The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (30 page)

“You said that we are going to start back out tomorrow?” Maeven relaxed back in his chair and crossed his arms over his bare chest.

“I think it best after recent developments,” Grace said. “I am not sure if you all felt what happened a few moments ago, but it seems the Well of Wyrding has been breached.”

“What is the Well of Wyrding?” Jovian asked.

“Not many people have heard of it. Most wyrders know of it, but fewer know where it is located, and fewer still on how to get to it. Many have speculated over the years what exactly the Well of Wyrding is. As you can imagine, there are nearly as many theories as there were theorists. Many people do not agree with other theories and have created their own, so there is no precise answer as to what it is. For all appearances it is nothing more than a large well of quicksilver; quicksilver that feeds a tree so large the branches cannot be seen, and it is thought to reach clear through all worlds—that of the living, the Ever After, and the Otherworld itself are said to all be connected by the tree.

“The tree extends up into the clouds much higher than any other tree in the Sacred Forest. I imagine that Davis might be able to tell us whether there really is a top that he can see now, if he so chooses to possibly dispel that myth. Anyway, I digress. The quicksilver feeds the tree, and so it is that the quicksilver falls from the branches like rain, filling the Well of Wyrding even as it feeds from it.”

“Where is it?” Maeven asked.

“I am sure that you will find that out soon enough. I have already given you a great clue by saying it is in the Sacred Forest,” Grace responded.

It is in the Shadows Grove,
Angelica secretly suggested to Jovian.

Either that or the Mirror of the Moon. She did say that he would find out soon enough, and the Lunimara is the only stop we have planned after this.

Very true,
she agreed and stopped communicating as Grace began speaking again.

“If forced to describe the Well of Wyrding in one statement, I would say that it is that which controls wyrd in the Great Realms. But when the wyrd is usurped, well …”

In reality the Well of Wyrding did more than control wyrd; the Well
was
the source of wyrd. Being neutral, all wyrd was able to thrive and exist of its own accord; however, once it was breached and swayed to one side as it seemed to be doing now, then the opposing wyrd would be terminated. Grace shuddered at the thought.

Picking up on where all of this was going, Jovian cut in: “When wyrd becomes corrupted, are all wyrders of that alignment killed?” Jovian asked.

“No,” she said shaking her head. “They will not be killed, only tainted as the other side of the wyrd within the Well has been. Everything that wyrd touches will be corrupt, even this very building in which we sit.”

Angelica did not want to know how a building could be corrupt.

“And it has been breached?” Maeven asked.

“Yes, that was the feeling you got; it was from the breaching of the Well.”

“And so we are heading there?” Maeven asked sitting forward.

“You are not heading there. I am.” She stuck the pipe back between her teeth. “Balance must be restored to the Well.”

“And you can do it?” Jovian asked skeptically.

“I never claimed that I could. One does not spend her life around those with wyrd without picking up a few tricks and a little know-how. My experience with wyrders and wyrd helped me to interpret the signs tonight well enough, that and Dalah. Besides, Dalah will be helping us out in the regard of purifying the Well, though she doesn’t know it yet.”

“So the Well of Wyrding has been breached, I am assuming by Porillon, and you are off to help Dalah purify it, though she does not know she will be doing so yet,” Angelica summarized.

“Basically, yes. Though it is not that Dalah does not know she will not be doing it; she actually refused to help.”

“Oh, I am glad that has been cleared up,” Jovian tossed his hands up.

“Wait,” Maeven said. “How are we supposed to do all this, Grace?”

“You are not supposed to do all this. The only thing the three of you are expected to do is save Amber. The continent will be in a great state of flux until this matter with the Well is cleared up, and I don’t want the three of you involved.”

“The four,” Angelica said looking at Joya in the corner.

“Sorry, it is so hard sometimes to remember her as she has been elsewhere for so long,” Grace said patting Angelica’s arm. “I don’t want the four of you involved. Porillon is not your concern.”

“But the Well is!” Maeven protested.

“It is, truly,” she agreed. “However, you do not know how to work with it, and so I don’t want you involved. Something going amiss could endanger wyrd further.”

“But you might mess something up also,” he argued relentlessly.

“DAMMIT, THIS IS NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION, MAEVEN!” Grace yelled, slamming her hand on the table with such finality that it made all of them jump. “You are not going to be involved, and at any rate, don’t you think there is enough that you need to contend with?”

“What will happen to you then?” Angelica asked.

“You will leave me behind. I think it best that we part company before the Lunimara and continue on our separate ways from there. We will meet back at the plantation. So, after you have Amber head back there; if anything else happens we will meet in the Realm of Earth at the Guardian’s Keep. I am sure you can find the way on a map.”

“I don’t like this,” Angelica said warily. “It is so unclear. I had never heard of the Well of Wyrding before, and now it seems more menacing than Porillon and the possible destruction of our family.”

“It is, but don’t worry about tomorrow when today is so uncertain,” Grace advised Angelica, and in some strange way that comforted her, until reality intruded again and all the confusion of the last few days badgered Angelica’s mind.

“Now,” Grace said folding her hands on the table, her pipe finished as well as her tea, “I think it best that we all get to bed as we have a long journey ahead of us, one that I fear will get worse before it gets better. We leave tomorrow afternoon.”

And though they all went to bed and turned off their lights, sleep was hard to come by that night

It was two days after Grace and her brood left that Dalah received yet another visitor, one that did not surprise her so much. Though Dalah had truly believed that she was out of the clear, when the redhead showed up out of the blue, Dalah chastised herself for not expecting it.

“NO!” Dalah said, standing and pointing back at the door the whimsical redhead just came through. “I am done with charity and she has already approached me once. I am not leaving here and that is final.”

“Ah, dear, so sad,” the vacant voice said.

“It figures she would send you. After all, you two always were nearly inseparable. And to think I was nearly done with it all, and here you come. I knew I should have expected you, but I must say after the first day passed I thought you would not come, and then I came to actually believe that you had not followed her. How silly of me!”

“I fear Grace has no idea I trail her,” the woman said, inching closer to Dalah despite the other woman’s heeding to leave. “But very foolish indeed, Dalah. I would have expected more of you.”

“Have you ever known Grace to be left out of the loop?” Dalah said, her hand slowly lowering as she smiled at the woman.

“Rarely,” she sniffed.

“What do you want?” Dalah asked sitting back down. Though her gesture showed ease, she was as far from it as possible.

“Room, board, you know the normal. Not to die because of a black infection to the world of wyrd would be nice too, but I will take what I can get.”

“All the same,” Dalah said. The truth was Grace and this woman were not exactly the same. Manipulative, yes, but in different ways. Dalah had been thinking about what Grace had said since she had left: the Well of Wyrding being breached. Dalah knew it was the truth. After some serious Spirit Walking, she verified the truth of it and didn’t like it. The reality Grace had spoken that night wore heavy on her soul. Dalah knew she was the only one strong enough and able enough to counter what Porillon had done, and now she was resigning to do what she knew she must.

She had been at their door that night, listened to Grace’s words, though hearing them spoken to the youth had not been the deciding factor for her. She had been waiting for Rosalee to come. For some reason she didn’t want Grace to see her cave, and that is what it would have appeared as if she had gone with them. Also, a part of her had hoped that Rose would not come, for if she had not come then Dalah would not be leaving.

But in the end, the deciding factor had been what Grace said just before they returned to Fairview Heights after dumping the stranger’s body. Her work, her life corrupted. Wyrd was in the very foundations of Fairview Heights, and if wyrd was being corrupted then so was her dream. She had looked around her that night even as she had listened to Grace and tried to imagine her home turned Chaotic against her.

“Others can take care of what you have done for so long, Dalah,” Rosalee said. She took a seat opposite her friend and a pleasant caramel-colored girl poured them some tea. The red circles on her palms proclaimed her a citizen of the Realm of Fire.

“It is not that I doubt Rama here would not be able to handle the building. It is just now that my dream has come to fruition, I find it hard to leave no matter what for.” Dalah rubbed the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache.

“That is understandable, but sometimes the only way to keep the dream is to leave it, Dalah, which is very much the case here.” Rose could be so damned reasonable sometimes, despite her apparent lack of anything coherent.

“I know, I know. When do we leave?” Dalah finally asked with a frustrated sigh, and Rosalee smiled listlessly at her in response.

N
ow two days out of Fairview, they ran straight into the Sacred Forest. Angelica reasoned they would not have been able to miss it had they tried, for it stood before them like a huge coniferous barrier taking up a good third of the Realm of Earth.

Large pines and firs seemed to war with each other for dominion of the forest resulting in a convoluted green prestige that dazzled the eyes, confused the mind, and enticed the senses.

Angelica stood transfixed as they stopped to stare in wonder at this most holy of forests. Within these trees Pharoh and Sylvie had been found where the Shadows Grove started. The Shadows Grove was much more than a village and more like a sense of being—a being that still lived in its last remaining members. Grace still considered herself a member of the Shadows Grove even though its creators were long dead along with their mission. Not only was it able to add those two most holy of items to its inventory, but it also housed the very thing they ventured to: the Mirror of the Moon, and hopefully Amber.

Maeven went to his knees before the forest, bowing his head low to rest on the velvety grass of the Realm of Air. A pleasant wind gusted around them, shifting the stalks like a deep green ocean about their ankles as if faring them well on their path. His arms were splayed out before him in supplication, and as they watched he chanted words in his baritone voice that left them all in awe at the marvels of the forest and his prayer.

“Remember,” Grace said as Maeven rejoined them, not wanting to interrupt his reverie. “The Well of Wyrding is within here.” Now that they were so close to the Mirror of the Moon, it seemed their attention was more focused on the Well of Wyrding than their original destination and mission. “It has always followed that the Well of Wyrding directly influences the Sacred Forest. Now that the Well has been compromised, I am afraid that the forest might as well be.”