Page 34 of The Dark Will Fall (Twilight Lake #5)

Maeve Cruinn

The Twilight Lake reached out, wrapping around me like an old friend. Every muscle in my body relaxed, and my mind went blank. I had never felt so completely at peace before.

I was home.

My gills formed on my throat, my magic wrapping around my body and pulling my scales to the surface with the ease of stretching after a long sleep.

My hand wrapped around Cormac’s, as I blinked past the flurry of bubbles to study his body. The Tuatha Dé Danann had stolen his tail, and for a moment, I wondered if it was gone forever.

Meeting Cormac’s gaze told me he had wondered the same thing.

His legs fused together, the scales rolling over his body. Blood red and glistening in the water.

Before I could say a word, my own legs locked, and I could no longer move them. My toes, webbed, fused together. A scream locked in my throat as I felt the invisible bindings wrench my body. Opalescent scales, colored pink like salmon flesh, rolled over my legs, growing beyond my Undine scales.

Manannán mac Lir’s words echoed in my head.

“ The Mer were cursed for less than that, Maeve Cruinn.” He’d said . “Do not speak back to me again.”

Had Manannán mac Lir cursed me? Like one of the Mer?

I let go of Cormac’s hand, reaching up to feel my cheeks for my adornments. My pearls were still there.

Through it all, Dagda’s staff rested in my hand. It was a miracle I hadn’t dropped the thing as I flailed, unable to stay upright as my body sank further down in the water.

“Maeve, Maeve, Maeve !” Cormac grabbed my arms, patting my face to draw my attention back from the precipice of panic. His emerald eyes were soft. My chest heaved, and I looked at his face, using it to ground me. A lifeline.

“I have a tail.”

“You have a tail.” He echoed with a smile.

“ Your tail is back.”

“It is.” Cormac agreed.

“I’m a Mer.”

He cupped my cheek. “You’re Maeve.”

I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. “We’re home. Cormac. We got back. I thought we would be gone forever. The Tuatha Dé Danann, the Spring Court—” A sob lodged itself into my throat.

“We’re home.” Cormac brushed his thumb over the scar under my eye. Where my crescent pearl once sat. His lips met mine, somehow conveying the jubilation and trauma mixed together. Neither of us had confronted our deaths, not really. We hadn’t had time.

The Sídhe worshiped the Tuatha Dé Danann. We would murmur their names in prayer and thank them for small boons. To consolidate the gods I had seen, bickering and half-mad, with the benevolent gods I had believed in, would take a while to get used to.

I had placed my mother on a pedestal, even after finding out her identity as Belisama. I had hoped there would be some comfort, some relationship there, but it seemed that the gods viewed time and death differently.

But none of that was important now.

“We have to find the others.” I nodded to myself. “We don’t know how much time has passed. Or what Balor has done in our absence.”

Cormac agreed. “Where we are would be a good start.”

“This is the Twilight Lake,” I told him, feeling the water wrap around me like a friend. “I would know it anywhere.” My body began to tip, and Cormac righted me. His lips pressed into a line, and his eyes sparkled as he held back laughter.

I slapped his arm. “It’s not funny!”

“It’s kind of funny.” He admitted.

“Having a tail is harder than it looks.” My jaw hardened, and I looked away.

Cormac nudged my cheek, directed my gaze back to his. “I think it’s cute.”

My nose wrinkled.

“Do you recognize anything?” Cormac swam to the side, his hand on my arm to steady me.

“I should.” I winced. “We’ve swum the length of the Twilight Lake, haven’t we?”

“Lugh’s doorway should have taken us to the Nymph Village.” Cormac’s heavy brow creased.

Around us was open water. The surface above us, and the lake-bed, too far down to see.

A dull roar echoed in the distance. “I recognize that sound.”

“As do I,” Cormac admitted. “The Whispering Pass.”

“We’re close to Tarsainn then.” I agreed, I curled my stomach, attempting to kick my legs to remain upright. Swimming with a tail was harder than it looked. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I turned my attention to the staff in my hand. Frowning, as I studied the gnarled wood.

If the Dagda’s magic gave the Kraken’s eye its power, then maybe the staff would allow me to see as the High Throne had. It was worth a shot. I knew it would hurt, but it was necessary to find out where we were. Or if enemies lurked in the depths below.

Reaching for the magic was surprisingly simple, though the staff did not demand payment in blood. My fist tightened, and like a forgotten limb, I focused on becoming the water.

I cast my mind out, becoming one with every drop. The staff grew warm in my hand.

I saw them in my mind’s eye.

An army of thousands. Not foam, as they should be, but husks, filled with darkness and shadows. Trawling the lake floor and devouring all in their path.

The Tuatha Dé Danann had been right.

First, the Fomorians would devour the Aos Sí.

And it seemed like they had already started.

A second set of eyes opened behind mine. Burning into my soul. “You might have stolen the Dagda’s magic from the throne, whelk, but I can feel it, and I can feel you .”

Balor’s voice was a hammer. Whatever internal protections I had cracked and fell away, as I lost consciousness.

I awoke with a scream in my throat. My entire body spasmed as Balor’s words trailed off, still ringing in my ears.

My legs kicked out, fighting an unknown enemy as I thrashed.

Cormac placed his hand over my heart. “You’re safe.” He cooed. “We’re safe. No one can hurt you right now.”

He repeated the words until my heartbeat stopped pounding in my skull, and my body slumped back onto the cave floor, exhausted despite losing consciousness.

I looked down, finding two legs, each marked with the same scales I’d always had.

“Your tail dissolved a while ago,” Cormac told me, with a sad smile. “Though I think you could call it if you wished.”

I pondered his words, certain that they were true. “Where are we?”

“I found a cave at the bottom of the coral field. The Whispering Pass is a stone’s throw west. We’re near the shore.”

I clasped my chest. “I tried to look forward. The way I used to do when I sat on the High Throne.”

Cormac eyed the staff, still clenched in my fist; the contours of the wood were etched in my palm, but I daren’t let go. “The High Throne, the Kraken’s eye, and the staff are all Dagda’s magic.” He agreed, his expression neutral.

“Balor caught me.” Fear turned my words breathy.

He didn’t tell me I was foolish, or call me an eejit, though I saw the thought form. “Did she say anything?”

I repeated Balor’s words.

Cormac nodded to himself. “So she knows you defaced the High Throne.”

“I’d say so.”

Cormac glanced over his shoulder. “You should see this.”

Before I could ask what he meant, the Mer ushered me to the cave's entrance, a single slit big enough for a body but not much more.

Bleached coral hugged the entrance like dead tree branches.

No longer vibrant and full of fish. I craned my neck, but Cormac nudged my shoulder, urging me to stay out of sight.

Before I could ask any questions, I felt the lake ebb and flow with numerous bodies. An army, moving through the water, crawling through a fissure larger than the Kraken’s lair had been.

Black water seeped into the lake from below, like a bleeding wound.

Sluggish, but unending. The Fae crawling from the fissure did not move as they should have done.

The Mer did not use their tails, but instead crawled along the lakebed, fingers clawing the sand.

The Undine moved on all fours, like beasts, their eyes black as night.

I clasped my hands over my mouth, stilling the scream on my tongue as I watched in horror.

They formed regiments, though from their mindless gaze, I could tell they had no thought as to why. They were dead. I felt their empty bodies in the water the same way the lake rushed through a cave or Hag stone. Propelled forward, with a plan they had no part in making.

I’d spent so much time trying to find answers, asking the Tuatha Dé Danann about Balor and the Domhain, but it took me longer than I would have admitted to realize what I was seeing.

Fomorians.

Creatures from the Domhain brought to the Aos Sí.

The fissure in the lake bed was a tear between our world and theirs. Balor had done it. We had been too late.

All the soldiers faced in one direction.

The Nymph Village.