“Will your cat allow me to take your arm?”
Morrigan was a little embarrassed to see that Kegan had been watching her while she’d been standing there, full basket in her hand, staring off into the distance.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. Morrigan glanced down at the cat, who was sitting on her haunches not far from their makeshift table, eyes still trained on Kegan. “Brina, behave yourself,” Morrigan told the cat sharply. Brina stood up, shook herself, muttered what Morrigan thought was a very rude grumble and then trotted back down the path. Morrigan smiled and took Kegan’s offered arm. “Her manners are almost as bad as mine. I didn’t mean to zone out like that.”
“Zone out?” He grinned at her as they navigated their way down the path. “Another Oklahoma word?”
“Very sly of you to sneak them out of me like that. I’ll have to watch you.”
“I will look forward to your close attention,” he said, wrapping her arm more intimately through his.
She raised a brow at him, and continued. “Zone out equals me standing there staring like I have no sense.”
“You didn’t look as if you were lacking in sense. You looked as if you had much on your mind.”
“I did. I was thinking about Birkita. I hurt her feelings and I need to find her and apologize. She really didn’t say anything to deserve me snapping at her like that.” Morrigan knew that was true. It hadn’t been the older woman’s words that had gotten to her. It had been the look she’d given Morrigan—the look that had seemed shadowed with fear. That fear had touched a live nerve of unexpected anger inside Morrigan, making her lash out at Birkita.
“A wise High Priestess knows when to apologize,” Kegan said.
“A wise High Priestess wouldn’t do things she had to apologize for,” Morrigan said.
They’d come to the entrance to the cave. Morrigan was surprised to see how busy it was there. People were carrying baskets of food and other supplies back and forth from a path that looked much better used than the one they’d just climbed down. Morrigan couldn’t miss the many curious glances the people were giving her, and she suddenly felt nervous about being clutched so tightly to Kegan’s arm. She untangled herself from him and took a step back.
“Thank you for escorting me and making sure I was fed,” she said.
Kegan didn’t seem to mind her awkward, obvious withdrawal. Instead he smiled and said formally, “It would be my greatest pleasure if you would allow me to escort you to explore the Salt Plains tonight, my Lady.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” she said in a rush, wondering why all of that sexy, passion-filled, grown-ass woman confidence had, all of a sudden, completely and utterly left her.
Kegan bowed gallantly, looking like her suave, cool, absolute opposite. “Call for me when you are ready. And remember, your wishes shall be my commands.”
“All righty, then. See you later tonight.” Morrigan bobbed a ridiculous little curtsy and then hurried away toward the Usgaran before he could see how red her face had to be.
CHAPTER 14
“So you’ll forgive me?” Morrigan asked Birkita for the second time. She’d found her where she expected the ex-High Priestess would be—in the Usgaran—and she’d pulled her over to an alcove where they could have some measure of privacy.
“As I said before, of course, my Lady.”
“But you’re calling me ‘my Lady’ again with that tone.”
A smile tugged at Birkita’s lips. “I am simply showing you proper respect.”
“Your feelings are still hurt. I know that tone. You and Grandma share it.”
Birkita cupped Morrigan’s cheek in her palm. “There, this is the girl I am coming to know and love. And this is also why I was so concerned for you during the ritual.”
Morrigan stiffened and Birkita’s hand dropped from her face. “This is me. That was me. It’s all me.”
Birkita’s sharp gaze never wavered from Morrigan’s. “Be quite certain, child. Know yourself, so that you can recognize the influence of others.”
“Birkita,” Morrigan said, trying hard to control her rising irritation. “You have never been filled with the spirits of the crystals. And you told me that there hasn’t been a Light Bringer in more than three generations, so no one for a really long time has been filled with the spirits of the crystals. It’s an incredible thing.”
“Yes, I am quite sure it is, but—”
“Kegan told me that historically Light Bringers have made their own paths and gone their own ways. That it’s normal for me to do different things and to be filled with passion and adventure.”
“Kegan told you.”
Birkita hadn’t said it like a question, but Morrigan answered anyway, feeling foolish and defensive. “Yes, Kegan. He is a High Shaman as well as Master Sculptor. I think that should give him some kind of authority about, well, matters of the spirits and whatnot.”
Birkita’s look was way too knowing. “Kegan is, indeed, a High Shaman. But he is also the mirror of one you were connected to in Oklahoma.”
“Yeah, and you said he might be a gift from Adsagsona, and that I shouldn’t ignore her gifts. So I’m not.”
“Don’t ignore them, but also don’t take everything the centaur says as words from the Goddess. He is very young. Morrigan, you should understand that being a High Shaman or a High Priestess—” she paused and added gently “—or even a Light Bringer doesn’t automatically mean a person is all-knowing.”
“Okay, yes, I understand that. But with the same reasoning I could tell you that just because someone is young, it doesn’t make him or her wrong.”
“Of course it doesn’t. I am not saying that you are wrong, or that Kegan is. All I’m saying is that I want you to be careful. Progress slowly as you explore your new powers. Remember that you are automatically vulnerable to Kegan because of your history with his mirror image. And, most of all, listen for the voice of Adsagsona.”
“I am,” Morrigan said quickly.
“Child, sometimes the Goddess’s voice can be mistaken for, or drowned out by, our own. A High Priestess is special to her goddess, that is true, but it is also true that she is her goddess’s conduit to her people, and the blessings she has been given should be used to help others and not for the High Priestess’s own selfish desires.”
Morrigan stiffened. “What do you mean? You said that I should explore this thing with Kegan.”
“I’m not speaking of Kegan right now. Morrigan, the prayer ritual was supposed to be for Myrna’s spirit and for healing the lamentation of those she left behind. Instead it disintegrated into a display of your power, fueled by your personal wounds. I understand how—”
“No!” Morrigan snapped at Birkita, ignoring the compassion that had filled the old woman’s voice and letting the anger that had been simmering within her roil hot and thick. “You don’t understand. You had a mother and a father. No one lied to you and pretended you were someone else. She took my place!” When Morrigan paused to draw a deep breath and try to calm herself, claim your destiny hissed through her mind. “Okay, here’s the deal, Birkita. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I care about you, and I think you’re a really nice person. But I’m going to be different from you as a High Priestess. It seems to me that your kinder, gentler way wasn’t working very well for you. Shayla was walking all over you and the other priestesses. She’s not going to pull that ‘you can’t go topless’ or that ‘you can’t sit at the high table’ crap with me. So maybe Adsagsona brought me here because her priestesses need my, what you call, selfish desires.”
Birkita didn’t look away from Morrigan’s angry glare. She simply inclined her head and said softly, “As you will, my Lady. You are now High Priestess and Light Bringer. By right it is you who are closest to the Goddess’s will.”
Morrigan let out a long, frustrated breath. “Okay then. At least we’re straight about that. Now I think I’m going to do some exploring of the caves. Oh, and you don’t need to worry about showing me ar
ound. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Yes, my Lady.” Birkita dropped into a curtsy.
As Birkita began to turn away, Morrigan touched the old woman’s shoulder so that she paused and looked up at her. Morrigan hated how haggard Birkita looked and, no matter what, she was sorry that she might be the cause of some of the weary worry she saw in her eyes. “Don’t be mad at me, okay?”
Birkita rested her hand over Morrigan’s for a moment. “I could not be angry with you, child.” She squeezed Morrigan’s hand, and then walked back to the heart of the Usgaran and the other priestesses and craftspeople who where gathered there, already busy with the day’s work.
Morrigan sighed and let her fingers play over the skin of the cave wall. “I want to get out of here,” she whispered to the spirits of the crystals. “Lead me to see something amazing that’s not under Birkita’s nose.”
We hear and we obey, Light Bringer! came the predictably perky reply. Instantly a series of small crystals lit along the wall at about her waist level. Like a long row of dominoes, one leading another, Morrigan began following their sepentlike pattern through the Usgaran and into a tunnel she recognized as having been the main pathway she had followed through the cave in Oklahoma. She walked close to the wall, so that her fingertips continually brushed against the smooth cave. She was amazed at how the two places, in two different worlds, could be so similar and yet so different. It was like the cave in Oklahoma was a shoddy, underdeveloped shadow of this magnificent underground creation. Which made her wonder if the same was true for the people who mirrored each other in both worlds. And if so, which was she and which had Myrna been? The crappy, half-realized version or the amazing version? She was afraid she knew which one Birkita would say she was.
The old woman does not understand.
“Exactly!” Morrigan said in response to the whisper in her mind, drawing some odd looks from three workmen who were walking past her. She cleared her throat, coughed and hurried down the tunnel away from them, still being careful to follow her bread-crumb trail of crystals. They led her to take a smaller tunnel that arched off to the right—one that definitely wasn’t there in Oklahoma. She noticed in the middle of the floor were narrow tracks, as if a miniature train traveled inside the cave, which was soon explained when a flatbed car filled with lumps of smooth, white, marble-looking stone was pulled past her by a couple of burly workmen. She returned their brief greetings with quick hellos. Huh. So that must be how the Sidetha got the rock from deep in the cave up to the surface.
The tunnel made an S curve and then took an abrupt downward turn. The alabaster floor went into a steep, ramplike descent that had her leaning backward to keep her balance. Here the open braziers that lighted the tunnel weren’t pedestals placed on the floor. Instead there were flaming stone bowls set in niches carved out of the wall itself, or they hung from chains suspended from the ceiling, reminding Morrigan bizarrely of her grandma’s hanging spider-plant holders. The farther she descended, the fewer and fewer people she met, and her mind wandered.
What Birkita had said to her today reminded Morrigan a lot of some of the fights she’d had growing up with grandparents as parents. Sure, they had been great. They loved her and tried their best to understand her. But in reality they’d been old. Really old. She used to try to tell Grandma that it wasn’t making her look “loose” or “fresh” (Grandma’s words) to wear short jean skirts—it was just the style. Sometimes Morrigan actually won the fight. Temporarily. Grandma always won the battle. Mostly because G-pa jumped in squarely on her side. Morrigan could practically hear him. “Morgie, you can act like a damn fool and look like a damn fool on your own time.” And by “your own time” G-pa had meant, morbidly enough, after they were dead. Actually, the farther she traveled down into the cave, the more relaxed she felt. Morrigan smiled at the memory of her grandparents, and the last of the angry tension in her dissipated. Please let my grandparents be okay. Let them not be too sad that I’m gone. Morrigan sent the silent, heartfelt prayer into the body of the cave, hoping that it would reach Adsagsona, and that the Goddess would somehow be able to comfort her grandparents.
Feeling easier in her skin, Morrigan decided that the spat with Birkita was the S.O.S.—the same old shit. Basically, a generation problem. Or, more specifically, a generation-gap problem.
Then Morrigan blinked and realized that she’d walked right past the arched entryway the crystals had turned into. Shaking her head at herself, she backtracked and walked through the new doorway and then gasped at the incredible beauty into which she’d stepped. The room was big and round even though its entrance had been so small that Morrigan had had to duck her head to walk through it. The walls and ceiling were completely covered with jutting clusters of purple crystals. There was a huge brazier on a tripod in the middle of the room, and its white flames made the room glisten.
“Amethyst…” Awestruck, Morrigan breathed the word on a sigh.
“Good day, my Lady. Is there something I can do for you?”
The voice made Morrigan jump. She hadn’t noticed the workman in the far end of the room. He had a delicate-looking chisel in one hand and a small hammer in the other, and had obviously been tapping a cluster of crystals loose from the encrusted wall.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ve just been exploring.”
Unlike the stuck-up men who had brought the baskets of alabaster sap to the Usgaran the day before, or even the dead-faced workmen who had been dragging the flatbed car, this man had a friendly smile. “You aren’t lost, are you, my Lady?”
“No. I, uh, don’t think I can get lost. I’m Morrigan, the Light Bringer, and, well—” she pointed to the lighted trail of diamondlike crystals that had led her into the room “—they show me the way.”
“Oh, of course, my Lady. I know who you are,” he said.
“So, is this amethyst?” Morrigan asked, to fill the awkward silence.
“It is. I am choosing six clusters for Laragon Castle. It is a special request from the Chieftain himself. This year the lavender harvest has been especially prosperous, and he wishes to reward the six lead farmers.”
“They’re absolutely beautiful.” She smiled at him. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your work. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Arland, my Lady.” He gave her a snappy bow.
“Well, Arland, it’s nice to meet you.”
“And you, Light Bringer.”
She was just ducking her head to go through the small entrance when Arland called after her. “My Lady?” Morrigan looked back at him. “There are some of us who believe the Goddess has truly blessed us with your presence.”
Morrigan’s heart did a happy little skip. “Thank you, Arland.” Then she added impulsively, “And may Adsagsona bless you for your kindness.”
His head was still bowed when she left the amethyst chamber. Feeling so much better than she had when she started on her explorations, Morrigan practically skipped after the trail of crystals that continued leading her farther into the womb of the caves. She was a little better prepared for the beauty in the next chamber they took her into, but she still gawked like a true country girl and was glad that the room was empty.
Brilliant topaz-colored crystals that faded to transparent white at their bases encrusted the walls and ceiling. They looked familiar, but Morrigan couldn’t quite name them. “I don’t know what you are, but you are certainly beautiful,” she whispered as she caressed their shining tips.
Citrine…the name came through her fingertips and she smiled in pleasure. “Thank you,” she murmured to the glistening stones.
The next chamber she was led into had several workmen chipping delicately away at large, lethal-looking shards of rock that were a deep, glossy black so dark that stepping into the room gave her the impression of entering a bottomless mouth filled with deadly teeth. Onyx…the spirits in the stones told her, and she berated herself for being so silly as to imagine something sinister in the darkness of the
beautiful rock. Actually, Morrigan decided that she would have liked to linger in the room, running her hands over the jagged stones and studying the nuances of color that were apparent once she looked deeper, but the men in that room weren’t warm and welcoming as Arland had been. Not that they were rude. Basically once they figured out she hadn’t been sent with a message for any of them and wasn’t lost, they ignored her. Their attitude might have pissed her off, but she was way too preoccupied with checking out the wonders of the cave to let them annoy her.
She had just made a little left turn when she stopped short. Brina was sitting at the bottom of a short descending ramp, looking for all the world like she’d been waiting for Morrigan to show up. Morrigan ruffled her long, pointed ears and then gave her back a swooping caress that had the big cat arching in pleasure and purring loudly.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked as she scratched the cat, noticing just then the long, soft fur that jutted right underneath her chin. Morrigan tugged playfully on it. “This is a little devil’s goatee. Very appropriate after your behavior toward Kegan this morning.” Brina wound sensuously around her legs. “You were rude, you know that? You’re going to have to learn to act right around him. I have a feeling he and I are going to be spending quite a bit of time together.” Brina looked up at her and sneezed tremendously, making Morrigan laugh. “Oh, never mind. As G-pa used to say, cats have people—people don’t have cats. I guess I’m your person, so I’m just gonna have to tolerate you.” And, if she was going to really be honest with herself, Morrigan admitted that she kinda liked the fact that Brina had wanted to protect her. Kegan was cute and funny and just plain hot, but he was also a lot more cocky than his Oklahoma mirror had been. He needed to be reminded that he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary, run-of-the-mill priestess chick.
With Brina close by her side, Morrigan followed the crystal trail into a chamber that was filled with smoky quartz so gorgeous that they looked like zillions of dusky diamonds, and another right after that one that had lumps of stones workmen were delicately prying loose from long troughs in the walls that she discovered were raw emeralds.