Page 152 of Broken Veil
Seren snorted when Carys looked at the dragon, the yellow flower tucked behind his ear.
I heard that.
Cadell’s jaw was tight. “Do you even know who Macha is?”
The young man smiled with bright white teeth. “She’s love. And magic. Don’t we need more of that in the world?”
Carys looked at the man with her right eye and saw the swirling lights of the internet gods were still hovering aroundhim, but he seemed completely oblivious to anything but Macha’s enchantment.
He’s enthralled by the idea of her.How long until he pulls out his phone?
As if on command, the moment Cadell stepped away from the young man, the human pulled his phone from his pocket and posed for a selfie with one of the other young people holding flowers.
It’s not her they love. Not truly.
“Agreed,” Cadell said quietly.
Godrik glared at a young woman with flowers when she approached him, and the girl backed away. “They believe it is a game.”
“It is,” Laura said. “From their perspective, this is just fun.”
Carys kept walking, leading them from the front but covering her right eye so she didn’t get distracted walking up the narrow clay path that wound from the base of Cley Hill to the summit.
All around them, revelers sang, danced, and more than one couple was having sex under blankets or right out in the open. No one around them seemed to care.
Men and women dressed in everything from beach dresses to business suits were dancing and singing around campfires and bonfires. The revelers blanketed the slopes of Cley Hill, laying out tents and tarps. A few had even set up camp underneath the swirling, blood-red sky.
“How do we defeat her when she’s pretending that it’s all love and joy and peace here?” Laura asked.
“She has enchanted the humans,” Naida said. “There is great power in this place, and the more people come, the more attention they give her, the greater her power grows.”
Carys nodded. “More people means more enchantment means more and more people and so on.”
We must break the cycle. Kill their belief in magic.
Carys knew Seren was probably right, but it made her sad.
Naida shook her head. “These humans don’t understand magic. They have no idea that some of it is dangerous. They’re just drawn to anything that seems greater than themselves.”
Someone shouted: “They want to be part of something!”
Carys heard the familiar Scottish voice above her and looked up.
“Duncan!”
Lachlan.
Duncan and Lachlan were standing near the summit of the hill, and humans pressed around them. Carys felt a well of deep and overwhelming love as she looked at Lachlan.
It nearly made her weep.
It wasn’t the bright, fresh passion that she and Duncan shared but a tested and deep love that had seen decades.
Carys experienced a flash of memories that she knew had come from her Shadowkin.
Lachlan holding her hand and running through a field when he was no more than a boy.
Watching his bright face from above, safe in the hold of her dragon’s claws.
