Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,144
I.”
“Is that why the Wisps chased us?”
“Aye, they’re crafty kippers. Tryin’ te ruin me life, even after I died. I expect they could’ve brought me love’s soul te me, if they’d wanted… but they knew what’d happen if they did.” Fergus’s eyes glinted with anger. “Well, now they’ll get what’s been comin’ to ‘em.”
I sighed in frustration, still not understanding the whole story. “So, why trap them? Why not pass on when you died, where you’d have been reunited with Lorelei anyway? What if you’ve ruined that chance, by doing what you did?”
“I’ll hope, with every piece of me blackened soul, that she and I will meet in the beyond. They say if a love’s powerful enough, it’ll happen. Ours were the strongest of all, and I ain’t just sayin’ that. Our paths crossed time and again like it were destiny, ‘til we understood that it were fate what brought us together. As bairns, she saved me from drownin’ in the sea. A few years after, I rescued her when her horse were boltin’. Then, she hid me when them witch hunters were after me, and I hid her when some rogue were wantin’ a piece o’ her. We tried te fight everythin’ te be together—her father, my magic, a whole world what didn’t want us united. I thought we’d finally be safe, in a world all our own. I were wrong.” He lifted his head to the stars and blinked away fresh tears. “All these years, I’ve missed her more and more, until it ate up me innards and left me hollow.”
“But how come your bones were outside your realm?” I’d seen the grave with my own eyes. Hell, I’d dug it up.
Fergus gave a bitter laugh. “It were the price I had te pay, in the end. The cost of heaven is always death, lass. But I didn’t ever mean te live in my paradise as a spirit. Nah, that weren’t the plan at all.” His face fell, crumpling as a sob wracked his chest. “I were a Primus Anglicus—one o’ the last. Me family name ain’t written in no fancy books or aught, but it’s true. Mine were a secret bloodline in a magical world, where folks thought we’d all been cut down. And that meant I were still able to beg a favor of the Children. I guess they thought they owed us a courtesy or two, since it were their watered-down magicals who were cullin’ us left, right, and center.”
Nathan stepped into the conversation, with Genie flanking me on the right. “Was Lorelei a magical?” he asked.
“Probably would’ve ended up the same way if she were, but no, she didn’t have a drop o’ magic in her, unless ye count the magic of her beauty, and her voice, and the love she gave me.” He held his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with the weight of centuries of grief. “Our love were thwarted from the off. Her da wouldn’t let me near her, threatened te run me through if I came by again… But we met in secret, in a little glade that no one else knew. The gateway used te stand there, before time smothered it.
“Then, someone told a tale te her da, who were the ruler in these parts. They said I were a dabbler in devil worship and other evils.” His mouth twisted into a grimace, teardrops running over his lip and into his mouth. “One night, the village elders came fer me, and I had te flee for me life, not knowin’ who’d betrayed me. I left me love a message, tellin’ her where te find me. That’s when I begged the Children fer help, and Gaia answered. She gave me the power te build an eternal world, just fer me and Lorelei. I suppose she took pity, seein’ a fool in love.”
My heart sank. I could already guess the ending of his sad tale, but I wanted to hear it. “And Lorelei didn’t get your message?”
“No… she got it.” He crumpled to the ground, his body hunched over as he rocked back and forth, the memories clearly painful. “I waited and I waited, and I begged te Gaia te tell me where she was. And that’s when I found out… It hurts te speak of it, even now.” He sucked in a pained breath. “When she came after me, the Wisps led her off the path, and she drowned in the marshes what used te be around here.