Chapter 10 #2
“You see, Xander, we’re supposed to be the ones everyone runs from, that no one dares cross, and I spread that terror everywhere else I go and then travel here, to Osprey, through the ages, and see what?”
“I’m guessing people who have friends and neighbors?” I offered.
“No one fears us!” he howled.
Protect yourself.
I gasped because that was Corvus talking to me without me speaking first, and it sounded far clearer than moments ago.
“And the other histories showed me the truth. We do not need to mind the rift. We never needed to tend to Corvus and be servants to the land. We could be free.”
“You’re free now,” I reminded him as he made a motion mimicking pulling a sword from a scabbard.
The ice blade was terrifying, and I wanted to get up and run, but I knew Corvus was just now reaching out to me, and it had both Lorne and Argos underground. I hoped it was healing them, but if nothing else, it was protecting Lorne, and if I broke communion with my land, what would happen to him?
I sat there in the icy whipping wind as Giles closed in on me, saw him making a flicking motion with his right hand and felt small spikes hitting me, embedding in my arms, in my chest, and it was hard to breathe with how cold it was, but the spikes in my throat made it worse.
“We never needed to be tied to the land,” he said, standing over me. “Even now, you can’t save yourself because you use the land to keep a dead man and a dead cat from me and hope that somehow your blessed earth will save you.”
“Guarding the rift is our sacred duty. Why do you concern yourself when you’re not bound here?”
“But I am, Xander. I’m bound to all the guardians who have died on the land because this is where they lie. If there was no Corvus, there would be no graveyard here and my soul would not be tethered. But I am! Because of you! Because of every single one of you cursed guardians.”
I felt the land shudder in fear. I felt Corvus shift under me so my folded legs were buried in the earth. “You’re the last of this wretched line, and if I kill you and destroy Corvus, all of it will be gone. I’ll be free.”
Clarity was always helpful. Because if he succeeded in destroying Corvus, and he killed me at the same time, that would, in fact, unseal the covenant.
The magic would flow out of the land, the graveyard would disappear, everything would cease to be.
The rift, however, would remain, and there would be no one to keep evil from flowing into our world, but Giles Corey didn’t care because he had no bond to anyone or anything.
It all made sense then, and all I could do was watch as so much relief washed over his face before the blade touched my skin.
“I love you!” I screamed for Lorne and clenched my fists in the earth, then thought of Corvus.
I love you.
We love you.
Time slowed. I took a breath in, then exhaled it out.
And then the blade splintered into millions of pieces. They rose up slowly, floating, before becoming snowflakes and falling softly all around us. I was mesmerized, as was Giles, from the surprise on his features and the awe in his eyes.
The wind was gone, it was so quiet, and when I glanced around, I saw a hooded figure dressed in black, too far away to make out.
“How dare you interfere,” Giles roared, which was painfully loud in the eerie silence.
There was no reply.
He fashioned another icicle, much smaller than the one he’d flung at Lorne and killed Argos with but it had to fly a much greater distance. I knew exactly what he was going to do.
“Watch out,” I yelled the warning, and Giles rounded on me, brandishing it like a dagger. It would have easily pierced my heart had it not changed to water in his hand. “You should run, Giles,” I whispered. I certainly would have.
Turning from me, he gasped as his gaze returned to the figure—who in the blink of an eye had moved from across the field to stand at my side.
I looked up but couldn’t see much under the hood, and I wondered if I was hallucinating.
“You will die for this,” Giles threatened the figure, but before he could do anything, he was moved backward.
Not thrown or hurled; instead, he disappeared and reappeared farther away, as the figure had done.
One second he was in one place, the next in another, erased and then remade in a different location.
I couldn’t begin to imagine the skin-crawling horror Giles must’ve felt.
To be truly at the mercy of another, for them to think, I want you here, and then you were, was hard to wrap my brain around.
And the stronger you were, the more alien it would be.
Giles was the most powerful hedge-rider in existence, as far as I knew, and had just experienced all that he was being stripped away in a single heartbeat of time.
The figure moved then, facing us both.
“The gift of flight was bestowed on the child of Branwenn by Nemain. This was the first blessing of the line.”
Knowing then precisely who I was looking at, I huffed out a breath and bent over, face down in the dirt. The trembling was no surprise.
“The gift of the boundary of the land, of the marking, of the creation of Corvus, was bestowed on Bryan Corey by the Morrighan. This was the second blessing of the line.”
Her voice was deep and resonant, beautiful and scary, steeped in blood and memory.
“We are the one who branded Bryan, marking him as ours, and woke the earth magic that formed Corvus.”
“This cannot be,” Giles said shakily, his breath catching.
He knew who she was then.
“You altered what was never to be altered, what was only to be protected and cherished and loved. And though what you broke, we will mend… the trespass you committed against the land and its guardian is grave.”
“You come now solely for your precious rift,” he railed at her. “Because the gods travel through it, you’ve subjugated an entire line of people to keep it safe. That’s the height of selfishness.”
“You don’t understand,” I told him, crying now, my lips in the dirt.
“The rift is a rip in the world that must be guarded so no evil may enter. That is our sacred charge. In exchange for that service, we were given the gift of our beloved Corvus, which provides for us and shelters us and was made powerful by the Morrighan.”
“Your line made it powerful, child, with blood, devotion, and sacrifice. The guardians have given all. We would ask if you would step away from Corvus for another life, but we have already been given an answer in this…you, here, pleading with the land to remember all that it was and is.”
“Please restore your blessing on the boundary.”
“You have been afraid for your neighbors.”
“Yes.”
“And for William, who should be here instead of you.”
“Yes.”
“And more than all is your fear for your love and for your…oh…daemon.”
“Yes,” I sobbed into the dirt.
“Rise and be well.”
I did as I was told, sighing deeply at the absence of pain. When I checked on Giles, he was almost transparent, but still defiant as he reached under the collar of his shirt, and pulled out what appeared to be a gold coin attached to a heavy gold chain.
“Ah, a nummus profugere, a trinket you have placed far too much faith in,” she stated dismissively, her head tilting merely a fraction.
As I watched, the coin melted, and the molten metal on his skin caused him to howl in pain.
His screams were overlapping, growing louder with every passing second, and it was hard to listen to, and even more painful to watch.
The sudden silence was both abrupt and confusing, but I could tell from the contortions on his face that he hadn’t stopped suffering.
I suspected he was raging, and now entreating, the goddess at the same time.
“My lady, I have never heard of a nummus profugere.”
“It is a powerful talisman of evasion, one that many have used to flee certain death.”
I knew then that all the fear he’d ever shown me was a lie. He could have escaped from Corvus, the cottage, or any trap Lorne and I could have ever come up with. The thing was, he was not expecting to be confronted by a goddess in my little corner of the world.
“Even now, he promises to change,” she said softly. “But we are not deceived. His heart is evil and cannot be saved. We will not be moved to forgiveness.”
“Yes, my lady,” I said, and as I watched, he dissolved into nothing, gone from my sight.
“Your land, your mate, and your servant are restored.”
I didn’t see or hear anything, but I would never doubt her. She was the Morrighan, who knew all things. “Thank you, my lady, and please thank my lady Sionna for sending her messengers to you.”
“It was her thanking you for your care of her kin and the sanctuary you provide.”
“Yes, my lady. I will be forever grateful.”
She nodded, and I got a glimpse of a smile under the hood, but not enough to know what she looked like. “Arawn was right, you are steadfast,” she said, and was then a tiny dot in the distance before, in the next moment, I could no longer find any hint of her on the horizon.
I exhaled.
“Xan!” Lorne yelled my name before he dropped down in front of me and gently wiped away the tears and dirt so he could see me.
“Are you okay?” I nearly shouted at him.
In response, he grabbed hold of my coat and yanked me into his arms, squeezing me so tight, a small yelp came out of me.
The relief at him being strong and whole brought on the same trembling that fear and awe had moments before. “I love you so much,” I murmured as he shoved his face into my shoulder. Clearly, he was a bit overwrought.
Argos was at my side too, butting his head against us.
“Oh, my boy,” Lorne rasped, picking up the cat, nuzzling his fur and hugging him. Argos rubbed his nose on Lorne. They were so sweet together.
The ground shifted under us then, and Lorne moved closer to me as I wrapped him and Argos in my arms as the earth moved, creating a circle around us.
“You fixed Corvus,” he whispered as his eyes welled with tears. “It’s all better.”
“Yes, it is,” I mumbled, then let him go and pressed my hands down into the earth.
The guardian is well, it said.
The guardian is well, I responded.
I had to take a breath.
You are well, I said.
We are well, it answered.
And now we will rest, I promised.
We will rest.
The guardian will protect you, I said.
We will protect our family, it said.
When I pulled my hands out, I laid them gently on top before breaking down sobbing. Lorne gathered me in his arms, hugging me and Argos tight, and for once, Argos let me cuddle him. We stayed there a long time, the three of us and our land.