Page 53 of Realm of Nightmares
“She comes here often, High King.” The hag rasped, exhaling on a squawk. “Always asking the wrong questions. Always trying to make sense of that which is not meant to be understood.”
She dropped thevirdis lepatiteinto a gray stone mortar, situating it on top of a pile of crumbling bricks.
“What is it you seek this time, young seer?” the hag asked, as though not actually expecting an answer. “Most come for eternal life, yet that is something you already possess. Some come in search of love, but your heart is true, and you’ve already chosen your mate.”
At this piece of information, Tiernan’s mouth fell open but he quickly snapped it shut.
Still, his sister would not look at him.
“What of power, I wonder?” Inhaling deeply, the hag took a heaving breath, no doubt picking up their scents. “Is it greatness you crave? The ability to destroy your enemies? To ravage and ruin other kingdoms? Do you wish to seek revenge on those who would harm you, to make them suffer, to force them to pay for their crimes by your hand?”
Tiernan’s temper flared, and a spear of vexation shot through him. Ceridwen was not at all like that…not at all like him. “She seeks none of those things, witch.”
He realized his mistake too late.
The hag was in his face a moment later, her gangly fingers digging into his wrist and branding his flesh like ice. The tip of her thumbnail dug into his skin and her grip tightened. Her cheekbones were sharp and angular, gaunt, as though she hadn’t fed in months. Papery lips peeled back around uneven, yellowed teeth, and she bared them in a fearsome smile. Empty pits stood where her eyes should’ve been, as though gouged out by a knife long ago. Thick black ooze poured from the sockets, and her nose was thin and skeletal.
She was quite possibly one of the most terrifying creatures Tiernan had ever seen.
From beside him, Ceridwen gasped and stumbled back, tripping over a fallen, hollowed-out log. She clamped one hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
“Everyone has a secret, High King.” The hag tilted her head toward Ceridwen and each word hissed out of her on a ragged breath. “Even the seer.”
With that, she shoved him backward, and Tiernan tumbled out of the vision, landing flat on his ass on the floor of Ceridwen’s bedroom. The bog evaporated, and he glanced over to see Ceridwen sprawled on top of the pillows next to him.
He stood, offering her his hand. “Are you alright?”
“Yes.” She nodded, and he pulled her to her feet, helping her up off the ground. “Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Though it was more than he could say for his wrist. Reddish marks left behind from the hag’s fingers were slowly beginning to fade, but in their place, a blemish marred the inside of his wrist. Or perhaps it was a scar. He couldn’t be sure. It was small, outlined in black, but looked eerily similar to the crest of his Court. Twin mountains appeared, their peaks coming to steep points. Yet instead of the sun rising between them, there was a starburst shattering the skies.
Ceridwen bent down to collect the stones. They’d stopped spinning and were once again solid black, all the vivid colors leached away. She scooped them into the bowl with the bones and turned away from him, striding across the room to set them on her vanity.
“So.” Tiernan shoved his hands into his pockets, watching his sister blatantly ignore him. “Are we going to talk about this?”
“No.” She tapped her fingers along the edge of her vanity, refusing to meet his gaze in the reflection of the mirror.
“Ceridwen, you’ve been there before.”
Not long ago, her visions weren’t so profound, they weren’t so intense. Before, they were glimpses of events or moments in time that hadn’t yet occurred. Now, however, it was almost like Ceridwen was transported to another place, to another plane of existence completely. Everything about that bog was material—the feel of the pulpy ground beneath him, the stench, the touch of the hag’s frigid grip against his skin. He didn’t particularly care for the fact that Ceridwen had been there before, without him. She’d been scrying for years and if that was the case, where else had she gone during her trance-like state?
“What were you really looking for?” he asked, taking a step closer. Her journal was open, the pages blank, and his fingers itched to flip through the contents, to see what else she was hiding.
“Everyone has a secret, High King. Even the seer.”
The old hag’s words played back in his mind, and he hated that it gave him cause to doubt his twin. To question her.
“I was looking for her,” Ceridwen muttered, busying herself by collecting the assortment of crystals off the floor and arranging them in a velvet case.
“The hag?” Tiernan raked one hand through his hair, shoving it back from his face. “You were looking for thehag?”
“Yes. I’ve seen her numerous times, and it’s always the same.” Ceridwen spun around toward him. She fidgeted with the silk ribbons of her gown, wrapping and unwrapping the delicate pieces of fabric around her finger. “She’s the one that produces thevirdis lepatite. I wasn’t sure at first, but after this last vision, I’m certain. But even knowing that does little to explain how Carman or Parisa found her. For the most part, she seems fairly harmless. But the power she holds is not.”
Granted, knowing where thevirdis lepatitewas forged was helpful, except he had no idea how to return to the bog. The obvious answer was Ceridwen would have to scry again, but there was no guarantee they could return to the same place and the same time. Scrying was impulsive and fortuitous, and the gift of sight was often left to the whims of fate. But the hag had reiterated that Ceridwen was asking the wrong questions, which left him intrigued.
“She certainly seemed to know quite a bit about you.” Tiernan stepped over to the desk, casually flipped through the journal. Her handwriting neatly filled every page. Ceridwen either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
