Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(45)

That’s exactly how people remembered it.

When she and Cade woke up beside Igdrasil with Galen and Diantha gone, it was like waking up from a vivid dream, the kind that takes a long time to fade. Lilith had still had possession of Elyse’s and Diantha’s memories of a thousand years, and Elyse’s wyrding knowledge too.

She had used Elyse’s power to wyrd the false tradition of the Handover into the collective memory of Tintagos Village. She’d left Cade and Beverly out of the spell. It seemed they needed to remember if they were to find a way back to each other.

In a few weeks Diantha’s memories had evaporated into the ether. Elyse’s had taken a few months. Lilith remembered them both, but only from her own experience. She knew that she had done the wyrding, but she couldn’t remember how.

Cade spotted her from below and doffed his hat with a grin. She laughed and waved back. She still hadn’t told him that she was…what she was. Outlandish. But it was easier to believe she was part fairy than that she was a countess. Great gods. Now that was crazy.

“Best wishes on your nuptials, Lily.”

She whirled around. The man stepped out of the shadow of the jasmine at the far end of the deck. As he came close, she saw he had yellow hair the color of straw and glittering purple eyes.

“Who are you?” Her heart was in her throat. She should have asked what, not who.

“My name is Aubrey.”

She knew that name. She knew it! Sun and moon, who was he?

“I’ve brought a wedding gift for you—for you alone; not Bausiney—from Idris.”

Idris? That name was familiar too, but its significance slipped away like quicksilver when she tried to focus on it.

Aubrey handed her a bundle of gossamer fabric, lovely, magical.

“Put this cloth under your pillow at night,” he said. “If you care to.”

He said if you care to like a challenge. Creepy. As if he knew about the dreams that had brought her here.

“What is this?”

Inside the cloth was a rectangular sheet of glass. As she touched it she gasped. An image appeared, a man with brown skin and flame-red hair and green eyes. He was shirtless and wore a crown of sticks and leaves—and a necklace oddly similar to her mother’s. “Idris,” she whispered. The fae king her mother had been so afraid of. And where else had she seen him? He looked at her and smiled as if he’d just found a lost treasure.

She covered the glass with the gossamer cloth.

“The glimmer glass shows what the glimmer glass knows,” Aubrey said in a sing-song. “And where the Lily grows.”

“Why do you call me that?”

But he was gone. Her heart pounded as she looked all around, but she knew she wouldn’t find him. Glimmer glass, Audrey had called the rectangle. She would add it to her collection of artifacts.

One day after the Handover, she’d gone to Igdrasil alone. It took but a few minutes to find the gold and silver ring sitting in a crevice in one of Igdrasil’s roots. As if it had been waiting for her. She’d been afraid to put it on and terrified to leave it for others to find, so she’d taken it home and tucked it away in her dresser drawer with her mother’s necklace. The glimmer glass would join them.

Another clue to her past.

The clouds parted, and the stars blazed in the clear night sky, like the night she and Cade dined on his roof and looked for fae in these woods. She heard a voice on the wind, a message from Igdrasil.

All will be well, all will be right.

So true. The world was beautiful, and this was her home, and she was happy. She wasn’t certain who she was. She didn’t know the full import of what she was. But she knew where she was and that she loved and was loved in return.

What was she waiting for? A grin as big as Cade’s spread over her face, and she flew down to the garden to join him in the dancing.





THE END





About…



About the Author

LK Rigel lives in California with her television-watching cat, Coleridge. (His favorite show is Castle, but he was enthralled by Game of Thrones.) Rigel wrote songs for the 90’s band The Elements, scored the independent science fantasy karate movie Lucid Dreams, and was a reporter for the Sacramento Rock ‘N Roll News. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama and Tattoo Highway.

Rigel writes the “postapocapunk” Apocalypto series which includes Space Junque, Spiderwork, Firebird (formerly titled Bleeder), and Copperhead (coming in 2012).

Her short story “Slurp” about an author with muse problems is included in Deadly Treats, Anne Frasier’s Halloween anthology published by Nodin Press.

Give Me – A Tale of Wyrd and Fae is the first book in the Tethers series.

She loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her via email at [email protected] with any comments. And visit www.lkrigel.com for more information.

You can see other books available from Rigel here.





Acknowledgements:

Debra L. Martin brought her sharp eye and romantic sensibility to editing this book. I thank KC May for her insightful beta read and excellent suggestions. David Voss’s thorough beta read from a United Kingdom point of view saved me errors and provided some meat to the bones.

And of course Phatpuppy has created yet another fantastic cover which TERyvisions brought to life with wonderful fonts and effects.