Page 47

“One thing at a time, dear. Perhaps we should wait for the rest before we speak again?” Danu asked, taking a sip of her own tea.

Curling her fingers into fists on the arms of the chair, she growled at the older woman.

“I am tired of interruptions. I want answers.”

Jace looked at Bryn before narrowing his eyes on Danu. While he was in the process of discussing his new persona, there was still what they needed to do with the newfound powers they had been forcefully bestowed.

Not to mention the shadow becoming a ghostly man with a vengeance. She would have to sleep with one eye open and hope he didn’t become real enough to stick a knife in her.

“Fine. We have very little time, so I will cut to the heart of it. Everything that has happened here this day all comes down to how you can defeat the king and his Fomori brethren who roam this earth doing the king’s bidding. The wraiths are some of them, and not even the worst. The Fomori rule now as you all once did, and until we put them back underneath from where they came, this world and I are doomed.”

Both Jace and Bryn stayed silent as Danu talked about regicide like she was simply planning a dinner party. Before Bryn could ask if the woman was out of her mind, she caught on another word Danu had said.

“Fomori? How many new enemies will we continue to gain as we become the Tuatha Dé Danann? Should I start making a list?” Bryn asked, trying, and failing, to keep the snark from her tone.

Sighing, Danu put her cup on the saucer.

“The Fomori are from another realm. They are demons with chaotic magic. Their magic, while based in nature much like the Tuatha Dé Danann, can cause destruction. Therefore, the earth being abused by humans was a perfect opportunity for them to expand on that. Earthquakes, fires, horrid natural disasters that were not the fault of human’s abuse alone.”

Jace leaned back on the couch, his hands fisted in his lap, his eyes staring off into space as Danu continued on.

Bryn was unsure about Jace, but little shards of memories flashed at the edge of her consciousness as Danu spoke. Quick, but there, and Bryn knew it was the Morrigan’s memories, not her own.

Before Bryn could ask for confirmation, Callum stepped into the room, taking his place at Danu’s side as he placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a bolt of power that perked the older woman up a bit.

“I am the goddess of earth, and while I have worked to maintain it enough to keep humanity alive, they are not able to undo the damage alone. Until the earth is healed, I grow weaker and will soon die a final death. I need my children to fight, to push the Fomori back into the realm they came from and bring us back to what we once were.”

“Which was what exactly?” Declan asked as he walked into the drawing room with Kessler and Sage following him.

“Free to roam anywhere you pleased as the earth was suitable all over. Trees, plants, and life everywhere.” The sadness as Danu spoke was catching, and Bryn felt herself fall into her own melancholy at what could have been. Of whathadbeen.

“And these Fomori created this new world?” Sage asked, sitting in the chair next to where Jace sat on the couch. He immediately straightened up at her proximity.

Bryn wondered at the new tension in Jace, but if their nerves were as raw as hers were after inhaling magical stones, she was sureeverysensation was amplified.

Danu nodded at Sage’s question.

“So how do we use our magic stone powers to fix what they broke?” Declan asked, his eyebrow raised and the sardonic smile there in his beard.

“Slowly, your powers will return to what they were. Memories may as well, but I am unsure of how much you will remember from your original selves. Never have you all made it to adulthood at once, so I have never done this before and do not have all the answers you seek. For that, I am sorry. I am unable to guide you further in that regard.”

“So, we will what? Just remember how to sword fight?” Declan laughed.

Everyone else might be fooled, but Bryn could read Declan more than most, and she knew he was faking. Something happened after the soul stones broke apart and gave them the powers that made him a believer. Perhaps a vision like she’d had.

“Yes.”

Danu said nothing more than that as she let her eyes move over the people in the room before settling on Bryn’s face.

“The lines you’ve all descended from are of my people, even without the powers of the Tuatha Dé Danann. You are descendants of the people of the isles from long ago.”

Waiting, she held Bryn’s eyes.

“You’ve forgotten your heritage. To know what you’re capable of before the church told you what you are not.”

Callum stepped forward, breaking the stare down between her and Danu before lowering his head with a small bow.

“I will be working with you all to try and push your memories to the surface as much as I can in the amount of time we have left,” he stated.