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Thierry moaned, a horrible croak. A sob escaped my lips. But he didn’t leave his knees beside Lew. Even for her.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the eagle in my grip. Willing his wings tight to his body, a smaller bundle I could shove back inside the cavity of Lew’s body. He slid back easily, though my hand made a disgusting pop and squelch as I pulled my fist back out. His body spasmed uncontrollably, his head falling forward against my throat. Instinctively, he bit me. Feeding on me, using my blood and power to more quickly bring his body back to life.
“Llewellyn.”
His head jerked up. Eyes wild, roaring with bonfires of emotion. My blood dripped down his chin. He slowly turned his head to the corner where she stood.
“Esetta.” His voice cracked and he said her name again and again. As if he would never stop saying it now that he could. “Esetta!”
I expected him to leap to his feet and run to her. Scoop her up in his arms. But like Thierry, he didn’t move from his spot at my feet.
She came to us, dressed in the same white sheath, her hair unbound and flowing around her like a cape, even though she’d also given her hair to me. She cupped Lew’s cheek in one hand. Thierry’s in the other.
But she leaned down to press her lips to my forehead. “Thank you, daughter of mine.”
“You’re welcome, Esetta Isador, daughter of the Great One, but not the last.”
On their knees, they clung to her. Laughing. Crying. Thierry didn’t talk. But he didn’t have to. She heard every word. I was sure of it, as I quietly shut the door.
40
SHARA
Perhaps it was all the talk about the Triune tables and what it meant to be Called to the Mother’s table. Or more likely it was simply time.
Time for Her to speak to the only queen listening for Triskeles.
I floated in the steamy water of my grotto, though I could taste salt on my lips. Something pulled deep inside me, an insistent fist in my intestines, dragging me down. I allowed the pull to take me, my head sinking beneath the water. Blue-green light rippled through the darkness, beckoning me deeper beneath my heart tree.
The tree I’d died on, giving it every drop of blood in my body.
It could take me anywhere as long as I could hold my intention on the place clearly enough. Beneath its roots, there was another portal. A secret place no one had ever walked but me.
The Great Mother’s sacred lair. A dark cave outside of this world connecting me to Her.
I rose out of the water into a circular room. I wasn’t even wet. Shadows cloaked the walls, but a ray of soft moonlight shone from above to illuminate the Mother figurine in the center of the room. With a start, I realized it looked like the salon, or war room table, especially with the light shining down from above.
Esetta hadn’t been called to the Triune. Yet she might have seen enough to model her dining room table on the Triskeles chamber.
There weren’t any chairs or table this time, and the Mother figurine was tall and thick, as tall as me. Her ebony skin gleamed in the moonlight like polished wood. The Triskeles symbol on Her rounded stomach caught the moonlight and amplified it, casting pearly sparkles through the space.
The air weighed heavy with hushed reverence, rich with the scent of warm, living soil and fresh green growth. A living cathedral in an ancient, sacred wood, cloaked in the mists of time.
Dropping to my knees at Her feet, I bowed my head.
The weight of Her hand touched my shoulder, sending an electric spark jolting through me. My entire arm numbed. I sucked in a deep breath, harsh in the silence. She didn’t speak out loud, but Her words resounded through my head like a ringing bell.
:DAUGHTER OF MY DAUGHTER, YOU ARE NEEDED. WILL YOU GO?:
“Yes, Great Mother,” I replied without hesitation. “Send me where I’m needed.”
Her fingers tightened, Her hand so heavy my muscles quivered under the strain. :THEY NEED YOU, EVEN IF THEY DENY YOU. EVEN WHEN THEY DESPISE YOU. THE COST IS HIGH. BUT IF THEY ARE NOT SAVED, ALL IS LOST.:
An image filled my mind. Three queens stepping in and out of my sight around a circular table. One of the queens had blue hair flowing like kelp tendrils in the sea. Undina Ketea. Okeanos’ mother.
The Skolos Triune.
Then a blur, like a ghost. Seen, but not seen.
