Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book III: Tír na nÓg

Tír na nÓg

Something white glistened before her, not so bright that it threatened. The rest of the world had dulled into silence and smoke, but this white thing moved sedately toward her, closer and closer until it reached down and touched her with its nose, revealing itself to be a white stag, antlers forking up into beyond. He was her friend. She knew him. And the moment he touched her. The pain in Emery's body began to dwindle until it was no more, leaving her in a restful, painless, contented state she realized she hadn't felt since Bres had first touched her. She knew she was free of his poison at last.

The stag backed away, and the world around Emery came into view. The temple was in pieces, its stones having either been blown away or crumbled, and the altar was a dark pile of ash and charcoal. Cullen helped Emery to her feet, and they looked at the remains of Balor's eye: dark, cooling streams of molten liquid latticing the ground around them. The earth itself was barren, the grass having burnt away, but they could see the starlit sky again, and it was touched with a pale seafoam green, harbinger of a rising sun. Bres's body lay in a charred heap, still smoldering with the delicate blue flames that shivered across his corpse. Emery stepped toward him and yanked Lugh's Spear from his remains, not caring one bit for decorum. At least Bres was gone. She was ashamed to think of how she'd come to almost not quite like but, in a gross way, crave his presence as he'd visited her in those visions. Emery knew it'd been the Darkness within her, but she was still angry and ashamed of her behavior.

"Emery," Cullen's voice drew her from her self-reflection, and though she'd heard him say her name many times, it was as if a veil had been lifted, and the velvet smoothness, the comfort and pureness of her name on his lips, touched something deep within her. "Or is it Emer, Lady?" he added somewhat playfully as she stepped toward him.

"It's whichever you prefer in the moment," she replied, smiling. "But both Emer and Emery absolutely hate this dress. I really need to get rid of it." The white garment was definitely no longer white, covered in blood and blackness and singed as it was.

Cullen's emerald eyes sparkled. "I can help you with that later, to be sure, but for now--" He nodded to the side, and Emery looked to find the beautiful white stag standing at the remains of the stone pillars, watching them, wanting them to follow.

Glancing at Cullen, Emery nodded, and the two of them made their way around the emberous streams and toward the shimmering image of the stag, who slowly moved past the bounds of the temple and into the meadow beyond. With each step they took into that dead field, the grass turned a little greener, and the flowers began to perk up on their stems, color seeping back into them. Blues and white, lavender and scarlett, buds reforming, petals expanding, leaves uncurling. As the sun pulled itself slowly above the distant horizon, casting its ethereal sheen across the land, touching on the wings of alighting creatures just woken, a soft pinkish haze hovered like a mystical frost over the meadow, and the white stag moved slowly through it, toward the magnificent yew tree that had risen in protection of Cullen and Emery.

When they passed the places where the bodies of Elatha and the goat man had fallen, they were surprised to find nothing more than ash. And when they looked into the center of the yew, they found the Dagda's cauldron, normal-sized, just as it'd always looked to them.

The stag paused at the yew, turned and with its large black eyes regarded Emery, who watched as the creature bent to its knee before her in a bow of obeisance. The girl inclined her head in thanks, and then she watched as the animal rose and, all of a sudden, a woman stepped forth from the depths of the yew tree. She was wild, her dress made of rushes, a young buck's antlers at the sides of her head, dark marks around her eyes, but she possessed a sort of savage beauty that was familiar to Emery. The woman stood by the stag, draping her thin brown arm over its back, and said, "Daughter."