Chapter Four

I walked through a long hall. No, a tunnel, the scent of damp earth heavy in the humid air. I grazed my hand against the wall, kernels of dirt crumbling against my fingers, cold, rough roots tangled together. I passed by small wooden doors, each one of them so different. Bright red lacquer, old weathered oak, a bright white farmhouse gate. Endless doors. Each one beckoned to me to open it, but some unseen force propelled me forward to a bright light shining at the end of the tunnel, a perfect yellow rectangle streaming through the darkness. A strange sensation overtook me, and I knew the light was me, the doorway belonging to the deep well of power that existed somewhere deep in my mind, deep in my spirit. I smiled, reaching for the light.

“Help me,” a male voice spoke beside me.

I turned, not startled, a heavy sense of warmth engulfing me. A man stood at my side, tall with white hair and wearing an impeccable gray suit.

“How?” I asked without opening my mouth.

He pointed to the light. “I need you to open it.”

“But I already have.”

“Not yet,” he replied, “But you will.”

He raised his hand, and a strange symbol shone through the skin of his palm, charring the edge of his flesh. Three dots and three lines streaming from it. I peered closer, the bright light burning my vision.

“You will find me in time,” he continued. “You will have to.”

“Where?” I replied.

“When you are lost. When there is no way to return, ask the queen,” he said. “She will know how to find me.”

“Who are you?”

“You will know me as Bel.” He stepped into the light, facing the open door, his palms open wide. “She walks the earth. The darkness has penetrated the light. The fate of all of us is in your hands.”

A surge of light blew through the doorway, and the man, Bel, burst into flames, bright white and blue. The heat burned my eyes, and I stepped back, but when I did so, a great black hole opened up beneath my feet, a great, all-encompassing void widening beyond my vision. I screamed, but the darkness swallowed me.

“Elizabeth, wake up.”

Finn shook my shoulder, and my eyes snapped open, sensing a note of unsteadiness in his voice.

“What is it?” I asked, suddenly alert and searching through the darkness for his face. I reached out, the stubble on his jaw rough against my hand.

“I don’t know. There’s something in the sky,” he said in a halting voice. “You need to come see it.”

“Something in the sky?” I grabbed my clothes and threw them on.

“It’s—” He paused, lingering in the door. “Just hurry.”

I followed him through the caves, and a rush of tension flooded me as soon as I entered the commons. Fae milled about, distressed looks on their faces, quieting when they saw me. I gritted my teeth as Finn led me outside where a large crowd stood, staring up at the sky, cupped hands shielding their eyes. Finn pointed in the air, but as soon as I looked up, it was difficult to miss. A dark purple cloud had formed, mottled like a bruise. Inside it, strands of lightning flashed as the cloud gyrated like a tornado. In the middle of the maelstrom was a perfect black circle, tiny, as if someone had poked a hole in the sky, and beyond it—nothing. An unsettling sense of déjà vu passed over me, my skin prickling, my vision momentarily falling out of focus.

“What is it?” I breathed, shielding my eyes and staring into the abyss.

Eamonn appeared at my side, blinking and running his hands through his shaggy hair.

“Eamonn?” I pressed.

He cleared his throat. “Well, it looks like a rift.”

“A…rift?”

“A black hole. Dark matter. A break in space and time.”

Gasps and cries of despair echoed through the crowd, and I glanced around, tilting my head at Finn before taking hold of Eamonn’s arm.

“Not here,” I uttered, teleporting us back into his laboratory. The sudden quiet in the caves made us pause, and Eamonn locked eyes with me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.

He blinked, smoothing his robes. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm anyone.”

We stood in the silent room, the walls drawing in on us. Grainne sat in a corner, her face as white as a sheet.

“This is bad,” she said.

Eamonn gestured to the table where the device lay. “I think it has something to do with the bomb. I was writing up my notes early this morning when the thing began humming. I looked over, and it had…changed.”

“Changed?” I lunged toward the table and let out a gasp. Before the strange wires had been twisted into the symbol of the Fae—a great oak tree with branches and roots intertwining in a perfect circle. That had disappeared, and three diagonal lines pointed to three small dots at the top of the circle. I shook my head; the symbol from the dream, the markings on Bel’s hand, they were the same. The lights shone a faint purple color like amethyst.

“How is that possible?” I whispered, shaking my head. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a Doomsday device,” Eamonn said. “So perhaps we’ve entered a new stage. Instead of locusts and plagues, we have…”—he waved up to the ceiling of the cave toward the broken sky beyond—“a black hole?”

“I thought you said you had stabilized it,” I hissed, my hands tightening into fists.

“I thought I had. I—” The Druid slumped against the wall, his eyes clouding with fear and confusion. “There’s some other force controlling it. I can’t explain it. There’s an imbalance in the universe. Things are falling apart.”

Things fall apart.

I cleared my throat, straightening my shoulders and glancing at Finn, who stood stock still, his mouth stretched in a grim line. I used to make fun of his stoicism, his almost robotic actions, but in this moment, I finally understood. With the sky literally falling down around our ears, it would serve no one to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I had to be the eye of the storm. Even with all the questions racing through my head, I had to keep myself steady.

I gestured to the device. “Are you familiar with this symbol? Is it a clue?”

Eamonn shrugged. “It looks to me like the Awen symbol.”

“Awen? What’s that?” I said, staring into the strange purplish light emanating from the object.

Eamonn ran his finger above the three lines. “These markings symbolize the different planes of existence. They are like beams of light radiating to these three dots. They say these dots symbolize the reign of female and male energy.”

“Female and male?” I said. “But there are three dots.”

Eamonn nodded. “Yes, it’s…” He trailed off, sighing, scrubbing his tired eyes with his palms. “That is, without getting into it too much, the ancients say the universe is held together by the love of the female goddess Danu and the male god Bel.”

I nodded. Danu was the goddess the Fae worshipped. Bel was the Druids’ god. I thought of what Finn had said last night, about Danu pining for her lost lover, Bel. How could love bring the universe together? I shook my head, my gaze returning to the tiny, glowing device.

“So, what’s the third dot then?” I said.

“The Morrígan,” Finn said in a low voice.

My blood turned cold, and our eyes locked.

Eamonn raised his hand. “No, not the Morrígan. Not necessarily. It’s chaos. It’s the unknown. The Morrígan holds that power, but it’s tenuous, unpredictable. With the Awen symbol and the black hole appearing, I believe it’s connected. The blood in this device, in the weapons the Fir Bolgs use, it can only mean one thing.”

Grainne sat up, folding her hands in her lap. “She’s here, isn’t she? She walks the earth again, and she’s gaining power.”

Eamonn nodded, and everyone in the room grew silent.

“What?” My focus whipped between the three of them. “What does this mean?”

Grainne cleared her throat. “She’s the Goddess of War, the Goddess of Violence. We prayed to her, drew from her strength in battle. But”—Grainne rose and wandered toward Eamonn, linking her arm with his—“the last time she walked the earth, a great battle raged between the gods, and it nearly tore the universe apart.”

My hands trembled, and I shoved them in my pockets. As Finn intimated last night, only a great sacrifice had restored the balance once again, and I couldn’t help but feel I was at the center of that sacrifice, that history was repeating itself. But surely that was nonsense, right? Just a legend. Just a story.

Finn strode over to the device, peering down at it, the black silk strands of his hair covering half his face. “They say the sky tore in half, fire raining down onto the fields.”

“Until Danu and Bel trapped the Morrígan and banished her to the Underworld,” Grainne continued. “But at a great price.”

“What price?” My voice wavered, echoing small and broken throughout the cavern. I knew the answer.

“Exile,” Eamonn whispered. “For Bel. Cursed to wander the world as a spirit. To guard us lest the Morrígan escape.”

I spluttered, pointing up to the ceiling of the cave and the sky beyond. “So you think this black hole means the Morrígan is back?” If that were true, she would come for Finn. He had taken an oath to her, the most sacred oath a Fianna could make, but I wouldn’t give him up. I refused to sacrifice him.

Eamonn shook his head. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

Finn and I locked eyes for the first time, and I nearly staggered backward to see a flicker of something like panic in his eyes, the same fears running through his head as clear as a ticker tape.

“We need to see Morven,” Finn said. “Now. He’s older than anyone. He’ll know what to do and how to destroy this thing.”

I snatched the device, shoving it in my pocket, and then turned to Grainne, taking her hand. “Try to keep the peace while we’re gone. Use the black hole as a rallying point. Tell everyone the Fir Bolgs brought this nightmare upon us, and now we’re going to undo it. That sort of thing.”

She nodded, her jaw set.

“And we need weapons. Sparkly weapons. We know there’s a cache of weapons at Cnoc Fírinne. Round up a force of rebels and raid it.”

Eamonn sat up. “Why Grainne?”

“Because when it comes to raiding, I’m the best, you eejit.” She kissed his forehead and flashed him a wide grin. “You go and keep the universe from ripping apart, and I’ll be back before dinner.”

He grabbed her tunic and pulled her close, pressing his mouth to hers. Grainne leaned into the kiss, fisting her hands in his hair, her shoulders trembling. She cut off suddenly and gave him a meaningful glance, then marched out of the room, her hand clutched tight on the pommel of her sword, ever at her side.

I let out a deep exhale, my hand wandering to the device in my pocket. The slight vibration of magical energy had disappeared, but what remained was a dark, magnetic pull as ominous as the black hole emerging in the sky.

Were we already too late? Could the Morrígan be stopped? The darkness flowed from my fingertips, traveled up my arm, through my chest, and curled up deep in my abdomen. We needed this thing destroyed. Now. Because regardless of who won the battle ahead, the very fabric of the universe was about to tear apart.

I glanced at Finn and Eamonn. “Let’s go.”