Sylas stumbled over mossy rocks. They covered the ground and lumped closely together. A panicky kind of sick swept over the prince. His head swam. Sweet sunlight shone through a dense forest of thin trunks, surrounded by mist. The air was sweet, and song birds chirped overhead. Sylas inhaled shakily. Crwys stood a short distance off.
“Where am I?” Sylas asked.
Crwys turned and walked away.
Sylas followed, the silver comb still clutched in his hand. He took in the surroundings. “Are we in Kilbarry?”
“It would be a mistake to tell you.”
“Why?”
“You have no knowledge of the new world you are going to face. Best keep it that way.”
They walked in silence a while longer, picking their way over the uneven terrain. The ban sídhe paused before the largest tree Sylas had ever seen. It would take at least five men to hug the trunk. The ancient roots clawed through the earth, rounding visibly above ground, and clutched a smooth white boulder at the base of the trunk. The stone bore gray patches and reminded Sylas of a full moon.
Crwys turned and spoke a word Sylas did not recognize.
Sylas’s eyes widened as the stone rolled back. A black, gaping hole opened behind it. “What is that?”
“Your people call it Tairseach an Ghealach. Portal of the Moon. One of the many gateways to the Unliving World. The darkness behind it is Conair na Marbh, the path of the dead.” The woman looked over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“I’m going to die now.” Sylas felt the blood drain from his face. His knees weakened.
Crwys turned and extended a hand. “The comb please.”
Sylas passed it to her shakily and exhaled hard.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Sylas’s heart pounded. He turned and looked the way they had come. This was it.
“It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Sylas swallowed. His thoughts turned to Ciatlllait. “What would happen if I said I was having second thoughts?”
“I would snap my fingers and you would be home. The king would stand here in your place. Quite unexpectedly, I might add.”
Sylas leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. His hair slipped forward and curtained his face. He shut his eyes tightly. Sionnach was a beloved ruler. The country would suffer without him. Séan would claim the throne, but the world would never be the same without Sionnach. I can’t imagine a world without him! Sylas thought. I love him so. A hot tear slipped down his cheek. But Laittie… my Laittie.
Crwys broke his thoughts. “It is now or never, my prince. I cannot hold the door forever.”
Sylas choked back a sob and blew out another breath. Do the right thing. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then realized who did that. Blast. I’m my father’s son after all. He laughed in spite of himself and brushed away his tears. He straightened, gazing at this living world.
“It will be easier if you believe you are already dead,” Crwys said. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. “Come now.”
Sylas swallowed and swept back his hair. He turned on his heel. Crwys extended her hand to him. He stared into the abyss.
Have you ever had the feeling you’ve forgotten something important when you walk into a room? Or gone somewhere and can’t remember why? There’s a reason for that feeling. A part of you has died. Sylas had this feeling when he looked behind him. Up a steep slope, a tree with a trunk that would take five men to hug stood over a silver boulder that reminded him of the full moon. It rolled back over a gaping hole large enough for him to pass through. He blinked. Something gnawed at him inside. It felt like those times one walked into a room, and had suddenly forgotten why. He couldn’t remember what had just happened. One moment he was in a remote part of Kilbarry with Crwys, the next he stood on the shore of a silver lake. Everything appeared silver, actually. A mixed range of silver, gray, and black. It had its own beauty. Trees like his own world, but mostly colorless. Crwys moved toward a rowboat.
“Sylas.”
The prince rounded. Crwys stood in the boat, motioning to him. He marched toward her and pushed the boat into the water, hopping inside once afloat. She began to row and hummed a tune. Sylas stared at the far shore, trying to remember what had been so important a moment ago. He peered over the edge of the boat. At first the water seemed placid, save for the ripples as the boat keeled evenly over it. An urge to touch the silver liquid overcame him and he trailed a finger in the water. Voices began to moan in a haunting tune and human faces rose to the surface. They reached for him. The boat rocked as Crwys grabbed him away. “Careful!”
Sylas crab-walked to the center of the boat, wide eyed. The hackles of his neck stood on end. His skin prickled.
Crwys chuckled. “Should have warned you. They like company.”
He looked at her, unable to form the words in his mind.
“You want to know who or what they are. They are the souls of those who have passed without attaining their life’s goal. And now they are trapped. They are misery. Misery loves company.”
Sylas dared peer into the water again. At first he saw his reflection, but the water became like glass and the faces appeared. Men and women of all ages and walks of life, pale as salt, with eyes full of yearning. All of them reaching desperately for Sylas, but unable to break the water’s surface. He shuddered and leaned back on the bough. Crwys stopped rowing. The boat glided over the water a moment longer until it came to the center of the lake. The crone rose carefully and steadied herself. Her hand stretched forth over the water, and it began to bubble. Slowly a golden orb, roughly the side of a large man’s head, rose. Light glinted off its spherical edge. Sylas leaned forward, fascinated. The orb throbbed with its own pulse. Sylas could almost feel it.
Crwys remained with her hand reaching toward it. “I am the queen of this world between worlds, but I am lonely.” There was a sadness to her voice. Her fingers writhed and the ball began turning. White light glowed around it, snapping with static. She glanced over her shoulder and reached for Sylas. “Give me your hand.”
Sylas crawled toward her and crouched nervously by her side. He reached up to her. The orb spun faster and faster. Now that he was closer, he could see it was engraved with runic markings. A shock of blue lightning twisted forth from Crwys’s outstretched hand and connected with the sphere. Beads of sweat dotted Sylas’s temples.
Crwys spoke in a trance. “I control the balance between the worlds,”
She worked in silence now. Her eyes glazed over pure white, transfixed in a far-seeing gaze that penetrated the veil between the living and the dead. She willed her energy into the golden sphere, and while it turned in the Unliving World, it did her bidding in the Living one. The orb helped her maintain order between the two worlds. Those adventurous enough to seek the orb met an untimely end. Those who sought it out paid with their life force, a red energy that flowed through all mankind. Whether it be passion, malice, or greed, the orb drew it out. Often it attracted the rest of the soul’s energy as well, for what is a man without passion? When the two energies connected on the sphere, they filled in the incantations of the life cycle. Crwys’s lips moved without speaking, chanting in silence the arcane language. She knew little else in her life. While she wandered between the worlds freely, her existence was lonely, her duty inescapable. Bound to the orb like a spinner to the wheel. It lulled her into a trance with no reprieve. No hope of a successor. No opportunity to befriend or love. She had to harden her heart to the thought of it. Until Sylas had offered himself to her. And for a brief moment, her mind strayed to him. She couldn’t help it. He was young, but she saw potential. And there was something about him that drew her to him. Something about his eyes, or the way the sun had kissed his skin, had blessed his fire-red hair. Her grip tightened on his hand, and that strange surge of energy she had felt at Killeagh renewed.
The orb grew brighter as the wall of energy thickened around it. The light filled Sylas’s eyes. The more flow Crwys placed into it, the brighter it got. He sucked in a breath as Crwys’s grip tightened. The light went forth blue, connected with the sphere, grew in momentum as it spun and hovered, and a red light zapped toward him. His body writhed as it connected. The scream that came from him was inescapable. Crwys wove more energy into the sphere. It hovered and the energy around it glowed bright white. Then a red energy zipped back again to Sylas. The feeling of being cut away at inside hollowed him. The two forces of light wove together on the sphere, inking in runic markings with a purple energy. He cried out again as he felt a piece of himself stolen. A small white light rode around the red one and dove into the core of the sphere.
The ban sídhe wheezed as though the energy took a great deal of effort. Sylas trembled. Crwys turned as a final red stream zapped Sylas. Her eyes glazed over milky, far-reaching, yet unseeing. He fell unconscious with a shudder.
Sylas’s eyes opened groggily. He laid on a cot in a small, creaky shack. Beside him was a nightstand with a flagon of fresh water. A bowl of fruit stood beside it. He sat up slowly, and instantly gripped his side, wincing. He pulled up his shirt and noticed a rash-like area. Purple around the edges, with lightning-blue veins coursing through it. He tugged his shirt down with a grimace.
“Sylasssss…” a voice whispered.
Sylas jumped and looked about. “Who’s there?”
“Sylassss….” it said again.
Sylas swung his legs over the side of the cot and braced himself. He did not recognize the voice. More joined in, all whispering his name. Small orbs of light floated into the shack, illuminating it with an incandescent glow.
“You needn’t be afraid.”
Sylas squinted at them. “Who are you? Where am I?”
One came near to his face. Sylas made out the figure of a tiny, nude woman with white-fire wings. “We are the fae.”
“The fae,” Sylas repeated. He scarcely believed it. Tales his nursemaid told him come to life.
“We ask you to listen. The ban sídhe, Crwys, is not to be trusted. You must escape the Wolfmarsh by any means necessary.”
“Wolfmarsh?”
“You know it as Knockrath. Our worlds are separated by only a veil. In your world Crwys is the washer woman who keens out the living, but her true power is here as the Witch of Wolfmarsh. You do not belong here, Sylas of Killeagh. The Wolfmarsh is our world, the faery world, only the dead may wander in it.”
My world? Knockrath sounded familiar, like a forgotten memory. A flash of the large tree crowding the moon-like boulder entered his mind. That moment he felt as though he had walked into a room and forgotten why returned. “And how am I to escape?”
The fae was joined by another, a male, who whispered in her ear. She nodded.
Sylas leaned forward.
The fae faced him again. She inched close to his ear to whisper in it as the male had done. “You must take her power.”
“Her power? How do I— ”
“It will not be easy. You will have to watch her closely. Crwys is deadly. She will not reveal herself easily. She will keep it somewhere safe, somewhere hidden.”
“Is not power within oneself?” Sylas ask.
“Sometimes yes,” said the fae. “Sometimes no.”
Sylas rubbed the back of his head. He remembered the moment when he connected with Crwys, how an energy had surged through his arm. “Could I have taken some of it already if we touched?”
“The touch of death is far reaching.”
“How can I trust that you speak truth and do not work with Crwys? How do I know you are not bent to sending me on a fool’s errand? All of the stories I have heard of you were of trickery.”
The fae flitted to Sylas’s front and shrugged. “That is only for us to know.”
The glowing faes merged to the center of the room to form a singular blinding light. Sylas lifted his arm over his head to shield his eyes. The orb floated through the shack’s front door.
Sylas sat up in a dream state so quickly that he wasn’t sure he had woken at all until a searing sting radiated from his ribcage. He lifted his shirt to see a purple rash with blue veins and was filled with the dread of deja vu.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Crwys chirped. “Good.”
Sylas scurried to the corner near the head of the cot he sat upon. Crwys poured hot water into a bowl and picked up a clean rag. “Let me see that.”
Sylas held his side as Crwys approached.
“Don’t be a ninny,” Crwys leaned toward him. “Let me tend it.”
Sylas kept his eyes locked on her and turned on his hip, trying to get further into the corner.
“Come now, my prince,” Crwys cooed, “it’s alright. You haven’t anything I’ve not already seen. Unless you wish to reveal you’re not really a man.”
Sylas’s cheeks burned a similar shade as his hair. He hesitantly lifted his shirt. He tensed as she touched him. She did not seem to mind. There was something familiar about her hands as she worked. Sylas watched her. Her hands were not unlike Sionnach’s, worn and careful. Sylas gradually relaxed.
“I am sorry I hurt you,” Crwys said without looking at him.
“What did you do to me? I remember light, a sphere, and pain. What happened?”
“I took your soul. All who enter the Unliving World must yield it.”
Sylas swallowed and leaned his head back against the corner of the shack. He remembered what the fae had said… if they had said it. He still was unsure whether it was only a dream. He lowered his shirt as Crwys finished up. She wrung out the rag in the bowl. Sylas scooted forward on the cot. “Who are you really?”
Crwys paused and looked at him from the corners of her eyes. Three small wrinkles trembled above her chin as an almost imperceptible smirk twisted the edge of her mouth. “Who would you like me to be?”
Sylas’s eyebrows knit.
“You let me know when you figure it out.” She moved to the door and left the shack. Sylas ran after her.
“Where are you going?”
“No rest for the weary. I must work.”
“May I come with you?” Sylas asked.
She paused and turned to him slowly. A smile turned the corner of her mouth. “I would like that. I should think we could be friends.”
Sylas’s boot squelched in a bog of mud. Tall, pale cattails and stumpy reeds reached toward him. They had a faint color to them, not all silver like the lake and the distant shore. A thick mist wove between them. The smell on the air stagnated. His nose wrinkled. He followed Crwys. “That sphere. Does it hold every soul?”
Weeds grew up quickly around his ankles with each step, trying to catch him. He moved faster until he broke into a run. He slipped and slid over patches of mud. The weeds grabbed at him again. He struggled to keep up with the crone who wasn’t exceptionally fast to begin with.
“It takes the life force of every living being. It is very powerful. I only visit the great families of the Isle. I am bound to the sphere here while it collects the living.”
If weeds weren’t reaching for the prince’s every step, thick roots were. He stopped and fitted his fists to his waist. The vines and weeds tightened around his calves. Why was everything trying to kill him? “A little help, please,” he called to Crwys.
She waved her hands and the vegetation ceased its animation. Sylas trotted to catch up with her. “How are you bound to it?”
“A piece of my soul lives inside.”
The place where his heart should be thundered. “Am I bound to it?”
Crwys glanced at him. Her lips pressed together. She returned her sight to the place ahead. “We are here.”
Sylas looked around. It didn’t appear to be any place special. The mist was thick here. The ground patchy with vines, roots, and standing water. He could vaguely make out a tree in the center of this marshy, swampy place.
Crwys placed a finger to her lips. Sylas crouched in a bush beside her. She hovered her hand over the earth and it rumbled. The ground gave way as the orb rose. Sylas wondered if it was the same one as the lake. It looked the same.
Blue light flowed from the ban sídhe’s hands in electric waves. The golden sphere hovered several feet before her. The light connected with it. The sphere amplified the light and shot it off into the distance where a man’s voice screamed. Sylas crouched lower and sucked in a breath, sure that Crwys was killing someone. He did not want to disturb her for fear of being injured again. Just the sound of the energy connecting with the orb made him wince.
Another man’s voice far off in the distance also screamed.
The pattern continued for hours. Blue light surged from Crwys, inking in the symbols on the sphere. Red light shot from the other side into the mist. Someone screamed. The red light inked in the symbols with the blue, filling them with purple light. The cycle continued until the screaming died away.
Sylas watched the energy from the orb shoot back into Crwys and it fell from mid-air. The glaze over her eyes faded and she stared blankly into the mist. Her shoulders rose and fell in rapid succession with her breath. When her senses came to her, she looked about and wiped her palms on her robe. The orb twitched with random pops of electric energy, coils of light that arced over it like tiny bolts of lightning.
He awed at Crwys and wondered what had overcome her when she had ceased her work for little reason. She had just… stopped. He watched her pull back the hood of her cloak and could almost see what she must have looked like as a girl so very long ago. The outline was there in her high cheekbone, the curve of her jaw behind her ear. A singular line in her neck. Her voice flowed forth in a song of words he did not recognize. He watched the earth swallow the orb. Crwys turned and stared back in the direction of her shack. She seemed lost for a moment. Her chin trembled. She pulled the hood of her cloak over her hair and moved forward. He watched her fade through the mist. When she had vanished, he returned his gaze to the spot where the orb had disappeared to. Was this the source of her power? Was this what the fae had told him to find?
He rubbed the back of his neck. The fae had said she would not reveal her power easily, that she would keep it some place safe and hidden. It had risen from a lake and the earth. It was hidden in several places. Did she move it? This far out in the middle of seemingly nowhere seemed safe, and it was certainly hidden, but it was too easy. All he had to do was dig it up and take it.
Sylas crept forward. A dry patch of earth throbbed beneath his palm. It pulled him in. Closer. Closer. The energy radiated. He felt it through his whole body. He sank his finger tips into the earth. The soil turned over with a little effort. He dug eagerly like his father’s hunting dogs seeking their treasured bones around the castle grounds. He dug and dug, refusing to believe that the orb would simply vanish. He had watched it with his own eyes be swallowed by the earth. How far down could it possibly go? He dug elbow’s deep. Shoulder deep. Face to the earth deep. At last he could hear it. Inches away. And then zap!
Sylas arced through the air and landed on his back. The air rushed out of him in a cloud of white. He stared skyward and felt as though he watched his soul leave him in that airy stream. A strange sound came from near his feet. He sat up slowly and watched the earth fill in the hole by itself until at last it seemed as though no one had dug there to begin with. Sylas caught his breath and lurched forward. The energy had quieted, as though to conceal itself, but it was still there. He placed his hand on the the spot where he had dug and breathed slowly. Something reached up through him, coiling around his arm and rooting his hand to the spot, connecting him with the land. He dare not open his eyes. It was inwardly electric and yet very physical all at the same time. His lips began moving without his consent and he somehow repeated what Crwys had spoken. The earth trembled and the energy grew. His lips began moving more quickly. He thought the orb might be growing closer to him. The soil began to break. Sylas opened his eyes and was thrown backwards once more. He growled, punched the moss beneath him, and crawled back over to the spot. He shut his eyes once more and focused all of his being into the earth. The earth quaked. He felt a smooth, cool roundness beneath his palm. He swallowed and spoke the words louder with more command. The earth breaking beneath him was audible now. The sphere pressed up against his hand like an emerging root. He could feel the markings beneath his fingers. The orb came to life with a flowing energy. Sylas slid his other hand beneath it and clutched it to his chest. He spoke his name in the arcane tongue, not sure where the knowledge had come from. The orb trembled in his arms. Sylas opened his eyes and dared to gaze upon it. Tiny dots of purple light ran through the ancient symbols like souls on a pilgrimage. Radiating to the center and back out again. Sylas’s gaze locked on it, drawn to its power. He wondered how he was going to secret it away from Crwys.
It would be suspicious if he removed it from the area. Crwys would notice. He forced himself to break his gaze and look around. What if she moved it regularly? If it was never in the same place twice, it would certainly be kept secret and safe. Something in him told him to take it.
Sylas bolted.
Bury it! he thought. Yet he hugged it tighter and tighter. There was an unseen force radiating within him. It didn’t want to put the sphere down. It wanted to keep it. Bury it now! The sphere tugged at his soul, calling to him. He breathed hard. There was a line of willows ahead. He skirted beneath them and started digging. The sphere began to glow and surge with its power. Sylas shook his head and grabbed it quickly, shoving it beneath the soil. He swept the earth over it and placed his hand on the mound. He choked on the archaic words that flowed from him as though someone else said them. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like smooth stones forcing their way from his gullet, and gushing from his tongue like a sluice.
Sylas looked up and tried to get his bearings, tried to memorize the area. He didn’t realize how fast he was breathing until he sucked in a deep breath. The force of it made him sure his lungs would burst. He lowered his head and trembled. The longer he connected with the earth simply by being there, by touching it, the louder he heard his name drumming in his ears. He rose quickly. His head swam. A sick pit in his stomach formed, and threatened to rise. Sylas squinted through the haze. He hoped the shack was this way.
Sylas gripped the doorway of the little shack. A small cauldron bubbled over a fire outside. Crwys rounded the edge of the shack with a short stack of logs in her arms. She paused and looked at him. “Where have you been? I thought you were right behind me.”
Sylas blinked at her. He swallowed against the pit that had now risen to his throat. “I wanted to explore.”
Crwys dropped the logs near the fire and stoked the coals. “Hmm, yes. It has its own beauty, does it not? Still, I don’t want you wandering off. Souls are lost here.”
Sylas huffed. “I noticed.”
Crwys glanced over her shoulder, then back at the fire wordlessly.
Sylas swallowed again. That didn’t look good. He went into the shack, laid down on the cot, and closed his eyes.
“Sylasssss…” a voice whispered.
Sylass squeezed his eyes tight.
“Sylasssss…”
Sylas sighed and opened his eyes. The shack glowed blue with the light of the fae.
“Did you find it Sylas?”
Sylas rolled his eyes. “I’m…. I’m not sure.”
“You must find it and leave the Wolfmarsh as quickly as possible.” The female fae flitted close to his nose. Sylas’s eyes widened with the glow of her. “It’s not safe here.”
“She doesn’t seem to mean me harm. In fact, I think she likes me a little. She wants to teach me things.”
“Crwys is not what she seems. Do not drink the water. Do not eat the stew.” The fae winged backwards toward the door and her friends formed a glowing orb around her.
Sylas rolled on to his side and slung his arm over the soft curve of a young woman. A dull ache within the core of him, the emptiness where he was sure a piece of his soul was missing, stirred as if trying to remember something. Vague imagery of golden curls and eyes like sapphires filled his mind. Instinctively he curled into the girl beside him and bent his head to the back of hers. Something about mountain laurel and wild earth. But this one did not smell the same. Sylas opened his eyes slowly to red hair like his own, only darker and flowing. He tensed at first. The woman rolled over in his arms with a sleepy smile and sighed dreamily. Sylas’s breath caught at her beauty. He noticed a carved shell hanging from a golden cord about her neck. He began to reach for it with curiosity. Her green eyes opened. She wove her fingers with Sylas’s and rolled on top of him. Sylas swallowed. The young woman leaned over him. The shell swung back and forth hypnotically. Sylas stared at it, then past it to her breasts. The girl leaned down and began kissing his throat and neck. Sylas shut his eyes. His entire body tingled. He took in a sharp breath as her hips drove against his and he felt himself respond.
“Who are you?” he asked raspily.
She leaned in close and slipped her lips around his ear lobe before whispering, “I can be whoever you want me to be.”
Sylas opened his eyes and suddenly the golden-haired girl from a sleeping memory was straddling him. She let slip her robes. Sylas’s eyebrows raised.
“Do you like me better like this, Sylas?” she asked.
Sylas gripped her hips. She tipped her head back and moaned. He gasped as she changed back to the red head, and once again to blonde. She seemed so familiar.
Her hands slid down her throat. “Say my name.”
Sylas froze when he saw a black footed arc with a slash through it on her hand. A forgotten name flew from his lips with a deep sense of haunting. “Ciatlllait!”
Sylas pushed her away and tumbled from the cot in a tangle. He landed on the floor with his back to her. His palms pressed against the cool, worn floorboards, the breath swept from him. She came flooding back to him in all of her sweetness. The memory of her heart throbbing next to his as he kissed her for the last time in the rain. Sylas turned over, eyes narrowed. “You.”
Crwys hurriedly grabbed her cloak and pulled it about her in the corner of the cot. She clutched her cloak and shivered in the corner, reaching out to the prince. “Sylas— ”
Sylas crab-walked to the doorway, then darted outside.
Crwys followed, hobbling swiftly behind him. “Sylas…”
Sylas rounded on her. He bit his lip to keep from speaking hotly.
“Sylas,” Crwys began again, “I—”
“No.” Sylas stopped her. “No.”
Crwys looked at him with sad, yearning eyes. “I’m so lonely.”
Sylas shook his head.
“I can make you happy here. Please let me try.”
“Why am I here anyway? Am I your prisoner? Am I slave to your passions?”
“You promised.”
“Promised what?”
Crwys breathed rapidly. “To tell you would be to break a law of this world. You would remember everything. It wouldn’t be fair—
“Wouldn’t be fair? To who?”
“It would only cause you pain. You are bound to me now. Please let me be your friend.”
Sylas squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hanging on to the image of Ciatlllait in the rain with all of his might. “I want to go home. Now.”
Crwys’s lips trembled. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
She moved quickly to the fire pit and began ladling soup into a bowl and offered it to him. “This will make you feel better. Eat.”
Sylas knocked it away. Crwys stumbled backwards. He caught her wrist before she fell. Crwys yelped as her arm twisted.
“I don’t belong here,” Sylas growled. He let her go. Crwys crumpled on the ground and watched Sylas storm away.
Sylas returned to the buried sphere. There was an unnatural tug drawing him to it. Like it was part of him. He crouched over it and placed his hand on the ground. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Energy wrapped around his arm in serpentine, surging through his bones. The words slipped from his mouth. He didn’t fight it this time. He only accepted. The orb worked its way up toward him until it hovered in the air before him, alive with a wall of white energy coursing around it. He opened his eyes and the glow of it reflected in them. The tiny purple surges worked their way through the road map of markings.
“How do I get you out of here?” he said aloud. “I want to go home to Ciatlllait.”
Sylas… a voice spoke in his mind. Sylas gasped when he recognized the voice as his own. The orb pulsed with each word. You are bound to this sphere for as long as you remain here. Crwys has been freed. An imprint of the way out remains from her time in the sphere. If you leave the Unliving World, another soul will be imprisoned.
Crwys wandered the Wolfmarsh frantically. Where is he? She thought in distress. “And where is it?”
She sent tendrils of energy forth from herself, calling to the sphere. She needed it. It had always called to her. Why wasn’t it where she left it? Why did it not call for her now? I am here. I do your bidding. Why do you not seek me? The lives of men are ours to claim. The threat of unbalance looms without you…
She spun on her heel. Her white hair whipped around. She raised her hands to the heavens, trying to feel the energy, the life force of the sphere. There was work to be done. She returned to the spot where she buried it once more and looked closer. Footprints, tracks, of a man walked from the spot out into the mist. She followed them to a line of willows where the tracks ended. She closed her eyes and stretched her hands into the void, feeling for the last life force that was here. Mentally she connected the last burial spot with this one to the shack. They formed a perfect path. Her heart pounded. She clenched her fists. Crwys tipped her head back and screamed, “Sylas!”
A figure paused a short distance away. She knew at once who it was. “You’re making a mistake. Do not attempt to leave.”
The figure remain frozen. The stillness in the air hung thickly. At last the prince spoke. “What will happen to me if I leave?”
“I cannot protect you from that. What waits for you on the other side of the veil is only misery. One cannot exist in the worlds of both living and dead. The outcome is the same. You will return to me.”
“I don’t believe you. My love for Ciatlllait is strong.”
“Death is stronger.”
Sylas rounded. “That is a lie.”
Crwys pursed her lips. “I would not want to see you come to harm. I like you. Please stay.”
She heard his breath as he approached swiftly. In a moment they were face to face. “What are you going to do, Crwys?” he taunted. “Keen me out?”
The instability of her voice shook her. “Do not force my hand in this, boy.”
Sylas sneered as his eyes trailed up and down her ancient body, repulsed. “You’ve already forced mine.”
His shoulder knocked into hers as he went by, causing her to fall. He swept into the mist and vanished.
Crwys’s nostrils flared and contracted. Her eyes narrowed. She faced the kingdom of men beyond the veil. A mean, searing feel ripped through her. In all of her days she had not known a pain like this. It was anger and torment. She gathered her breath once more. And this time… this time her shriek was meant to be heard. She wanted men to quake at her voice. She wanted them to know of her betrayal. She wanted to hurt Sylas back. She opened her mouth and let out an ear splitting cry. A cry she had been saving for Sionnach’s death. It was song of men and kings. The cry of death. The curse of a witch. The wail of a ban sídhe.