House of Gods, page 29
The inside of the wagon was much nicer than the shabby exterior. Feathered pillows and blankets lined the floor and walls. Though there was little space for them to stretch too far, it was enough to be comfortable. Then, Master Selby took up the front seat, and off they went.
Darkness crept in heavily. Kerrigan didn’t know how he was going to navigate through this, but that was no longer her concern. Not as the events of the day caught up with her. She was here with her mother. Her mother. After all these years, Keres was really here. It didn’t even feel real. Kerrigan had so much to ask her and learn from her and understand about how this had all come to pass. But now, she was content to stare into her mirrored face and accept that it had happened after all. Her mother was real.
A violent bump jostled the inside of the carriage. Muffled groans came from its occupants. Kerrigan’s eyes slowly peeled open. Bright light momentarily blinded her. She didn’t even remember falling asleep. Just thinking about her mom and then nothing. She must have been so exhausted from the fight and flight that she’d completely passed out. And now, it was daylight.
“Where are we?” she croaked over a dry throat.
“Near enough to where we need to be,” Keres said.
She passed Kerrigan a skin filled with water. Kerrigan gulped it down gratefully before passing it to the others in the wagon.
“We can’t be there already,” Cleora said. “Rhithymna is two and a half days by horse. We couldn’t make it there in a night.”
“You’re quite right,” Keres agreed.
Yet as they peeked their head out of the flaps of the wagon, a great white castle appeared on the horizon.
Cleora’s eyes widened in alarm. “But how?”
Keres grinned. “Doma tricks.”
“Nothing can shorten distances, except the spirit plane and portals.”
“And jumping,” Fordham added.
Kerrigan looked at him in alarm, suddenly terrified that her mother had used Fordham’s powers again without his permission. “Did we jump?”
“No. I was simply explaining that there are other ways. So, this could be another one of those ways.”
“Yes. Don’t you worry about any of that.” Keres came to her feet and stepped around the others toward the front of the wagon. “Master Selby, let’s stop at the next post to break our fast and give two of the horses to our professor and her new student.”
“As you wish.”
A short while later, they all got out of the wagon to stretch their legs. The post that Keres had indicated was nothing more than a sketchy well. Still, they refilled their water skins and ate crusty bread, cheese, olives, and a bit of cured meat. Fordham went to help Master Selby unhitch two of the horses. Cleora and Keres were discussing next steps.
Kerrigan sidled up to Danae. “You’ve been quiet.”
Danae glanced down at the water skin in her hands. “What should I say? I left everything and everyone I love behind for a chance to learn my magic. And I don’t even know if I want to.”
“It’s not going to be easy, but you need to learn.”
“I know. I want to. I think that I want to at least. I don’t know.” She sighed. “But a Doma knowing about my powers. My father back in Eivreen. It all feels wrong.”
“I wish there had been another way, but you never would have gotten out otherwise. You would have died, locked up in that house, trying to suppress your powers.”
Danae glanced over at Cleora. “Will she really be able to train me?”
“She’ll do her best. She did her best with me. I have faith in her.” She put her hand on Danae’s. “I have faith in you too.”
Danae laughed softly. The light that had dimmed came back to her eyes. “Thanks, Kerrigan.”
The girls hugged, and then Cleora was calling for them to get on the road into the academy. Danae hurried after her, mounting one of the horses and waving at the rest of them.
“I’ll send word when I find something about your magic,” Cleora told her. “We’ll figure this out together.”
Kerrigan waved as the pair galloped off into the distance. Her first friend in this world with the woman who had saved her life on the spirit plane. She was sad to see them go, but it was necessary if they were ever going to figure out how to break this block on her magic.
Keres gestured them back to the wagon. “Come along. My cousin lives a few miles west of here.”
They got back into the dusty wagon and trundled along toward Keres’s cousin’s house. As promised, it wasn’t that much farther. Just a windy western direction on a relatively steep incline. When they finally stopped before the house, Kerrigan was surprised to find that it was a more modest two-story, built into the cliffside.
Kerrigan hopped out, stretching her sore and aching muscles. The door creaked open, and a woman stood in the entrance. She was of average height with dark hair and a rueful expression. Her clothes weren’t the typical Doma toga that Kerrigan had grown accustomed to. In fact, they were more reminiscent of a much more modest woman’s dressing gown that Kerrigan hadn’t seen on anyone in several years.
And it was then that it all clicked into place.
She recognized the woman.
“Holy gods,” Kerrigan said, taking a few rushing steps forward. “Vera!”
Vera laughed at the sight of her and hurried down the stairs. “Look at how much you’ve grown!”
They embraced tightly.
“I can’t believe you’re here. I thought you were still with Cyrene.”
Vera brushed Kerrigan’s red hair from her face. “After everything with my sister …” She paused over the words with a weary sadness in her voice. “I decided it was time to return home. There was nothing left for me in Emporia.”
“And she brought me back with her,” Basille Selby said. He brandished an elaborate bow. His strange clothing suddenly making sense.
He was also from Emporia, another continent months away by sea from Kerrigan’s home of Alandria. The world Cyrene had come from. Cyrene, who had been a Doma in her own right. Though the connotation had been different then. Cyrene was a human. Not like Keres’s immense power. She’d fought in the dragon tournament and won, taking her dragon back to her home to win a fight against the growing darkness in her world. Kerrigan had dropped through a portal to help, touched by Cyrene’s magic in some unfathomable way.
In a way … that maybe was just beginning to make sense. If Cyrene was descended from the Doma and Kerrigan was also a descendant of the Doma, then they were connected. Cyrene had been able to reach Kerrigan across even immense distances in the same way that Kerrigan had found Cleora when she needed her. Vera had been her traveling companion at the time. And now, she was here. It was almost too much to believe possible.
“Well, this is unexpected,” Keres said. “Here I thought to introduce you to family, and somehow, you’ve beaten me to it.”
Vera laughed and squeezed Kerrigan tighter. “You’ve already had a long journey together. Why don’t we all go inside and catch up? I would be delighted to hear what sort of mischief you’re getting into, dear cousin.”
Keres grinned. “Of course.”
“Are you staying?” Vera asked Basille Selby.
He bowed deeply. “This is all the adventure I need for the time being. Send a summons if you need me again.”
“We will,” Keres said gratefully. “Thank you, old friend.”
“Always at your service,” Master Selby said before returning to his horses.
“And who is this?” Vera tilted her head as she looked up at Fordham. “I believe you met Cyrene once upon a time.”
“I did,” he said evenly. Back when he’d been a prince of nightmares within the House of Shadows. Back before his world had shattered.
“You’re not the same Fae you were then,” she mused.
“I’m not.”
“And Daijan?” She turned to Keres in shock. “I thought you weren’t taking on any more of them.”
“It was extenuating circumstances,” Keres said. “I did it to save their lives.”
“Fine. But it’s a disgusting habit. As with all your slavery in these parts.” She looked ready to spit from the fury. “Pay your workers! Imagine that. Payment, Keres.”
“I know, Cousin Vera. Change comes more slowly to the Domaran Empire than to your Emporia.”
Vera sniffed. “You just need the right person to lead the charge.” She shot Kerrigan a shrewd look. “Like this one here.”
Kerrigan raised her hands. “I have enough on my plate. Alandria needs me. Traitors took my magic. I need to find a way to get it back and a way home before my world is just as bad as this one.”
Vera looked between the people who had been dumped on her doorstep and sighed. “I thought I was done with revolutions, but it seems another one has come to find me. Let’s get inside. Tell me all about it.”
41
The Aftermath
Over a hot meal, Kerrigan filled Vera in on their travels and adventures. All the problems with the Red Masks that had started with Cyrene and her entourage leaving with their dragons all those years ago and ended with Kerrigan losing her magic and fleeing. Vera looked drained by the end of the discussion. They had defeated the darkness in their world, only to leave so much behind in Kerrigan’s.
“Well, that is … terrible.”
“It’s been pretty terrible,” Kerrigan agreed.
“Does Cyrene know about this?” Vera asked.
“I don’t have a way to contact her. They closed the portal after we brought the dragons through to help.”
Vera pursed her lips. “Likely the same people who took over were worried that she’d come to help you.”
“Yeah. That … would make a lot of sense,” Kerrigan admitted.
“But surely, you should have been able to take them on, on your own,” Keres said. She’d been oddly silent through the ordeal. Just listening to all that had happened in a world that wasn’t her own, but where she had left her daughter, hoping for a better life for her.
“Me?” Kerrigan asked. “I did the best I could, but I was one person against the government and a world of dragons.”
“Not to mention that they think half-Fae are lesser,” Fordham added.
He, too, had been quiet through the story. Even though he had been there for much of what happened. His eyes were haunted, and he retreated into his shadows.
“Right. That’s the whole problem. Unlike here, where there are very few Fae, our world is primarily Fae. They blame people like me.” Kerrigan touched her slightly pointed ears that gave away her heritage. Not human at all in fact. Doma was her other half. Not that it mattered what she was in her world with ears like hers. “And I didn’t have enough magic or influence to do more than tip the scales.”
Keres came to her feet and paced in front of the big bay windows that looked over the valley below. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“What part?”
“Your magic,” Vera filled in. “Right, cousin?”
Keres nodded. “She’s a demi-Doma. The blood is diluted, but not that diluted. There have been Fae-touched demi-Doma in the past, and they had tremendous ability.”
“In this world,” Vera said.
“Yes, but …”
“With training from other Doma.”
“I suppose,” Keres acknowledged.
“It sounds like she was doing her own training. No one can train her in Doma abilities if they have no recollection of what they are. Even I didn’t recognize her as a demi when we met years ago.”
“Well, she wouldn’t have fully come into her abilities then,” Keres said. “And I suppose it makes a difference, but I hadn’t considered it would make that big of a difference.”
“Are you saying that one person would have been able to take on hundreds of magically aligned people?” Kerrigan asked. “Just me?”
“Perhaps,” Vera argued. “It depends on the strength of the bloodline.”
“And I am … from a strong bloodline?” Kerrigan said tentatively.
Keres stilled. “You’re the first granddaughter of He Who Reigns.”
Vera snorted. “As if that means anything to her, cousin. He Who Reigns is half a faerie tale in this world. A scary story to keep kids in line. It would mean nothing to someone from elsewhere.”
“He’s my father. He’s not just a scary story,” Keres argued.
“She doesn’t know what any of this means,” Vera quipped. “So, maybe you should start explaining yourself instead of tiptoeing around the problem.”
Keres stood imperiously before her cousin, as if she wanted to argue, but she had impeccable control. She wasn’t a powerful magic user and daughter of the strongest person in Domara for nothing.
She nodded her head. “Thank you for your candor, cousin. As always, you get right to the point.” Keres turned to face Kerrigan. “Can we go for a walk? The grounds really are nice this time of year.”
“Uh …” She glanced over at Fordham.
He came to his feet quickly. “I’m going to find a room to bed down in. I kept watch while you all slept in the wagon.”
Kerrigan deflated. She should have anticipated him doing that. “We should have switched off.”
“You needed it more than me.”
“Ford …”
“Talk with your mother. I need the rest.” He bowed slightly to Vera. “Would you assist me in finding a bedroom?”
“Yes,” Vera said, recognizing the tension with a smile. “This way. Let’s give the ladies some privacy.”
Fordham met her gaze briefly with so much emptiness in those irises before they slid away from her, and he disappeared into the depths of the house. She wanted to run after him. He shouldn’t be alone in an unfamiliar house, brooding. The last few months hadn’t been kind to their relationship, and she wanted to begin to heal it if she could.
“Leave him,” Keres said kindly. “He needs time.”
And Kerrigan knew she was right. Even if she hated that it was true.
“This way.”
Kerrigan followed her mother through a door out the back of the house and into Vera’s garden, which had been carefully designed with enough fruits and vegetables to feed a village.
“This is incredible,” Kerrigan said. She’d seen planting like this in the greenhouses back in Kinkadia, but not a single person producing so much at once.
“Yes. She’s always had a knack for it. She gives most of it away to nearby villages or those in need.”
“That’s generous.”
Keres shrugged. “She feels she needs to atone for what happened. I won’t be the one to tell her how to do that. If she needs to be more reclusive and dedicate herself to the food insecurity of this region, it could be worse.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Most don’t atone for their actions at all,” Keres said as they passed the gardens and moved onto a wide, well-kept trail into the hill country. “I haven’t atoned for mine.”
“What do you have to atone for?”
Keres looked at her, puzzled. “You, of course.”
Kerrigan gulped and looked at her feet. “For … having me?”
“No, of course not,” Keres said swiftly. “Never for that. I hope you don’t believe me capable of something so cruel.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know you at all,” she managed to get out. “I thought you were dead for most of my life. And my life hasn’t been … easy, to say the least. It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t want me and that was why you got rid of me in the first place. Probably worse than thinking you’d died in childbirth, but honestly, right up there with my dad throwing me into the House of Dragons when my ears revealed I wasn’t fully Fae.”
Keres breathed out harshly. “He did that to protect you.”
“Yeah. We’ve had that out,” Kerrigan said. “I know he did it because he feared Vulsan would kill me. That he wanted me safe. But all I knew for most of my life was that my mother was dead and my father didn’t want me.”
“I’m so sorry, Kerrigan. I’d do anything to change what happened. I wish that I could have kept you in my arms. You were only a few days old when I had to leave you with him.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Why don’t I start at the beginning? That might make this all easier.”
“Okay,” Kerrigan said, soft and vulnerable. Just standing there in a strange place with her mother should have been enough, but the answers … she needed these answers.
“I was a different person when I met your father. You see, I was a soldier first and foremost. He Who Reigns had brought me up to be the first of his generals. That I might use my powers to help him expand his empire. I followed orders and razed the armies of our enemies and did what was best to his aim. I was insulated from any dissent or any knowledge of what I was doing to the people. I helped him create this.” She gestured all around her.
“You helped him conquer all these other worlds? Andine and Cendrea and the like?”
Keres nodded. “I did. Well, not Andine. My reach was farther away than that. At the time, we respected Andine as our neighbors. The kings as their own rulers. Their gods as their own gods.”
“What changed?”
“I was injured,” she said with a laugh. “If you can believe it.”
“Who could injure you?”
“A woman. I still do not know her name. She had magic, the likes of which we had never seen. She took me beyond enemy lines, and I saw for the first time. I saw what I had done, what I had built,” Keres admitted, emotion thick in her throat. “We didn’t speak the same language. I could only understand her through my powers. As you saw me do to you and Fordham, I was able to live in her skin through that experience. I saw myself as the conqueror, my father a slaver, and the destruction we’d caused in my world.” Her hand went to her throat. “I should have seen it earlier, but my father never let me.”
“How did you escape?”
“I didn’t,” Keres said. “She let me go. As terms for my father to leave her people be. A peace treaty.”
“Did it hold?”
