Page 122 of Broken Veil
“Okay, no.” Carys stood up. “And I didn’t pull you into any dream.”
“Didn’t you?”
Carys looked around, but she didn’t see any crows. No starlings. No darkness or cold. “I don’t know why you’re here. I’m not in any special place. I was in the Brightlands with Duncan; then I was here. I haven’t seen a sign of the Morrígan since she drove those bison into a stampede.”
Seren stood and started pacing. “It’s possible that the crow goddess is thinning the barriers between all the worlds,” she said. “Not just the Shadowlands and the Brightlands. Valhalla could meet Hades. Elysium collide with the Duat. Gods and monsters would be thrown together if she succeeds.”
“And what would happen then?”
Seren turned to her. “I don’t know. No one knows because there has never been a time when the Morrígan could collect acolytes like she can now.”
“I’m supposed to find Annwn,” Carys said. “I think the plan is for me to find my way to Annwn.”
Seren’s eyes went wide. “No.”
“I’m just telling you what I’m being told, okay? If you think I have control over any of this?—”
“Mortals who visit Annwn do not return.”
Shit. That was not ideal.
“Okay… Well, a druid told me—or kind of implied—that’s where I need to go.”
“Find another way.” Seren crossed her arms over her chest.
“You can help me somehow,” Carys said. “And so can my mother.”
Seren’s chin went up. “Our mother.”
She was there. Tegan was there. “She’s really there, isn’t she?”
“It doesn’t matter who is here. Arawn is the king of this place, and he will not permit your passage,” Seren said. “Tell me what knowledge you need—what secret you must find—and I will find it. No doubt that is what the druid meant. No doubt that is why our dreams have been joined.”
“I don’t know what knowledge I need. I have to go and visit the Mothers.”
Seren frowned. “Which Mothers?”
“One is Oshun, and I don’t know the others.”
“Where?”
“Wales.” She shook her head. “Cymru.”
Seren froze. “You’re meant to visit mother goddesses in Cymru?”
“That’s what it sounds like. They have a bookshop or something and?—”
“Dôn’s domain,” Seren said.
Carys mentally skimmed the Welsh gods and goddesses she knew, but this one wasn’t hard. “Dôn is the mother of all the Welsh gods? The matriarch, right?”
“Not for Arawn,” Seren said. “Dôn and Arawn hate each other. It’s a very old fight.” She took a deep breath. “Talk to these Mothers and find out why they want you here, but talk tomebefore you attempt to enter the underworld.”
“How am I supposed to ask you anything?”
“The same way you called me into your dream this time.”
“I don’t know how I did it this time!” Carys said. “How am I supposed to?—”
