Page 89 of Broken Veil
The Morrígan was the Crow Mother again, and her smile was a mystery.
“I always knew you were out there.” Seren walked around Carys, staring at the raging forest fire the Morrígan had conjured. “Is this your home? It wasn’t a small thing to find you.”
Carys turned to her Shadowkin. “You tried?”
“You and our mother were the ones to move across an ocean.” The corner of Seren’s mouth ticked up, and the expression was so like Dafydd that Carys took a step back.
“It’s really you. This isn’t just an illusion.”
Seren turned in a circle, looking around at the fiery landscape. “She’s managed to conjure your nightmare, which is no small thing in the Brightlands.”
“I’m not in the Brightlands. Exactly.”
“Where are you then?” Seren’s eyes narrowed as she squared her shoulders with Carys. “Is Lachlan with you? What do you think you’re doing? You’re not a hero. You’re not awarrior.”
“I know I’m not,” Carys stammered. “But Cadell and I?—”
“Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t enough to steal my husband, you had to steal my dragon too?”
“What?” Carys’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’tstealanything. Lachlan came looking for me.”
Seren started to circle her. “So why did you follow him?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Was she really fighting with a dead woman over her ex-boyfriend? “Pretend like my boyfriend getting stolen by the fae was normal?”
“In my world it would be.”
“I wasn’t in your world—I was in mine!”
“Fight.”
They both turned and saw Macha standing, blood dripping from her eyes, her hands clenched at her sides. A wicked smile curved her lips.
“Fight,” they said again, because Macha was two now, and Badb stepped from her sister’s shadow.
Maiden and mother standing against Shadow and Bright.
“Fight,” the Morrígan said, her voice echoing. “Fight. Fight.”
“No.” Carys reached for Seren’s hand, and her Shadowkin wrapped her fingers around hers tightly. “No, but nice try.”
“You brought us here so we’d fight, didn’t you?” Seren clutched Carys’s hand firmly. “Wrong again, saucy bitch. We’re sisters. Sisters may fight, but they stick together. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Macha and Badb opened their mouths in unison, and the piercing scream was bloodcurdling as a flight of crows flew from their yawning mouths, cawing and flying straight into Carys’s eyes.
“Carys!” It was Lachlan’s voice.
“Carys!” It was Duncan’s voice.
Seren shouted, but then the crows surrounded them and she was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Carys!”
She sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring from her body as her breath came in pants.
Duncan was already sitting next to her, his hand squeezing her own.
