Seducing Destiny(127)

                “Thank you for coming,” I said, and noted that I sounded like a parrot. “This means more than I can ever put into words,” I amended.

                We stood united as the lesser Castes sifted in, and when they were all present, I turned to Danu who looked at the entire assembly in awe. Her eyes took us in with open pride.

                “Is she here?” Madisyn asked, as she watched me.

                “Yes,” I replied and turned my eyes to see Madisyn as she searched the area by the Tree. “I’ll be right back,” I said to everyone, and moved closer to the Tree and Danu.

                “There is more damage than when I checked on it yesterday,” she said as I got closer.



                             “Can it be fixed?”

                “Not by me,” she admitted. “I’m not even sure you can do it,” she continued. “This frost is meant to affect the Tree and anyone who touches it.”

                “You can’t bless them and the land won’t accept them without the Tree,” I said barely above a whisper. “We have to save this Tree.”

                I turned my eyes to where Ryder’s men now stood with my children as he walked in our direction. He saw the look in my eyes and for a brief moment, I saw his despair as he read my thoughts. I turned to walk and meet him, but the ground shifted. I had to struggle to keep my balance. Danu reached out and held me up, and then I felt it.

                I blanched at what I felt, the raw untapped power of a Leyline. “Oh no,” I whispered, thinking that the Mages were here, at the same time and place my babies were.

                I turned to warn Ryder, but then I felt calmness fall over the glade. I looked at Danu as she watched something across the water as it approached. I gasped as the White Stag—the real one—walked out from the lush forest and moved to where we stood. He was a symbol for the world of Faery, and he spoke for the world in times of great need, or at least that is what my Fae history teachers had said.

                It was a massive deer, but where a regular stag normally had horns or antlers; he had elaborate branches of wood that seemed to have been interlinked into an intricate design of Celtic knots. His hooves clicked against the rocks; it was the only sound that could be heard.

                I looked to where he had left the forest, and watched in shock as hundreds of tiny Bramble Pixies followed in his wake. Other animals, as well as more Pixies, followed behind them. I stood side by side with Danu. I felt her fingers as she slipped them around mine in a show of solidarity.

                “I’ve only seen this magnificent creature once before, and that was when I created this world,” Danu whispered for my ears alone. “He draws his power from the Leyline under the Tree,” she continued. “He knows what you are.”

                “How is that even possible? No one else knows, except for those who needed to.”

                “I feel you.” A voice of deep timbre filled my mind. “I felt your birth, and you are tied to us. To these lands,” the voice said, and as I watched, the White Stag approached.

                “It’s you,” I whispered to the Stag.

                “It is I, my Goddess,” he continued to speak in my mind.

                Okay, let’s be honest. Carrying on a conversation with a Stag was weird.

                “You’re of the land, and we, your people, have come to pay our respects. We have power to feed the Goddess, and the bond we share called us to you.”