Faelorehn (26 page)

I cast aside my uncertainty.  “Cade,” I whispered, reaching out a hand and forgetting about my ridiculous pajamas.

He grimaced and avoided my touch.  That’s right.  It wasn’t as if he was
my
boyfriend.  Who was I to offer comfort?

“I’m so sorry Meghan,” he whispered, his voice raspy and full of remorse.

I opened my mouth to argue with him but realized he had said nothing worth arguing with.

He ran his hands over his gaunt face and through his hair.  If he had been trying to wipe away his weariness, he had failed.

“This is all my fault.”  He glanced at my cast-encased leg.

I self-consciously threw my comforter over it and blushed.  When had my covers shifted off of me?

“I should have explained more to you, much more, but I didn’t think . . .”

He heaved a sigh of frustration and just barely kept himself from punching the wall.  He glanced around my room, spotted my desk chair (strewn with all my sweatshirts and jackets) and dragged it over so that he could sit facing me.  My wayward clothing fell off in an accusing manner as he pulled the chair in place.  He dropped into it, the legs creaking under his weight.

He rested his elbows on his knees and thrust his hands through his hair again, his face bent towards his lap.  I got the impression he wanted to pull his hair out.

An eternity seemed to pass and I had no idea what to say, to do, to think.  Just a few short hours ago I was sure Cade wanted nothing to do with me, that he had betrayed me and had been using me all along.  But his behavior now proved otherwise.

Finally he spoke, though he still sat with his head in his hands.

“You should never have crossed over into the Otherworld.”

His statement was so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.

“And because I was so arrogant and preoccupied with my own troubles, I never stopped to consider that she would figure it out.  It’s my fault, all my fault.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going; Cade talking as if I wasn’t sitting right in front of him and not explaining anything he was saying.  He didn’t sound right, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders; as if Atlas had given Cade his burden and now he searched me out as someone to confide in.  Only, Cade seemed to be confessing, not confiding.

Eventually, he sat up and looked me straight in the eye.  His eyes, usually always so dark green, looked impossibly pale now.  Pale and empty, just like the rest of him.  What had happened to make him look so sickly?  A pang of fear shot through me.  Yes, I may have been slightly angry with him and terribly confused, but that part of me, the part that created my sentimental emotions, reminded me that no matter what he said or did, I would still love him.

“Meghan, do you know what a geis is?” he finally said.

Uh,
geis?
  “No,” I answered honestly.  To my great relief he elaborated.

“A geis is like a taboo, something that you must never do or else there will be dire consequences.  It is prevalent throughout the old Irish folk legends, but it was really a safeguard instituted by the Faelorehn when we first crossed over into this world.”

He paused and gave me his characteristic grin.  Only, there was too much sadness behind it for me to really enjoy it.

“It kept our kind in check, so that they would not take complete advantage of the human race.  It gave us limits, boundaries you could say.”

Okay, I think I got all that, but why was he telling me this now?

He gave a huge sigh and when he spoke to me next, he kept his eyes lowered and his voice soft.

“I have a geis, and so do you.  Well, I should say we each had a geis.”

I felt my mouth go dry.  “
Had
?”

Cade looked up at me then, his eyes haunted and his mouth grim.  He nodded once, and then lowered his eyes again.

“Wait, what do you mean,
had
?”

“You had a geis, and because of me it has been broken.”

“What?” I blurted, sitting up straighter.  “What do you mean, my geis is broken?  How can someone break their geis if they don’t even know what it is?”

He grimaced again.  “Believe me,” he grumbled, “it happens all the time in the Otherworld.  Here on earth humanity might call it irony.”

My head was spinning again, and not because of the crazy antibiotics and painkillers the doctors had prescribed for my injuries.

“Cade,” I licked my lips and swallowed my fear, “please explain.  What happens if you break your geis?”

He nodded and took a deep breath.  “I never thought you would actually come after me, but I should have seen it coming, especially after I learned who had spoken to you.”

I cringed.  Oh.  So he knew that the Morrigan had paid me a visit.  I merely nodded for him to go on, once again hoping my bruises hid my red face.

He sat up fully and drew his shoulders back.  He gasped and clutched his arm.  Without thinking, I reached out to him again.

“No,” he murmured, his eyes drifting shut, “I do not deserve your compassion.”

More stung than anything, I let my arm drop, the hurt written all over my battered face.

“When I tell you, you will understand,” Cade said as way of an explanation.

“In those first few weeks after I discovered you, I came to suspect that there was much more to you than I originally thought, Meghan Elam.  When all evidence proved as such, I made it my own personal goal to find out as much about you as I could.  I tracked down an acquaintance who was able to help me discover who your real parents are.  He is the one who suggested you might be Tuatha De and Fomorian.  But I have spoken to him since I passed this information on to you, and if he is correct in his most recent discovery, then you are far more than a simple half Tuatha De, half Fomorian castaway stuck in the mortal world.”

I felt a strange shock of fear and delight rush through me.  Who was I then?

Cade held up a hand.  “It’s just speculation.  We have no real proof yet, but the longer I consider it, the more firmly I believe it.”

“Who am I Cade?”  I had to know.  After learning about the Faelorehn and discovering that I was one of the immortal beings of the Otherworld, I had been dying to know who I was, where I had come from.  Who I belonged to.

Cade smiled sadly.  “I’m sorry Meghan, but I cannot tell you that.  Maybe one day, but not now.”

Severe disappointment hit me first, then anger.  I crossed my arms and let my chin drop.  Tears pricked at my eyes once again.

“I deserve to know,” I whispered harshly.

“You do,” Cade agreed.  “But I cannot tell you.  Not now.”

He sounded pained, as if he wished to tell me more than anything.  Then it dawned upon me.

“Your geis,” I said simply.  He couldn’t tell me because it would break his geis.  But hadn’t he implied he had already broken it?  Yes, when he had been talking about mine.

Cade nodded.  “It is more the consequences of my actions.  I violated my own geis and now I must pay.  One of my punishments includes keeping certain information to myself.  I have no control over this.”

I looked up at him.  “How did you break your geis?”  I didn’t really expect him to answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

He took a long, deep breath, as if he were preparing to brace himself against something terribly unpleasant.  “I violated my geis the night you were attacked, but even much longer before that.  What the Morrigan said to you that night was true.  It was my job to find you and bring you back, though she didn’t know it would be you in particular I would find.  It was sheer luck that I had stumbled upon you.  When she found out, she wanted you dead.” I gasped and he held up a hand.  “Please Meghan, I must tell you this.”

I nodded for him to go on, as shocking and frightening as it all was.

“I stalled, tried to change her mind, did everything I could to get her focused on something else.  But she wanted you and she wanted you eliminated.  It is hard to kill a Faelorehn and only the gods and goddesses themselves cannot die, but I would not kill you Meghan.  I
could
not.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to become lost for a second.  Then he started speaking again.  “When she found out I would not follow through with her plans, she distracted me with an assignment in the Otherworld.  I
hate
myself for that.”

This last part he said so quietly I had to crane my neck to hear it.

“That’s when she enticed you into our world, in order to destroy you.  For, you see, in doing so your geis was broken.”

Ah, so we’re back to where we’d started.

Cade glanced up at me, a look of determination on his face.  “Meghan, I cannot tell you who you are but I can tell you about the geis that was placed upon you.  Your parents knew that someday you would be hunted by the Morrigan, so they did what most of our kind do when their child is in danger because of who they are; they sent you to this world.  Now your mother was smart.  She not only hid you among the humans of this earth, but she placed a geis upon you.  And as you now know, no geis comes without a price.”

I nodded, the dread in my stomach starting to coagulate like cottage cheese.

“You would remain safe always from the horrors of the Otherworld, if and only if you never crossed into the borders of Eilé.  So, because of my foolish reluctance to give you certain information, and because of the Morrigan’s cruel manipulation, you stepped into the Otherworld and broke your geis.”

I didn’t know what to say, and if I was being completely honest, I was a bit confused.

“I don’t understand,” I admitted.  “What exactly is,
was
, my geis?”

“Do you remember all the times you were chased or bothered by some Otherworldly creature?” Cade said.

I nodded.  How could I forget?

“And did you ever notice how they always stopped short of harming you?  As if an invisible shield of protection surrounded you?”

I clenched my hands into fists and thought back.  I remembered how the demon goat-man hadn’t been able to touch me, how the raven had slammed into not me, but some force field around me.  Even the Cumorrig on that first night I had met Cade . . .  Even they hadn’t really been able to quite reach me.

Cade nodded solemnly.  “You never would have come to harm.  Your geis protected you in this world, but since you have crossed over to the Otherworld and stepped foot on Eilé’s soil . . .”

“I am no longer protected.”  I looked up at Cade with wide eyes. “I am now free game.”  And then something else struck me.  “That is why the Morrigan didn’t kill me in the clearing.  She knew she couldn’t hurt me there.  She knew she had to get me to the Otherworld, to break my geis, to make me vulnerable.  This is why she lured me there, not to help you, but-”

I cut myself short when I noticed Cade start.  He was giving me his full attention now, gazing at me with those intense eyes of his.  “Help me?”

I blushed.  Ugh, why couldn’t I stop doing that?  I hadn’t planned on telling him all that . . . I cleared my throat and sighed.  This time I was the one to lower my eyes.

“Um, yes.  She said you needed my help and that I had some special power or gift that could save you.”

Finally I looked up, only to find Cade looking at me in the most bizarre way, as if he were dumbfounded that I would actually enter an unknown world full of monsters in order to help him.  Oh yeah, that did sound unbelievable.

He reached out then and took my hand in his own.  I was shocked at how cold it was and I almost jerked my own hand away.

“Thank you.  I cannot tell you how sorry I am, Meghan.  You should never have gone with her, but it means a great deal that you would make that sacrifice for me.  I don’t expect your forgiveness, or your friendship after all this, but I do hope that you know I never meant to harm you.”

I nodded, trying to fight the lump in my throat; trying to remember to breathe.  Cade had always tried to help me.  Despite my current anguish, I was warmed by that thought.

I laughed after a while, though I felt little humor.  “I bet your girlfriend is livid with you at the moment.  That was you I saw the night she lured me into the Otherworld, right?  It was you who fought off the Cumorrig . . . ?”

But my question trailed off when I felt the bones in my hand begin to constrict.

“Cade, you’re hurting me,” I said, feeling fear once again.  Had I said the wrong thing?

I glanced up at him and the look on his face was something between pure disbelief and . . . disgust?

“Girlfriend?” he said harshly.

“Yes, the Morrigan.”

I felt foolish all over again but I managed to get my hand back.  Why did I have to go and open my big mouth?  Could it be that my brain had stopped working since I found out that I had some semi-important Faelorehn parents who had placed a strong geis on me?  All after surviving a bizarre, near-death experience?  I really needed a vacation away from being me.

Cade was quiet for a long time.  “The Morrigan is not my girlfriend.  Did she tell you that?”