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8 AELIA

I hurried around the palace, gathering things for our trip. A weight settled on me as the reality of seeing my mother after so many years set in.

You’re nervous, the Morrigan’s voice echoed in my head.

“You’d be nervous too if you hadn’t seen your mother in five years, and she sent you to your own personal hell.” I held the scepter, releasing the Morrigan.

The curvaceous warrior goddess materialized; her ashen hair braided in spirals around her head.

“Ah, that’s better.” She stretched out her arms. “As for my mother—she tried to kill me at least six times.”

“Lovely,” I said, folding a dress into a suitcase.

The Morrigan let out a sigh.

“It is. It is an honor to kill your parent in battle.”

I cringed. “Gods.”

“We don’t stay dead,” she chuckled.

I arched a brow.

“I know you’re immortal.”

“We go into the land beyond.”

“And what does that look like?”

“Similar to this plane of existence, but there are harsher parts and calmer parts depending on what lessons you learned or didn’t learn while here, and how you died. I was young for a god when Crum Cruach trapped me and my army in the scepter. I’ve never been resurrected like the gods of old. Inside the scepter, I wander the Veiled Lands.”

“And are there any grumblings from beyond the veil?” I laid a bandolier of daggers on top of the fine dresses.

“I have my scouts scouring the inner reaches of the beyond where I dare not tread for information.” She picked at her nails carelessly.

I tried to decipher whether she was telling the truth, but Morrigan had been playing the game far longer than I had and she hid her true intentions well.

“So, you’re not allowed in certain places?”

She sighed. “The world beyond has laws just like this one.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It is.”

“Is Crom there?”

She shivered, and her eyes shut tight. “I’ve heard whispers. If he is there, he would be deep in the lower levels of the world beyond. Whoever buried him made sure his soul wouldn’t escape. My scouts don’t go down that far, but I know there are grumblings of an uprising.”

Was she telling me the truth or just what I wanted to hear? My eyes raked over her ghostly body, but hers stayed locked on mine. She had no tell or at least not one I could discern.

“Was he as bad as they say?”

Her lush lips straightened into a thin line. “He was worse than you could even imagine. He would drink the blood of infants.” She winced. “To his followers, it was considered an honor to sacrifice your firstborn to him by smashing their skull on his throne.”

My stomach turned, and acid crept up the back of my throat. “Vile.”

“They thought it would bring them a prosperous harvest. Not unlike your Ostara celebrations.”

“During Ostara, we celebrate fertility and pray to Ammena that she makes our lands fertile. No one dies. People enjoy each other.”

She covered her mouth, squeezing her eyes tight. A tiny tremble shook her ghostly body. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

“If Crom is allowed back into this world, you will never know joy again. You will only know pain. Babies will be born to be sacrificed. He will blot out the sun and make it rain brimstone. Nothing will grow. Everything will die.”

“Why does he hate this world so much?”

“Crom was an orphan—shunned from his village due to his magic. People thought differently back then about magic. It was seen as a curse rather than a blessing among some humans or whatever they were called back then. They sent Crom into the wild. Into the desert, where he earned a following in the fighting Rasa pits. Eventually, he became their king. The only king they’d ever have. Crom used them to spread his influence, conquering other tribes until he made his way out of the desert back to his homeland.”

“I thought he was half elf and half sylph?”

She shrugged. “He could have been. His history has turned to myth in the millennium since his reign. Even my memory is cloudy.”

I swallowed the dread pooling in my stomach.

“So, these kingdoms he won favor with… he slaughtered them, didn’t he?”

“That was the first time I heard a whisper of his name. He gave the desert back to the Rasa and took his place on the Skull Throne of his home tribe. By then, no one recognized him, and he became a god to the people who once shunned him.”

The hair on my arms pricked at her words.

“And then?”

She picked up one of my cigarettes and held it to her pale lips, lighting it on the nearest candle.

“And then it went as most things go. They start small, like a pebble in a hoof that festers and lames the horse.” Smoke billowed from her mouth. “He was smart about it, banding together those the gods left behind. People with nothing to lose make the best zealots. Gods like Eoghan—the Alder King and I didn’t think much of it. The desert had been returned to the Rasa. What did we care if a few rogue clans banded together?”

“But it wasn’t just a few rogue clans, was it?” A question I already knew the answer to.

She shook her head. “No, he spread his roots deep, turning the mages to his cause. Things went downhill quickly once he got his claws in them. He used them to glamour his armies to feel no fear or pain.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said, lighting a cigarette of my own and letting the smoke fizzle in my lungs. “When did he become obsessed with the origins of magic?”

She gave me a coy look. “That is the natural order of things, isn’t it? Once you get a taste of power, it’ll never be enough. Crom thought if he could find the Trinity’s rumored Wells, he could become them. And he almost succeeded. Until the sylph, humans, and elves banded together to take him on.”

“So now Erissa’s got a new plaything in Gideon.”

“He does seem to fit the bill. Handsome, arrogant, brutal.”

I ashed my cigarette on the glass tray. “What I can’t figure out, is her end game. Is she trying to resurrect Crom or recreate him?”

The Morrigan nodded. “Could be either. Could be neither. Erissa is a deep thinker. She’s been planning this for centuries. She won’t go down easily. And if I were you, I’d watch my back. I have no doubt she’s hired someone to take you out.”

“Let her try,” I said, putting out my cigarette.

Baylis was still asleep when I entered the healer’s chambers.

“I don’t think she’s slept this soundly since we returned,” I said to the woman mixing tonics.

“I barely gave her any valerian root. She should’ve woken by now.”

I touched my sister’s shoulder, gently rattling her. Eyes dashed beneath veined lids. I tried shaking her a bit harder.

“Baylis, it’s time to get up.”

She thrashed violently like she had when Erissa controlled her mind.

“Baylis, Baylis!” I tried to hold her down.

The healer rushed to my side. “Try to hold her as still as possible.” She took a vial of green liquid from her pocket, lifted Baylis’s chin, and poured it down her throat. Almost instantly, her gray eyes fluttered open.

“What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t wake. I was worried, so the healer gave you a tonic.”

“I… I was having a nightmare about the night our kingdom burned.” She ran her hand down her face. “So much terror. So much destruction.”

Guilt tugged at my heart. “I’m sorry those came to the surface when we entered your mind.”

“I wish you could take them like you took Caiden’s.”

I must have blanched, because she forced a smile.

“I didn’t actually mean it.” She gave a half-hearted chuckle.

“We’d have to tame the storm in your mind and fight whatever creature lurks there before I could, and I haven’t quite figured out what to do about that yet.”

“No. This is something I need to face.”

The healer brought her a glass of water, and Baylis drank it down in one breath.

“Will she be able to travel tomorrow?”

The healer nodded. “I assume so. She is physically healthy. It’s her mind that is tearing her up.”

I let out a breath as I helped my sister out of the bed. “Thank you,” I said to the healer.

“I’m alright, Aelia. I can walk on my own. I just had a nightmare. That’s it.” Baylis pulled away from me, bracing herself on the stone railing. “I just need to collect myself, and I’ll be fine.”

“I’m just worried about you.”

“I know, but I’m not some delicate flower. I can handle a nightmare.”

I backed off. “I know. I’m worried we did more harm than good when we went into your mind.”

We reached the foyer of the palace, where a large chandelier of elk antlers hung. Baylis straightened her blue gown. “I think I’ll take a walk through the botanical gardens to clear my head.”

My muscles stiffened. Was Baylis well enough to be on her own? Was I being too overbearing? I want to protect her—to help her heal, but everyone heals at their own pace, and perhaps Baylis needed time on her own to sort things out for herself.

“Alright. We’re leaving tomorrow, Baylis. I’m having the servants prepare your things.”

“I’ll be ready.” She brushed her ashen hair behind her ears. “Need to get some fresh air before we depart.”

“Don’t forget a cloak. It is terribly cold out there.” I waved down a nearby servant. “Please bring my sister a cloak and some boots. We can’t have her catching a cold.”

The young halfling with rosy cheeks and curly hair nodded and went to fetch her things.

“Oh, and one more thing!” I shouted after the man. “A cinnamon roll too.”

He nodded and continued on his way.

Baylis shook her head. “Always the big sister.”

“Hard habit to break.”

The servant returned moments later with a cloak, boots, and a cinnamon roll wrapped in parchment.

Donning the cloak and slipping the confection into her pocket, she bid me farewell.

I waved her goodbye. The memory of Gideon’s touch replayed in my head. The feeling of Gideon’s light touch on her collarbone—how her heart spiked. My head swirled with possibilities. Maybe Tharan was right. Maybe this was all a carefully laid plan to ensnare me and tear my sister and me apart. Maybe she had loved him, and he’d done the same thing to her he’d done to me. The lack of scars on Baylis’s body gave me pause. Either Gideon changed his tactics, learned to hide them better, or… he’d never hurt Baylis.

I let out a breath. Get it together, Aelia. He’d want her pristine to use as a bargaining chip.

I couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. I summoned the nearest server to fetch a cloak and headed into the snow after my sister.

Baylis’s delicate footsteps headed straight for the botanical garden but suddenly disappeared.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Where could she have gone?

A wisp of blue fabric caught in the corner of my eye. I turned to see Baylis heading into the forest. Creeping behind a snow- covered bush, I watched as she stared at something high in the trees. I focused my vision, but the winter sun impaired my line of sight.

“What are you after?” I whispered to myself.

She continued to tramp through the forest until she came to a large oak with a hole in it.

My heart stopped and then relaxed as she pulled a tiny bird out of the tree.

Get it together, Aelia. Your sister isn’t a spy. She’s just taking care of an injured bird.

The bluebird tweeted happily as Baylis fed it pieces of her roll.

If I were going on this journey with my sister, I would have to trust her more. Feeling foolish, I headed back to the palace to prepare for dinner. Tharan wanted to make our last night together special. My heart raced at the thought of seeing him. Even now, my fingers itched to run through his silken locks.