Bound In Blue: Book One Of The Sword Of Elements (19 page)

“What are you doing?” Daley yelled and then stopped as he saw Melusine’s ghostly form for the first time. “Mel?”

Lacey laughed as she rummaged through the contents of the bag. “I meant regular candles, not birthday candles.” But she pulled them out, so I guessed they would do. Marking out the edges of a short walkway with the candles, she then made a circle with the marbles at the end of it. She lit the candles with the cigarette and took a long drag before snuffing it out.

Lacey smoking is almost as disturbing as standing five feet away from a ghost that wants to peel me like fruit.

Cailleach gestured and Lacey addressed us in the same voice she used to belt out show tunes. “At the setting of the sun, we embrace Samhain and the world stands on a knife edge between light and dark, life and death. Cailleach, the divine crone and great queen of winter, rises in her power and the door to the Otherworld opens. I pass through the candles for purification and the circle of stones is my protection from all hostile spirits.” Lacey promenaded through the candles and Cailleach watched as if she were judging her performance at a beauty pageant.

Lacey held up the picture of the oak leaf. “The veil is thin and like the druids of old, we summon immortality by the power of the sacred oak.” She burned the picture in the flame of the last candle. A thread of slate-grey flashed across my eyes and seemed to wind through my skull and down my spine. Talk of immortality didn’t sound like an exorcism. Yellow warning flickered on the edges of my sight.

Lacey scattered the ashes in the center of the circle and poured the can of soda on top. “Food and drink to appease the spirits who walk free this night. It would normally be milk or wine, but milk is too weak for this casting, and sending you to buy wine might have drawn too much attention. It doesn’t really matter; it’s the looks that count. Most spirits aren’t too smart. Sorry Melusine.” Lacey giggled and her pupils were dilated.

Melusine drifted away from Daley and wafted into the circle. As she brushed ghostly fingers at the liquid puddled on the ground, her claws returned and an impression of pearly scales rippled across her hands.

“What’s happening?” Daley whispered.

Tynan replied before I could. “Melusine is haunting you and we’re sending her on.”

Daley rounded on his brother. “What?” The thunder crashed closer this time.

“It’s what Rhi wanted.”

Daley grabbed me. I gasped as his nails dug into my skin and electricity followed. “What are you doing?”

“Melusine doesn’t belong here. We’re doing this to protect you!”

“Shut up!” Lacey’s voice was unnaturally amplified. “You’re interrupting my casting!”

Daley’s hair and face sparkled with electricity as he shook me. “What gives you the right? Who made you Melusine’s judge and executioner?”

“Daley, she’s already dead!”

“I won’t let you take her away from me again!” Daley’s fingers emitted electric shocks and I cried out in pain.

With a murmured incantation, Cailleach gestured and an invisible force pushed us away from one another. “Enough! This casting is bound by the circle of stones and none may disturb it. See.” She pointed. “The spirit is already caught.”

“Mel . . .,” Daley groaned. The ghost reached for him with claw-tipped fingers and then pulled back as she encountered an invisible barrier at the limit of the stones. Daley stared at her in desperation and a hot wind began to swirl between them. Tynan stood behind his brother with a sad expression on his face.

I felt as if someone had thrown cold water over my head. Had I truly believed Daley would thank me for ripping his dead girlfriend away from him? Was I really that stupid? Ugly honesty the color of dead worms smacked me in the face.

I’m doing this because I’m jealous of Melusine.

Miko touched my arm. “This doesn’t feel right. Make it stop.”

I looked at Peter and he shrugged. “Your call.” But I could feel his true emotions through our bond. Peter currently wasn’t very fond of supernatural exes and would be just as happy for me to send Melusine on her merry little way.

Despite my less than pure motives, I knew the ghost was a threat, but the colors of this magic were dark and reminded me of the Dobhar-chú. Cailleach watched me closely as I approached the stone circle. “Lacey, stop. I don’t want to go through with this.” She ignored me as she crushed the gingerbread men and scattered the fragments on the ground.

“Spice cake in the shape of the god of death to feed him as he returns to the underworld,” Lacey intoned.

“Stop!” I tried to cross the circle, but it was like hitting a brick wall. Falling hard on my back, the air was knocked out of my lungs and searing pain flashed into my head.

This has gone to hell.

I forced the pain away as Peter helped me to my feet. “This isn’t right. There’s got to be another way.” Lacey hesitated, but Cailleach gestured and she flinched.

“C’mon Lacey, we’re friends . . .”

“Friends! Are you kidding me? How could I be friends with someone who sneaks around in the shadows? I’ve always seen you for what you really are.” Her voice broke. “You took away the only guy I ever cared about. And do you want to know what the worst thing about that is?  Do you? You didn’t even want him! You were going to do the same thing to Melusine. You think you have power, but I have power now too. And wait till you see what Melusine’s really like once she’s reincarnated into her true form.” She smirked. “Actually, maybe you’d better skip that part. I have absolutely
no idea why
, but she doesn’t like you very much. Isn’t it funny how you have that effect on people?” Lacey’s face had hardened into an echo of Cailleach’s.

Dismissing me, Lacey put out her hand and Melusine raked a claw across it. Lacey winced and then made a fist. Drops of blood dripped on the ground.

Blood magic.

The strands of their hair rose and mingled together as the spell gained strength. Lacey began to chant and Cailleach joined her:

I am the wind on the sea.

I am the roar of the wave.

I am the bull of seven battles and the hawk upon the cliff.

I am dew and flower, fish and lake.

I am the mountain made flesh.

I am the word and the point of a weapon.

Fire bursts from my head and the moon is ordered by my will.

Return from Tethys’ kingdom, O beast of the sunset,

And receive my enchantment of wind and spear.

I wanted to hide from the mess I’d made—run and hide until the world was black and white and choices were easy—but I’d bungled everything in the worst way possible and I was going to have to somehow fix it. If Viviane’s frozen wall in my soul was keeping me from accessing real power, then it was time to bring all barriers down.

I descended through myself to that bruised and damaged place. Morgan’s spell had healed most of the wound, but the dark spot in the center still remained. Mom—Viviane—had built this wall in my mind to protect me from the power I was heir to—a power that was maybe too powerful for me to contain. I needed that power to make things right.

I wanted it too.

I believe fear is white and thickly veined with blue the color of the sea. I believe it is an icy edifice which keeps me from my true self.

But ice melts.

The wall was a symbol of everything that had been denied me. I could see power as color and there was enough crimson rage to call up a fire capable of destroying it. I brought Viviane’s wall down, damning all consequences. As the colors of her spell dissipated, a dark emptiness was revealed—the corruption that had been breaking through the barrier. I had a moment to register its full horror and then color poured through it from somewhere outside myself. I reached for the surface of my mind before I drowned in it.

I had done something terrible.

When I opened my eyes, flames of magic still danced on my palm. “Daley,” I whispered. He saw the flames in my hand and understood. Joining me, he gestured for Tynan to flank us, but Tynan had backed up to the edges of the clearing, slinking into the darkness like the figure in my dream. I turned back to the witches and their ghost. In response, Cailleach moved behind the circle, but Lacey and Melusine were oblivious.

“Lacey, I’m not kidding. You need to stop. Now!” I flicked my wrist and sent a tongue of flame out to test the boundary of the stones. It held. Lacey lifted her arms to the sky and Melusine’s ghostly form began to solidify into living flesh.

We were running out of time. I could sense Peter at my back, ready to fight. There was a ripping, flapping sound and I knew Miko had unfurled her new wings.

“Well done, little witch, but you need to go back to the kiddie table and let the grown-ups take it from here.” A woman in a white coat and gloves stepped into the clearing with someone unexpected in tow: Boudica.

“What are you doing?” Daley demanded, but Boudica ignored him.

Morgan glanced at the flames in my hands, but didn’t hesitate as she strolled up to the circle and faced Cailleach. Lacey and Melusine stood uncertainly between them.

“Well, Crone, I see you have found a new protégé. Have you not yet learned that they will only take what you have to give and then take their freedom?”

“As did you, my child.”

Morgan flinched. “I left my brother, not you. Do not blame me for choosing love.”

“You chose a human over the one who protected you from the time you and your sisters came into being. You chose the earth king and now you are bound to him and to your own ruin.” Cailleach sounded sad.

Morgan nodded at Boudica and the woman drew her sword. The sound it made as it left its sheath was like the hissing of snakes.

Cailleach was trapped, but she regarded Boudica with contempt. “I see you have found a she-dog to do your bidding. What did you offer her to take her from Taliesin? Beware, for this one will sniff after whoever holds the bone.”

“I know what you intend to do with this dragon in the making and I cannot let you give my brother so great an advantage. Do not make me choose between the love I bear you and that for my husband.”

Cailleach cocked her head and her round eyes blinked once. “If you were truly choosing love, then you would choose another. Abandon this foolish quest to wake the earth king. I bear a message from your brother. He will forgive all past trespasses if you make peace with the bard and live the rest of your long years with him. But be warned, Cernunnos will not allow you or Arthur to challenge his power again.”

Morgan sighed and her voice was soft and ragged. “As you say, I am bound and bound again. My fate is stretched upon an unstoppable wheel and I must follow it or be pulled under.”

“Then you will remain as Cernunnos made you,” Cailleach replied cryptically, “and will never be made whole.” She bowed her head. “Do what you must, my child.”

Morgan gestured and Boudica struck so fast that nothing earthly could have stopped her. Lacey screamed as the Crone’s head rolled into the circle, dark eyes open and staring.  The flames in my hands sputtered and died as I struggled to not be sick. Boudica smiled as she wiped the blood on her sword onto the grass.

Morgan turned away from the body on the ground. “Cernunnos corrupts all who cannot escape his influence. He sought to raise a dragon from the last of the bloodline of Melusine to use as a weapon against us. My brother wishes to dominate this world as he does his own; to cast us all into everlasting twilight. Arthur is the only one strong enough to hold against him. This is what Taliesin cannot accept. Can you not see that we must be united against the true evil?” Put that way, it sounded reasonable, but she said it looming over the severed head of a woman she loved.

So what does she do to people she’s just fond of?

Daley confronted her. “And what about those who won’t kiss Arthur’s boot? What about all the people in this world who just want to live their lives untouched by magic?”

“What of them? They are not your people. Would they fare better with the host of monsters my brother will send once he is ready to attack?”

Lightning sizzled in the air above Daley’s head as he pulled the charm off the chain and it became the Wheel of Taranis in his hands. “Arthur is a tyrant.”

If Morgan recognized the Wheel, it didn’t frighten her. “That’s Taliesin talking,” she sneered. “Arthur will bring order to the ranks of all magic users and then, with their help, to the world. He will bring peace and freedom to this world and to the Grey Lands, our true home.”

Tynan stepped out of the darkness. “Our father believes there can be a middle ground; a path between chaos and tyranny.”

Morgan shook her head in frustration. “Taliesin would . . .” And then her eyes widened. Striding over to Tynan, she murmured an incantation and a ball of light appeared in her hand. Holding it up to Tynan’s face, she looked at him with desperate eyes.

“My son!” Morgan le Fay cried.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

I was wrong. This has gone so far past hell that I’m looking at hell in the rearview mirror.

“Did you know?” Morgan screamed as Boudica shook her head in confusion. “We leave now! Bring the boy and the dragon.”

Boudica gave a whistle and two horses burst into the clearing, one white and one black. I would have been trampled if Peter hadn’t pushed me out of the way. A stray hoof caught him in the leg and he fell.

Lacey stood in front of Melusine and began chanting, but Morgan gestured and the stones creating the magic circle flew apart. Boudica pushed Lacey out of the way and she hit the ground hard and lay still. Almost solid now, Melusine didn’t resist when Boudica heaved her up onto the black horse and then mounted behind her.

“Mel!” Daley cried, but she just smiled and leaned back against Boudica. Thunder boomed and a bolt of lightning flashed, but the horse dodged it easily. If Daley used the greater power of the Wheel, he might hit Melusine.

“Look!” Miko pointed. Tynan was on the white horse and Morgan was behind him. Putting her arms around his waist, she rested her cheek against his back.

I ran to them and grabbed the reins. “Ty, what are you doing?”

The wind whipped Tynan’s hair across his face and I couldn’t see his eyes. “I felt it was true when she said it. My soul knows it.” His voice darkened. “Taliesin always sent me away when she was coming, never let me be near her. He was hiding me. Morgan’s my mother. I have to go with her.” I gasped in pain as he tore the reins from my hands. He gestured and a grey gash ripped through reality. Beyond it I glimpsed twisted trees like the ones in my dream—a dream of travelling on a Path. Morgan’s horse jumped through the portal and Boudica’s followed.

I ran after them. Miko screamed something through the rising storm of Daley’s fury, but I ignored her. Throwing myself through the opening, I whimpered in pain as I skidded across the ground and had to stop myself with my raw hands. I was just getting to my feet when Daley hit me from behind. We lay there for a moment, entwined in ways that felt intimate, before he pulled away. Standing, he brushed his hands off on his jeans as if their contact with my body had soiled them. I stumbled to my feet and hoped my burning cheeks would cool before he noticed.

“Where are they?” Daley’s voice was swallowed in the thick silence of the Path. The air felt dead and resistant to speech and movement.

“I don’t know. They should be right here.” Without a Guide to change it into something more familiar, the Path took its true form. The ground beneath our feet was too smooth and uniform. The twisted trees were bare, but dense and impossible to see through, and they curved above our heads and blocked the sky. It was like being in a grey tunnel. I was reminded of what Morgan said about Cernunnos casting the world into everlasting twilight.

“We need to find Tynan. He’s our only hope of getting out of here.”

White fear made it difficult to think. The Paths were deadly to those without the talent to travel them. “Why did you follow me?” I whispered.

The flashes of lightning in Daley’s eyes were the brightest things on the Path, but the expression on his face was unreadable. “We need to get Melusine and Ty back.”

There was no sign of the portal we’d come through. “I can’t hear the horses.”

Daley took a couple of hesitant steps. “The sound is strange here. They could be just ahead and we might not even realize it.”

“I’m going to try something.” Closing my eyes, I extended my awareness along the Path and was rewarded almost immediately. Without Viviane’s frozen barrier blocking the way, I was filled with fresh color. I still had almost no idea what to do with any of it, but I could sense the powers of those around me more easily. Morgan was a rainbow of fireflies dancing across a silver lake. I could tell she was too powerful for me to challenge. I tried Tynan, but his colors were even more chaotic. Clashing hues chased one another so fast that I couldn’t focus on any of them.

I moved on. Melusine was a surprise. I expected fire now that she was in her dragon form, but she was still aquamarine, sea-foam, and iridescence. A pale rope the color of bone surrounded her and disappeared into a far darkness. I shuddered. The dragon might be rising, but Death hadn’t relinquished its claim on the girl.

Running out of options, I found Boudica. In my mind, I could see the aura of her power as a fierce gold fouled by blackness.

I opened my eyes. “They’re just ahead.” I didn’t wait for Daley as I began running down the winding Path, but I knew he was following. The trees made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. Without warning, the Path took a sharp turn and we skidded to a stop in front of an immense form.

Melusine had completed her transformation.

The dragon’s head was long and tapered, and while it somehow kept something of the girl, it was also completely inhuman. Its serpentine body was covered in scales of mother of pearl and four powerful legs were tipped by luminous claws. The creature’s wings were small and obviously not useful for flight. In fact, they almost looked like gills. Tynan and the others had to be somewhere behind her, but Melusine towered over us and blocked the way.

“Mel!” Daley cried. “You don’t have to do this. Come back with me.”

I heard the dragon’s answer in my mind, and by the shocked look on Daley’s face, so did he. “Why would I want to do that? You have no idea of the power I now command. Death and the witch have freed it in me. I have become
Otohime
, the luminous jewel, and I will take my rightful place among the gods.”

“Please, Mel. I love you.”

The dragon’s sinuous neck extended until the creature’s snout was inches from Daley’s face. Its mouth gaped open and translucent fangs dripping with venom were exposed.

“Melusine,” he whispered.

“Our love was just a little thing.”  The dragon sounded amused. “It pleased me to have you. Tynan too.” There was no sound, but the dragon’s movement gave the impression it was laughing. “Do you begrudge your brother a few kisses, a few sweet embraces when your back was turned?”  Daley’s face darkened but there was no thunder on the Path. “Don’t be sad. You served the purpose all men are made for, and quite well, I might add. I would have stayed with you if death and glory hadn’t come calling, but your place in my story is finished and it’s time for you to go. Say goodnight, my love.”

All the light and electricity that belonged uniquely to Daley seemed to dim and grow cold. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head.

I could tell that Melusine was preparing to lunge. Pushing past Daley, I sank my hands into the scales around her neck, shuddering as my fingers dug through them like the scales on a fish. The dragon reared, but I held on, feet dangling a few inches off the ground. I didn’t need to close my eyes to find her colors. Ignoring the chill of Death’s pale rope, I closed my fingers around her aura and the soft, wet scales oozed through my fingers. Filling my hands with aquamarine and iridescence, I pulled. Melusine howled as skin and power was ripped from her. I landed on my feet with a thud.

I had a moment of triumph, but her power slipped through my fingers like water. Shaking my fingers clean of iridescent slime, I backed away as the dragon advanced, snarling and huffing. I looked to Daley for help, but he’d slumped to the ground and either didn’t realize or didn’t care I was in imminent danger of being shredded. Using Viviane’s spell to create a blue veil, I threw it at the beast, but it slid off and dissipated. Melusine was more powerful than a spell spun from moisture and mist and her mouth widened into a parody of a smile.

I needed more power. If I couldn’t find it inside myself, I would have to get it somewhere else.

I didn’t dare close my eyes, but I could sense Boudica somewhere ahead on the Path. Tynan and Morgan seemed to have disappeared, but I fought back grey despair and concentrated on the woman. Boudica was a queen. Despite the darkness surrounding it, the gold of her aura told me she had the power of command and the ability to bend others to her will.

I can use that.

Melusine’s neck lifted up like a snake ready to strike and I knew it was now or never. Darting to the side, I slipped around her, but my heart stopped for a moment as I felt the displacement of air as the dragon’s teeth snapped together behind me. I’d only barely avoided having my head chomped off.

Melusine’s struggle to turn her enormous body around on the narrow corridor gave me a head start. Two turns of the Path and I found Boudica running her hands across her horse’s neck, murmuring calming words. She’d been left back to babysit the dragon, but the horse seemed to have other ideas and was pulling on the reigns, eyes rolling. Distracted by her efforts to control her mount, she was unaware of my arrival until I barreled into her and knocked her to the ground. As she let go of the reigns, the horse panicked and ran off.

Now that I was touching her—straddling actually—I could feel the gold of Boudica’s power emanating from the thick choker at her neck; it was the symbol of Celtic royalty and she’d unconsciously centered her entire being on it. Before she could catch her breath and push me off, I grasped the two ends where they met in the middle of her throat and pulled. There was a small resistance, and then the choker broke apart and her color flowed into me.

There was probably a moment when I could have stopped—a brief moment when I knew that I was taking too much—but I let it pass. Filled with a pleasure so visceral, so transcendent, I took her power. And when that was gone, I took her very essence, even the darkness. Throbbing with color, I tossed the broken choker aside and stood. I wasn’t even aware of Boudica as I stepped over her to face the dragon. Melusine had stopped and was watching me as if she was curious as to what I had done, but I wasn’t interested in her anymore either.

It was Death I needed to talk to.

I didn’t stop to think of how impossible it was to do what I was doing. Filled with so much power, I felt like I could order the stars to dance. Instead, I closed my eyes and commanded Death to take Melusine.

And Death obeyed.

Melusine screamed—a sound that pulsed between the roar of a dragon and the pitiful cry of a woman who died too young. As death’s pale rope tightened and pulled her into the black abyss, I joined my scream with hers. Pleasure had twisted and erupted into flames which licked the inside of my skull. I fell, but strong arms caught me and held me tight.

“There you go,
mo leanabh
, I’ve got you.”

I knew that voice. “Redcap? What are you doing here?”

His breath was soft against my ear. “What I always do, Rhiannon; come at the call of a Great One’s death.”

There was a sensation of movement I couldn’t make sense of and then cold grass brushed my cheek as Redcap eased me down onto the ground. I opened my eyes as he brushed the hair back from my forehead, but even that light touch brought fresh agony.

Taliesin’s face swam into view. “Is she injured?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t see a wound.”

A wail shook the trees and they whipped and waved in response as it began to rain. I turned my head and forced myself to focus through the pain. At first, I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. Rowan was holding something in his arms and rocking it back and forth. I blinked and white horror surrounded it.

It was Boudica, beautiful and cold, eyes wide and staring.