was almost nil. We headed out, to the portal leading to Summer.
A guard was on the lookout for us. I don’t know how he knew we were coming, but it was obvious he’d been expecting us. Wrath looked at him.
“My Lady?”
“Still lives, my Lord.”
Wrath nodded, then led us through the shimmering veil into the realm of Summer. I reveled as the warm weather hit but was struck by the leaves on the trees. There was no mistaking it this time. They were turning color. Autumn had found its way into the Court of Rivers and Rushes, and the bloom was fading even as Lainule’s powers waned.
We followed him through the grass, to the royal barrow. Once again, we were ushered into a hushed chamber, and from there, Wrath led us to Lainule’s bedchamber. As I entered, I couldn’t help but let out a prayer to whoever might be listening that this work.
“Approach the bed.” Wrath motioned for the others to stand back as I slowly drew close to the four-poster bed and climbed the steps beside it. Lainule looked still as death, but her lips were parted and I could still see the rise and fall of her breast as she took shallow breaths.
“I have your heartstone.” I leaned down and handed her the box, but she could not reach up for it. Biting my lip, I turned back, but Wrath would not speak to me, and I realized it was up to me to figure out what to do.
I opened the lid and the pulsing of the heartstone filled the room. I thought I heard panpipes, and drums echoing in the distance, and a sudden wash of the scents of apple and honey and sweet wine rushed past me. I closed my eyes as a ray of sun broke through the room, coming from the center of the heartstone as its brilliant green rays collided with the lights that sparkled in the air and on the walls.
Slowly, hoping I was not making a mistake, I lifted the heartstone out of the box and held it in my hands. It burned brightly against my skin, and I cried out, almost dropping it as my skin reddened. I turned quickly, on instinct.
“Rhia-come help me.”
Rhiannon nimbly climbed the steps and sat beside me. She reached up, took the heartstone from my hands, and gasped, her head dropping back as a low growl of ecstasy rolled from her throat. I stared at her. Her hair sprang out of its braid, wild around her shoulders.
“On her chest-the stone must rest on her chest.” I knew what to do, but it turned out I wasn’t the one who could actually do it. However, I could pull down Lainule’s comforter to expose her perfect, tanned breasts. They were lovely and I stared at her. Unearthly she was in her beauty, even though she was almost dead.
Rhia slowly lowered the stone to rest on Lainule’s chest, between her breasts, and a rumble filled the chamber. The music grew louder, the drums grew stronger. I clasped my hands to my ears, but Rhia reached out and grabbed them, and we held hands, waiting and watching. The roar was deafening, and yet the music caught me up in its rhythm and I began to drift.
The stone began to glow so brightly that I thought it would blind me. And then it began to-
As the drumming grew louder and the panpipes more frenzied, Lainule’s eyes began to flutter.
Wrath uttered a low moan and fell to his knees, hanging his head. He looked both overjoyed and bereft, the two emotions waging war in his eyes. Grieve and Chatter looked slightly confused, but then Grieve looked up at me and caught my gaze and I felt a stirring from my wolf, but this time it wasn’t seductive so much as a recognition of something I felt I
Another moment and the heartstone had vanished into Lainule’s skin. Her breathing grew stronger, and in the next beat she sprang to a sitting position, her eyes flying open. She turned to me, her face a whirl of expression, and then she looked at Rhiannon.
The next moment, tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “Thank you, my girls. Thank you. You are both my salvation and my doom.” And with that, she rose from her bed, glowing like the sunrise, and I realized that I’d never truly seen her in her power. I’d only met her after Myst drove her from her center, from the core that made up her wellspring.
“What do you mean, your doom?” My words hung in the air as Lainule ducked her head, smiling.
She leaned down to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Worry not about it at this moment, child. What is to be is now in motion. What was is passing away. What is important is that we now have some control over this situation. Now I can fight back.” She turned to Wrath, who sprang to her side. “My Lord, I am so sorry…”
“No more. Say no more. ’Tis all forgotten, my beloved.” He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, long and deep, and I felt their bond-an ancient one from times long past. “I will go with you, wherever you journey. You know that, my sweet.” He rested his head on her shoulder.
“I can be a trial at times, and my whims are not always pleasant, but you have always been there, to walk by my side.” She held the back of his head, a tender look on her face, and I felt like we should turn away, leave the room-this was a private moment, intimate in a way beyond even sex.
“And always, always shall I be.”
They kissed again, and then Lainule turned to me. She held out her hand. “My stepdaughter, come. You and your cousin.”
I stepped forward again, Rhia beside me. “Lainule, I am so glad to see you are well and healed.” I gazed at her. Something was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
“Healed? I suppose you can call it that. Come now, I must be off to rally my warriors. There is to be havoc tonight-I can feel it rising in the air and Myst is behind it.” She paused, looking at me again. “What did you do to yourself? Cicely…the fan…”
I hung my head. “I was facing Myst. I summoned up a hurricane. I became the storm.” And that’s when I realized that’s exactly what had happened. I hadn’t been caught up by the hurricane, I had
She smiled faintly, the aloof reserved nature creeping back. “Yes. Once the fan masters you, you will be forever ridden by the Element. You now belong to the air, my young one. It is good your Cambyra nature is Uwilahsidhe-the owl.”
“What would happen if I’d had something where its primary element was earth?”
“You would be soil-bound, tied forever to the earth, unable to fly. You would be hobbled when in owl form. As it is, you have enhanced your natural abilities, but the price is a great one. However, you have paid a far greater price by restoring me. Do not think I will forget your deed.”
I wanted to ask just what price I’d paid, but before I could, Lainule turned to Rhiannon. “By your births, you and Cicely are tied to each other’s fate. Your life is about to shift, my dear, in ways you could never imagine. But there will be time enough for that later. I must be away, to round up my Summer Guardians. Quickly, tell me what is happening. I can feel the shift on the slipstream.”
And so, a thousand questions whirling in the back of my mind, I forced myself to push them away as we told her about Lannan, Geoffrey, and the rumble we expected that evening.
Lainule dismissed us but bade us stay within the realm for a while longer. “I will have news for you. Go and rest for a moment.”
Wrath stayed with her, while Rhiannon, Grieve, Chatter, and I left the barrow. The leaves on the trees were no longer fading-I could feel the shift, but they hadn’t regained their color as I’d expected.
“I want to go flying while we’re here.” The feel of the sun on my skin made me long to shed my clothes and soar into the sky.
“Aren’t you tired?” Rhia wrapped her arm around my waist as we sat on a stone bench outside the barrow. The cobblestone seat was engraved with runes and swirls, with delicate chips of peridot and garnet caught in the mortar holding together the smooth, rounded pebbles. I traced the stones with my fingers, listening to the
