Page 11 of Up from the Earth (Equinox Seasons Duet #1)

Ten

As In All Things, As In Birth, The Only Way Out Is Through.

H eavy, gray fog clouded over everything in sight. I couldn’t make out more than twenty or so feet ahead of me, but what I could see of the spring and flora surrounding it was the fresh buds that sprang to life on each branch and bow.

Yellow flowers no bigger than a thumbnail covered the young saplings up on the left. Right on the banks of the tiny river were bushes bursting with pale pink blooms, their fragrance potent and sweet. That dappling sound of the water moving over rocks drew me in, and I crept carefully along its winding curves.

“Spring.”

My voice was a reverent whisper as I took in my surroundings. The Equinox had come—Ostara and the welcoming of renewal and growth laid out in front of me. It sang in my bones, the lilting calls of birds beyond number and a hushed hum that suffused the fog with a ringing echo. Overhead was still grayed out and clouded, but just behind them, I could make out the ringed flare of an eclipse.

A good omen.

Equinoxes were times of balance, and eclipses were rare phases of balance between light and dark. Together, they ensured powerful magic was working.

As I rounded a bend in the stream, a young deer hopped away, its white spots so bright against its deep tan fur. The smell of fertile, damp earth was everywhere, that crisp quality of water following it. I pressed forward, my bare feet touching the stones and dirt and grass of this wondrous place.

After just a few moments, I reached a crossroads of sorts. The spring met a long, winding path that ran perpendicular to it. They formed a T—one road made from water; one made from land.

Crossroads are powerful alone but in a place like this…

Hopping into the center of the crossroad and setting down in the middle of the tiny bridge above the stream was a rabbit. It cocked its head at me, the deep brown of its wide eyes stirring something in my memory. There was a patch of reddish-brown fur in the center of its forehead, speckled gray-brown and white making up the rest of its fur.

I knew that mark. However unlikely it seemed, I knew this rabbit.

He’d led me astray once.

“I know you.” His little whiskers flicked about, and he jumped closer. “You came to me as a child, didn’t you?”

Blinking, the little creature nibbled at a stalk of clover that shot up near the stream, chewing it into his mouth until it disappeared.

“I have always been with you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. What a strange place to find my familiar. Kneeling down, I held out my hand, allowing the rabbit to hop toward me and rub his head against my palm.

“Your name?”

“It is for you to bestow, mistress.”

Smiling, I wound my fingers through his heavenly soft fur, relishing the way it danced over my skin as I stroked down his back.

“Well, in honor of whom you represent,” I swiped across his ear playfully, “how about Cern.”

Looking up at me with those fathomless eyes, the rabbit sat back onto his rear legs and bobbed his head.

“K-er-n.” He enunciated in mental speech. “I like it.”

A small, profound joy lit up my heart, and I lifted him into my arms, holding him against my chest. I could feel the dual pound of our pulses mirroring each other’s—my a little fast to account for his and Cern’s a little slow to adjust to mine. And at that, we were bound.

Setting Cern back down, I sighed, glancing up ahead. “So, little one, would you like to tell me what comes next? Or will you be as cryptic as The Wolf?”

If a rabbit could laugh, he would have. As it was, the sound of his humming was lifted up, and he scurried around to face the path that led off to the right.

“I can also say what I know, mistress. And what I know is that we can go that way,” Cern angled himself so that he pointed between the stream and path, still cocked to the right, “or we can take the shortcut.”

I chuckled. “Oh, always the shortcut.”

Cern immediately scampered off through the bounding growth of moss and grass, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. I held the length of my dress, gripped in tight fingers, and ran off through the forest with a grin on my lips and a laugh in my heart.

But as we reached what I had to assume was the final destination, the thick clouds overhead, as well as the fog, became denser, oppressive. Darkness shadowed the forest floor, and I was delivered to a stone altar set in the center of a massive sacred circle. Plants surrounded the edges, delineating where it started and stopped. Most notable were the strange mushrooms I’d never seen before, white stems and caps with red globules that looked like individual bubbles of blood, ready to burst at any moment.

A chill worked over me, and I dropped the fabric I clutched so tightly. “This? What am I to…”

But the question faded away. I knew that Cern nor any creature could tell me. I was meant to follow this wherever I believed it led. A test of mind and ability lay before me.

Approaching cautiously, I felt the change in the earth as my soles touched the stone. It wasn’t only nature here now. It was a constructed work, a place created by the manipulation of stone and chisel. While it certainly wasn’t “man-made,” it was the work of a being, my Beast King. Nature did not work in stone, and so this place was a union of both worlds.

As am I, I suppose.

I was a mortal, after all. However, something about that word didn’t seem to fit at the moment. I was not solely of nature in any case. I wore constructed garments, lived in buildings, but I was also a witch. I knew the natural cycles, I knew the phases, and I knew to respect the abundant life around me. My gifts, especially now as they were unlocked, also revolved around the natural order, holding a level of mastery over it.

He was here, my Beast King. I could sense him, and the altar called to me, thrumming with invisible strands of magic that demanded I touch them. Standing before the intricately carved altar—Celtic swirls and knots chiseled into the stone—I reached out. My hand trembled, my nerves on edge, and then I laid my palm against the cool surface.

Immediately, a crack of pain broke over me, the snap like a splitting oak. I sank to my knees, pressing my hands to my lower belly. It grew beneath my fingers, stretching and expanding as a flurry of movement swam inside.

The chirping birds were gone, replaced by the howl of my blood in my ears. I cried out, doubling over as I rounded more and more. I watched my belly, awestruck and racked with pain, understanding that something profound had changed when The Wolf had claimed me.

I was pregnant.

And about to deliver by the feel of it. The child within me kicked and growled loud enough to be heard outside my womb. The pressure within me was mind-numbing. There was nothing I could do in the face of the erupting, tremendous agony that tore through me. Frantically searching the circle for something that might lend aid or comfort, I found Cern’s eyes.

“I…How do I—Ahh!”

My abdomen clenched, and a wave of tension washed over me from very low all the way up my rounded belly and to my back. The rabbit hopped over, touching his furry head to my hand, where I planted it on the ground.

“Do not run from the sensations, mistress. Let go. Just let them happen.”

Glancing down at him, I wanted to argue, to scream and hiss. But I held those brown eyes, trusting, and slowly found my breath. All I could do then was nod. I clutched the edge of the altar with both hands, sinking low into my knees and spreading them wide. There was a moment of stillness before the next wave, but this time, I didn’t tense, didn’t try to escape my body.

There was nothing else as it hit, blocking out all perception beyond this moment. I breathed, groaning and moaning as my muscles contracted. They worked the life inside me down, down, down. One after the other, the surges pushed for me. A swirl of nausea sent my stomach roiling as a sensation of something twisting over a nerve in my back took focus.

It was too difficult to ignore, and I leaned to the side, heaving. I felt myself widen, stretching all the more as I did. The next wave was quicker, the one after that even quicker still. And I breathed, sinking into my hips and rocking.

Sounds I’d never imagined making left me—low and guttural and focused. Another change washed over me in an undulating wave that crested as my body instinctively ground down. I felt it there, at my core. Whoever we had created, who my body had carried in a flash of time that broke the rules, was coming.

“You are no longer the maiden you were, little beast, but the mother of something more.”

My stare rocked up into the clouded sky as the child— my child —pressed against my opening. Burning swelled, tears dripping from the corners of my eyes, and I looked up into the face of the eclipse, softened by the layer of clouds.

In an instant, the blooming choir of birds, wind, and wailing cries blended to create a symphony of life. I stretched, shifted, and pushed my body until a massive pop rushed forward, waters spilling between my feet. Another surge down, and then another. I reached for them, feeling soft hair, and held myself ready to catch them.

A laughing sob left me, and in another wave, they were here. The child was earthside, and I…was a mother.

Stumbling to lean against the altar, I looked at the baby in my arms. He was small and pink and new.

He .

“Hello,” I stared into the eyes the color of the sky and trees, mirroring my own, “welcome home.”

In uncoordinated shuffles, the baby sought out his first meal, and I lowered my dress, bringing my son to my breast. He ate furiously and intensely, gulping down milk until his tiny hands gripped me to push back.

“What are—”

Before my eyes, he grew—as fast as the pregnancy and more. He grew into a young boy, a midnight head of dark hair with eyes of two colors—one crystal blue and one verdant green. Then, he stood before me as a young man, tall and muscular—the picture of his combined parentage.

And still, he changed, dropping onto his hands and knees and shifting into the form of a massive black wolf, just like his father. My brows shot to my hairline, eyes bulging as I witnessed this miraculous transformation. In a blink, I was shocked to see my son standing nearly as tall as The Wolf but possessing a gift even his father couldn’t claim.

“Three heads. You are…” Revelation and disbelief warred. “... Cerberus .”

He held my eyes, nodding his giant heads. I stepped forward and reached out to smooth my fingers through his fur. It was as soft as that hair I’d felt. His eyes were the perfect reflection of mine, and I loved him.

“I will protect you with everything I have.” He nuzzled into me with his central head, a rumbling sound almost like a purr coming from his chest. “Everything I am and everything I know has changed because of you. I love you more than breath.”

My son lay down, stretching out so that he covered the entirety of the stone circle. He’d grown so fast; it had all happened so fast, and yet the care I held for him was without measure. He was mine. He was my Cerberus. My child.

In the stillness of the forest, a quiet settling over the trees, a profound sorrow passed over me. Cerberus was mortal—at least partly. He would pass on from that realm as all mortals did. While I somehow knew that he would never truly be apart from me, one day, things would change. I would not see him “up there.”

To give life is also to ensure death. You offer time and experiences, knowing that they are not infinite and will come to an end .

That was the way of nature, the balance in which all things existed. I would not deny it, and I would not fear it. Stroking my hand down his fur as I knelt beside him, Cerberus appeared to sleep, resting after his ordeal of being born. I smiled.

“So you understand, little beast. Life means death. That is the way. And someone,” My Beast King spoke into my mind, a sense of warning but also immense pride, “is defiling it. To take a death and create life is blasphemy. It must be stopped.”

Fear twisted my gut. Life from death was foul and wrong. I could feel it in my bones. Whatever had the gall to alter the natural order in such a way was indeed a fiend of not only terrible power but little regard for the consequences of doing such a thing. I had a purpose here in ending this sacrilegious mutation.

And I would.