P.C. Cast - Awakened

“What if I said we did ?” I could feel my cheeks getting warm.

“Then I’d say a big ol’ Oklahoma yee haw !”

“Well yee haw away then.”

“Details. I want some serious details,” she said, and then gave a giant yawn.

“You’ll get details,” I said. “Almost dawn there?”

“A little past, actually. I’m fadin’ fast, Z.”

“No problem. Get some sleep. I’ll see ya soon, Stevie Rae.”

“Later, ’gator,” she said around another yawn.

I ended the call and went over to stare at Stark where he slept like a dead guy in our canopied bed. That I was totally in love with Stark wasn’t in question, but just then I would really, really have liked it if I could shake his shoulder and have him wake up like a normal guy. But I knew it would be useless to even try to get him up early. Today the sun was unusually shiny on Skye—I mean, super bright with not one speck of clouds. No way Stark would be able to communicate decently with me for—I glanced at the clock—two and a half more hours. Well, at least that gave me time to pack and also to find the queen and break the news to her—that I was gonna leave this place that felt so right, so much like a home to me, this place that Sgiach had decided to bring back into the real world again, at least kinda sorta, because of what I’d brought back into her life. And now I was going to take off and leave it all behind because …

My brain caught up with the babbling chaos of my thoughts and everything clicked into place.

“Because this isn’t my home,” I whispered. “Home is Tulsa. It’s where I belong.” I smiled sadly at my sleeping Guardian. “It’s where we belong.” I felt the rightness of it even as I understood all that was waiting for me there—and all that I was losing leaving here.

“It’s time I went home,” I said firmly.

“Say something. Anything. Please.” I’d just blurted my guts out to Sgiach and Seoras. Naturally, telling the story of Jack’s horrible death had made me bawl and snot. Again. And then I’d babbled about having to go home and be a proper High Priestess even though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that really meant, while both of them watched me silently with expressions that looked wise and unreadable at the same time.

“The death of a friend is always difficult to bear. It is doubly difficult if it comes too soon—too young,” Sgiach said. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It doesn’t seem real yet.”

“Aye, well, it will, lass,” Seoras said gently. “You should be rememberin’, though, that a queen puts aside grieving fur duty. You cannae have a clear head if ’tis filled with grief.”

“I don’t think I’m old enough for all of this,” I said.

“No one is, child,” Sgiach said. “I would have you consider something before you take your leave of us. When you asked if you could remain here on Skye I said that you should stay here until your conscience bade you leave. Is it your conscience talking to you now, telling you the time is right for you to leave, or is it the machination of others that is—”

“Okay, stop,” I said. “Neferet probably believes she’s manipulating me into coming back, but the truth is that I have to go back to Tulsa because it’s my home.” I met Sgiach’s eyes as I continued speaking, hoping that she would understand. “I love it here. On lots of levels it feels right to be here—so right that it’d be easy for me to stay. But, like you’ve said, the path of the Goddess isn’t easy—doing right isn’t easy. If I stayed here and ignored my home I wouldn’t just be ignoring my conscience, I’d be turning my back on it.”

Sgiach nodded, looking pleased. “So your return comes from a place of power, not one of manipulation, though Neferet will not know that. She will believe that it only took one simple death to make you do her bidding.”

“Jack’s death isn’t a simple thing,” I said angrily.

“No, ’tisnae simple for you, but a creature of Darkness kills quickly, easily, and with nae thought beside her own gain,” Seoras said.

“And because of that Neferet will not understand that you return to Tulsa because it was your choice to follow the path of Light and Nyx. She will underestimate you because of that,” Sgiach said.

“Thank you. I’ll remember that.” I met Sgiach’s clear, strong gaze. “You and Seoras and any of the rest of the Guardians who want to could come with me, you know. With you guys beside me there’s no way Neferet could win.”

Sgiach’s response was instantaneous. “If I left my isle the consequences of that would ripple through the High Council. We have coexisted with them peacefully for centuries because I chose to absent myself from the politics and restrictions of vampyre society. Were I to join the modern world they would not be able to continue to pretend I do not exist.”

“What if that’s a good thing? I mean, it seems to me it’s time the High Council was shaken up, and vamp society with it. They believe Neferet and let her get away with killing people—innocent people. ” My voice was strong and sharp and for a moment I thought I sounded almost like a real queen.

“ ’Tis not our battle, lassie,” Seoras said.

“Why not? Why isn’t fighting against evil your battle, too?” I rounded on Sgiach’s Guardian.

“What makes you think we’re not fighting evil here?” It was Sgiach who answered me. “You’ve been touched by the old magick since you’ve been here. Tell me honestly, before then had you ever felt anything like it out there in your world?”

“No, I hadn’t.” I shook my head slowly.

“It’s fighting to keep the old ways alive we’ve been doing,” Seoras said. “And that cannae been done in Tulsa.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because there is no old magick left there!” Sgiach said, almost shouting in frustration. She turned her back and paced over to the huge picture window that looked out on the sun setting into the gray-blue water that surrounded Skye. Her back was stiff with tension, her voice thick with sadness. “Out there in that world of yours, the mystical, wonderful magick of old, where the black bull was revered along with the Goddess, where the balance of male and female was respected, and where even the rocks and trees had souls, had names, has been destroyed by civilization and intolerance and forgetfulness. People today, vampyres and humans alike, believe the earth is just a dead thing that they live on—that it is somehow wrong or evil or barbaric to listen to the voices of the souls of the world, and so the heart and the nobility of an entire way of life dried up and withered away…”

“And found sanctuary here,” Seoras continued when Sgiach’s voice faded. He’d moved to her side. Her back was turned to me, but he faced me. Lightly, Seoras touched her shoulder and then let his fingers trail down her arm to take his queen’s hand. I could see her body react to his touch. It was like through him she’d found her center. Before she turned to me, I saw her squeeze and then release his hand, and when our eyes met again she was, once more, noble and strong and calm.

“We are the last bastion of the old ways. It has been my charge for centuries to protect the ancient magicks. The land here is still sacred. By revering the black bull, and respecting his counterpart, the white bull, the old balance is maintained and there is one small place left in this world that remembers.”

“Remembers?”

“Aye, remembers a time when honor meant more than self, and loyalty wasnae an option or an afterthought,” Seoras said solemnly.

“But I see some of that in Tulsa. There’s honor and loyalty there, too, and many of my grandma’s people, the Cherokee, still respect the land.”