Page 42 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 42

The Mother’s Breast

CAILEáN

A fter turning my pen around in my fingers for what feels like hours, I write:

On a day like this one, many, many years ago, two young Crow Queens disguised themselves as goose wives and drove their geese into the human market town of Whitchurch in Alfred’s Kingdom of Wessex, looking for adventure.

Two small black cats herded the honking geese, keeping the flock in line better than any sheep dog. Villagers who saw the cats made the sign of the evil eye, because these black cats bore the white stars of Faery on their chests. But the goose wives waved off their superstition and continued on their way. They sold their flock at the great goosemarket. With a handful of silver pennies, and their cats draped around their necks like scarves, they mingled with the marketgoers.

The main attraction that day was a poet with a voice like honeyed thunder, commanding the crowd with every word. He told the story of the Battle of Edington, where Alfred the Great defeated the Danes, but when he saw the two Crow Queens on the edge of the crowd, his words changed.

“Alfred stood at Edington’s height,

In his armor, a star gleaming in darkest night,

Much like these maids before me here,

Whose ice-blue gazes Vikings fear.

The Danes came forth with shield and sword,

But Alfred’s wisdom was their lord.

His ravens brought him secret word,

Of Danish weakness seen by bird.

The battle raged for days untold,

Until the Danish heart grew cold.

Like winter’s frost upon the field,

Or maiden’s eyes that secrets yield.

The Saxon sword brought Dane-man low . . .”

And then the poet faltered, staring at the two Queens, apparently at a loss for a way to finish his poem. The cats began sniggering.

The crowd pelted him with rotten apples.

The Crow Queens pulled the poet away from the crowd. They used their silver to ply him with fresh goose pie and ale at the King’s Arms until he fell asleep with his head in one Queen’s lap.

When the poet woke, he was in Faery, in the Court of Cold Mist, where he would evermore delight the maiden with ice-blue eyes with his words and bear the sniggers of her cat.

Smiling fondly at the memory, I run the tips of my claws over the last line I’ve written before I close the Kiss Book and leave it for my consorts to find.

They’re still asleep in a pile on our bed, although Law has started flexing his feet in the way he does before he wakes. Whatever antagonism there might be between them during the day, there’s none in our bed. Rhodes sleeps with one arm thrown across Law and the other curled around Luca. They look angelic, sculptural, as they lay together, their muscled bodies soft in sleep. My beautiful, beautiful men.

I feel rather than see Law wake. The faintest brush across my consciousness. When my gaze drifts up his long body, he meets my eyes and smiles. His eyes are slitted, puffy with sleep, the faintest green gleam reflecting back at me.

He removes Rhodes’ arm from around his waist with disdainful fingers. Rhodes grumbles in his sleep and wraps himself around Luca. Law pats the bed beside him.

“Only if you have breakfast stashed under the pillow,” I whisper to avoid waking Rhodes and Luca. “I’m starving.”

Law chuckles. “That’s the way of it, huh? I’ve served my purpose and now am only good for feeding my pregnant mate?”

I grin. “Pretty much.”

He rolls out of bed gracefully and stalks to where I sit near the window, which has just begun to pearl with the dawn. He kneels at my feet, muscle bunching gracefully in his thighs, and wraps his arms around my hips.

“Good morning, my queen,” he murmurs. “You are more beautiful every morning.”

I trace his strong brow with my claws. If there’s one of us who is more beautiful every morning, it’s him. “Good morning. Are you offering me compliments instead of food?”

He laughs, his chest pressing against my knees. “Never. Let me carry you downstairs.”

“Did I lose the use of my legs in the night?” I stretch one out and notch it around him, pulling him even closer with my calf across his back. “They seem fully functional.”

Law shifts to drop kisses on my thigh. “And long and curvy and delicious. They’ll get a work-out when you dive today, so let me carry you down to breakfast.”

Seems like a good deal to me. I hold my arms out. He pulls me close and rises like I weigh nothing.

“Cait?”

“Cait,” he says smugly. With a kiss, he carries me out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

“Naked Cait,” I point out.

He shrugs. “My house. If they don’t want to see me naked, there are hotels in town.”

I smack the back of his head affectionately. “We invited our house guests to stay with us.”

Unrepentant, he grins. “They didn’t have to accept.”

“So rude.”

“Cait.”

We banter all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Law stands beside me on the beach of Torre Faro hours later. The way he keeps eying my legs, now wetsuit-clad, makes me wonder if he plans to carry me into the water, too.

“I really can walk on my own,” I point out.

“I’d think so.” He chuckles. “Your legs look so fucking long in that getup.”

Rhodes, standing on my other side, nods. “So fucking fuckable.”

I elbow them both. “Eyes off my legs and on the horizon.” Where the small flotilla has returned, although they’re still quite a way from the anticline. “Our competition seems undeterred.”

Law grunts. “I didn’t get to send them on their tour of Faery’s lost seas before you started making apocalyptic deals with watery tarts.”

“At least they didn’t throw a sword at her,” Rhodes observes.

“Might have been more useful if they had,” Law counters. “At least it’s the basis for a system of government.”

“More effective than a mandate from the masses,” Rhodes rejoins.

I roll my eyes at both of them. “Help, help, I’m being repressed.”

“Not yet, you’re not,” Law says, flicking his tongue over the points of his incisors. “But it can be arranged.”

“Run away, run away!” I wave my arms over my head until Gabe and Arch notice and come trudging down the beach. I stop playing with my consorts and greet them. “We’re keeping an eye on the other teams, but they don’t seem to have discovered the Devourer’s Breast yet.”

Arch nods. “Val’s just suiting up, then we’re ready to dive. High tide’s in thirty minutes.”

“Where Jou?” I ask Gabe, since I haven’t seen the demon since we arrived at Torre Faro.

“Playing with Danny’s toys,” Gabe says. At the looks Rhodes and Law gives him, Gabe rolls his eyes. “Not like that . Jou’s fascinated by human technology. And for a demon lord who has a whole harem, he’s completely faithful to Tsara, so get your minds out of the gutter.”

Rhodes and Law snigger in stereo.

“If those ships look like they’re closing in on Charybdis’ cave, what are the Water-mages prepared to do about it?” Arch asks Rhodes and Gabe, bringing the mood back down.

“I’m not sinking any ships,” Rhodes says. “Enough lives have been lost already.”

“A rogue wave might not sink them,” Arch points out. He’s clearly been doing his research on the Straits. “Or a whirlpool. Just damage the boats so they slink back to Scilla. Besides, Maher and van Wyke and the captain are still missing. No bodies have been found.”

I have a terrible feeling that’s because the Graeae keep what they claim.

Rhodes crosses his arms over his chest. “If Caileán or the team is at risk, I’ll defend you, but I’m not damaging those ships just because you’re paranoid.”

Arch glares but my consort is unmoved. I glance at Law, who always seems more willing to cause mayhem, or at least bodily harm, but evidently, we’re presenting a united front today, because he simply returns Arch’s glare while shifting to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Rhodes.

Arch sniffs and looks back over his shoulder at Danny’s tent. “Here come Val and the demon. Let’s go.”

I spare the moment to hug and kiss my consorts before wading into the surf with Gabe. The sea is sullen in the wake of the storm, small waves hissing over the sand and rocks. Although the Cait cleared the beach, there’s still ample wreckage bobbing in the yellow foam: branches with brown leaves still clinging to them, torn plastic, thick tangles of seaweed. The beach smelled, oddly, of butterscotch, but out in the waves, there’s a fishy, rotten stink. I’m glad when Viv’s gill spell kicks in and I stop smelling anything as I plunge under the surface.

The water’s murky, so very different from the crystalline blue of our earlier dives. I didn’t do much diving off Isla Cedros because the Magi of the Mist were primarily land-dwelling, but the water’s opacity reminds me of the algae blooms that turned California’s water to green glass.

I’m glad when Gabe spins out the golden tow line our Water mages have been using. I grasp it with one hand and kick along behind him, drawing on my Element to propel me as well. Gabe said he could tow three of us plus Jou without exhausting himself, but there’s no reason for him to drain his reserves if I can help us along.

The demon comes up the tow line hand-over-hand until he’s even with me. He doesn’t have any gills on his neck. His horns and claws shade to the color of old blood in the murky light. Bubbles stream off his horns; maybe he’s breathing through them somehow? He kicks lazily, barefoot and just wearing his usual black leather pants. I’ve heard Jou talk about “spinning a glove” when he’s in the mortal world. Seeing him immersed in an antithetical Element, unbreathing and unbothered, reminds me not just that Jou isn’t human, but that he’s a lord of Hell .

Benighted Mother, I’m glad he’s on our side.

I smile at him, and he shoots back a toothy grin.

We reach the anticline, having passed over a seafloor littered with storm debris, only to find the cave mouth partially collapsed. Fallen boulders fill the bottom of the fissure, leaving a narrow triangle at the top we’ll have to squeeze through. I release the tow line and swim closer to examine the cave-in.

Sticking out between two boulders are the tines of a trident.

I squeeze my eyes closed. I did this. I bargained with the Graeae. I refused to give them anything of myself or my consorts. I unleashed them on the unsuspecting world instead. And this is the cost. Maher. Van Wyke. The ship captain. And a tritones.

I resolve to come back once we’ve found Ulune’s Daughter and dig out the cave in, with my two hands if I have to, and return the tritones to its people with my deepest apologies.

Gabe taps me on the shoulder and points to the cave mouth, spreading his hands in an opening gesture. I’m not sure exactly what he means, but I trust Teddy’s husband. I nod.

He holds out his hand and bubbles plume around it. When he curls his fingers toward his palm, rocks tumble gently out of the fissure and down to the seabed, making the opening into the cave big enough for us to squeeze through.

The glinting tines of the trident disappear beneath a fall of small rocks, but I mark the spot with a glowing circle of my magic and swear to return.

Gabe spins out his tow line again and I grab on, letting him pull me into the cave. Jou’s clawed hands curl around the line above and below mine. His huge wings unfurl in a rush of bubbles. He cups his wings around us, protecting me from the rocks still dropping from the fractured ceiling. Green light stabs through into the cave, attracting clusters of anemones.

We pass over the mosaic floor, barely visible through a fresh covering of silt and rocks. The dry gate into the Graeae’s cavern is gone, the statuary shattered in a jumble of marble body parts. The chamber where they sat while we bargained is cracked like a dropped egg, the floor buckled, a few shards of wood swirling in Gabe’s wake all that’s left.

I couldn’t see an exit to their cave, obscured by mist. With the Graeae gone, the archway is clear, framed by carved columns, one lying in a jumble of ragged hexagons across the floor.

Gabe swims through the archway and into the darkness beyond.

The passageway to my Faesight is less like a cavern and more like an artery: the walls membranous and rippling. Gabe ignores the smaller branches and continues down the central passageway. A glow appears, faint, tinging the walls a pale red. Gabe swims steadily toward it and it grows brighter and brighter, until I have to slit my eyes against it.

With a hard pop and a flare of light so bright my vision fills with red spots, Gabe leads us through into a dry space. I pull on my Element to fill my lungs. Jou releases me from the circle of his wings. I grab Arch and Val’s hands as they come through the gate so they don’t suffocate.

“We won’t be able to swim back,” Arch growls.

“I can gate you to Faery,” I say. “You’ll have to stay there until Luca can brew some depressurization elixir, but at least you won’t get the bends.”

Arch glares at me, his glare reflecting a thousand times around us. Every surface, floor, walls, ceiling, shapes in-between, is made of mirror shards, jammed together, overlapping. I stay focused on Arch’s face. I’ve been to the Dransbych before. Either we’re in the City of Mirrors or this place is designed to look just like it. It’s a dizzying, carnival effect. But if I stay focused on a fixed point, like a face, I won’t get befuddled by the reflections.

“Look at me,” I say to Arch and Val. “Don’t look at the mirrors. I’m not sure where we are?—”

“Hell,” Jou says over the sound of breaking glass. “Osuneiod, the Gate of Reflections. Ahzatzu’s Court. Pretty much exactly where no one’d ever want to be. Cuz, help me.”

Gabe staggers over to the demon, cupping his hand over his eyes.

“Put up your wards now,” Jou tells us.

Still huffing, Arch twists his fingers and a fountain of Fire spouts up and over the three of us. Flame flickers from every surface, making it seem like we’ve fallen into lava. I stare at Arch’s face and hold my focus.

With a boom that sends me to my knees, clutching my ears, Gabe shatters every mirror in the place.

Not a single shard makes it through Arch’s ward.

Val pulls one of my hands away from my ears and grips it. “It’s over.”

I nod and hold on to her hand as we climb back to our feet.

Jou stalks over to us, crunching over glass ground back to sand. His burning, crimson wings flare behind him. His neon blue crown spins between his horns. He runs a talon down my cheek. “You okay, Treasure?”

I nod. “We’re in the Dransbych?”

“Yeah. Fuckers. I know you want to negotiate with Charybdis, but I gotta tell you, if Ahzatzu or Licyssa get involved, there ain’t gonna be much room for negotiation.”

“I understand. You tell me when. I’ll follow your lead.”

“Kellan,” Arch huffs.

I shake my head at him. “Sorry but Jou’s the expert here. If he tells me the time for negotiation is over, then the time for negotiation is over. Val, how are you doing?”

Our ward-breaker nods. “Good.”

“Ready to suck the powers out of some demon lords?”

Val smiles wanly.

She keeps hold of my hand as we follow Jou and Gabe through the shattered, darkened chamber and into a blackness not even my Faesight can penetrate.

A low hiss fills my ears just before something hot and muscular wraps around my legs and up my torso, trapping my free arm against my body. It’s like having my consorts coil around me, only there’s nothing sexy about this.

I could fight. My Element tastes strange in Hell but the power is right there, ready to be shaped and used. Ready to grasp and tear. Rend and crush. Wild magic walks alongside it, fuel for the ancient spells that no one will condemn me for using in Hell, far from the mortal world.

But I tamp down the insistent power. Since realizing who might be Ulune’s Daughter’s keeper, I haven’t wanted to do her any harm. Even Luca’s warning that she’s likely gone insane during her long imprisonment doesn’t deter me from talking first.

“Charybdis,” I say softly. “Daughter of Gaia. Mistress of Wind and Tide. Do you sleep? Do you wake? Where do you lie? Do you rise? Do you rage? Have you been forgotten?”

A deep rattle reverberates around me. Another coil creeps around my ankles.

The wind’s howl answers me, “I have not slept in thousands of years, millions of days, uncounted seconds, but all the while I have dreamed. I have dreamed of men in furs and in linen and strange fabrics I have no names for. They come in vessels of wood and iron and strange, shiny metal. They feed my hunger but never sate it. Have you come to feed me, little bird queen?”

“No,” I say. “I’ve come to steal your greatest treasure.”

Rain whips across my face, sticking my hair to my cheeks.

“Treasure? I have no treasure. No gold, no jewels, no riches. Nothing but bones. Big bones. Small bones. Hundreds of skulls. Thousands of teeth. Bones, bones, bones.”

Something catches in my mind. Kindles. “May I have them?” I ask.

The wind squalls. “You want my bones?”

“If I do, will you give them to me freely?”

The wind gentles; rain slips over my cheeks and down my chin. “What will you do with them?”

“Return them to their mother.”

The wind dies. The rain dries. A hand, warm flesh and the prickle of a ragged nail, touches my cheek. “Who sent you, bird queen?”

“A woman who called me daughter.”

“My mother has not answered me in three thousand years. Since the Thunderer blinded me and threw me in this hole.”

My breath catches. Thunderer. Bromios. Zeus. How did I not make that connection?

“I helped turn the Thunderer away from this world again less than a month ago. I’ve freed the Graeae. There are no more jailors, Charybdis. But the Mother has never turned her face away. She still walks this world. Your mother. Quit this cage and find her.”

“Find her.” Warm breath brushes my cheeks. “How would you propose I find her, little queen?”

“Take the crown from my brow. It rode the brow of the king she crowned. Place it on yours and call her. There might still be a connection,” I offer, filled with a sense of rightness. This is what the Crown of the North was meant for. Not to garland me or the Holly King. Its purpose is and always has been to reunite mother and daughter.

A fingertip traces my forehead, where the crown’s cool metal edge manifests at my thought.

“You’d give me your crown?”

“Yes,” I say.

“In exchange for the bones?”

“No, I give you my crown freely, to reunite a daughter with her mother.”

A sigh gusts over my skin. “You’ve lost the woman who called you daughter?”

“Yes, in the battle against the Thunderer.”

“She died to protect you?”

“She died to protect us all. She died to save the world. All the mothers. All the daughters. All those who walk in the now. All those to come. Carrie gave her life for us. She reached back from the grave to send me here and I can think of no better way to honor her than to help you find your mother.”

Fingertips trace my face in silence. There’s a deep, rhythmic flexing in the darkness. I recognize Val’s power. She’s trying to break whatever wards Charybdis has up that are robbing me of sight and sound. Val’s hand is still clenched around mine. I can’t hear her, Jou, or Gabe, or Arch. The whole world is silent, narrowed down to the soft touch of skin in the darkness.

I squeeze Val’s hand to let her know I’m okay.

“I think I know the bones you want,” Charybdis whispers. “The tiniest bones. They were brought to me. Not claimed by wind and water. They came to me on a wave of poison, during my darkest dreams. Tiny, tiny bones. Bird bones for a bird queen. I think they’re what you seek.”

“Carrie called her Ulune’s Daughter,” I offer.

“Yes, daughter of sadness and betrayal and heartbreak. Daughter of the dark moon. A child who lived only long enough to divide lovers. To ravage a mother’s heart before she died. An entire life unlived. A baby girl’s bones. Stolen from her mother’s breast to molder here in the deeps with me. To remind me every day of the mother I’d never be, entombed here alone.” The tentacle holding my arm to my side slips downward to curl around my calf. A warm hand presses a cool bundle that feels like a rock and collection of twigs into my palm. A ragged nail scrapes my knuckle.

“Return her to her mother,” Charybdis murmurs. That broken nail scrapes my forehead as she lifts the Crown of the North off my head. Lips brush my cheek. The hot, muscular coils constricting me fall away. “Go home, bird queen. Take your people and go. I give you all my blessing. You will not suffer from visiting the deeps today.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I give you my blessing in return, and my earnest wish that Gaia answers your call.”

A warm breeze tickles my cheeks, lifts my wet hair. “Will you find us all, bird queen? All the lost daughters of Mother Earth and Father Sea? All those despised by the Thunderer for our gentling influence on sky and storm? All those who remain. Echidna, Stheno, Euryale, Thoosa. Will you sail to the ends of the Earth and find them?”

“If you’re giving me this quest in exchange for Ulune’s Daughter, I will accept it. But I’ll decline if you permit. I’ll soon bear my own child. I owe him or her and my consorts many years of love and attention. Sailing to the ends of Earth will be challenging with a newborn.”

The breeze titters. “They’ve been lost for thousands of years. They’ll probably keep until you have time to look for them. I won’t task you with finding them. Ulune’s Daughter is yours, fairly and freely won. But if someday you find yourself bored upon your throne, the lost daughters of Gaia might appreciate being found.”

I nod into the darkness. “I’ll remember.”

“I’ll remember,” Charybdis echoes. “I’ll remember that you came not with murder on your mind but with compassion in your heart. I’ll remember that you could have fought and taken what you wanted from me but stayed your hand. I’ll remember that you gave me the crown off your brow. I’ll remember your kindness and wisdom, bird queen. And I will be sure to tell my mother when I find her.”

“Fare thee well, daughter of Gaia,” I say, giving her the old parting, the ancient blessing.

“Fare thee well, Caileán,” she responds, the gentlest sough of a sea breeze.

I squeeze Val’s hand, hoping that gives her a little warning before I pull us into Faery. Before I can tear the aether, cool, gray light floods my vision. Blinded as much by the sudden light as by Charybdis’ unnatural darkness, I blink.