Unfallen Dead

CHAPTER 23

The door to Briallen’s house was always unlocked to me, allowing me to pass through her protective wards. I did a lot of growing up in her house, spent years learning things I never imagined possible when I was just a little kid. I trusted her with my life.

As I stood in the foyer, I sensed Briallen’s essence trailing upstairs. I found her in the parlor by the fire. She stared into the flames, unmoving, though I knew she had sensed me the moment I’d entered the house.

“Ceridwen had Meryl arrested,” I said.

Briallen didn’t respond immediately. “Sooner than I thought.”

I slumped into the opposite chair. “You knew?”

She pulled her legs up on the seat and adjusted her robes around them. “It was only a matter of time. Ceridwen is afraid of failing. High Queen Maeve doesn’t take disappointment well.”

“But Meryl doesn’t know anything.”

Briallen smiled as she sipped from a large mug. “I’m sure she would dispute that.”

“You know what I mean. She’s told them everything. We both have.”

She leaned her head back in the nook of the chair, her eyes half-closed. “Have you?”

Her tone made me blush, caught out like a ten-year-old telling a fib. It’s the tone she uses on me when she knows something that I think she doesn’t know. “Okay, everything they need to know.”

Briallen tweaked an eyebrow. “Deciding who needs to know what and who gets to decide that is the seed of most arguments in the world.”

I sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told them. Ceridwen essentially threatened me to get me to talk, and even Dylan doesn’t seem to believe me.”

“He mentioned you argued,” she said.

A little anger flared up. “You see? Ceridwen thinks arresting Meryl will put pressure on me to talk, and now Dylan thinks running to you will do it.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I think it’s only fair to point out that you’re doing a little running to me right now.”

“That’s not true.”

She scoffed at me. “Sure you are. You think Meryl’s been arrested to put pressure on you, and you want me to confirm it. Did it ever occur to you that after you spoke to Dylan, he believed you? Has it occurred to you that Meryl doesn’t exactly make any attempt to inspire confidence in her veracity?”

“She’s telling the truth,” I said.

Briallen thrust her index finger at me. “You believe that. You do. Not the Guild. Just like you don’t want the Guild telling you what to do, the Guild doesn’t want you telling it what to think. Meryl’s a big girl. She’ll decide what to do.”

“If there is something she’s hiding — and I don’t think there is — she won’t say it, just to spite Ceridwen for treating her like this. She’s stubborn,” I said.

Briallen shrugged. “Then she’ll have to live with the consequences. Connor, you know Meryl well enough to know she won’t do anything she doesn’t want to. She’s a druidess. She takes that seriously. Let her decide how to respond. Sometimes the Grove and the Guild do not have the same agenda.”

“Don’t let Ceridwen hear you say that, or you might end up in a cell yourself.” I couldn’t help the dig.

Briallen grinned. “I’d like to see her try. At the bottom of all this, she knows the Grove and the Guild want essentially the same things. It’s just a matter of whose means to the end get used. Now, can we put this aside and discuss why you came to see me?”

Getting slapped down by Briallen didn’t exactly put me in the mood to make myself vulnerable. I feigned innocence. “I came about Meryl.”

Briallen laughed. “Oh, bull. You know I knew Meryl was under arrest ten minutes after she did. Something else is bothering you.”

I bit my lower lip. “Okay, you’re right. I came to ask you about something odd. Lately, I’ve been…” I didn’t realize until that moment how strange and embarrassing this was going to sound. “… well, I guess you can say I’ve been hearing things. Like, things no one else does. And I’m seeing people who aren’t there.”

She didn’t laugh or look at me like I was crazy. “What are they saying?”

I slid deeper in the chair. “I’m not sure. It started a little over a week ago. I kept hearing whispering. Then the whispers got louder, and I began to see people, too. At first, I thought it was some kind of spell, but it’s happened too many times in too many places. They’re angry. One of them attacked me, and, just now, on the subway, one of them told me I’m going to die.”

Briallen leaned forward. “You’re a druid. You’ll live a long time, Connor.”

“Yeah, as long as nobody kills me first. And we don’t know how long a life I have anymore, Briallen. Whatever Bergin Vize did to destroy my abilities might have wrecked my chances for a long lifetime, too,” I said.

Her eyes shifted to me. “I used to worry that you weren’t going to live long. Do you know I never see you in my visions? The only way I know you’re involved in something I see is because of reactions around you.”

I exhaled sharply. “A dwarf said that to me not too long ago. You can’t see my future, and I can’t see my past.”

“It’s all connected, Connor. We are all connected. You know I believe that. Maybe whatever you are hearing and seeing is sending you a message that you haven’t figured out yet. Maybe the Wheel of the World is trying to teach you something about yourself,” she said.

I frowned. “By making me feel crazy?”

She smiled. “Maybe, Connor, maybe you’re supposed to do things based on who you are and not what you know.”

“But if I don’t know anything, who does that make me?”

She shrugged. “A child who sees ghosts and runs to an adult for help.”

I closed my eyes. “I hope you mean that metaphorically.” She giggled. Briallen giggles sometimes. It annoys the hell out of me. “Connor, I’m not going to say you’re not hallucinating. You are a druid with damaged abilities. Things are happening to you that never happened to you before your accident. But what you just told me is exactly what’s been plaguing you for two years: You can’t remember, and you’re afraid of the future. Maybe you’re manifesting your own fears.”

“What if my fears are real enough to kill me?”

She sighed. “All fears are real. It’s what you do about them that matters.”

I stared into the fire, letting the flickering light mesmerize me, the warmth soothe my skin. “You’re saying I should let go of the past.”

She shook her head. “If you think that will help, then do it and see what happens. I can’t give you answers to questions only you can answer.”

I dropped my head back against the chair. “You kick me in the balls every time I come here, and I still come back for more.”

She laughed. That laugh, that lovely Briallen laugh. “And then you leave with tougher balls.”