Page 162 of Broken Veil
“Welcome back,” a soft voice said.
Carys opened her eyes, and she was lying in the soft glow of the Shadowlands, a pearl-grey sky overhead and a woman with flowing brown hair and dark brown eyes kneeling beside her in the long waving grass of Saris Plain.
“I know you.”
It was the goddess she had seen by the loch, confiding in the dark man who became a kelpie. She was the woman who spoke to her in dreams, whispering Rhiannon’s name into her ear. She was the goddess on a horse, warning her at every turn that danger was coming.
“Epona.”
The lovely woman brushed Carys’s hair back from her forehead like a mother soothing her child. “What a wise gift you were, Carys Morgan.”
“You gave me to her.”
“The only gift she asked for.” Epona smiled. “Well, that and being released from her vows, but her vows were always a choice, though she didn’t seem to know it.”
Part of Carys wanted to sit up, but part of her was enjoying the soft ground beneath her and the calm, clear vision of the goddess’s face. “My mother loved you so much.”
There was no half sight. No double images.
Maybe it was the goddess or maybe her half vision had fled. She was praying it was the latter.
“When she came to me and told me she had fallen in love…” Epona sighed. “How could I not grieve the loss of Tegan? Her love had been the sweetest of any servant in my memory.”
“Wow.” Carys’s heart swelled. “You’re a really old goddess. So that’s a lot a lot of servants.”
“Yes, it is.” Epona smiled. “But I blessed her for her years of love. And I offered her one gift.”
“She wanted to be a mother.”
Epona nodded. “She wanted to be a mother.”
Carys felt tears at the corner of her eyes. “But nothing is born in the Shadowlands except by magic.”
“So you had to be born in the Brightlands, and she could not return. For there is always a price to be paid. My only condition was that she bear you in Cymru so that your father’s Shadowkin could raise her other daughter in the land of Tegan’s birth, where I could watch over her.”
“Because Tegan didn’t have a twin in this world.”
“Correct.” Epona stroked Carys’s hair. “You offered a sacrifice as well. In order to get the Morrígan to return to the Shadowlands. Unlike the hero of Ulster, you are not a demigod, so you offered part of the goddess Dôn’s gift to you.”
“Yes. Did it work?”
Epona nodded. “It did.”
“Oh, thank God.” Relief flooded Carys, and she sat up and looked around, but there was nothing and nobody on the grassy hills except for her and Epona. “I don’t suppose there’s a way that you already healed the Morrígan without me having to give up part of my life?”
Epona shook her head. “A bargain struck must be met, Carys Morgan. And as you wisely said, there is always a price.”
Carys felt her throat tighten. “Any idea how much of my life I handed over? She was… pretty damaged.”
Epona frowned. “That? That was nothing.” She stood and offered a hand to Carys. “The minute she entered the Shadowlands, the magic of her believers here started to heal her.”
Carys paused. “So you mean?—”
“If you want a number…” Epona put a hand on Carys’s chest, just under the gold collar and right above her heart.
Carys held her breath and felt her heart racing.
“Five months you have given to heal the goddess. Five months of your mortal life.”
