Chapter 37 #2
She looked me over and I nodded. Silent, but sure.
Cillian circled her, positioning himself just beyond her with a sure nod, a silent promise in his eyes: He wasn’t going anywhere.
Celine sloshed across the room, into the tallest part of Fhírinne where the ceiling rose to meet the large windows.
With a final glance my way, she smashed a balled fist against her open palm, sending a clap of light so strong throughout the room I thought it might peel the flesh from my bones.
The same light I’d seen Fate use to keep the Lores at bay.
The elements beneath my skin riled in the light’s wake, sent me to my knees, cool water splashing up into my eyes. The burn hit—salt. The clouds above hadn’t dropped rain at all, they’d literally cried with me. I fought to regain focus.
Celine’s power surged, her frame indecipherable. Then, in a voice layered by several others, she spoke:
“Viat co Tovitrus.”
Her words rang through the room from eight feet above, but I didn’t grasp their meaning. I caught a glimpse within the wall of light. A glimpse at something fierce. My magic slipped deeper inside, cowering.
“Easeevat,” Celine thundered.
The elements within me hissed but stopped their burrowing.
“I can feel it,” I whispered. “My magic, it’s listening now!”
The room settled—the veil over her falling away—and I saw Celine in all her terrible beauty: hair woven of starlight, eyes iridescent as the leaves of my willow, and the talons jabbing from her knuckles …
gut-wrenching. As those opal spheres looked me over, I swear they didn’t inspect my skin.
Not my physical self at all. But rather, bore into my soul.
She leaned down over me, taking a single talon and placing it over the tattoo I wasn’t aware she’d even known about.
Gaze transfixed on me, she pressed on the opal stone embedded there and said one last time—in complete authority, “Easeevat.”
Arise.
The language of light … she was speaking light language and I understood!
The magic inside me solidified in my chest as one, settling into perfect peace.
My eyes fell to my palms, and I studied the radiance hidden within them.
That’s when I noticed the sturdy weight upon my chest. My fingers shuffled my shirt down to reveal the opal locked inside my tattoo dazzling with new life.
It hummed through me. A single run of my fingertip across it and the snarled clouds above evaporated.
The water at my feet, gone. I swallowed hard.
When I finally grew brave enough to meet the gaze of the magnificent creature before me, the world itself shifted.
I looked upon Celine with brand new eyes.
The cosmos raced across my vision: starlight, nebulae, the very fabric of the universe threatening to take me back to my knees as it stared back at me, assessing this new thing I’d become. I didn’t waver. Didn’t falter.
Instead, I remembered everything.
Taking my first step, I noticed a sureness in my magic. In my very blood. In my bones. Unlike my Tinctured magic with its quiet hum, or my Elemental magic with its brute strength, this new magic came with a catastrophic awareness.
I stepped toward Celine and looked up into her towering face.
Tears swelled as I beheld her in truth for the first time, not as Celine, not as my teacher.
As the one who’d leapt beyond the grave to return me to physical form in every life I’d ever lived.
Who’d pulled me from Death’s grip each time I’d succumbed to it.
As a Guardian of the Ethereal realm, she’d always possessed those powers, born in the aftermath of Fate and Death’s war.
A daughter of Fate and Time, she’d devoted her life to my safety.
To protecting the soul born of both God and mortal blood: a combination never intended to be made with gifts never before possessed in human form.
She’d protected me even when I’d forgotten my true self. My nature, my duty as—I swallowed hard.
My duty as the Alchemist.
And yet, there I stood, existing, because of her protection. Her loyalty. My fingers brushed the opal cemented in my chest again, the Ethereal magic inside me now wide awake.
I lifted a hand to her and—with a weariness unfit for such an intimidating creature—she took it.
I said with confidence, “Hello, Serenity. How I have missed you, little sister.”
With a whipping wind, her frame shrunk to reclaim her human shape, and she dove into my arms.
“You remember,” she cried.
Not a question. We both knew it wasn’t. It was a declaration.
“I remember everything,” I murmured, squeezing her tight.
We stayed there, locked in one another’s arms as memories continued to rush over me.
In my time spent as Margaret, Serenity had driven away the demons in my sleep like a hungry lion.
As Fiorenza, she’d ushered Gianna into my life.
As Yelena, she’d planted the very thought in my father’s mind that brought us to America. To her, to … Cillian.
I pulled back from her hold, my gaze falling on him, and his smile brought me to my knees. I knew him. Really knew him.
He settled at my side on the cobblestone, wrapped me in his arms, and whispered in my ear, “My love, how I’ve missed you so.”
At his words, the opal in my chest vibrated; every affinity inside me aflame at his touch.
His familiar perfume wrapped around me, settled into me: fresh rain, mint, and—I heaved a breath—juniper berries.
Rolling green hills reflected in my mind’s eye, the love we’d shared there, our sweet children, our cottage in Galway, all crystal clear.
Drawn together by an invisible cord I’d felt my first time setting eyes on him, it all made sense. The déjà vu—it’d been my soul calling out to him. I latched onto the string tied between us and pulled him close.
“I found you,” I breathed.
Our lips met for the second time. My arms laced around his neck, a giggle slipping past my lips as his hands wrapped around my cheeks, thumbs wiping away my tears and pulling me closer. My friend, my love, my very soul, I had found him.
Roxie’s face flashed through my mind, snarling my stomach and chasing away a fraction of my newfound peace.
I had found him … but at what cost?