Umbra, p.22
Umbra, page 22
“But we can’t go back to what we were,” Rune intoned, “before the Fomors invaded–”
“I didn’t mean to use the blood command on you,” Jess blurted. Desperation climbed through her as she realized what must be going through his thoughts. She’d used the magic of their enemy on him. And she hadn’t even apologized for it once since they’d got to Umbra.
“I’m sorry,” she pleaded. “Please, please forgive me.” Jess felt the full crime of what she’d done. The magic she’d used to exert her will on Rune was the magic responsible for casting their shadow selves into the Between and responsible for ravaging their physical forms, for tearing apart their magic.
Sickness roiled through her as the weight of what she’d done settled on her like never before. Watching the story of the Fomors’ invasion on the cave wall had brought to Jess’s mind that first glimpse of seed magic she’d had in her dream in the penitentiary. She’d felt as if she were flying amidst a portal of light until the night suddenly pressed in upon her. She remembered the way the radiance had dimmed. Remembered the way she’d wanted to shelter the dancing lights, to bear them to her, to hide them from the invading night, but how the darkness had flowed on, smothering them and enveloping her. That had been the memory of her—Silva’s—obliteration. That very darkness that had destroyed her was the dark magic she’d used on Rune. Her actions seemed monstrous.
Jess swallowed the lump in her throat. “I felt the wrongness of it when I used it on you. Now I know how truly wrong it was. Why even the blood command I wielded over the Rems felt dark. It’s the Fomors’ magic. But if I’d known, if I hadn’t thought it was the only way to get you here, I never would have used it…” She stared at the ground, unable to see the blame that she thought must fill his eyes. Unwilling to see that it was her fault that they couldn’t go back to what they’d been before because of what she’d done.
Rune closed the distance between them. He drew her chin up. Her breath caught in her chest: his eyes weren’t filled with censure but were bruised with anguish. “When I knew I would lose you, I forgave you instantly.” A bitter smile edged his lips. “I only wish my anger hadn’t cost me precious time with you.”
The feel of his hand on her chin contradicted his fatalistic words. She decided to put an end to whatever this ridiculous speech was. Her hands strayed up to his face, and she pressed her lips against his, denying his claim that he’d lost her. Telling him that he had her. He stilled, and for a moment, she worried that she’d misunderstood, maybe he didn’t want her…
But then that hunger, that heat, everything that had always been brimming just beneath the surface broke through, and Rune was kissing her ravenously, leaving her with no doubt about his feelings for her.
Need tore through Jess. Waves of desire crashed through her core as Rune’s lips and tongue undid any semblance of restraint. She wrapped her legs around his waist, needing to be as close to him as she could, needing a cavern wall behind her so–
In the blink of an eye, she felt the stone against her back, his palm cradled her head as he kissed her throat. She arched her neck, inviting him in. She’d thought that she had to choose her shadow self over Rune. Thought that she’d had to go against him to be true to herself, but she was connected to him as much as she was to her shadow self.
The pulse of her emotion grazed their tether.
Anguish reverberated from Rune. In a moment, he’d set her down on the ground. “I can’t keep holding onto you when you don’t belong here.”
Gloominess flitted over Rune’s expression. Jess hated the pain on his face and reached out to stroke his cheek, but he only took a step away.
“How can you say I don’t belong with you?” Jess demanded.
Rune exhaled. “You were thinking about your shadow self just now, weren’t you?”
She frowned. “Only how I belong with you as much as I do to that part of me.”
He looked as if he’d had the breath punched out of him. It looked as if it cost him everything to keep talking. “But you don’t, Jess. You don’t belong in Umbra anymore. Silva hasn’t belonged here since she fashioned her twin wolves, since her seed magic slumbered within them for thousands of years, changing her to become one with Earth. She—you—have become an earthen goddess.”
Shock spilled through Jess. Cold crept into her bones. She felt as if she were falling. She shook her head as apprehension set in. “I don’t understand, we—Alba and Silva—were together in the beginning…”
Rune nodded, watching her with that long-suffering intensity. “Yes, before the Great Divide, Silva and Alba were together. Before the rupture, they were a reflection of one another: the power and love of one mirroring the other.
A ripple of the painting in Rune’s room in Norway tripped through Jess’s thoughts: the seed magic in the night sky perfectly reflected in the dark blanket of the ocean.
Rune went on, “But you don’t feel an affinity with the Heights, Jess. You haven’t since you got here.”
Anger cloaked Jess’s features. “I’ve only felt at odds with the shadows of Umbra because of the blood bonds darkening me—because of the Fomor magic. The Shadowlands sense the alienness of that magic in me, that’s all. When we dissolve the blood oath, my connection with the land will return.”
Rune refused to relent. “What of the transformation that has occurred over centuries to the core of your magic? I feel how much you’ve yearned for Earth, how much you feel sapped of your power here, how much you belong with your family, with all your shifters; do you expect that all to simply disappear?”
Jess felt as if she couldn’t breathe as his words hit home. Each thud of her heart on her ribcage felt like the strike of her paws as they pounded across the land when she tore through the undergrowth. She felt as if she were desperately trying to find woodlands to tuck into and hide, but there was no cover from the truth now that ate at her.
Silva had created something to survive. She had created the twin wolves to hide her power in and to have something to rebirth her power from. But in doing so, she had changed herself. Jess couldn’t deny the accusations Rune threw at her. She did miss Earth… ached for it. Here, she felt the loss of her earthen portal power acutely. She missed her pack. Both clans. And she longed to see Dearbhla and all the Rems. And ached to see her father and Matteo again. But all that didn’t mean she and Rune didn’t belong together.
“Why are you saying this?” Jess asked thickly.
A flutter of tenderness softened Rune’s expression, but he pressed on, “Because it’s the truth. Because it’s my turn to face all of myself, to be as brave as you were in the Netherworld. Because it’s my turn to admit that even though you belong on Earth, I belong in Umbra. What’s broken between us isn’t because of the Fomor magic. What’s changed is in the core of your magic, a change that can’t be undone.”
Jess’s heart pounded, her body outraged by his pronouncement. But at his words, the weight of the truth seemed to set off memories, which now had a context to be explained by. The blood connection they’d shared from the very beginning in the penitentiary had been for this. Had always been leading them here. From that very first moment Jess had clapped eyes on Rune, the force of her attraction towards him had seemed to tilt her whole world on its axis.
“When we first met, I was convinced you’d glamoured me.” A smile ghosted her lips. “Your eyes pulled me into their depths. It was all there was. It was for this, wasn’t it?”
Rune didn’t answer her question because the beat of acknowledgment that went down their bond did. Their connection had been there in the beginning as soon as he tasted her blood: to unite Alba with Silva. It had all been to lead them here.
He mirrored her smile, too, as he reminisced. “When we first met, I felt as if I’d been bewitched—the surge of feeling I felt for you swallowed me whole. You proved to me that shadows aren’t empty but are full of life.”
His words brought to mind the moment they’d acknowledged the true depths of their feelings to one another. When Jess had told him that if he were a shadow, then he was her shadow, that she didn’t care about the light or dark, that all she’d ever wanted were the shadows that were him. The sense of loss ringing through her made her yearn for that moment once more.
Jess didn’t say anything. Instead, she stepped towards him again, savoring that he didn’t step away as she once more brushed a kiss against his lips, but she felt that sense of separateness sinking through her, and through Rune, echoing down the tie between them.
Guilt and loss moved through her. Silva—she—had been the one to set them on this path all those hundreds of years ago when she shaped her power into two wolves. “I’m sorry,” Jess whispered, her breath catching in her throat. “I did this. I separated us.”
Rune shook his head. “You saved us. Rooted your seed magic in the Earth so that it could grow strong—so that it could rebirth you and heal me. Your shadow self is a creative force that even the power of the Fomors couldn’t destroy. The same creative energy that rings through the body you’re in now, Jess. Except then the very trees of Earth were your clay. Never be sorry for it. We’ve had our time together. Both in the past and more recently.”
Jess felt as if she were trying to breathe in Rune’s resolve as she lingered in front of him, her forehead resting against his.
“You’re through and through an Earthling,” Rune said, fondness filling his gaze.
Earthling, the name Astra uses for me.
Jess couldn’t help but be buoyed up by the expression.
“Never be ashamed of it,” Rune murmured.
His strength tautened their bond and Jess felt his resolution to walk the path he must, looming as if the presence of Alba were already in the cavern with them. Nervousness for what he would have to face blared through her as she thought of her own harrowing experience in the Netherworld when she’d first been confronted by her shadow.
Jess offered, “You felt when I needed help in the Netherworld. I could come with you or we could keep the blood bond until…”
Rune shook his head. “I need to be open to connect with my shadow self. And I need to do this alone.”
Jess frowned. She remembered what he’d said about Alba’s presence being like a shadow that consumed him. “What if Alba’s consciousness is too much?”
“It won't be. Soon my shadow self will have all the shades of Umbra to sink into.”
Jess blinked, drinking in the certainty Rune now held. Almost as if he already had his shadow self restored. Almost as if the blood bond tainting him with Fomor magic was already dissolved. The faded had answered her about this, too. But hesitation roiled through her again. Yet only because she didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to lose what they had. Wherever it had come from. Whatever it had been for. However she’d changed.
“No matter what happens after we claim our shadow selves, know I love you, Jess,” he reassured her.
As the sense that he was saying goodbye tore at her, she wanted to whirl into one of her characteristic furies. But she understood that they needed to do this. She felt the same fatalistic sense of what was between them drawing to a close. After Rune claimed his shadow self, after she was connected with hers…things would be different.
So instead, she swallowed the anger that threatened and said, “I love you too, Rune.”
There wasn’t desire in his eyes, only tenderness.
“How long will it take you, do you think?” Jess asked.
A flicker of mirth crossed Rune’s face. “I’ve never traveled into the Heights to face myself before so I can’t say. Judging by your time with the Sidhe in the Netherworld, a few hours.”
Jess’s heart pounded. Rune saw through her. She was stalling.
It’s time to let go.
Thoughts of the heady heights of feeling that had engulfed them in Norway teased Jess. She yearned to go back to that place where they’d felt as if they were unconnected to higher matters. To when everything had seemed explicable through the passion and rawness that their bodies had evoked. But the memory of it now only heightened this sense eating her up that everything they’d felt had been to get them here. They’d had to love each other so that she would awaken Rune to life, and he would swear the blood oath to protect her, even from himself. He’d had to love her so that he’d bring her back from death’s threshold. It had all had to happen this way. All so that they could help each other find themselves. And when the time came, let each other go.
A chill crawled down Jess’s spine as she considered how strange it would be, not to feel Rune within her. Not to feel his emotion spilling through her. Her hand went to her scian but she hesitated.
A moment later, wingbeats sounded from the passageway and consciousness prickled over Jess: the others were returning.
“Release me,” Rune said, urgency tingeing his voice.
Jess took out her scian from the sheath at her waist, the shape of the wolf’s head in her grasp weighty with significance like never before. Thinking of all those Enodian books on blood magic that she’d studied at Castle Nox, she brought the blade across her palm before offering it to Rune, who mirrored her.
They grasped hands. “Blood of my blood, by the seed magic of Earth, I release you,” Jess said, staring into his eyes.
He stared right back. “Blood of my blood, by all the shades of Umbra, I accept.”
Jess didn’t feel it. Didn’t feel anything from Rune. Their bond was just… gone. But she saw Alba’s consciousness rise up from the deep, from the many shadows that thickened the space around Rune. But it didn’t seem like a shroud over him; instead, it was as if the shadows kissed him, lapping against him like the tide against a bay. Its reoccurring touch seemed a natural part of him now. One soon to rest in its rightful place in the lands of Umbra.
“My Lady Silva,” Rune said, bringing her hand to his lips and laying a reverent kiss on her knuckles. “I’ll see you soon.” And in a shiver of shadow, he had soon alighted the pucca and in a whirr of movement and wingbeats, climbed out into the night.
23
GODDESS 2.0
As Rune soared on the Storm-born out of the cavern, Sunny and the two fae passed the other way. As they landed in the center of the cavern, their questioning stares fell on Jess, forcing her to explain,
“He’s going up the Heights to reclaim his shadow self.”
Sunny’s gaze slid to Jess’s hand, “You dissolved the blood oath?”
Jess merely nodded. It was all she could do. At his question, her mouth seemed to seal up. Pain pierced her as she felt the absence of the tether keenly. The quiet that she felt, not in the cavern, but ringing through her, was suddenly frightening. There was no answering rush of feeling to her own rising anguish. She couldn’t feel Rune. That strangeness, more than anything, unsettled her.
Sunny seemed in an abstracted mood and went to attend the remaining Storm-born. Skiron fell to unpacking some of the camping supplies they’d retrieved.
But Astra remained, her russet gaze brushing Jess. “Want to talk about it?”
Jess’s breath hitched in her chest but she shook her head. Instead, she moved to the bags. Without seeing what she did, she started to unpack, too.
Her tormented thoughts pitched her back to Norway. To that moment when she’d felt as if Rune understood her completely. To when she thought she did him. To when she’d felt loved. How desperately she craved to go back there. Why hadn’t she realized how fleeting that moment was? The echo of Rune’s voice, sounding within this cavern only minutes ago, cut her, “When I knew I would lose you, I forgave you instantly… I only wish my anger hadn’t cost me precious time with you.” Sorrow washed through her. It seemed torturous that only hours ago she’d thought that Rune’s being meant to restore Alba meant that they were on the same path. Meant that they were destined to be together. But she’d been wrong. She felt so lost.
I am: a goddess who once belonged in Umbra, thousands of years ago, displaced to another world. Oh, and the god who you were once with and mirrored, perfectly, in love and power, isn’t right for you anymore, nor you him. Yep, that’s fucking cosmically lost.
Jess wished she were on Earth. Right now. At least there, she’d know what to do with this grief. Imaginings of shifting into her wolfish form filled her. She’d create that weft of earthen power that carried her forth into whatever sanctuary she chose. She’d tear through the paths of her wild woods, their clawing branches understanding this utter loss that cut through her as nothing else could.
Goddess of the woods. Mother of shifters. Earthen.
Like roots getting lost in the dark, Jess sank into herself. The pain didn’t transpose itself into thoughts anymore. There were no words for this hammering ache. Only a throbbing feeling of being alone. The anguish seeped through her, like eventide spilling over the horizon.
Astra’s determined voice startled Jess. “You’re cooking tonight.”
For a moment Jess thought she was talking to her, but blinked to see Skiron already lighting a campfire.
“Sure—no need to threaten me,” Skiron answered as Astra unsheathed her cloidem.
But Astra strode towards Jess instead. “Arm yourself.”
Before Jess could do any more than shake her head, Astra lunged at her. Jess only managed to stumble out of the way.
Quickly righting herself, Jess sprang up, drawing her scian out.
The next swing that Astra rounded on her was similar in its lack of warning. But this time, Jess met it with one of her own blades.
The clash of metal rent the air. The judder of the blade vibrating through Jess’s arm joined with the anguish ringing through her. She gritted her jaw as Astra pushed her blade aside, the force enough to send her stumbling sideways again. They continued similarly, every other move Jess managed to block before the fae sent her staggering or darting out of the way of thrusts she wasn’t quick enough to meet. As they dueled, they worked their way towards the back of the cavern.
