Chapter Thirty-Four #2
Her husband only shrugged again as Bronwyn scattered what looked like bones across the table.
“You need to tell me about that crystal,” Aemyra said, eyeing her husband. “Does it work for all the stone circles? Are there more?”
Bronwyn made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat and shuffled off to the kitchen.
Taking this as permission to speak, Fiorean leaned across the table, careful not to disturb the bones. “Bronwyn has two crystals, both infused with her power, which allow the bearer to travel between stones.”
Aemyra’s eyes widened, wondering if these crystals could be harvested from Loch Deur in àird Caolas. She had thought travel on dragonback a mighty advantage, but with these a person could travel leagues in but a moment.
“How many people can use each crystal? How much magic do you possess?” she asked, eagerly. “We need to find more and locate the stone circles closest to our enemies. What if—”
In seconds, the cottage was plunged into darkness. A rattling noise came from behind her shoulder and Aemyra could no longer see Fiorean. Suddenly she felt weak, her heart rate sluggish and her mind addled. What had she been saying? Where was she?
Just as suddenly as the shadows had swept in, they retreated to reveal Bronwyn squatting right in front of her.
“Spirit magic is not like yours, little girl,” she croaked. “It cannot be used for destruction or twisted into a weapon of war. It was gifted to heal, to protect, only.”
Aemyra half expected Bronwyn to waggle her gnarled finger and make her stand in the corner. Rarely had Aemyra received such a dressing down, certainly no one would speak to her in such a manner as queen, but she closed her mouth.
“My apologies,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Much knowledge of your magic has been lost. I would be grateful to learn whatever you might teach me.”
Bronwyn’s eyes were milky with her advanced age, but she seemed astute enough. If not exactly forthcoming.
With a grunt, she sat on the third chair, gathering the bones scattered across the table in a dramatic way.
“What do they show you?” Aemyra asked after a few moments had passed.
Bronwyn shrugged. “Nothing, I am not a Seer.”
With that, she scooped the bones into a bowl and placed them beside a saucer of milk, clearly left out for a cat.
Aemyra tried again. “You’re telling me that crystals are capable of holding your magic?”
Bronwyn nodded, a glint in her eye.
“Your magic remains stable, unchanged, within the crystal?” she pushed, her voice raising.
The crone laughed, the sound like the grating of stone sliding over rock. “For a hundred years if need be, as long as you don’t use it up.” Her eyes landed on the dagger at Aemyra’s hip. “Your ancestors knew how to harness the power of gemstones as well as crystals.”
Now even Fiorean was on edge.
“Explain.”
Bronwyn remained mute.
“Please,” Aemyra ground out through gritted teeth.
The crone gestured for Aemyra’s dagger and she laid it flat on the table, the garnet dark in the shadowy light. The crystal brooch seemed to glitter from within.
Brownyn’s gnarled fingers rested upon it.
“Raw crystals are capable of binding magic, and they were the traditional choice of spirit Dùileach. They allowed us to give our gift to those less fortunate, to help them travel or heal minor ailments without our assistance.” Bronwyn moved her hand over the garnet.
“In contrast, refined gemstones amplify magic. In the past, those who desired not to Bond to beathaichean would often use them as a way to boost their original gifts instead.”
A shiver ran down Aemyra’s spine as she thought of the rubies on Greer’s headdress, in Riya’s amulet. They had been adorning themselves with ancient jewels without understanding why.
She turned to Fiorean. “You said this garnet was a family heirloom?”
He nodded, wide-eyed.
Bronwyn slid the dagger back across the table. “It would not surprise me if this garnet once belonged to Lissandrea herself.”
Aemyra froze.
“Elemental Dùileach have always been unable to keep the peace. The Fifty Year War broke out mere months after Tìr Sgàile fell—all of you fighting for the right to rule a world that belongs to all of us. It was a blessing when the knowledge of how to use gemstones was lost,” Bronwyn said, a disgusted look on her face.
Aemyra felt a little ashamed of how quickly she had thought of using the crystals as a weapon, but she did have a war to win. Eyeing the crone now, she tried to gauge exactly how old she was.
“Convenient, that you managed to find my husband and drag him back here all by yourself,” Aemyra said.
“Convenient that he landed in the right place,” Bronwyn answered.
Aemyra crossed her arms. “A little suspicious, if you ask me.”
The crone uttered a gravelly laugh. “How ironic. The queen who believes herself destined for a throne cannot imagine someone else’s fate to be predetermined.”
The words gave Aemyra pause, and she had to get up from the table. As Aemyra explored the decrepit cottage, Bronwyn did not chastise her for the curiosity.
There was really only one room, with an earthen floor and peat fire. Runes were carved into the beams crossing the ceiling and the thin curtains fluttered in a phantom breeze before the singular grimy window.
Bunches of herbs were strung in front of the fireplace, held far from the flames.
With a familiar pang, Aemyra brushed her hands across them.
Lifting her fingers to her nose, she breathed in the comforting smell of lavender before crossing to the pots littering cluttered shelves.
They were chipped and some of the lids were dented, but Bronwyn’s herbs were meticulously organized. Even Orlagh would have been impressed.
Aemyra wished she could bring this veritable apothecary back to her army. Dried rosehips, comfrey, and yarrow were difficult to find on the march.
“You have knowledge of healing.”
Bronwyn’s voice at her shoulder made Aemyra jump. She hadn’t heard the woman approach. She also hadn’t phrased it like a question.
Aemyra cleared her throat. “Yes, my, um, my mother was a healer.”
Bronwyn harrumphed and Aemyra took umbrage. “I was told she descended from the Beaton clan of Tìr Sgàile. Perhaps you are a distant relation.”
The crone’s lips puckered like she doubted that very much and she grasped Aemyra’s wrist, turning it up so she could view the promise mark.
Bronwyn’s leathery hand hovered over Aemyra’s palm and her eyes narrowed. “You offered much of yourself to the Goddess. More than was wise.”
Aemyra scoffed. “And yet Brigid still isn’t impressed.”
A frown deepened the wrinkles on Bronwyn’s face.
“The Goddesses are so rarely impressed by anything we do.” Her fingers began prodding at the mark, and Aemyra felt something change in the air around them.
It grew heavy, convoluted, as if the universe was spilling its secrets to Bronwyn through a veil Aemyra could not see.
The sensation made her uncomfortable, but Bronwyn held firm, with far more strength than a woman of her stature should have possessed.
“You blame your blockage on the Goddess,” the crone rasped, her middle finger pressing so hard into Aemyra’s palm that she felt the bite of a cracked nail. “But there is no one to blame but yourself.”
Fiorean stood, the noise of the chair loud as the cottage seemed to press in on them.
Aemyra felt it then, a surge in her blood, as if Bronwyn was siphoning through her very essence.
“Stop it,” Aemyra ground out, instantly uncomfortable.
Bronwyn’s searching only grew stronger and Aemyra’s body begin to itch. In front of her eyes, the burned skin of her forearms healed, leaving behind impossibly smooth flesh. In a panic, she raised her hand to the scar on her chest.
“Don’t,” she begged.
This seemed to impress Bronwyn, who left the scar untouched.
In desperate hope, Aemyra eyed the promise mark, but instead the crone reached for Aemyra’s abdomen, splaying her fingers wide.
Aemyra locked eyes with Fiorean over her shoulder. He was frozen in the darkness of the room as Bronwyn’s palm grew warm and Aemyra felt something cramp inside of her. There was a brief tugging sensation, followed by a pleasant coolness, and the crone dropped her hand.
Aemyra was panting, dripping in sweat and feeling rather like she had been remade.
Bronwyn clapped her hands together once. “Could your Beaton mother do that?” she asked gleefully.
Side-stepping the crone, Fiorean came to Aemyra’s side. “What did you do?” he asked.
Bronwyn waved her hand dismissively as she shuffled to the kettle. “Her body is healed, but I cannot do more for her mind than she is willing to do herself.”
Aemyra’s eyes snapped up to the woman’s hunched back. “What?”
“You heard me,” Bronwyn replied, pouring steaming water into three mugs.
“I am not like the phony healers in that stinking city you call home, promising cures and delivering nothing but false hope. Pretentious physicians who pretend to cheat death but cite any of their mistakes as being ‘the Savior’s will.’ ”
“My mother wasn’t like that,” Aemyra said without bite, accepting the mug of tea.
Bronwyn seemed to soften, as if her magic had told her the story of Aemyra’s past. “Women are so often more talented than men, and yet much more willing to pretend they are not.”
Fiorean’s lips quirked. “Thankfully my wife doesn’t suffer with false modesty.”
“Oh, and you are the very example of humility,” Aemyra retorted.
Bronwyn clicked her fingers at their mugs. Not wishing to offend the woman who might have just ensured the future of the Daercathian line, Aemyra sipped her tea.
It was disgusting.
The crone sat down like a set of deflating bagpipes.
“Are there any other spirit Dùileach still alive?” Aemyra found herself asking.
“If there are, I do not know of them,” Bronwyn said sadly. “I imagine they remain in hiding like me, waiting to go home.”
Intrigued, Aemyra took a seat as Fiorean plucked a dandelion leaf from his tea.
“You believe Tìr Sgàile will rise again?” Aemyra asked.
A true smile spread across Bronwyn’s weathered face. “How do you destroy that which was neither alive nor dead? A city that existed as much on our plane as that of the Goddesses?”
Ah. So Bronwyn wasn’t all there in the head after all.
Aemyra swilled her tea. “Look, I’d love to see a unicorn as much as the next person, but anyone who has set foot inside Tìr Sgàile in the last two hundred years has either died or returned raving mad and muttering about wisps, wights, and ban-sìth,” she said.
“If Caledonia still exists, it has fallen to ruin and is ruled by the dark spirits released by the curse.”
Bronwyn didn’t look convinced. “Well, it’s your fault for raising the treaty walls. If the Dùileach weren’t so separated, perhaps they would join their elements and be strong enough to fix it.”
Fiorean patted Bronwyn on the back familiarly, distracting her enough that she didn’t notice him pour his tea into the nearest potted plant.
But Aemyra had gone still.
“Join their elements…” Aemyra whispered.
“What?” Fiorean asked.
Aemyra’s thoughts were whirring.
Dùileach were free to travel throughout Erisocia as long as they remained unBonded. It was inconvenient but widely accepted. Aemyra herself had Bonded to Terrea with barely a thought of what she was sacrificing.
The treaty protected the beathaichean, but it also stopped the most powerful Dùileach from combining their elemental magic, to prevent another war ripping Erisocia apart.
Water Dùileach were inherently expert fishermen and sailors, altering currents and tides to maximize their catch.
Earth Dùileach could harvest ten times as many crops as a non-Dùileach farmer.
Air Dùileach were fantastic builders, lifting and hauling lumber that should have taken forty men to shift.
And when Dùileach combined their power? Fire only grew stronger with air. Watered earth brought life…
Aemyra’s eyes widened, remembering how her queen’s guard had played with their magic together to entertain on the solstice. It had been so long since the territories had worked together, their combined efforts had been reduced to parlor tricks and true power forgotten.
The key to the antidote wasn’t between Dùileach and beathach; it was between the elements.
“We’ve been looking in the wrong place,” Aemyra said, shooting to her feet.
“What’s going on?” Fiorean asked.
Aemyra snatched her dagger from the table.
“Could all four elements be amplified by a gemstone and then combined into a crystal?” she asked.
Bronwyn narrowed her eyes. “If you want to create a weapon of mass destruction, perhaps.”
It wasn’t exactly what Aemyra had in mind, but this revelation might just save the Dùileach from the Chosen.
“Thank you, for everything,” she said breathlessly. “I must get back to my army.”
Utterly confused, Fiorean allowed Aemyra to pull him to his feet.
Bronwyn raised her voice from the shadows. “I have been waiting a long time for destiny to catch up with me.”
A shiver ran down Aemyra’s spine, but she hauled Fiorean out of the cottage.
“Aemyra, you’re going to have to explain a little more,” he said when they were surrounded by forest.
She could feel her cheeks flushing, her thoughts awhirl. “I have to get back to Dildain and tell Adarian. Thear can recheck the translations, but the key to the antidote, to winning the war…it is through combining elemental magic.”
Fiorean was shaking his head. “We don’t know how to do that.”
With a smile, she held up both the brooch and her dagger. “Yes we do.”
Before he could say anything else, she held the crystal against the stone and took a step toward destiny.