Luathara - Book Three of the Otherworld Trilogy (39 page)

The gods of the Celts
glared at me and Cade, taking in our mud-stained clothing and disheveled appearance.

"What in Eile has possessed you two to burst in here like th
is
?" Nuadu asked, his dark eyes
flashing.

“I need to speak with my mother,” I snarled.  "Right now."

How strange it was that I could so easily throw my weight around like an all-powerful monarch.  Even more shocking was the silent but obedient response I received from the men and women
who had enough power to squash me like a gnat should they wish
.  Once everyone had shuffled from the room, I spun around and faced Danua, pain, worry and anger molding my face into a contorted mask.

Cade murmured somewhere behind me, “I'm going to go see if my sister has arrived yet,” then made to exit.

I turned just enough to reach out and grasp his fingers in mine.  We still wore our riding gloves, but I could feel his strength through the leather barrier.

“No,” I whispered, “stay.”

Memories from earlier that morning fought their way to the surface, pushing away my fear and anger for a split second.  I had been far too agitated earlier to think straight and had pushed Cade away.  But now I needed his strength if I were to face Danua, high queen of Eil
e
, my blood mother, and ask her the questions that fluttered around in my head like panicked birds thrashing against a confining cage.

He nodded and moved to the side of the room,
his presence obvious
, but giving my mother and
me
the space we needed.  I turned towards Danua once again.

She stood waiting for me, standing tall and elegant and as cold and beautiful as a marble statue on her dais.  Her hands were clasped just above her waist and her brilliant eyes shone with challenge, as if she knew the reason behind my abrupt appearance and was daring me to demand answers from her.

“You lied to me,” I ground out, my hands curling into fists.

She didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“You lied to me!” I repeated.  “I am not your only child, am I?  You have a son, younger than me, and you abandoned him to the world of mortals as well.”

There.  I'd said it.  The realization that had been clawing at me since it dawned upon me earlier that morning at Luathara.  I could feel the tears burning my eyes and the painful ache swelling in my throat.  Aiden.  My beautiful little brother, who I had always felt connected to but had never really understood why.  Until now.  Somehow, he was Danua’s natural child, just as I was.

“What do you want me to say, Meghan?”

I sucked in a sharp breath.  That was Danua, my mother, always calm and collected; heartless, callous, uncaring of the feelings of others.  And to think, I'd been moved when she'd shown some compassion at our last parting.

“I want to know the truth!  How is it that my foster
parents think he is their son?  Who is his father?  Tell me!” I demanded.

Danua’s mouth twitched and finally,
finally
, the mask she always wore began to crumble.  She let out a soul-deep, ancient sigh and melted into her throne, pressing her forehead against a palm.

“I didn’t lie to you about your father.  I merely left Aiden out of it when I told you of your heritage.”

She looked up and smiled at me, her eyes shining.  My breath caught in my throat.  Danua was showing emotion; she was finally letting me see that side of her the Dagda and Cade had always assured me was there.

“You have the same father Meghan, I have loved none but him these past twenty years and more.”

My heart lurched.  Aiden and I, we were siblings, full-blooded siblings.  I wanted to cry out in joy, but then I remembered why I had come here in the first place.  The Morrigan had taken him.  She was able to bring him to Eil
e
because he wasn’t human.  Because he was Faelorehn like me.

The anger at my mother vanished and I looked back up towards the throne.  We had to tell the rest of the Tuatha De that the Morrigan had sent her message loud and clear.  We had to work out a plan on how to get Aiden back, but I had more questions for my mother.

“How could I not know he was Faelorehn?  And why don’t his eyes change like mine?”

My voice was a whisper, but it carried well in this cavernous room.  I heard Cade shift his feet just to the left of me, but I fought the temptation to look in his direction.

His thoughts brushed my mind. 
Beloved?
he sent.

He had never called me that before and the sincerity behind the endearment tugged at my heartstrings.  I doused my own words with calm when I responded,
I am well Cade.  I just need to get through this.

Danua took a breath and answered quietly, “Because of the geis I put on him.”

I felt my muscles tense and a cold dread filled the pit of my stomach.  My mother must have sensed my reaction because she lifted a hand.
 
“Only in the mortal world will he be restricted.  In Eile, he will be healthy and whole.  He will be able to speak and act like a normal child.”

“What did you do to him?” I asked, my voice a harsh whisper.

She looked up at me, her eyes haunted once again.  “I suppressed his magic completely.  This is why his eyes never changed like yours.  Your brother had a very strong aura when he was born, and since it was such a big part of him, I had to hide it from the other mortals.”  She sighed heavily.  “I had made that mistake with you.  People notice you Meghan, because of your Otherworldliness.  I would go back and do the same for you if I had known it would have helped you fit in more.”

A hot tear made its way
down my cheek.  “Why would you do that to him?  Do you have any idea what it was lik
e for him the last
nine
years?  Growing up as an autistic child in the mortal world?”

How could she do such a thing to her own
son
?

As if she could read my mind, Danua stood up in one swift movement, the room growing darker as her magic reacted to her sudden change in mood.

“I did it to protect him, just as I did it to protect you!  Think Meghan, think!  I made it so your magic would be with you, small and dormant, but with you.  And look at the trouble it caused.  Aiden had more power than you when he was born.  Imagine what it might have done to him were it allowed to sleep unchecked!  His magic might have come to life on its own, despite the drain the mortal
world
brings upon it.”

I reeled back as if slapped.  Aiden?  More powerful than me?  My skin prickled with pride and fear at the same time.  What might he be capable of?  What would happen if the wrong people found out about his potential?  What if the Morrigan knew about his power . . . ?

I gasped and my knees buckled.  Cade was at my side before I knew it, gathering me up in his arms, pressing my head gently against his shoulder as he murmured my name between words of comfort.

“I don’t think she knows,” Danua whispered.
  "The Morrigan.  I received a letter this morning, and I'm assuming you received
a similar message
, or else you would not have burst in here like this."

She sounded closer, and when I had the strength to look past Cade’s embrace, I saw that she had stepped down from the dais.  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the pain.  Oh Aiden . . . The Morrigan had been so desperate to have my power and now she had Aiden.  He was only a little boy.  How could he protect himself from her?

A gentle touch ran down my arm, and I could feel Cade carefully drawing me away from him.  I turned towards the touch and found my mother’s eyes, so like Aiden’s, gazing at me.  For the first time in my life, I forced myself to look deeper than the surface.  I drew in a breath as I finally found what I had been looking for for so long.  Beneath the hard shell of a queen who had ruled an immort
al race for centuries there lived
a woman who had been torn from the man she loved and had been forced to give up her children to keep them safe.  I knew then that Danua wore her aloof, harsh demeanor as a suit of armor, to protect her heart from the terrible reality of the world.

A sob escaped my throat and I took my hands from Cade’s shoulders and fell into my mother’s embrace.

“I am so sorry my daughter,” she whispered against my hair.  “I am so sorry for everything.  We will find him Meghan, my heart, we will find him and somehow we will be a family once again.  I will bring you both here and we will be a family.  Please, just let me in, give me a chance to prove to you how much I love you and Aiden.”

I cried and I cried as she held me, all of her hard angles becoming soft and welcoming.  I stood there and poured my heart out as she hushed me and rocked me and soothed aw
ay all my pain.

-
Nineteen
-

Atonement

I can’t tell you how much time passed before I finally pulled myself together, but at some point my mind started registering lucid thought once again.  I peeled myself away from my mother and sniffled.  I could barely
detect
Cade, once again standing in the shadows of the room.

I was very grateful that
Danua and I
had somehow finally breached the chasm
in our relationship
, but the flimsy rope bridge that stretched between us was a far cry from the steel and concrete structure it needed to be.

“Tell me," I said as I exhaled a deep breath.  "Tell me
everything
.”

“Meghan,” Danua said quietly.

“No!” I hissed, “I need to know, please!”

I clutched my arms to myself, shivering at the bite of cold air that filled the cavernous space.  My mother sighed and gestured towards the chairs at the end of the room.  I moved numbly along, trying to organize the questions in my head.  Once we were both settled before the fire, I opened my mouth and said, “What happened to the baby Aiden replaced?”

I feared the answer to this question the most, so I figured it was best to get it out of the way.  Mom had been pregnant, I had been old enough to remember that, so there had to have been a baby.

When Danua failed to answer me, I feared the worst.  Before I could ask again, she finally answered in
a
small voice, “She was stillborn.”

“Oh no,” I said, “did you . . ?”

Danua gave me a harsh glance, her clear eyes slicing
through
the thick air.  “No Meghan, I did nothing to make such a thing come about.”

She sighed and began to rub her forehead with one hand.
 
“I always knew what was happening with you, did you know that?  I had someone watching you, making sure you were happy.  When your foster mother got pregnant with her fifth child, I had every intention of sending my own unborn baby into your world.”

She looked up and smiled at me, her own eyes filling with tears.  “Your foster parents had already had twins, so it wouldn’t be too unbelievable if they had twins again.  My plan was to make it look like Aiden and their own child had come into the world together.”

“How?” I asked, my throat feeling raw.  “How could you pull something like that off?  The doctors would know if Mom had been pregnant with twins.”

“Meghan, there are so many ways to use glamour, some
of
which you haven’t learned yet,” she said almost to herself.  “Glamour powerful enough to erase or even change memories.”

She glanced up at me, her eyes sad but determined.  “I would have had my most trusted advisors and assistants change the memories of all those involved in the birth of the infant and Aiden’s joining it, but I learned early on in the pregnancy that the baby would not be born alive.  I had a trusted friend use glamour to disguise herself as one of the nurses, then quickly change the memories of all those in the delivery room.  Your foster mother never even knew her child had been stillborn.”

It was all so horrifying.  My mom, who had raised me as her own, who loved all of her sons beyond description, had lost a baby
and didn’t even know it.  I wanted to jump up and slap Danua, to scream at her and tell her what a monster she was, but at the same time I wanted to thank her.  What would life have been like for my parents if she hadn’t given them Aiden?  Would the Elams now have a cloud of sorrow and loss hanging over them?  Would my brothers have turned out differently because my parents would always, in some way, be mourning the loss of their child?  I shuddered at the thought, but there was still more I wanted to know.

“What happened to the baby?”

“She was buried properly in the cemetery of your town, with other infants who had been abandoned or parentless.”

I shot up then, anger coursing through me once again.  “She wasn’t unwanted!  How could you!?”

Danua stayed seated, her hands folded in her lap, her forlorn face gazing up at me.  I wanted to shake her, and I was about to step forward to do so, but Cade materialized in front of me and wrapped me up in his arms.  I couldn’t hold the emotional wave back any longer.  I broke down into tears,
again
, sobbing freely as he rocked me and spoke my name softly.