Umbra, p.9
Umbra, page 9
“Same consciousness,” Sunny confirmed, “but I use it with far more verve.”
The Seelie stayed straight-faced. Then and there Rune decided he liked him.
“And the Sidhe, who has been captured by Mara, is the goddess Silva,” Skiron summarized. “Currently held prisoner by Mara’s iron-tinged.”
Rune’s hands curled into fists upon the tabletop. His blood brother affirmed the fae’s statement. But Sunny didn’t add anything about how it would take Jess’s life’s blood for Silva to be restored. Rune cut his eyes at the golden-haired vamp, who sat opposite him with a look of perfect innocence. How many times over the last month had Rune been tortured by the awful image of Sunny slitting Jess’s throat? Ire filled him at being so brutally bound to silence on the matter. He felt as if he were standing on the edge of the cliff, experiencing the urge to step over, the feeling overtaking his better senses.
“Astra told you about the faded in the Heights and Depths?” Skiron asked.
Rune nodded, but Sunny interjected, “She told us about the faded in the Heights. But what about the Depths? We spent centuries searching for answers across all of Umbra. We went to sea with the fae who traverse the Alban Sea, but never heard anything there either.”
Skiron leaned back in his chair. “I don’t imagine you would have heard the faded at sea. Only a few Seelie ever have. That is, those who have survived being ship-wrecked in the worst of storms; they speak of hearing stories in the waves.”
Rune nodded in understanding. When he, Sunny, and Cuill had taken to the Alban Seas in search of answers, most of their voyages had been in calm conditions. And even out in squalls, they’d never been in such conditions where their vessel had been lost.
Sunny asked, “Astra said that if we were to catch this maelstrom, we’d be able to hear the full story of what happened before the Great Divide.”
Skiron nodded. “I believe so. Seelie who have herded other winds have caught snippets over the centuries. But when Astra and I herded part of the maelstrom into the caverns, we heard more than any fae has in history.”
“Where exactly do we have to go to catch this maelstrom?” Rune asked.
“The Cornua.”
The horns. A cluster of many peaks. It was just below the highest peak—the White Horn. The ridge that made up the Cornua was a jagged cluster of rocks, worn down by the storms. Rune had seen the wild pucca flying through those summits like wild horses running through valleys many times in the past.
“The winds converge there and mean the natural currents are at their most forceful,” Skiron explained. “When Astra and I captured some of it, we heard about the pucca—or the Storm-born as the faded called them. These days, the pucca like mild breezes but they shy away from the storm winds and get skittish in the mountain storms. But, the faded told us that in the past, like the shifters of Earth who take their transformative power from the woods, the pucca’s ability comes from the winds.”
Both Rune and Sunny stilled. They stared at the fae.
Sunny was the first to suggest, “Do you suppose enough wind then would unlock their humanoid forms?”
But Skiron didn’t answer the question. Instead, he said, “I’m sure Astra already told you that we Seelie don’t take the riding of pucca and capturing the voices of the faded lightly. It’s usually reserved for special religious festivals. The collective stories that have been caught and listened to are revered by us Seelie. We call them The Book of Nature and are heard but once a generation.”
Sunny had the good sense to look solemn.
Rune swiftly said, “We will be forever grateful to you for sharing The Book Of Nature with us.”
Skiron’s lavender gaze held them both as if searching for something unsavory in their aspect. With a look of resignation, he agreed, “I will take you to the maelstrom and help you catch The Book of Nature because I believe Astra’s right. If there’s a way to defeat Queen Mara, knowledge of it lies in the Heights.”
Rune wondered what it was that had brought Skiron and Astra together. How had this unlikely pair, a Seelie and Unseelie, come to know one another? Moreover, why did Astra want to go against her queen and her own parents?
Rune knew that it was too soon in their acquaintance with Skiron to ask such probing questions.
Skiron ventured back to Sunny’s previous question. “When Astra and I heard about the Storm-born from the faded, we wondered, too, whether the maelstrom might not be the key to freeing them from their animal shapes. Ordinarily, Seelie only catch a few pucca to herd the stories into the Cornua. But Astra and I have theorized that if we were to ride the herd leaders, we’d have the full might of the herd behind us to funnel the maelstrom into the caverns. Then, as well as hearing the faded, we could discover whether the force of the maelstrom might free the pucca, too.
“There is, of course, the slight problem that without wings, neither you two nor Jess can be part of the ride.”
“I have Unseelie contacts who I can draw upon,” Sunny suggested, “whose pucca we can use.”
Skiron didn’t look pleased. “Given what you know about the Storm-born, how can you propose still riding them—beings who have been so cruelly tethered into a fixed state by the Unseelie?”
Skiron was right. Everything revolted in Rune at the thought of using the Storm-born in such a way now, too. But Sunny’s need to restore the gods was what fueled him. His lack of feeling, his want of any empathy was blotted out by Alba’s all-consuming goal. Rune understood because it had been his own outlook for centuries. Until so recently. Until the blood oath to Jess had suppressed it.
“But perhaps even these Storm-born tethered by the Unseelie, will be transformed by the maelstrom?” Rune interjected.
Skiron looked slightly more amenable.
Sunny added, “Besides, the Unseelie pucca are a necessary evil for the journey.” His unapologetic gaze brushed Skiron. “You, a Seelie, could portal through the Heights and out onto the Cornua directly. But the rest of us—an Unseelie, a shifter, and two vamps are going to have to travel incognito.
“Therefore, it’ll be safest to ascend on foot, to take the well-forested paths for coverage. Which is a week’s journey at least. Therefore, we’ll need the pucca to carry our supplies.”
Neither Skiron nor Rune could argue. It was true. The wooded slopes would be the best chance they had of avoiding detection from Seelie patrols. Consequently, they would need supplies, to make camp and carry food and water on the journey there and back.
A grave look of resignation clouded Skiron’s face as he, too, must realize that portaling directly through the Heights was out. They would have to travel slowly. And such a journey required supplies. And a means to carry it.
“I suppose needs must,” Skiron admitted. His tone showed that he considered working with them a necessary evil, too.
“Precisely. Needs must,” Sunny said. “And right now mine require me to hunt.”
As Skiron reluctantly went to show his vamp guest the boundaries to his farm on which he might hunt, Rune was left to brood on the journey ahead of them. And in the quiet, he wondered what other truths as startling as the lightning that illuminated the sharp mountain peaks and shadows of this stubborn land, might soon be revealed.
9
BRUISES AND BACAE
As Astra shut the door, all at once the reaction Jess had kept at bay racked her body.
Oh gods, what have I done?
Rune’s words pitched through her, her throat closing as if another shifter was clamping down on it. “The blood oath compelled me to come back for you.” The whirlpool of emotions churning through her reminded her of the shock that had beat through her so recently as she’d been pulled into the deep.
All that seemed to thrash through her again, except with the addition of self-loathing and revulsion. Rune had been forced to save her because of the blood oath. He’d endangered his own life because he was bound to her.
Hopelessness gripped Jess as his words skipped through her over and over… The implication being that he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been forced to. If she’d seen a spurt of anger, she might not have believed him. If he’d displayed anything, then it meant he still felt something. But his cold remoteness shattered her. He was as he’d been when they were in the Triodia Prison, indifferent and closed off. As if there’d never been anything between them.
Astra made shushing noises as Jess sobbed. In a final attempt to comfort her, she hugged her, only to back away and exclaim, “You’re fucking freezing.” Clearly reaching the limit of her patience, Astra’s russet eyes prickled over her, and she asked directly, “What the hell was that with Rune? He swore a blood oath to you because he wanted to protect you, because he cares so much about you. But what he said was fucking cold.”
It was just like Astra to be blunt. From almost as soon as Jess had met her in the penitentiary, her plain-speaking directness had appealed to her. That, paired with her dry sense of humor and their equal inability to sit still had made Jess and Astra firm friends while incarcerated. The many yoga sessions that they’d done in the Rec Room, as well as the jokes that had kept Jess sane while locked up, tripped through her memory.
Tension tightened Jess’s shoulders. She didn’t want to answer Astra’s unsaid question: why was Rune now so unfeeling? Everything that she’d sacrificed for the sake of the Sidhe now seemed to rise in Jess. Rune had cared about her so much that he’d sworn a blood oath. He’d gone against Alba’s consciousness, turned his back on five centuries worth of seeking the seed magic, for her. Yet, she’d used the oath he’d sworn to her to twist his will.
With the emotional whiplash Jess was under and the cold seeping into her bones, she only succeeded in shaking her head. She didn’t want to answer. Couldn’t. Cowardice crawled through her again.
I can’t lose Astra, too.
With the fae’s arms gone, Jess simply hugged herself once more as if that might stop her from falling apart.
Astra stopped demanding answers. Instead, she tugged Jess over to another doorway. Jess had expected a bathroom or hallway, but Astra led her outside into a semi-covered structure; there was a roof and intermittent screens where vines and flowers crawled, offering more privacy around a pool in the ground. A pool from which steam rose into the gloom.
Without preamble, Astra ordered, “Get in.
The cool temperature of the lake water had sunk into Jess’s bones and with the temptation of the hot water before her, she obeyed.
Her clothes shed, Jess stepped down into the pool. For a moment, she wondered why they couldn’t have exited directly out of this pool instead of a lake full of pheist. But the water, although warm, wasn’t very deep; it only came up to Jess’s waist. There were hollows of rock that made good recliners, and Jess soon found a spot where she was comfortably lying down and submerged herself to her shoulders. Despite the turmoil of her thoughts, the surprisingly hot water worked on her tense muscles.
Jess realized Astra had drifted back inside. She wondered if she was going to leave her to gather herself. Despite not wanting to conjure the look of judgment in her friend’s eyes, Jess felt loneliness threatening to well up. The awful remote tone of Rune’s voice echoed through her head, “compelled me…” The words were like a lash against her soul.
Jess felt as if she were drowning in her loss. Drowning in what she’d lost with Rune. With what she might lose with Astra if she confided the truth to her, too. Bitterly, Jess regretted that she needed her friends at all. To think that once, not so long ago, she’d claimed not to need anyone. But that was no longer true. She needed them. Deep down, Jess had no doubt that she and the Sidhe were part of each other. But her friends were part of her, too.
Jess tried to let the warm water soothe her. But in the gloom, with only the light leaking from the doorway, her thoughts whipped back to the lake. To just before the pheist had surfaced. To when she’d experienced that bout of vertigo. She’d stepped back into the lake, deeper, while the shadows on the water seemed to grow around her. Her skin crawled with that unnerving sense that something in Umbra was hostile to her.
Jess had known that she wouldn’t be able to portal to or from Umbra with her earthen magic. But for the first time since being here, she truly felt the absence of not being able to use that power. Yes, Umbra had enough earthen magic in the land for her and her wolves to shift, but that potent power she used to become the weave and weft of the woods was lacking here. There wasn’t enough of that earthen energy, the one that she had at her core, that felt like the most intrinsic part of her.
She was pulled out of her reverie when Astra returned with a jug and two pottery tumblers. A tumult of relief and dread twisted through Jess. Astra soon discarded her own clothes, no sign of anything but ease in her nakedness. She descended into the water.
With both of them seated, Astra passed her a tumbler.
Jess took a sip. It was sweet yet rich, reminding her of blackberries. The pleasant warmth issued down her throat and into her chest. She closed her eyes and took a chug, focusing on nothing but her body, the warmth both inside and out.
Astra said, “The mead’s made from bacae, Umbran berries. They’re high in copper. Good for blue-blooders, but not so hot for humans. A bit like fae having food with too much iron in it. Drink it slowly. You shouldn’t have too much.”
Jess already felt the mellowness spreading through her from the drink. Astra’s comment reminded Jess of the blue blood of the pheist rippling around her in the lake and shuddered. Yet, perhaps it was only the wine’s effect, but Jess felt stronger. Knowing that Astra was waiting for her to explain what was happening with her was comforting. Jess swigged her drink again and decided it was time to open up.
Here goes nothing.
“Rune’s still convinced, as is Sunny, that it’ll take my blood being sacrificed to heal the Umbran gods, the Between, and the divided races.
“When Fern, the Triodian High Witch spilled my blood in the Between, it passed through to Umbra and found the shadow of Silva—the Sidhe.”
Astra’s eyes widened.
The fear that fae felt about the Sidhe clouded Jess’s thoughts. Astra’s unease reminded her of Dearbhla’s. And of Jess’s own uncertainty as to why the Sidhe was drawn to death.
Jess swallowed her hesitation and owned up. “Rune thinks that I’m infected by the goddess’s consciousness from that moment in the Between when my blood flowed to the Sidhe. He thinks my desire to rescue the Sidhe is misguided. That doing so will lead to my death.”
Astra was silent for a moment, her russet gaze drinking in Jess. She took a few sips of her mead before she asked, “And what do you think?”
Jess’s shoulders sank into the hot water as she exhaled with relief. Gratitude gushed up. Her friend was taking the time to question. To listen. To read between the lines. To not see everything as clear-cut.
For a moment, Jess was worried about not being able to convince Astra. She felt waylaid by the lashings of all of Rune’s words: “You sound like a raving fanatic…,” “this is what the gods do, get under your skin and twist…,” “they’re parasites…”
Then it was Sunny’s mocking look and words resounding, “It will be our duty and honor to become the gods’ vessels.”
Strangely, it was the thought of Fern, the High Witch, that made Jess collect herself. The memory of the Triodian leader speaking about Silva, the Mother Goddess, tumbled through Jess’s head. “I know you see her in me because I see her in you…”
“I think…no, I know,” Jess said, “that even before the Cathedral, I knew I had to come to Umbra. With every passing day in the para world, the sense that I had to go to the Sidhe grew. I know now that it was only when she manifested before me that I connected to my shifter power; I know now that even before, when I lived in the human world, that all my rage blackouts was her seeing through my eyes, her trying to defend me when I was most scared. In short, I know that we are intrinsically connected and always have been.
“I don’t know in what form or shape this wholeness will take when we conjoin again here.” She tried to explain the hard-to-define sense she had, the sense that threatened to be swamped by Rune’s certainty she would lose her life to this cause. “It’s a bit like my wolf form. Even though I wear a different skin,” she explained, “I’m still me. As much as you are whether your skin or hair tone is black or white,” Jess added. “And I know deep down that when the Sidhe and I come face to face again here, I’ll still be me, whatever I become. We are part of the same. I know the Sidhe’s already taken what she needed, and that she would never truly hurt me.
“This power that flows through me, that flows through all shifters, is magnified in me because of my divided heritage—because of the seed magic.
“And I know that seed magic has to come back here to the Shadowlands if there’s to be a chance that the races and our worlds are to be whole again.”
She thought of the fear she’d felt at what Dearbhla said about the Sidhe.
“What the fae say about the Sidhe, that she’s drawn to death is true, but even that part I don’t fear now. She’s like nightfall pressing itself upon the woods. Death permeates it, and yet it’s a natural part of the woods, and…a natural part of me.”
Astra questioned, “You said Sunny thinks the restoration of the gods will take your sacrifice, too.”
“Yes, but he won’t hurt me while Mara’s iron-tinged sluagh guard the Sidhe.”
Astra’s face sharpened and she gritted her jaw. “If he dares touch you, I’ll stick a blade through his heart.”
Despite the lethal glint in the fae’s eye and tone, Jess couldn’t help smiling. She was reminded of the fierceness with which Astra had defended her from Lea in the Triodia Prison.
Astra added, “Wait, Sunny is up for sacrificing you to the big bad Between and Rune still came here…” She petered off as she saw Jess’s expression crumple.
Jess’s burning cheeks had nothing to do with wine or hot water and everything to do with her rising sense of shame.
