Divine by Blood

With a pop and sizzle that reminded me of Fourth of July sparklers, the rose petals exploded into little balls of glitter and became hundreds of butterflies. Then there was another popping sound and the butterflies became jewel-colored hummingbirds that swooped and dived and circled my laughing, dancing maidens.

My eyes filled with tears of happiness and relief. My daughter had been born safely, and my goddess had attended her birth. I relaxed in the warmth of my husband’s arms, thoroughly and utterly content, and gazed down at the miracle that was our daughter, Myrna…

“This is true magic,” I whispered.

A mother’s love is the most sacred magic of all. Epona’s familiar voice drifted through my mind. In the future remember that, Beloved. A mother’s love has the power to heal and to redeem.

I was suddenly chilled. What did Epona mean? Was something going to harm Myrna?

Rest easy, Beloved. Your child is safe.

I felt a wash of relief so strong that it made my body tremble. And then I felt something else and the trembling became a shudder.

“Rhea? Are you well?” ClanFintan asked, instantly sensing the change in me.

“I’m tired,” I prevaricated, surprised at how weak my voice sounded.

“You should rest.” He kissed our daughter’s forehead and then mine before he caught Alanna’s eye. She quit dancing with the hummingbirds and handmaidens, and hurried to our side. “Rhea must rest,” he told her.

“Of course she must,” Alanna said a little breathlessly, her hand rubbing her protruding abdomen. Then she clapped her hands and the frolicking handmaidens looked her way. But before she could announce that it was time for them to depart, the hummingbirds, as a group, circled the air above where I lay and then, in a flurry of wings and glittering colors, they exploded and were once more rose petals, which rained on the floor of my chamber so that the rich marble was carpeted in Epona’s magic. “The Goddess knows her Beloved must now sleep,” Alanna said, smiling in delight at Epona’s show of favor.

“Thank you for being here. Thank you for singing my child into the world.” I somehow made my voice sound normal even though normal was far from what I was feeling.

“It was our honor, Beloved of the Goddess!” several of the handmaidens said together. Then, laughing, clapping and calling blessings to us, they scampered merrily out of my chamber.

I could feel ClanFintan’s gaze and knew better than to try to hide what was going on from him. I looked into his dark, almond-shaped eyes.

“Rhiannon is dead,” I said.

Alanna gasped, but ClanFintan grew very still. His jaw clenched and his classically handsome face seemed to turn to stone. To an outsider, his voice would sound calm, almost gentle. But I knew it for what it was—it was the way he cleared his mind and readied himself for battle.

“How do you know this, Rhea?” he asked.

I tightened my grip on Myrna’s small, perfect body. “I felt her die.”

“But I thought she was killed months ago, when the shaman from your old world entombed her in the sacred tree,” Carolan said.

I swallowed. My lips felt cold and numb. “I thought she was, too. She should have died then, but all this time she hasn’t been dead. All this time she’s been trapped inside the tree…alive.” I shuddered. Rhiannon was a hateful bitch. She’d caused me countless problems. Hell, she’d even tried to kill me. But I’d come to understand that she was just a broken version of myself, and I couldn’t help pitying her. Thinking about her being entombed alive made me feel sick and sad.

Two hard, quick knocks sounded against the door.

“Come!” ClanFintan ordered.

One of my palace guards entered the chamber and saluted me briskly.

“What is it…” I paused, trying to remember which guard he was. I mean, they all looked so much alike. Muscular. Tall. Scantily dressed. Muscular. Something about this one’s very blue eyes jogged my memory. “…Gillean?” I expected he’d come to pay homage to Myrna, but the grim set of his face had my heart beating faster.

“It is the tree in the Sacred Grove, my Lady. The one around which you pour libations every full moon. It has been destroyed.”

My gut wrenched with a pain that had nothing to do with childbirth. “What do you mean destroyed? How?”

“It appears to have been struck by lightning, but the evening is clear. There is no hint of storm in the sky.”

The bitterness of fear filled the back of my throat, making my voice sound rough. “Did anything come out of the tree?”

The guard didn’t as much as blink at my weird question. This was Partholon, where magic was as real as the Goddess who reigned here. Weird was this world’s normal.

“Nothing came out of the tree, my Lady.”

“There were no bodies?” I made myself ask, trying to push away the mental image of Clint’s decomposing corpse.

“No, my Lady. There were no bodies.”

“Are you sure? Did you see for yourself?” ClanFintan fired the questions.

“I am positive, my Lord. And, yes, I examined the tree for myself. I had just been relieved from the northern watch outside the temple grounds. I was returning when I heard a great cracking noise coming from the grove. I wasn’t far from it, and I know the Sacred Grove is important to Lady Rhiannon, so I went there immediately. The tree was still smoldering when I came upon it.”

“You have to go look,” I said to ClanFintan.

His nod was a tense jerk. “Get Dougal,” he told the guard. “Tell him to meet me at the north gate.”

“Yes, my Lord. My Lady.” He bowed formally to me and then hurried out.

“I will come with you,” Carolan said grimly. Then he and Alanna moved across the chamber, obviously allowing me some privacy with ClanFintan.

“If she’s here, she’s dead,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt.

“Yes, but I wish to be sure that if she brought anything into Partholon with her reentry, it is dead, too.”

I nodded and looked down at Myrna’s sleeping face. Vulnerable. I felt so damn uncharacteristically vulnerable knowing that I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to my daughter…

“I will never allow anything to harm either of you.” ClanFintan’s voice was low and dangerous.

I met his steady gaze. “I know.” But it was clear in both of our eyes that we were remembering a few months ago. I had been pulled through that very tree and taken to Oklahoma, along with a resurrected evil we had all believed we had vanquished forever. And that had happened while ClanFintan watched, powerless to save me. I had only been able to return to Partholon through the sacrifice of ClanFintan’s human mirror, Clint Freeman, and the power that was in the ancient trees. “Be careful,” I said.

“Always,” he said. He kissed me and then Myrna. “Rest. I will not be gone long.”

He and Carolan rushed out of the chamber. I could hear him calling orders for the guards to double their watch on me and on the palace, which should have made me feel safe, but all it did was send a terrible wash of cold fear through my body. Myrna began to make restless noises, and I whispered reassurance to her.

“She’s probably hungry, Rhea.”

Thankfully, Alanna was at my side helping to arrange my soft nightdress so that Myrna could find my breast. I tried to relax and concentrate on the sublimely intimate act of nursing my daughter, but my thoughts wouldn’t be still. I had known the exact moment of Rhiannon’s death. The sacred tree that had imprisoned her had been destroyed. And then there were the Goddess’s cryptic words about the power of a mother’s love to heal and redeem.

Rhiannon had been pregnant when she’d been entombed.

“All will be well, Rhea.” Alanna lifted the now full and sleeping Myrna from my arms and placed her in the small cradle within reaching distance of my bed.

“I’m scared, Alanna.”

Alanna took the wide soft brush from my vanity and knelt behind me. Gently, she began brushing my hair in long, slow strokes.

“Epona will not allow you or Myrna to come to harm. You are her Chosen One, her Beloved. The Goddess protects her own. Rest now. You are safe here in the heart of Partholon, protected by all of us who love you. You have nothing to fear, my friend…nothing to fear…”

Alanna kept up a steady murmur of reassurance. The sweet sound of her voice and the gentle strokes of the brush coupled with the exhaustion of twenty-four hours of laboring and childbirth worked on me like a sleeping pill. My body was aching for rest. And just before I slipped into the comforting darkness, my last thought was that if there were no bodies found in the Sacred Grove in Partholon, then they must be in the mirror version of that grove in Oklahoma. What the hell was going on over there…?

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