The First Spell Weaver of Airendell: Book Two of the Airendell Chronicles (37 page)

“I am sorry, baby.  I had no idea.” Morna admits quietly.

“No biggie, Mom.  I love you.” Says Aiden telepathically.  Morna watches Aideen carry her little brother from the room and turns to the group.  “Does anyone know where Collingwood is right now?”

Kyle looks up and says, “Hmmm, he’s in the main hall with the weavers.  He’s having a great time with them.  He really enjoys the informal structure of our group.”

“I bet it is a drastic change from the way that he is accustomed to living at Alfheim.  The Elves tend to be very formal.  Even more so than the Norsemen.”  Luca says thoughtfully.  Then he looks at his mate.  “Why Morna?  Do you need to talk to him?”

“Yes, and then I think I should rest.  I am feeling tired.”  Morna admits reluctantly.  “But I also need to talk to Heimdall privately.”

CHAPTER 10 - A BLAST FROM THE PAST

Morna gets up and kisses her children and smiles at her mate.  She is afraid to touch him with the buffer spell down and Kyle in the room.  “I will be up and around in time for a late supper.”  Having said that she heads to the main hall to find Collingwood and Heimdall.  She is not surprised that they are waiting for her at the entrance to the main hall.  “How did you know I was looking for you?  Was I broadcasting telepathically?”

Collingwood smiles, “Yes, Lady Morna.  Broadcasting rather loudly, I might add.” He adds with a chuckle.  “Ask Heimdall your questions and then you and I can talk.  We have a lot to talk about.”

Morna nods at Collingwood and then turns to her godfather.  “Heimdall, can you teach Kyle to shut off his empathic abilities?”

“Why Morna?” 

“Because his hormone driven, pregnant mother is embarrassing him.  I can’t walk around reciting Oklahoma State statues in my head and maintaining a buffer spell around me all the time.  I have to drop it every time I want to touch someone or talk to them, and I can’t always control what the hormones make me feel inside.  I can only control how I act on them,” Morna admits with embarrassment coloring her face.

“Yes, that might be a problem indeed.  I have learned how to ignore those feelings when they emanate from you, but I guess your son might have a harder time with it.  I will go to him now.  It’s an easy enough fix.  I will teach Aiden as well.”  Heimdall assures his goddaughter and heads off to find Kyle in the family dining room.

Morna looks at Collingwood and says, “I finally placed where I know you from.  You were one of the Elvish envoys that visited Airendell when I was twelve years old, aren’t you?”

“Yes Lady Morna, I am your Elvish mentor.  But the High Council, in all their vast wisdom, forbade me from teaching you anything until now.”  Collingwood admits.

“Why?”  Morna demands.

“Because they thought you needed to be fully mature before you were allowed to completely realize all of your power.  I believe we could have saved you a lot of heart ache if I had been allowed to come to you sooner.  I could have showed you how to break the curse long ago.”  Collingwood admits ruefully.  Suddenly he chuckles and says, “Language! Morna, please watch the language.  Your thoughts that you are broadcasting right now are being received by your young son as well as me.”

Morna blushes and says, “How do I stop it?”

Collingwood mutters the ancient light-Elvish word for shield.  “That will stop him from hearing anything else until I can teach you to control it on your own.  Shall we go to your private sitting room?  I think I can have you up to speed in about twenty minutes.  We can at least cover the basics that quickly”

Morna nods and leads the way.  “By the way, today when you came across Kyle in the park, even if you had not been able to control yourself, you would not have been able to harm him.  I have a shield over all three of the children.”

Morna stops and takes Collingwood’s hands into her own and kisses them.  “Thank you, sir.  Thank you for protecting my children.”  Tears are welling up in her eyes.  “Forgive me, for the tears and the showy emotional outbursts.  Pregnancy hormones make me act quite the fool.”

Collingwood laughs.  “My wife was the very same way.  Most women of great magic and power are affected that way during pregnancy.  Fret not, you control it admirably.  I am linked to you as your mentor and I could feel every emotion and read every thought if I so choose.  But I don’t wish to invade your privacy.  Even so, enough comes through for me to say that you have a firm grip on yourself.  Today when you were in the throes of the blood thirst and when you battled that creature, I was impressed with your control and the organization you displayed in your thoughts and emotions.  I am sure it didn’t feel that way to you, but you had yourself well under control.  You are more than ready for anything I might be able to teach you.  The High Council can go hang if they disagree with what I am about to do.”

Morna laughs heartily as she opens the door to her suite of rooms.  She leads the way to her private sitting room and invites Collingwood to sit down.  “Okay, how do I control what I broadcast?  And who can hear what I am broadcasting right now?”

“Well, until you learn to control it, Aiden, Heimdall, Agnar, and I can hear you.  By the way, we can hear you through a Spell Weaver’s buffer spell as well.  But you don’t just broadcast willy-nilly, so don’t fret too much on that score.”

“Fine, teach me to control it.  I won’t subject my child, or you for that matter, to the nonsense that goes on in my head.”  Morna says firmly.

Collingwood chuckles, “Morna, there is no nonsense going on in your head.  You just like to keep a tight rein on yourself at all times, and the hormones make that difficult.  But you are not, by anyone’s measure but your own, out of control.”  He assures her as he pats her hand.  “Now, as to how to control your telepathic broadcasts.  Think of your thoughts as tangible things, as waves.  Much like you think of many of your spells. Approach this the same way, and then you will be able to control the direction you send telepathic messages.  With a little practice you will be able to send your thoughts just like Aiden does, but over much longer ranges, because you are much stronger physically and magically than he is.”

Morna closes her eyes and visualizes her thoughts as waves and compresses the waves into a cone shape and directs it at Collingwood.

“Exactly like that Morna!  Amazing!  I thought it would take a few tries, but you were successful on the first try.  Now ask Luca to join us.”  Collingwood says.

“That might not be a true test, he can hear us talking right now, if he so chooses.”  Morna says thoughtfully.

“That’s true, but he won’t eavesdrop, so he isn’t listening.  Send him a message to join us.”  He urges again.

Morna closes her eyes and visualizes the waves again, and directs them towards where she senses Luca.  Morna chuckles when she hears his voice in her head saying, “I will be right there, love.” 

Thirty seconds later he joins them.  “Morna, how did you do that so fast?  I could clearly hear your voice in my head.  I knew I wasn’t just hearing it, rather you were sending it telepathically.  It took me several tries to send a thought when first Aiden tried to teach me.”

Morna laughs.  “I just visualized my thoughts as waves and compressed them into a cone shape and directed them at you.”

“Nice technique.  That’s how you expand your offensive spells too, isn’t it?” Luca asks.

Morna nods and smiles.  She looks at Collingwood and says, “So when I want to keep my thoughts to myself, could I visualize a barrier around them?  Would that do the trick?”

“I don’t see why not.  Try it.” Collingwood says approvingly.

After a minute or two, Collingwood says, “Excellent Morna.  I don’t hear a thing from you.  There are few other things I can teach you later, but right now I need to confess my role in a few things in your life, and introduce Luca to someone who has come to help us.  I was planning on finding the two of you when you came in search of me.”

Morna and Luca look at each other in surprise.  Morna turns to Collingwood and asks, “Who?”

“Morna, you knew him as Lou.”  When Morna doesn’t seem to recognize the name, he chuckles.  “Your young man from El Paso.”

Morna sputters, “I hardly think that’s a good idea…”

Luca puts his arm around his mate to calm her down.  “Easy love, let’s hear him out.”

“Lou’s real name is Looveig.  As you may have already guessed, he is the son of the giant Lootz and Valgullveig.”  Morna gasps, and suddenly feels very ill and full of shame.  And when Luca starts to speak, Collingwood holds up his hand to stop him.  “Lou is not your enemy.  He never has been.  He separated from his mother when he was a child.  He has been living among the humans since Morna was a young child.  He knew nothing of Morna nor his mother’s vendetta against her.  He met Deidra purely by chance.  He could sense the magic in her and was simply intrigued by her.  After they became lovers, I contacted him and told him that his mother was Morna’s enemy, and that you didn‘t realize who and what you were.  Lou only proposed to you Morna as a way to protect you.  I must admit you confused both of us when you fled in the middle of the night.  Lou followed you to north Texas and later to Oklahoma.” 

“He acted as your guardian angel until the day of the crash.  He would check on you regularly as you lived your life in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma.  He didn’t recognize Kyera as a threat because he did not know about her.  I never explained your history to Lou.  He thought Kyera was just another Spell Weaver checking on you.  He had encountered Magdrid several times when she would come to Midgard to monitor you.”

“The day of the crash he had gone to Utgard because Valgullveig had been sighted there. Heimdall and I have been trying to keep an eye on you, but we weren’t very good at it I am afraid.  By the time I realized Kyera was in Oklahoma, it was too late.  She had already caused the semi driver to crash into your family’s vehicle.  I am sorry for that Morna.  I am afraid that I let you down, again.  After what happened in Germany, I swore to never leave you unprotected again, but I did.  I failed you miserably.  I should have told the High Council to go hang ages ago.”

“So, you are going against the wishes of the High Council by telling us this?” Luca asks thoughtfully.

“Yes, actually I am going against the High Council by even being here.  It took a lot of arguing from your mate and myself to get them to release the children to allow you to be reunited with them.  They believe Morna should handle her own difficulties without any assistance from me.  I think that is nonsense.  It’s foolishness that we gave her all that power when she was twelve years old and then didn’t teach her how to use it.”  Collingwood says with intense feeling.

“Is this Lou in love with my mate?”  Luca asks calmly.

“Not in love.  But he does love her.  They both had feelings for each other as friends, and friends only.  When Morna got her memories back, she blocked him out of her mind, but when she sees him again, she will remember that friendship.  Bear in mind, there was a sexual component to the relationship, but that was because you had not found her yet.  I would wager that Morna cannot even recall her husband Rolan‘s face at this moment.”  Collingwood informs the couple.

Morna looks deep in thought and says, “No, I don’t remember his face or Lou’s, but why didn’t you lead Luca to me?  You knew where I was.”  Morna asks bitterly.

“The High Council threatened to banish me when I set out to find him and tell him.  Unfortunately, I caved in to their wishes.  I could have saved you a lot of grief if I had been stronger,” Collingwood confesses.  “I knew you were strong enough in this incarnation to fulfill your destiny and despite that knowledge I still gave into pressure from the High Council.”

“What was meant to be, was,” Luca says quietly.  He turns to Morna, “Darling, if that had happened, we wouldn’t have Kyle, Aiden and Nora.  Find peace in that my love.  I know I do.”  Luca kisses her lips gently and strokes her cheek.  Their gazes lock and after a few moments she nods.

Collingwood laughs heartily.  “I love it!  You two don’t need telepathy.  You two understand each other so well.  Your mate‘s bond is surprising.”  Morna and Luca join him in his amusement and then Collingwood speaks again.  “May I call Lou to join us?  Heimdall won’t let him through the gate of the Bi-frost until he hears from us.”

“May I try?  Is Heimdall at the gate?”  Morna asks.

“Yes to both questions.”  Collingwood says with a chuckle.

Morna closes her eyes and sees her thoughts as waves and compresses them into a cone and gives them a hard push toward Heimdall.  A second later she hears Heimdall in her head, “You don’t have to shout, Baby Girl.  I will bring him myself.  I always liked this kid, and his twin.  I had always wondered where he had gotten off to.”  Morna laughs at her newfound ability and opens her eyes.  “Heimdall is bringing him to us.” 

Morna meets her mate’s eyes and mouths, “Sorry.”

Luca looks surprised and asks telepathically, “Why?”

“Because you are having to meet another of my former lovers.  I feel like a real slut right now,” Morna admits to her mate.

Luca takes her into his arms and replies, “Nonsense love.  When you are aware of me, no one else exists for you in that way, and I know it.”

Morna chuckles and says, “Apparently I was more aware of who you are to me in various incarnations than I had realized.  I remembered my nighttime adventures with you today.”