Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(12)

“Cade Bausiney.” Bella scoffed. “The man you were practically snogging all the way from the Halt. Soon to be the Earl of Dumnos.”

“Not soon, let us hope,” Marion said. She handed Lilith her room key. “Lord Tintagos is Cade’s courtesy title.”

“Courtesy?”

Bella pounced on Lilith’s revealed ignorance. “His lordship was right. You can’t be the one.”

“I promise you, Bella. I am not the one.” Great gods. She’d already said she wasn’t here for the event. If Bella’s eagerness was an indication of the general feeling, there had better be more to this Handover than a show. Some fabulous consolation prizes were in order, or Lord Tintagos was going to have some very angry customers on his hands.

“The peerage does confuse me,” she said. “Everything I know about it comes from watching Masterpiece Theater.”

“He’s not dead yet.” Marion looked pointedly at Bella. “But he rarely leaves Bausiney’s End, the family estate. And yes, Cade will one day be Earl of Dumnos.

“Great gods,” Lilith said.

“Cade might think so.” Marion finally smiled. “But we try not to confirm his self-opinion.”

In her room, Lilith put away her clothes and ordered a pot of tea and a slice of chocolate cake sent up. After the meal on the train she wasn’t that hungry, and her inner clock was still giving her grief. She just wanted a little something and some rest. The waiter left a tray with a note tucked under the teapot.

We can’t all be wyrding woman, but some of us have our methods. This tea will give you restful, dreamless sleep. Marion.

How thoughtful. The Tragic Fall wasn’t the Dorchester, but it had charms of its own.





4

Frona’s Daughters





10th century Dumnos


Dumnos was a land of rain and mist, but not today. When Elyse emerged from the woods with the morning’s collection of fungi and botanicals, she expected the usual comforting blanket of mist. Instead, sunshine drenched the rolling landscape all the way to Tintagos Castle. The god Aeolios was abroad and in a bad mood, driving the winds in all directions and blowing the sky clear.

To the west beyond the cliffs, light danced on the waters of the Severn Sea. The glare hurt Elyse’s eyes. The great world tree Igdrasil seemed oddly precarious without its misty shroud. Perched at cliff’s edge, a stark silhouette against the sky, the ancient oak’s branches spread over land and sea.

Mother said Igdrasil would live forever. It connected the earth to Brother Sun and Sister Moon above and to the chthonic gods below. The pulsing energy which streams through all things was enhanced and focused in and near the tree.

Seeing Igdrasil reminded Elyse of her problem. She was seventeen and still had not come into her power. It was humiliating. Her sister Lourdes had been working spells for seven years. Their mother Frona was the most skilled wyrder in Dumnos, the king’s oracle. Elyse could practically taste the wyrding power all around her. Sometimes she would swear it had entered her, but the instant she tried to access it—nothing.

She put down the basket. This never worked, but she had become superstitious and afraid not to try. She stretched her arms toward the world tree.

“Igdrasil, give me my power!”

She strained to grasp the wyrding force, to pull it in, to harness it. Her shoulders tingled, and she felt sick to her stomach. Her knees shook. It was coming this time!

But no. The flow of power slipped away like quicksilver. The tingling stopped. The nausea faded. She sank to the ground. One tear rolled down her cheek, but she would not cry. She had to believe her mother. Any time now, Elyse. Lourdes didn’t come into her power until she was sixteen.

But Elyse would be eighteen next month.

She sighed and picked up the basket and started homeward. King Jowan had once invited them to leave Glimmer Cottage and live within the keep at Tintagos Castle. Lourdes had been all for it, but Mother had declined. Thank sun and moon.

Elyse loved the woods, the cool of its shade and the smell of leaves and dirt, the rabbits and foxes and deer. Often when she gathered herbs and flowers, she sensed them watching her. If she sat very still, a rabbit or fawn might lie down beside her and even let her pet it. She couldn’t imagine living at the castle with all those people.

As king’s oracle, Mother spent a lot of time at Tintagos. In fact she was expected there this morning on some urgent matter of state, but Hector was still in the paddock, grazing and unbridled, and the wagon was on its blocks. It could only mean she was feeling worse. Since the Great Wyrding, Mother had been unwell, and Lourdes’s recent infatuation with Prince Galen hadn’t helped.

Elyse’s favorite crow scolded her from the garden yew tree as she passed by on the way to the mudroom. While she changed to her indoor slippers, a scolding of another kind sounded from the kitchen.

“Don’t say that, Mother. I don’t believe it.”

Lourdes. Talk about bad moods. Aeolios had nothing on Elyse’s sister.

“Not after he danced with me so…so boldly at the king’s birthday feast.”

“You must believe it, Lourdes. Prince Galen is betrothed to another. Though I admit his behavior was odd that night. I’d have thought him incapable of casual flirtation.”

Elyse let out her breath, relieved. At least Mother was well enough to be up and listening to Lourdes’s crisis of the day. Elyse took her apron down from the hook and waited for a break in the conversation.