is that why you went bat-shit crazy?”

A whisper told me I should know what he was talking about, but it sat behind the fog.

“Remember why you fight, Lila Gray,” a white-haired woman said from beside me, sending a jolt of fright along my spine. Her white skirt had been torn and bore scars of blood across the front. “Do not let the Magi steal them from you. Find your anchor. We have never left you.”

The man pressed his hand against my belly, staring at me through tear-drenched lashes. “Fight for him. Remember, I love you. The fae love you. Our son loves you.”

I glanced down to find my abdomen swollen and heavy with a baby.

A blink.

Daylight switched on.

Everyone vanished except for Alseides.

When I reached down to my flat stomach, the vibrancy of my psychedelic fantasy stole away the chaos.

“You must help us, Lila.” Alseides’ ancient eyes filled with grief as she tugged me toward the edge of the trees. “They care nothing for you. They left you alone in the forest to die because they’re ashamed of you, and now they seek to destroy you themselves. They mean to kill my daughter. Even now, Juliet fights for her life. They’ve imprisoned us here, and done unspeakable things to my sisters. Free them from their bonds. Help me destroy the walls that keep us here.”

Flashes of a battle lit up my eyes. A woman’s gentle voice told me something important, but what? Still rubbing my stomach, I said, “Have I lost someone? I feel … empty.”

A touch of Alseides fingertip to my forehead made the air tremble around me and seemed to transcend my flesh to open something deep within. Light in a golden hue streamed down my arms, burning in my heart like a pulsing, newborn sun.
Yes, that’s what I’ve been looking for.
My Light. I laughed at the sight of it. At the thrumming potential I could sense in my fingertips.

“I will make you whole again,” she promised. “Awaken my sisters, and we will worship you. We will never leave you. We would die for you and keep you safe from all harm. Reach out and feel them. Will them to live. Set us free to heal this world.”

I smiled as my Light consumed me. They would worship me, give me a home, and a family I’d lost so long ago. I’d be safe forever as I’d always dreamed. They would look to me for everything: life, love, protection, and I would die for them. Energy teased my flesh, offering itself for the taking from everywhere and everything. “Yes. Yes, I understand now.” Laughter spilled from my lips, a joyous, twinkling sound. “I’ll become your sun. I’ll set you free.”

27

Alseides darted glances over each shoulder. A tiny shred of fear entered her eyes, but I couldn’t understand why. Everything was okay. Everything was right and good and safe. Wasn’t it?

“Go, then, quickly, and become who you are meant to be, who the Great Mother wants you to be,” she said. “Bring a new birth upon this world, and we will love you.”

“You’ll love me,” I echoed her, feeling as if my heart would burst from knowing someone so beautiful, so ancient and wise, could care for me. I let go of my resistance and opened myself, both pushing out my plea for power and beginning to draw without waiting for permission. A tiny voice shouted at me from within, that it was wrong, but how could it be?

I found many minds, all wound up with mixtures of rage and terror, pain and despair. Where were they? All strong. So close yet I couldn’t see them. Without a doubt, I could take everything from them, drain the ones who came to hurt me, to hurt Alseides, and leave them empty, nothing. It didn’t matter. Their loss would hold no meaning.

“You will be our new sun, Lila.” Alseides issued a promise of ultimate power that jerked my spirit to attention and made my body come alive. “The ultimate power. Nobody will ever be able to hurt you again.”

A sense of safety and belonging settled over me, opening me even farther for the energy to pour in.

Night.

A jab of pain doubled me over as the battle broke around me again. Twisted bunches of white hair fell around my shoulders as a black face with opaque eyes hovered over me. “It’s Gallagher, Lila. Are you in there? Lower your shields, and let Liam in, dammit!”

Chanting filled the atmosphere, lifting a weight from my mind enough my eyes widened with the onslaught of recognition. Voices I knew, faces I loved, and a tiny heartbeat racing against mine. A foot kicked the underside of my ribs. “Garret?”

“Yes,” Gallagher said, laughing and crying at the same time. “Now look for your bond with Liam. Laerni thinks he will be your anchor. Reach out to him before Alseides interferes again.”

“Oh, Goddess, Alseides! Where is she?” I gripped the collar of his dirty, white shirt and pulled him closer. When I opened myself in search of Liam, only static returned. “My head is too fuzzy.”