Page 75 of Broken Veil
“You argued.”
“Of course, but in the end, she reminded me that it was her trial, not mine. And that she knew she was right, and I needed to go along with it.” He shrugged. “I did.”
“And it worked.”
“It worked. They knew she was injured, so they assumed we would be cautious. I took one spear to the wing, but it barely grazed me. Seren passed out as soon as we reached the castle, but her strategy—or her lack of one—succeeded. Her instructors unanimously agreed that she had passed her training.”
“And she always reminded you of it?” Carys smiled a little bit.
“Ogwen Valley was our code, and she wasn’t the only one who used it. It was a signal that one of us was sure—even if it didn’t make sense—and we were asking for the other’s trust.”
“So when I said Ogwen Valley on the battlefield over Saris Plain?—”
“I knew then that Seren wasn’t entirely gone,” Cadell said. “It wasn’t my place to tell you that. I don’t know how she is speaking to you from Annwn, but?—”
“Annwn.” The underworld of Welsh mythology was an alternate realm where the dead lived on, usually carousing with heroes of old and the gods. “But you said you felt her die.”
“The dead may live on in Annwn, but they never return to the Shadowlands. They are lost to us. So when Seren spoke to you, I was confused, but do not take my confusion—or whatever the old one said—to mean that Seren is alive. She is not alive. I felt her die.”
“But she’s not really dead either.”
Cadell looked up at the sky. “The prophets of your world write of a realm in the sky where human souls live in the presence of their god, do they not? How is it different? Don’t you believe that is where your father’s spirit resides? Does he not live on in some way?”
“I don’t know.” She’d thought about it after her parents passed, listened to the words of comfort from the pastor at the small Protestant church in the woods where her father had worshipped. “I know what my father believed, but how does that square with my mother being a devotee to a Celtic horse goddess?”
“People believe many different things,” Cadell said. “Clearly it was not a point of argument for them.” The dragon leaned forward. “My strategy would have gotten Seren and I through Ogwen Valley too.”
The dragon’s meaning was clear: There was more than one path. More than one belief. And clearly, in this place, more than one god.
Carys said, “Angus told me something strange when I was pulled into his little pocket world.”
Cadell’s eyes narrowed. “You were where?”
“I’ll explain later.” She leaned forward. “He said: ‘There are realms of the old fae and the new, of demigods and demons. Before all this is over, you will learn to walk between them.’”
Cadell nodded. “So perhaps to finish this task and return the Morrígan to the Shadowlands, only a daughter of a Shadowkin and a Brightkin could succeed.”
“Maybe. But what do we do now?”
Cadell cast his eyes at the forge where Angus, Duncan, and Laura were waiting. “I suppose… now we must listen to the goat man.”
“You knowyou’re thinking the same thing,” Laura muttered.
“I am not. Stop.”
Carys, Duncan, and Laura were walking back toward the gate, following Angus’s loping, stilt-like lead while Cadell went to fetch Naida and Lachlan from the court of the local fae lord. According to the dragon, the meeting had been progressing well when he heard Carys’s call.
With any luck, the gate would be a little less terrifying on the way back to the Brightlands. They were halfway there, traveling through the scattered woods of light fae country, and nearly to the heavier forest where the fae gate loomed.
Carys returned to her debate with Laura. “I’m sure a creature as powerful as Angus will have some way of cloaking his…”
“Hooves. You can say hooves,” Laura said. “It’s not like it’s an offensive word. And okay, but if his magic is sourced from here, can he even use it on the other side? Or are we just picking up another random tall dude who’s going to eat a lot?”
Carys leaped on the conversational tangent. “They do have huge appetites, right?”
Godrik had still not appeared. It was possible that their quest, as much as he’d been dedicated to it, was something he’d had to abandon. It wasn’t like she could text the giant wolf. “Do you think Godrik is maybe waiting by the gate?”
“I have no idea, but I’m wondering if he found a local pack and heard something that made him head home.” Laura nodded at Angus. “Okay, seriously. Let’s say this dude has a glamour. Does he still look like he’s walking upright on goat legs when we’re on the other side? Like if he walked through mud, are there going to be little cloven hoofprints or footprints?”
