Page 113 of Broken Veil
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “Defeating a goddess of war and bloodshed doesn’t seem like the worst idea.”
“I am not saying you should not thwart her,” Joshua said, “but you should not equate victory over the Morrígan with her defeat. Those who follow me choose to do so. Those who follow the Morrígan have their own reasons for that as well.”
“She used to live in the Brightlands, right?” Laura asked. “All the worlds were once united.”
Jibril cocked his head. “I think it is more correct to say that worlds were once more fluid. The gods have always had their own realms, but magic once filled the world. The gates were created when humans began to doubt. When they looked to reason more than the gods.”
“Who created them?” Lachlan glared at Joshua. “It was the fae, wasn’t it?”
“The fae are creatures of the Shadowlands.” Angus piped up from the back of the room. “They can’t create gates—they can only manage them. And lately they haven’t been doing a good job of it.”
“This isn’t about the gates,” Joshua said. “Or not entirely about them. The gates protect the Shadowlands. The fae would not survive in the modern world.” Joshua turned his eyes toward Naida. “At least not for long. You are creatures of old magic and the earth. This place is not your home.”
Naida shook her head. “No.”
“So the Morrígan once lived in the Brightlands,” Duncan said. “Once upon a time and all that, all the gods did. And obviously there are gods in the Brightlands now.” He gestured at Jibril and Joshua. “So can you explain why it’s so damn important that the Morrígan goes back to the Shadowlands?”
“She is breaking down the gates that protect our world,” Cadell said. “And she is drawing in monsters and imps and creatures that humans have confined to folk tales.”
“Gates can be fortified,” Jibril said, “And creatures can be contained. But the Morrígan is voracious.”
“She can’t help it.” Joshua spread his hands. “Macha is a goddess of many things, but blood and battle combine with a thirst for conquest and sovereignty in her nature.”
“The Morrígan’s nature drives her toward war,” Jibril continued. “She cannot stop herself, and all the gods across the world would end up rising to meet her should she continue in her quest beyond Briton.” Jibril took a long breath and looked around the room. “If the Morrígan is not contained in Briton, chaos and magical war will spread across the world.”
“And I’m supposed to stop that?” Carys rose to her feet and pointed at Joshua, her heart racing. “You said my parents gave me gifts, but my parents aregone. And they never explained any of this before they died. So how… I mean, how am I supposed to?—”
“Your mother’s not any more gone than your Shadowkin is,” Angus growled.
Silence filled the cottage, and Carys sank to the sofa again. “Not gone?”
“What did you think, girl? That Tegan—Epona’s most beloved daughter, the one the goddess gifted the power of life to—was just going to get stuck in a corner of the underworld for eternity?”
Carys gripped her father’s handkerchief in her palm. “So it’s not just my sister who’s in Annwn?” She looked at Joshua, then Jibril. “My mother is there too?”
“When she died, your mother asked to join her other daughter in Annwn,” Jibril said softly. “The goddess granted her petition. They are both there.”
“Ha!” Lachlan burst out with a harsh laugh. “Both there and both completely out of reach.”
“For you?” Angus barked. “Maybe. But not for her.” He pointed at Carys. “She’s of two worlds. Maybe the only child alive born to the Shadows and the Light. If there’s another, I don’t know one.”
Carys remembered what Angus had told her in the world beneath the silver pool. “How do I get to them?” She looked at Angus, then at Jibril, then at Joshua. “If I’m supposed to walk between worlds, how?”
“I can’t tell you,” Joshua said. “That is a mother’s wisdom.”
Jibril turned to Joshua, his eyebrows raised. “You want to take her to the Mothers?”
Joshua nodded. “The Mothers will know how to get her where she needs to go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Joshua guided them through the forest, and Carys walked beside him, trying to find peace in the chaos of her mind.
“At least you gotsomeanswers, right?” Joshua asked.
Carys’s mind was clearer, but her heart was heavier. “I don’t suppose you’re going to just give me an address where I can look up these Mothers, right? Or do you have to guide me to a bridge where, in order to find them, I have to battle a serpent or demonic cow or something?”
“Well, these are the only cows we have.” Joshua gestured at the small herd of European bison that lived within the forest. He’d been walking with Carys and explaining the ecology of forest restoration that the bison and wild pigs in the land trust were part of.
