Veil of Shadows (31 page)

Cerridwen opened her eyes to find herself standing in a field. Alone. Panic seized her. Something had happened, something she could not remember, though she tried. She opened her mouth to call for help, and realized that she did not know who she would call to.

The ghost of some strong emotion plagued her. She had been searching for something, she was sure of it. She had set out from somewhere, somehow, to find something. Every moment that she did not recall what that was, her heart thundered louder in her ears. She heard her name on the wind, a desperate cry, but no one had spoken.

“Cerridwen.”

The voice that had uttered her name aloud was calm and familiar. She turned, tears in her eyes. “Mother?”

Her mother stood before her, her long, flame-red hair still, despite the wind. A long, white gown draped her slender limbs. She looked different, somehow younger, than she had appeared on Earth.

On Earth. That struck her as strange, but she did not know why.

She went to her mother and collapsed gratefully in her arms. It had been so long. Why had she stayed away?

The realization struck her as her mother stroked her hair and murmured comforting words. She looked up. “I am dead.”

“Yes,” her mother told her. “You have come home.”

“My father…” She remembered those last moments, her mother leaning over his body, her eyes shrouded in tears. That was why she had looked so old in that last moment. Her grief.

Another hand fell on her back, large and warm and sure, and she looked up into Malachi.s face. He was younger, for certain. No mortal lines of age marred his face, no scars from battle. The joy in his expression filled Cerridwen.s own heart, almost to bursting, and tears flowed down her face. “You are here. How?”

“Do not worry about the how, or the why,” another voice said, and she turned, never leaving the warm circle of her parents. embrace, to see the Morrigan, the triple Goddess, walking

toward her, across the field. Instead of one person, they were three: a girl, a woman and a crone, their hands linked as they came toward her.

“You did well,” the crone said, lifting her wobbling chin with pride. “Better than we could have hoped for.”

“What did I do?” She fought to push her mind through the haze that clouded it.

“You brought your subjects to a new understanding. You learned what was worth fighting for, and taught them, in turn.”

A flash of blood and fire swept across her vision, and she staggered, kept upright by her mother.s strong arms.

“This will pass,” she whispered into Cerridwen.s ear, as another anguished cry floated over their heads. “It is disorienting, if you have never been here before.”

“The Astral?” Cerridwen stared at the ground beneath her feet. “I knew it was somewhere. It could not have just…gone.”

“It did not,” the Goddess said from the young woman.s mouth. “It was here. They just needed someone to lead them to it.”

“To lead them to death?” Something seemed wrong with that. “But I did not mean to.”

“Not to death. To hope. Those that will die will come home. Those that do not will know that they can return.” The young girl aspect lifted her face to the sky as Cerridwen.s name tore through the gray clouds.

She knew that voice. She knew it, but she could not…“I was not finished.”

The girl gazed at her, unblinking. “You achieved your purpose. You are a great hero. They will never forget your name.”

Cerridwen groaned, doubled in pain. It made no sense. If she was dead, how could she…

“You are dying,” Malachi told her gently, lowering her to the ground. “You have not completely crossed over the divide. This will pass.”

She did not want it to pass. There was something she wanted on the other side, something she had not finished. She sat up, clutched at his arm. “This cannot be. I have…something I was searching for.”

Her mother and Malachi looked to each other with pained glances, as though there was something they wanted to say to her, but could not. She turned to the Morrigan. “There is something I was doing…. I have to go back.”

“Why do you need to go back?” the crone asked, cocking her head to the side in a birdlike gesture. “You could stay here, be with your mother and father. This place is your heritage. Your home and your birthright. Why would you want to leave it?”

“Because…” She looked around the field. It was unscathed, as though no one had set foot on it before. As she watched it, though, it wavered, revealed smoke and bodies, fire and pain.

And she remembered.

She climbed to her feet, and stood before the Morrigan. But this time, it was the triplicate Goddess with three faces, dressed for war. She regarded her with cold respect, a glint of humor in her eyes.

“I must go back,” Cerridwen argued. She turned to her mother and father. “I will return. I swear, I will return one day. But there are too many. They are in caves and underground cities like the ones we endured. This battle was only the beginning.” She faced the Morrigan again.

“You must let me go back.”

“Your Earthly form was destroyed,” the Goddess said. “You cannot return to it.”

“I will return in the body of a gnat, if I must!” she shouted. “I will not let my kin die slowly underground! Not when they can return to their home!”

As if she did not care, as though the trials she had seen Cerridwen through meant nothing to her, the Morrigan shook her head. “Only a God can grant them access.”

“Then send one with me!” Cerridwen looked helplessly around her for inspiration. “Make me a priestess of your order…grant me the power. Or let me tell one of them what to do. I cannot live here, happily, while the rest of them are…locked out. Tell me what to do!”

“Become a Goddess,” the Morrigan said simply, spreading her hands.

“You mock me,” Cerridwen whispered.

The Goddess narrowed her eyes. “Do you challenge me?”

There was no reply that she could give. She cast her eyes down.

“There is a reason you are here. There is a reason that you are one of my chosen,” the Morrigan continued. “You will return to them. But you will not return as a Faery. You will not return as a mortal. You will go to them, as their Goddess.”

Cerridwen stared. “Why?”

The Morrigan did not answer. Ayla and Malachi said nothing.

“Why?” she asked again, the frantic pain racking her once more. “I have done nothing to deserve this. I betrayed my mother. I caused the downfall of the Lightworld. My father is dead because of me, and I killed out of vengeance.”

“You recognized what others did not,” the Morrigan said evenly. “You did not despair because the Astral was missing, you sought to find it. You did not care only for your race, but for the mortals, as well. And you convinced others to believe.”

“You fulfilled the prophecy,” her mother said gently. “Years before your birth, I learned of it. I thought I might be the one, but I never truly understood it. Neither did Mabb, who thought the same. In you, the Lightworld and the Darkworld are mingled. You are Fae, and you are mortal.”

“Your mother is Fae, your father a messenger of the One God,” the Morrigan told her. “All that is left is the spark of the Divine, and you can unite them all. That is the gift I give to you now, Cerridwen. If you will accept it.”

She nodded mutely, unsure if what happened was a dream, the last fevered fantasies of her dying brain.

“Then go now. And do not squander this gift.” The Morrigan reached out and touched Cerridwen.s forehead. “Go, now.”

She fell back to the ground, back into the constricting confines of her crushed body. The light sucked away at the edges, and she struggled to open her eyes. Cedric knelt above her. He tried to heal her, to send his energy into her. The grief, the heartache, she had seen too much of it.

She closed her eyes, and breathed her last.

Twenty

H er eyes opened, just before the end. Cedric pushed, with all his might, all the energy that he could muster. He was too badly injured, as was she.

He would live. She would not. He would be alone again.

Her eyes slid closed. “No!” he pleaded, shook her by the shoulders. “No, no!”

He barely gave a thought to the battle around him as he stared down at her lifeless body, other than to hope they killed him, and quickly, before the disbelief wore off and gave way to the pain he would feel. He could not bear to feel it over her.

The sounds of battle slowed, then ceased, as he stared at her closed eyes. He willed them to open, willed her to come back to life, though he knew it would be impossible. When he had lifted her in his arms, she had been heavy and liquid, a bag of blood and ruined bones.

He did not know why she had come onto the field. He did not care why. He only wished he could take the moment back, spot her before the blast had killed her.

A hand touched his shoulder, the touch light, radiating healing warmth. He brushed it aside.

“I do not want healing. Go back to the battle.”

The hand stayed. He looked up.

She stood over him. For a moment he did not recognize her. She glowed, a faint halo of light around her skin. Her white gown looked dim by comparison. Her copper hair fell in long

waves that spilled over her shoulders. She had no wings, no antennae. For a horrified moment, he thought she might be Human.

He turned back to the body he held in his arms, watched it shrivel and flake away into autumn leaves and black feathers. When he looked back to her, he asked, “Is this real?”

“It is real.” She looked out to the battle that had paused all around them. Faeries and Humans on both sides stared, openmouthed, unable to continue fighting against one another. “I have seen the Astral. And I can take you back there!”

A few Faeries tossed their weapons aside and began shambling toward her, as she continued,

“It is not open only to the Fae. Any Human, any of you who wish to, may go. You do not need to pledge an oath to me. You do not need to die. You do not need to fight anymore!

Come if you will. Go, if you must.”

Humans, including a few Enforcers, drifted down the slope of the field.

She looked down at the bull, where it lay in the black pool of its life blood. A wrinkle of pain formed between her eyes as she stared down at it. She knelt, so close Cedric could touch her, if he dared, but he did not, and touched her fingertips to the blood. A spark of light from her fingertips illuminated the surface, painted it a reflective gray. Water. She turned the blood to water, into a deep pool that reflected the sky. The bull shifted, and sank below the surface. The Fae that had come to the edge stepped back.

“This is the way,” she told them. “Through here, you will find your Astral home. Once you have gone, you cannot return. Not yet. The Veil is not strong enough.”

“What about our families?” one Human asked. Another shouted, “My brother is dead! What about him?”

“The dead have already gone before you. And this is not your only chance. If you choose to stay here, you may return to the Astral at another time.” She looked up to the line of tanks and Human vehicles. “You may come, at any time. All it takes is a soul willing to believe that we can share this physical Earth with the planes that overlap it. If you can find it in your heart to abandon any wishes for vengeance and destruction, you can come to me, and I will lead you home.”

It was Cerridwen, but it was not her. The voice she spoke with sounded like her, but the confidence, the faith…it was as if she were someone else entirely.

He had still lost her.

The Fae filed into the pool, one after another. They sank below the water with expressions of gratitude, weariness, joy. The Humans, though, touched the water with awe. They gripped Cerridwen.s hands and thanked her.

The Human Enforcers who still lined the hill seemed paralyzed in the face of real magic. But it would not last. Hesitantly, Cedric touched the hem of her garment, and she looked down.

“Is it safe to be here, with them?” he asked, motioning to the hilltop.

She raised her eyes to them, sadness overwhelming her expression. “No. It is not. But perhaps they will grant us the boon of more time. But I do not see…” She scanned the horizon, then called out, “Danae! Danae, show yourself.”

The door of one of the Human vehicles opened, and the familiar form of the traitor stepped out.

Cedric reached for his sword, and Cerridwen put her hand on his shoulder. “Stay your hand. We will not fight her.”

The clouds overhead had darkened with the dying of the day, and Danae.s orange dress stood out against the hill like a fire against the green. She grew closer, eyes hard as she took in the sight of Cerridwen. When she was close enough to be heard, she called, “Shall I come nearer, so that you can kill me?”

“If I wanted you dead,” Cerridwen said, her voice echoing through the field, “I could do it from here.”

Danae stepped to the edge of the pool. “Is this a trick?”

“This is a gift,” Cerridwen told her. “More than you deserve. Take it, and do not show your face to me, ever.”

Danae hesitated. “Why do you not kill me?”

“Because I know when to fight,” Cerridwen said.

Humbled, Danae lowered her head and dipped one foot into the water. She stopped, looked up with a gasp. “I only wanted what was best for them! I only wanted—”

“You wanted glory,” Cerridwen said coolly. “That is why you stand in your place, and I in mine.”

With a breath that sounded like a sob, Danae sank below the surface of the water. The rest of the Humans that stood around them, those who would not go in, lifted their weapons, prepared to continue the fight.

“No!” Cerridwen ordered. “If you wish to live, return to your homes. Show the others that we have no quarrel with them.” Reluctantly, they tossed down their weapons, turned their backs to the Faeries, climbed into their vehicles and drove away.

Cedric watched them go, and watched the Fae turn, as well. “They gave up,” he said, laughing in disbelief. “They gave up.”

“They will return,” Cerridwen said, her eyes, gray as the sky, following their retreat. “When the shock has worn off, when they realize what they have done, they will return.”