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Shy

I come awake to the sound of a familiar voice pleading with me.

It’s hard. Myrddin hit me with some kind of spell. Something to make me sleep, and I can feel that I am bound, my arms and legs tied by his magic.

I am trussed up and ready for slaughter.

“Shy? Shy, please wake up.”

The queen? I open my eyes and realize it wasn’t merely horror that caused me to faint dead away. Nope it’s magic. I didn’t realize it at the time. I saw my father-in-law and nothing else mattered, but now I feel the remains of whatever spell he sent my way.

It makes things foggy, but I can clear it out.

“Are you okay, baby?”

The queen puts a hand on my forehead like I’m a child and she’s checking for fever.

It’s been a long time since I had a mother to fuss over me. It feels nice.

That’s when I realize the queen is not alone.

The Drowning Woman stands over her, her hands moving in and out of the water with what feels like desperation.

She can follow me anywhere. I can change timelines. I can move off plane. I can get hit with a transportation spell and she can find me.

I stare at her. Why? Why would she follow me through time? Across the universe? To torment me? Or is it for another reason? Something the terrified child in me cannot see. What if I am exactly what Matilda said I am? Yr un sanctaidd.

Because you do not know death, either. You can see yourself as a cold, pointless thing, or as necessary and warm and loving as birth itself. Like all things, you decide how to see the world around you, and by choosing your vision, you form reality.

I choose the form of my reality.

What if the thing itself doesn’t change—always was, always will be the same—but how I see it makes the difference?

“Talk to me, Shy,”

the queen begs, and I see the tears in her eyes. “Can you move? I don’t see rope but you’re not moving.”

Because I’m bound in magic. I find it hard to speak as well. I think he plans to take me somewhere, and this is how he will transport me. He put me to sleep, took my voice, paralyzed me and bound me in chains no one can see.

Poor guy. He underestimates me. There are some magics that might work, but I shrug this off.

“I’m fine,”

I promise as I stretch my arms and move for the first time in what feels like hours.

I catch on the spirit that’s followed me and wonder how I never noticed her hands. I always notice the blood, the scars, but not the actual color of her skin. Where the hands are not torn, her skin is a deep brown. Like mine.

I allow the queen to help me sit up.

“The wizard said you would be asleep for hours,”

a tall Fae with a crossbow in his hands says. He has the look of one of the palace guards. “He said you would not be able to speak even when you woke.”

“She’s not dangerous,”

the queen begins. “She’s a medium. Do you know what that is? She can talk to those who’ve past on. She’s not a danger in any way.”

I wouldn’t go that far. Now that I’m awake I can feel my blood humming. I’m close. Close to all those restless souls. Close to…Devinshea.

Oh, my heart aches because I feel him.

He’s dying. The only thing keeping him alive is the god inside him.

“Don’t try anything. I’m not allowed to kill you, but he didn’t say the same thing about her,”

the guard explains and moves back as though we’re not a real threat at all.

Which at this point we aren’t.

The mountain calls. It’s hard to think when those souls are so damn near. They’re screaming in my head.

And I can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that Devinshea is going to die. How do I even comprehend the outcome? But I don’t see a way out. I feel power, but I don’t know what it means. I can break Myrddin’s bonds, but I don’t know how to stop him. If my power is death, to turn the wheel, then how do I do it? I’d asked that vine Rhys tied me up with. I don’t think Myrddin will agree to begin again. He likes where he is. He has all the power. He won’t allow me to send him through.

That’s what I did. I sent the vine through. Not a light. The vine doesn’t have a spirit the same way a conscious creature does, but it has energy, and I transformed that energy into something else. Something new. The energy wasn’t gone, merely changed form. But I forced the change.

Can I force Myrddin to change? Do I have to get my hands on him? How do I fight him?

“We need to find a way to get you out of here,”

the queen whispers in my ear.

I can feel water on my skin. The Drowning Woman is so close. So close. Closer than ever before. She’s right beside the queen, almost standing in her space.

“There is no way out,”

I reply. I know it deep in my bones. I was always going to be here. The trick Myrddin played was to get Devinshea here. That’s obvious to me. But why, then, had Mallt-y-nos talked almost exclusively to me? Why had she insisted I come? “Arawn didn’t call me. Myrddin did this to bring the royals here.”

“To bring me here.”

Dev looks so pale.

I allow the queen to help me stand, and I am face to face with the Drowning Woman. I want to look away but I don’t give in. I stare at her. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I promise if I survive this, I will find a way to help you.”

The water seems to almost calm for a moment, and I can see a glimpse of a face.

It is almost familiar to me.

And then I hear the screeching of all those souls in the mountain. I put my hands to my ears as though I can cut them off.

I can’t. It turns my stomach, but I have to fight through this. I force myself to walk to my father-in-law. “Yes, Myrddin did all of this to put you and the queen into the position where he can force Bris into whatever trap he’s laid. Rhys and Lee and I discussed the fact that the crone he sent actually lives on this plane. She left Arawn’s service long ago, and it seems she was likely bribed to do Myrddin’s bidding.”

Dev’s green eyes show a spark of life. “But she convinced us to bring you here.”

“What if instead of doing Myrddin’s bidding, she’s still working for the god she loved?”

Zoey muses. “She knows more about Shy than we do. If she sent her here instead of merely doing the job she was paid to do, then she must think you can change the outcome.”

“But I don’t know how.”

I put a hand to my forehead. It’s so loud.

And then it’s not. Then what I hear is the soothing sound of a river rushing by. Of a pond in a rainstorm. Of waves gently crashing.

The Drowning Woman has one of those mangled hands on me. I feel the chill where she touches my skin, but I don’t pull away.

I make my reality, and I have let fear rule for so long.

I reach out and touch her. Which is really simply touching my own skin, but it is a gesture. “Thank you. I can think now.”

I turn back to my in-laws, my head in a better place now. How had I ever thought that sound menacing? It’s a sound from my childhood. I focus in on one. The sound of the creek behind our house. It would ease me to sleep on long nights. I would put my feet in the mud and know I was connected to the earth. Lift my hands to the sky and feel the way my soul stretched to the heavens. Earth and air were mine. Are mine.

“I think you might be here so I have one last chance to say good-bye,”

Dev admits quietly. “I don’t want to give up, but I cannot allow Myrddin to harm my wife and our child. Shy, is the space Harry stayed in still open? Or have you found a way to close it?”

This cannot be why I am here, but I still reply. “It is open. I would never close my soul space. I wouldn’t want to even if I knew how.”

“I won’t stay long, sweet girl. Only long enough to say good-bye.”

His head turns and he stares at his wife. “I will find out if that bastard killed our daughter. If he did, she will be waiting for me, and I will make things right between us. Wherever we go, we will go together.”

“Or you could not go at all.”

It’s easy to hear the panic in the queen’s voice.

“Do not touch those chains or I’ll have you in them, too.”

The guards are still watching us. We are not alone.

Zoey bites back a cry and steps away, her eyes on the stumps where Dev’s hands used to be. “We can find a way out. You don’t have to die. Shy is right. She’s here to stop this.”

I feel something shift. The cries briefly become louder, but then the spirit beside me seems to amp up her power. “I think the king did his job and opened the door.”

I feel a rush of agreement. The Drowning Woman thinks so, too.

Why do I get the feeling she is proud of me? It’s the oddest thing. It’s almost like she’s sending me a message.

I am so proud. You can do this. You were born for this moment.

It’s almost like she has a voice. A familiar one.

I have an inkling, but I can’t give in to it now. Time is running short.

“Then it’s my time,”

Dev says, and it’s easy to see he’s trying to put on a brave face. “My darling goddess, I love you. Be brave. Be Zoey. Take care of all of them for me.”

Tears pour from the queen’s eyes. “I can’t do this without you.”

“You can,”

he promises. “You can and you will, and I will be waiting to be reunited with you and Daniel again.”

The door to the tent opens, and he is there. Myrddin’s presence soaks the space in dark, selfish magic. His eyes narrow when he sees me. “Guards, get the seer. I don’t know how she managed to get out of my spell. It should have kept her asleep and incapacitated for days. I want her in chains, and then we’ll add her soul to my pyre. When we slit her throat, her magic won’t matter. Devinshea, it’s time. I have the mountain open, and I have a door to the Hell plane open. The souls have one place to go.”

I feel the panic of the Drowning Woman as two guards wrest me away. “Dev, when the time comes, choose me.”

It’s as much instruction as I can give him. I know the Fae version of Neil made the choice. He wasn’t swayed by the call of the mountain. He chose.

Myrddin can’t force the souls to do his bidding. But he can trick them. They will think they are walking into the light, but the light Myrddin offers will send them to Hell no matter their religious beliefs. I have to think it’s a portal of some kind that will gather energy and allow Myrddin to work his will.

“He will choose his wife every time,”

Myrddin says as he stands there, energy flowing off him. His eyes are obsidian orbs, and black veins cover his body. This is the wizard in his purest form. In his magical power. “Choose her now, Devinshea, or I will kill her where she stands.”

The guards haul me back, their rough hands gripping me, and I hear a crack of thunder and rain start to pelt the tent above us.

Myrddin’s eyes narrow but he ignores it. He has an ornate knife in his hand and points it Zoey’s way. “I’ll carve the child out of her and force you to watch. I won’t wait for the Wild Hunt to do her in.”

The guards hold Zoey in place, too.

The only comfort I have is the Drowning Woman who stands near Myrddin now, and I feel her menace.

It is for him. It is not for me. What if there was never menace in this spirit for me? What if I created that because I was not ready to face her? Not ready to lose her again. What if I always knew when I truly saw her face, I would have to let her go?

“I’m going,”

Devinshea says. “Or rather Bris is. I love you. Zoey, say my name. One last time.”

I’m sure she says it, but I don’t hear because my mind is stuck on that request.

Say my name.

His name.

Call his name when you need him. He will always come for you.

When you need him, call his name. He always meant to find you again.

I wondered whose name, but I know it deep inside now.

I feel the moment Devinshea Quinn dies. I can see Bris’s soul, see how anguished he is as the priest’s body fails him. His head slumps over and his spirit walks my way, his hand to his heart.

“Goddess, you are beautiful, Shahidi. This…you glow like the warmest hearth, like the promise of comfort in winter.”

He stands in front of me even as his wife goes to her knees.

“Do you feel the pull?”

I have to know if it’s more pronounced here.

“Who are you talking to?”

Myrddin asks. “He should be in the mountain by now.”

“Tell him I’m gone. Tell him I couldn’t resist. But there is no pull. Not for me. Oh, it hums and beckons, but I know where the light is. It is inside you,”

Dev says, the saddest look in his eyes. He’s whole now. The most beautiful spirit I have seen. As though death cannot change the attraction of a Green Man. He glances up at the canvas roof. “My son is here. He’s come for you, but you know what to do next. May I accompany you on this journey?”

“Shy, tell him I love him.”

The queen barely manages to talk through her tears.

I have to be cruel to be kind. I cannot let Myrddin know they are both still here, Devinshea and Bris. “He’s gone, Your Grace. He’s with the sluagh now.”

I nod briefly Dev’s way to let him know he is welcome before turning to Myrddin. “Bris is merely waiting. He has to make the choice, right?”

“I cannot trick a god, but I can force him,”

Myrddin admits. “It’s time, Bris. Do my will or I will kill your goddess.”

Zoey screams, and I see Bris as he was in life. A giant of a man, muscular and broad. He wears a wreath of vines around his red hair. He has a straight jaw and lips meant for smiling and kissing. He reaches out to Zoey but cannot touch her.

I wish she could see him in all his glory.

“I’m sorry,”

Bris tells me with a sorrow that is palpable. “I made a deal to spare her, but I fear nothing will if the wizard gets his way. My energy will allow him to close the door, and I can only stay for so long before he will know I am not complying. Call his name, Shy. It’s the only hope we have. I must fulfill my end of the bargain or the Wild Hunt will come for my family. I have to do this, but I believe you can offer us another way. If you break Myrddin’s spell before the last soul enters, we might be saved. If you break it before the door is closed, I might be able to lead them out again. Do you understand?”

I nod because I know what I have to do now. I know how to find my power.

“Whoa,”

Dev says, staring at Bris with a smile of approval. “Dude, you are very attractive. And very Irish.”

Bris bows. “Devinshea, it was my honor.”

Dev’s spirit bows as well. “And mine, brother. Thank you for everything. See you on the other side.”

“We will abide in the Summerlands,”

Bris promises. “And make a home there for our family. When you get the chance, tell the queen her daughter lives. I can feel it now that I am in this form fully again. Her daughter lives, and so do they all. Evangeline is safe.”

And then Bris is gone, and I hear a booming from the mountain as Bris joins the others, feel Myrddin’s satisfaction.

“It begins,”

he says with a nasty smile.

He says begins, but what he’s really talking about is the end. The end to hope. The end to real life. Definitely the end to death because how will anyone move on if they are cut off from the light?

I know why Hell is backing Myrddin Emrys. They will be the only choice for in between spirits. Hell will fill with souls. Damned. Not damned. It won’t matter when they’re the only game in town.

“Guards, kill the seer,”

Myrddin orders. “She better be a corpse when I return. I must do what I need to fully open the mountain and send all those souls to their new home.”

He rushes out of the tent like he has a job to do.

“Dev, if you’re coming, the time is now,”

I whisper.

He slips into my soul space.

And I am ready.

“Arawn,”

I say. “Come for me.”

In a heartbeat, I am in another place. I am in Annwn.