Page 52 of The Rebel Seer

I look back to Ostara but all I see is a slight tilting of her lips, as though she should have known. She releases my hand and steps back. “Perhaps if you join your husband, sister, he will see I seek no claim on you but friendship and to bask a bit in your energy.”

“Her energy is not for you,” Rhys insists.

“My energy?” I’m a little confused.

Rhys’s hand finds mine and draws me close to his body. “I don’t know what she means by it, but it is your energy, not hers. I don’t know exactly what her goddess can do since no one has seen Ostara on our plane in millennia.”

She glances from me and back to Rhys. “You were not raised in a Fae household? You should know that your powers are always going to be attracted to a Fae with autumnal energy. It is your opposite on the wheel.”

“I’m not Fae. I’m human,” I explain.

She manages to make her snort sound delicate. “You are far from human, and I feel the Fae energy coming off you in waves. Your power is the power of Faery and specifically autumn. You are part of the wheel. You turn it with your own hands. Your power is ancient, far older even than me. How do you not know this, Spring? You married a death goddess and did not realize how your powers flow from one another?”

Okay. Whoa. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Rhys seems to calm when his hands are on me. “I am not sure, my goddess. I will admit I’m a bit confused. But to answer your question, Ostara, no, I did not grow up in Fae society. My twin is human, and my sister is what we call a companion on my plane.”

“The Earth plane.” She seems to taste the words. “We are connected to it here. I have been many times, but it’s been so long for my goddess. Ostara left with the Tuatha Dé Danann. She’s always longed for her home plane. It’s why I felt you and your power so keenly. Your spring is rooted in the Earth plane while Ostara’s has adapted over the years.”

“So you’re the host,” Rhys surmises. “You go by Ostara as well? I’ve heard some ascended gods take on the name of their hosts.”

“You are not completely uninformed then if you understand what an ascended god is,” Ostara says. “As for your question, my name as a mortal was Meadow, though according to Ostara I had many names over my lifetimes. I was born on a far-off Fae plane twenty-five years ago. I am the child of a high priestess and her consort. I struggled with my magic, though I had a happy childhood. I was told my blockages came from a traumatic end to my last life. My people worried I would not find a goddess who would be attracted to me given my bad dreams and flashes of past lives. But when it came time for my attempted ascension, Ostara came to me.” A brilliant smile flashes on her face. “She told me I was not damaged, merely waiting to pull the pieces of myself together again.”

“You remember your past lives?” I have met several people who claim to. It always makes me wonder where that light takes them and what choices we are given when we pass.

She shakes her head. “Not exactly. I dream some nights. I dream about being murdered, but worse I feel this ache because I know I’m losing more than my life. I’m losing something so important I can’t live without it, don’t want to. But I can’t remember what it is.” She waves a hand. “But this matters not. What does is Ostara is with me, and your father can bring her back into her power. It is why we are marrying.”

Somehow I don’t think the Devinshea who rules this plane is so magnanimous. If he is willing to unleash Ostara’s power, I suspect he’s going to get something out of it.

“Your goddess was weakened by something?” Rhys asks. “I did spend some time in sitheins connected to the Earth plane. My mother found a way to allow us to know the Fae part of our heritage, though only until I reached my eleventh year. This is my first time back in Faery.”

Ostara eyes him. Or rather Meadow. I don’t think we’ve met the goddess yet. “And yet I feel your elemental status.”

“I ascended on the Earth plane and consider myself the High Priest of all Earthly Fae. May I ask what happened to Ostara that she would be weak? I ask because I once heard a story of an ascended being giving his energy to save a loved one, and he was weak for a long time.”

I squeeze his hand because I know this tale. Bris gave his life spark to Daniel to revive him from what Arawn had done. It’s one of the many reasons I know the royals don’t trust the death god.

“Ostara gave much of her energy in battle many years before,” Meadow explains. “There are many who believe she should have waited and watched for a stronger host, but I am glad she picked me.” She smiles as though listening to something inside her head and then nods. “She believes meeting you here and now is a sign of good luck. She has been a bit worried about the king, but now you have settled all of her fears.”

“How?” I’m pretty sure the answer to this question is going to sting.

She is still, as though having a discussion with the goddess in her body. She finally looks back our way. “It is easy to see the purity of your magic. I can feel it. She worries about what she feels coming off the king. One of the reasons the king left the plane was to cleanse himself. I understand why he had to take control of the kingdom. The things his mother and brother did…” She shudders delicately. “However, no matter his reasoning, murder takes a toll.”

“So you believe my father’s dark energy was from the acts he was forced to commit to save his kingdom from my uncle and grandmother,” Rhys says carefully.

Well, we both know that isn’t true, but it’s clear to me Ostara doesn’t talk to the dead the way I do.

And it’s also clear Rhys believes me. Trusts in me.

His energy feeds mine and mine his in ways we do not fully understand.

She nods. “Yes. I know you will hear fearsome stories of your father, but he is not who they portray him to be. I have found him to be a tough but kind man. And a patient one. I do not wish to bind myself to him physically. He is willing to find his affection elsewhere.”

Yeah, according to everything I’ve heard, he does that a lot. I mean a lot. “So it’s to be a marriage in name only?”

“For now. I hope when Ostara is strong enough, my feelings might change.” She shakes her head. “You don’t know that. You can’t be certain.”

Is that what I look like when I’m talking to the dead? Because apparently I look a little crazy, and I do not take that word for granted.

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