CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

No principal should ever trust a student to be left alone in their office, yet there I was, surrounded by all this stuff. Then again, Brigit probably had supernatural eyes in the back of her head and would come swooping in on her broom the second I touched anything other than her precious texts.

I crossed to the bookshelf behind Brigit’s desk. My hand skimmed the spines. I adored books, and Brigit’s were fascinating. My fingers trailed along Esoteric Traditions of the Innerworld, Celtic Gods and Goddesses, and Druid Bewitching Seasons, before finally settling on The History of Arwen.

I slid the book out and laid it on the desk, surprised by the normalcy of it. Considering the month I’d had, I half expected the book to glow red, sprout horns, or emit puffs of green smoke. The simple black cover and gold embossed title didn’t inspire me to read it, but the moment I flicked open to the first page and saw the sunburst, the same one I’d seen on the medallion hanging around that girl’s neck in my vision, I was hooked.

It was the only time I’d seen her, during that vision in Brigit’s office on my first day here. I wished I’d seen the girl more clearly, but she’d been in shadows.

Usually a methodical reader, I shrugged off my usual reserve and started flicking past pages. Chapter headings caught my eye: The Battle of Belenus, The Fall of Cadifor, Dark Trio of the Underworld, Arwen’s Triple Flame.

Something inside me wobbled as I speed-read the text: The Druids are a spiritual elite within Celtic society. They are poets, doctors, astronomers, philosophers, and magicians. They pass on necessary knowledge in oral rhymes. Historians say it took an individual Druid twenty years to learn them all. The most important of these rhymes is the legend of Arwen, an icon that brings great power to the one who possesses it.

Only a female descendant of Belenus has the power to find Arwen. She will be the Scion and have an affinity for heat, able to move between the Inner and Outer worlds as an extension of her clairsentience. Initially manifesting as visions, or psychic knowing, this clairsentience will develop into astral travel through the manufacture of intense temperatures via the third eye.

The necessary high temperatures to travel will be invoked by the accurate pinpointing of heat onto the psychic eye via the sun’s rays through ancient megaliths, the pyrokinesis of a warrior, or the use of a trans-channeling crystal in the sun. Another reported travel method is the Arwen symbol coming into contact with the psychic eye, assumed to produce instant high heat and enable spontaneous teleportation.

Horrified yet unable to stop, I read on.

Once the rift is opened between the Inner and Outer worlds, the Scion will come. Through the acquisition of Arwen she will restore Eiros to its former glory.

Following the Battle of Eiros, when Belenus banished Cadifor to the Underworld and ascended to the sun to take his permanent immortal place, Eiros—meaning ‘bright’ in Celtic—filled with light.

However, if Cadifor’s powers increase and the Lord of Darkness breaches the divide to enter Eiros through nefarious means, a gray pall will settle over Eiros, indicating the imminent rising of the Underworld and the ultimate obliteration of all worlds.

When Eiros oscillates between darkness and light, time is of the essence as Cadifor is close to acquiring Arwen, and the Scion must master a series of tasks in order to fulfill the prophecy of finding Arwen and saving all worlds from the last Great War and permanent darkness.

My head spun with the implications of what I’d just read. Seeing it in print, bound in a book, made this all the more real and inescapable. I continued to skim, skipping paragraphs, reading others, the enormity of my so-called fate consuming me until the letters blurred.

I’d had enough reality checks for one day. I stuffed the book into my bag and headed for the door, the hardcover of my destiny banging against my hip as a reminder of what I had to do. Reading Brigit’s texts on Arwen cleared up the last of my preconceptions that maybe if I ignored all this, it would go away. Seeing it in print made it more real than anything Joss or Brigit had said. I was tied to this sun-god-defeating-darkness tale, and the sooner I learned everything I could, the sooner I’d start to feel more in command.

The lack of control pissed me off, like all these different worlds were spinning around me and depending on the moon or the sun or whatever other orbit chose to affect me today, I might end up on any one of them.

Time to take back control. Time for me to call the shots. That meant another visit to Eiros This time, I wouldn’t let Dream Boy send me scuttling back with a blast of heat from his fingertips. This time, I wasn’t coming back until I had answers to the million questions stabbing my brain.

I glimpsed a thick cloud cover out the window. How would I get back to Eiros? As much as I didn’t want to approach Brigit after her strangely manic behavior, I had no choice. She’d have the answers I needed.

I yanked open the door and found Quinn and Raven silently arguing with hand gestures and comic miming. They stopped the second they caught sight of me.

“Looking for me?”

Raven stared like she expected I’d spontaneously combust. “Quinn told me what happened.”

Sheepish yet adorable, he shrugged. “We wanted to see if you were okay.”

Their concern touched me, and the enormity of the truth teetered on the tip of my tongue. Maybe if I told them it would make absorbing the bizarreness of all this easier to accept. They’d probably understand.

I dismissed the thought in a second; I’d finally made friends for the first time in my life and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. Right now, two of us shared average run-of-the-mill telemetric skills, while Quinn was blissfully normal, a fact I liked in my increasingly topsy-turvy world. Mention my teleportation and world savior crap, and who knew what they would think? What if they didn’t believe me and thought I was some crazy attention-seeking liar? Would they think I was trying to go one up? Be the best? Suck up to Brigit for outstanding grades?

I knew what that was like, kids thinking I was a suck up. I’d been through it every school year. But I didn’t want that to happen here. I didn’t want to alienate Quinn or Raven. I liked them. Besides, I’d probably need them before this thing was through.

“I’m fine.” I closed the door to Brigit’s office and glanced at my watch. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in class?”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “Could say the same about you.”

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Brigit’s office and grimaced. “Had to stay in there ’til I was feeling better.”

“Wanna ditch for the morning?” Raven suggested.

I laughed at Quinn’s horrified expression before he quickly masked it.

“Something tells me our learned friend here doesn’t want to miss classes first day of a new term.”

Quinn flashed me a grateful smile while Raven rolled her eyes. “He’s so desperate to swap crystallomancy for algebra it’s pathetic.”

“It’s my first day. Guess I should show up at a class or two,” I said, leaping to Quinn’s defense and earning a wink for my troubles.

“Lameasses,” Raven muttered, shaking her head. “I’ll make you a deal. One quick coffee, then we’ll head to class.”

“Deal,” Quinn said. “You in?”

“Sure.” I nodded, forcing a smile. If I didn’t want my friends learning the truth, I had to start acting normal. As we fell into step, I ignored the tiny voice inside my head that said “Acting normal? Waaay too late for that.”