Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“No,” she answered, brows furrowed, “and that is troubling. Change what you will, Xander. You are not the caretaker here. This is your home. You need to make it your own.”
Her words surprised me. “But I shouldn’t alter what’s been here for—”
“Of course you should! It’s a home, not a museum. I suspect it wants to change for you or others. Again I say, it’s no monument to the past, but a home. Your home.”
She was right, and it hit me that I had been living in a shrine. I never wanted to do anything to disrupt the magic in the cottage, but just having Lorne there, or having Amanda and Declan visit, or her kids, just those people changed the energy. And it was a good lesson because I was guessing there was a solar-powered television set in my future. Lorne had so many things he wanted me to watch with him, and there was a football season, and baseball and basketball to consider as well. But really, it was time to modern up the joint, at least a bit. Mattie was right. I didn’t live in the eighteenth century, and there were things, like a cell phone, that I actually needed. It was time to embrace the twenty-first century—within reason. There could never be electricity on Corvus because it would disrupt the ley lines, among many other things, but change was good.
“And always remember,” Mattie said, breaking into my thoughts. “This building retains magic from many souls over the years, but the true living, breathing magic is in you.”
And she was right. It was a good reminder.
Once I was dressed, I faced my aunt many times removed. “Tell me about Threun.”
“He is a god of blood and destruction, from the mountains.”
Great. Not what I meant. “What about him getting through the rift?”
“Spencer helped make this house impenetrable to the fae,” she told me, singing his praises, I was guessing, so I’d understand the weight of her loss. “He was my friend and my love, and Libitina, Threun’s acolyte, murdered him, and everyone else in that barn.”
“Libitina?”
She nodded.
“I’m missing something,” I said out loud.
“Threun’s plan,” she explained, “attempted by his servant, Libitina, was for him to cross through the rift using the bodies as a bridge.”
“Right.”
“But, as you know, they had the wrong rift. It was too small to bring over a god.”
“Okay. That all follows, but how did Libitina find out about ours?”
She grimaced in pain. “I was…bereft. And in my anguish, I said more than I should have.”
“About our home.”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“When I fled, she followed me here.”
“And then?”
“Attacked me so I was forced to kill her.” She stated and her voice was devoid of emotion.
Mattie wasn’t fooling me. I knew she wanted to kill Libitina for murdering Spencer. But her hands were clean because technically, it wasn’t revenge. She’d killed out of necessity. Mattie was defending Corvus once she was back on our land. That made sense. I had no quarrel with her over that. But other things still weren’t adding up. “I’m sorry for everything you went through, but that doesn’t answer the question about the threat I’m facing now. Because if you killed Libitina, then––”
“There was another with her whom I missed,” she confessed. “She was one with the shadows until the end when I was too weak, after fighting with Libitina, to rise and follow where she went.”
I was quiet, waiting to hear more.
“She didn’t aid the sorceress, even when she knew I was killing her, but when I was lying on the ground, she came and told me her name.”
That made no sense.
“I didn’t understand then, why not kill me? Why reveal her identity?”
“Yes,” I prodded her. “Why?”
“Because her plan, unlike Threun’s, would take time,” she replied sadly. “She wasn’t in a hurry, and she wasn’t afraid of me, not then, in my current state, and certainly, if she’d killed me, the land would have been on guard against anything and everything and that wasn’t what she wanted, or needed.”
“If she killed the guardian, the land would have closed itself off.”
“Yes. It’s only logical.”
It was. “But closed itself off to what?” I asked her.
“Threun is the death bringer,” she said flatly. “Gaeidhel, his wife, is the sower.”
“His wife?”
She nodded.
“Threun’s wife was there with you that night?”
“She was.”
“Okay, but what do you mean by sower?”
“She sows the earth, plants…that is her.”
I had to get my mind to work faster. “So she was also planning to build a bridge so Threun could cross.”
“Yes. It’s the only way an uninvited god may come through.”
It was one of those odd things. The crossing through was the issue, not being on the land afterward. Because if you were able to cross, clearly you were welcome.
“A bridge of what though?” I questioned her.
“Not bodies.”
“No,” I agreed.
“Threun’s way is to pave the way in blood and death. That only works, as you know, on unprotected, unconsecrated ground. Corvus is warded and imbued with powerful magic. All you have to do is sanctify it and there’s not enough blood in the world to taint it.”