Chapter 23
Tulips, daisies, and a motionless violet sky flooded my vision.
Finally, I’d found my way back to the meadow.
To him. I danced about, allowing the magic to fill me up and twirl beneath my skin.
I closed my eyes, taking hold of my talisman with one hand.
I swallowed and focused on the light inside, willing it into my raised hand.
A subtle vibration built around me. One much different than the buzz I heard before Cillian’s magic emerged.
Mine was more like a wind chime: gentle, soothing.
When the ebb and flow against my fingertips started, I opened my eyes to find a mini sea of golden light pooled in my palm, complete with its own tide.
Incredible. A giddy smile caught my cheeks as I put my hands together, the light swishing about with little encouragement.
At first it gushed over the edges, but after another deep breath it minded, transforming into a whirlpool.
I marveled at its movement, how fluid it was here in the Shroud; easy to manage, like another body part.
“Impressive,” Leeran said from the bench beside me.
“Shit—” The light dribbled through my fingers and I watched the gleaming tendrils sink into the earth, new flowers sprouting up in its wake. “Give a girl some warning next time, you scared me!”
“My humblest apologies, sweetheart, but you have a way of bewitching a person.” With a wink, he stood, and plopped in the meadow’s center, patting the space beside him. “Come, sit with me?”
“I’d love to.” I fought a smile, though I wasn’t sure why. Wanting to be near the one I’d loved through centuries wasn’t bad. Excitement was expected and normal, so … why couldn’t I get Cillian’s stupid, hopeless face out of my head?
I forced him from my thoughts and settled next to Leeran, my gaze following his into the clouds.
For the first time, I found peace in his world.
The Shroud truly was beautiful in an odd way.
You know, once you got past the whole deadly beasts who want to eat you alive thing.
Leeran extended his free hand into the open air and twirled it about.
The clouds reacted to his call and wove themselves into various shapes at his will.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“What, this?” He grinned at me, merging three separate clouds into a giant heart.
“Yes, that! It’s amazing.”
“If that is all it takes to impress you, I can think of a much grander way to amaze you,” he murmured, drawing close. “Or do you still secretly wish to lob a rock at my head?”
“I think you’re safe for now,” I laughed.
“As are you.” He ceased his control of the clouds, abandoning them to caress my cheek. “Right here with me.”
I shuddered at his touch, nervous energy gripping me around the throat. “How … how do you do it though? Control the clouds?”
“When you have been studying magic as long as I have,” he whispered, a mere inch from my face now, his breath like freshly picked peppermint as it fanned against my lips. “A simple manipulation like this comes naturally.”
He pulled at the amethyst crystal around his neck.
Sudden nausea overtook me, horrible images from the past weeks rapid cycling through me out of nowhere.
The wicker in my eyebrow, the burns, Chaos’s death, the bloodstone still lingering in my bedside now fused to the beast’s essence—it all crashed down like bricks.
Leeran’s hand cemented around my shoulder. “Are you all right? You are white as a ghost.”
My lungs heaved, and I buried my fingers in the wet grass. When I felt in control again, I met his gaze. “I know this is kind of a shot in the dark, but do you know anything about a bloodred stone?”
His eyes widened as he dropped his arm down at his side. “I wondered if it had found its way to you yet … though I had hoped otherwise. Damn.”
My stomach jumped. “What is it?”
“It is not pleasant, the story behind it.”
“Can you show me?”
He looked me over. “Are you sure you want me to show you this? It will not be easy to see … and I cannot promise it won’t bring out the monster in me again.”
I considered his warning. Being stuck in the dark wasn’t an option anymore.
If I was going to be a part of his world I needed to know what role I played in it.
And that meant learning the truth behind the stone that’d stowed away with me.
Good or bad, I was ready. I offered him my hand.
“Yes, I can handle it. Monster and all.”
Lips thinned, he wove his fingers through mine and transported me to the edge of a cliff overlooking a thrashing ocean.
“Upon the twentieth anniversary of your death,” he began. “Fagan had fallen on the worst times in his life.”
The young boy—my boy—I’d seen dancing through the Irish countryside in Leeran’s last vision graced the scene in front of me. Though, this time, far more grown up than before.
“When our boy was still young and grieving,” Leeran continued, “I had gifted him a red stone that he had grown fond of during our trips to market. He requested it more than once, insisting that the red hue reminded him of his mother’s fiery hair.”
I watched Fagan pull the stone from his pocket and roll it between his fingers, tears welling as he studied it.
“After your death and Lynn’s tragic disappearance, Fagan grew … spiteful and distant.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Disappearance?”
“Yes,” he said, voice shaking. “I apologize, but that is a story I simply do not have the strength to relive.”
My chest tightened. I wanted to know, to see what he’d seen and share in his hurt, but the last thing I desired was to bring him further pain. “I understand, I won’t make you.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Before she … left us, the twins had become known for their successes in magic. The way their abilities lined up with one another was unlike anything I had seen. Even now, their conjoined power would be challengeable by few.”
The news shook me. “Wait, they were witches too?”
“Yes, and brilliant ones at that. I like to think they took after their father.” He chuckled. “But, without Lynn, Fagan wanted no part in it anymore and found a way to abolish his affinities into the stone: the thing that reminded him of everything he had lost.”
The stone in Fagan’s palm began to pulse, a blue glow about its edges growing steadily under his intent stare. Sparks leapt off it, singing the dry grass under his feet.
“He wanted to surrender his magic on the same shore where we had spread your ashes. He had to let go. But someone had their eyes on that stone, coveting its power and link to you.”
The scene around me darkened as a silhouette approached in the distance.
But Fagan’s eyes, they never looked up, never anticipated what was coming.
In a sudden burst of force, the stranger rushed Fagan; brought him to his knees.
The two rolled about, fighting for control of the charged red stone until finally the winner prevailed.
The stranger stood. A pair of familiar green eyes looked over the stone, and my entire body went rigid. Cillian?
“He had sworn his allegiance to a very different kind of magic, one of a malicious and sinister sort. Baneful magic,” Leeran confirmed.
“But he was not satisfied with that affinity alone. He wanted Fagan’s power as well.
With our son’s magic added to Cillian’s already strong connection to the darkness, he could become virtually untouchable. ”
My mind ran wild, trying to catch up. Sure, Cillian was distant and a liar, no doubt, but … evil? That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. How he’d managed to pull the wool over my eyes, it didn’t make sense. But deception was a powerful thing, sharpened with time.
Leeran sighed and the scene before me blew away like leaves in a strong breeze. “Even with Fagan’s magic, he wanted more.”
I found myself firmly planted in a modest, candlelit hut.
Copious amounts of herbs and gemstones scattered across every available tabletop, a cauldron hanging over a flame in the fireplace.
The sheer hominess settled around me, like I’d known those walls well.
Cillian’s frame darted through the front entrance with the bloodstone in hand and headed for the babbling pot.
He muttered something over the stone—inaudible but most certainly a spell—and cast it into the boiling mixture.
With a deep breath he knelt on the ground before it.
The scene ended abruptly, thrusting me back into the meadow and Leeran’s safe embrace.
“What … what was he doing?” I asked, toes curled in the soil.
Leeran met my gaze and traced his thumb across my cheek. “He discovered the stone’s meaning to Fagan, its inherent connection to your memory. Naturally, he saw it as an opportunity to bring you back so he could bond to you, like he had always wanted.”
I swallowed hard. “Bond to me?”
“Yes, to lay claim on you.” He sneered, hands balled into fists. “And the strongest bonding spells, they stem from a living link to the deceased, a tangible piece of their legacy. He manipulated the stone’s original purpose and, in the process, it became lost to us, in his grasp.”
A vortex whirled inside my skull. If that was the case, then why had the stone come back to me? Why had Chaos and Bethesda had it in the first place? “After I killed Chaos, the essence from his heart, it fused to the bloodstone. Why?”
“Yes, that … your magic, Fey, it’s linked to this place. To the Shroud. To … the Ancient Lores.”
My tongue turned to ash. “Me? Linked to the Ancient Lores? But … how? I don’t understand.”
“It is a long, complicated story. One I promise I will tell you in time, but for now you should know that your life force and theirs are intricately connected. Each time a Lore loses its life or its essence, it rebonds to that stone. To the one thing that binds all things in the Shroud together: you.”
The world began to spin. I bound the Shroud together? No. That … Just, no. There was no fucking way that was true! It couldn’t be! I leapt to my feet, but Leeran snagged my arm and pressed me against his chest.
“Breathe,” he whispered. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. You are okay.”
In: one, two, three. Out: one, two, three.
My words came out robotically. “Cillian, he—he told me the stone had been handed down through his family, left for him to watch over …”
“He truly is a master deceiver. That stone and its inherent evil both are his doing. His alone.” Leeran took my face in his hands.
“Promise me you will stay as far away from him as possible? I need to know you are safe, and unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of protecting you on the other side, no matter how much I would like to bash his face in.”
“I promise,” I said without hesitation.
Leeran stepped closer, arms wrapping around my waist, and pulled me to him. His face lowered over mine, his eyes falling into mine. My stomach somersaulted as he pulled me closer, his lips a brush away when my magic stabbed me in the leg, hard.
“Agh,” I hissed as it thrashed through my veins.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“My leg, it’s—” It stabbed again, and I grabbed my knee. “Shit.”
“I don’t see anything … What is it?”
His hand slid down my leg, the sensation sending a wave of goose bumps up my arms, a cold rush in its wake. My head began to spin, nearly taking me to the ground, but I took a step back, and the stab of magic dissipated as quickly as it came, leaving a strange pit in my gut. “It’s okay, I’m—”