Page 31 of Queen Takes Blood
A low growl tore from my throat. “I hated her. She trapped me. She refused to let me leave her court, while my clan burned to the ground. When she finally released me, she took back her bond. I was free—but it was too late.”
My voice cracked with emotion and my eyes burned, dry and hot with rage. Silently, Brigid handed the flask to me, and I took another long drink of the cool spring water. She was right. It’d tasted better fresh from the source, but even now it felt like a soothing balm sliding through my depleted body.
My physical strength waned after days—weeks, I’d lost count—of traveling on foot without food or water or rest. I had no queen to fuel my magic now. I wouldn’t fly as the Morrigan’s Shadow ever again.
Something plopped against my head, startling me. An acorn. Another. Directly to my skull, thudding even harder.
An image popped into my head of a limb crashing down on me next.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered, tipping my head back to glare up at the limbs stretched overhead. “Message received, loud and clear. I got it. You don’t have to crack my thick skull open.”
Brigid made a low noise. I suspected that she was laughing at me, but when I turned a suspicious look on her, she covered her mouth with her hand and cleared her throat. “Did you learn what happened to the grove? Who was to blame?”
“My mother’s consiliarius—or advisor—worked out some deal behind my mother’s back with a developer to sell the land. She wielded the full legal power of our house and even arranged for Mother to be away visiting another queen near Glastonbury Tor. She welcomed the encroachers into our lands and when the first tree fell…”
A tremor rocked through me. Crushing pain and terror. Mother’s scream echoing through our blood bond.
Brigid laid her hand over mine. “You felt it.”
“Every blow,” I whispered hoarsely. “Every splinter and crack. The lick of flames. The bitter taste of ash in my mouth. They used bulldozers to knock down thousand-year-old trees in a matter of hours. By the time Mother made it home, only one tree was left, and it’s so damaged that I don’t know that it’ll survive.”
“It will.” Power rumbled through Brigid’s voice like low thunder. “It may be damaged but it has deep roots. It will survive, and one day it will thrive again. As will you.”
16
NEVARRE
Her words echoed all around me in the darkness. Everything she’d ever said to me, from simple good mornings to the deep, meaningful messages that she’d passed on from Gaia or the Morrigan. They both spoke through her, even though she was only human.
My lovely human druid witch. How I miss you.
I’m dead. She’s dead. Everything I’ve ever loved is gone.
Why am I still here?
I existed in a land of nothingness. I sensed the flow of time around me but whether it was a second or a thousand years I wasn’t sure. Only that I still had a purpose. I couldn’t step into the next life beyond the veil. Not yet.
Even though my Brigid was gone, and the grove was but a pleasant memory of my childhood.
Phantom pain rippled through me. So much loss. I didn’t know that I would ever be able to smile or laugh again. Let alone love.
I had but one hope to hold in my memory.
“Another queen will call your name. You must be ready.”
A shell of the former mighty Morrigan warrior that I’d once been, I began to despair.
Until something tugged me through time and space. A shimmering vortex of energy sucked me down, dragging me closer, a force of nature that couldn’t be denied. I flew again as the Morrigan’s raven. Wind rushed beneath my wings, coasting through waves of power.
So much power.
A shining star pulled me from the darkness back toward vibrant warmth and life.
Swooping low, I dropped to the ground into a blazing ring of blood that wiped away the black feathers of the Morrigan’s gift. It should have been impossible for me to shift. I remembered dying. Brigid. Blood dripping down her forehead. The spark blowing out of her eyes. Trapped. Then nothing but the cold, empty in between.
Wreathed in flames of magic, a queen threw her head back and screamed as power flared brighter. A shining beacon that pulled me toward her, along with her other Blood.
It doesn’t make sense. I can’t be Blood. I’m dead.
