“You are joy,” Luna told her. “And you are loved,” she said to all.
“You are courage.” Arianrhod stepped forward. “And you are valued. We will talk,” she said to Riley, “but you must run. Be free.” Then she looked at Doyle. “On my honor, she will be safe, and she will come back to you.”
The wolf turned her head, looked at Doyle. Then bounded across the sand and into the dark.
“She will always find her way to you, and you to her.”
“You are strength and valor.” Celene stepped to Bran, kissed his cheek. “Power and light. You are respected, and have all our gratitude.”
“We are your children.”
“Blood of our blood, bone of our bone. Heart,” Celene added, laying a hand on Bran’s, “of our hearts. Daughter.” She turned to Sasha. “Will you give us the stars?”
“Yes.”
Each goddess held out a hand. As the glass around the stars shimmered away, each star floated to the hand that created it.
Pulsed, pulsed, stilled. Vanished.
“Are they back in the sky?” Annika looked up.
“Not yet,” Luna told her. “But safe.”
“Don’t mean to tell you your business,” Sawyer began, “but wasn’t the whole deal about putting them back up there?”
“We’re not done,” Sasha said. “It’s not finished.”
“I didn’t end her,” Doyle said as he studied Sasha’s face. “She’s still out there.”
“Your sword struck true.” With one hand on the hilt of her own, Arianrhod faced Doyle, warrior to warrior. “As you are true. But your steel was not the sword that brings her end. Until her end, the stars wait.”
“She cannot reach them now,” Luna assured them.
“But she can reach us, even here,” Sasha said as truth pumped through her. “Now the rage heals her wounds, and once healed, her madness will be complete. She will crave our deaths like wine.”
“But not tonight.” Celene raised her arms high. “See what I see, know what I know. This night is pure, and the Children of Glass are welcomed home.”
“To take another journey.” Sasha’s eyes darkened as she saw, and she knew. “Beyond the circle of power where the Tree of All Life shelters the stone, and the stone shelters the sword. One hand to draw it, one to wield it, all to end what would swallow worlds.”
“But not tonight,” Celene said again. “Tonight you will have food and drink and rest. Come. We will tend to you.”
“She is safe.” Arianrhod laid a hand on Doyle’s arm when he hesitated. “And will be guided to you.”
As he glanced toward the hills, shadows under a star-dazed sky, he heard the wolf howl. The sound of joy and triumph echoed after him as he took the winding, torch-lit path with the others.
The palace, rising high into the night sky, was as Sasha had foreseen. Gardens of color and scent, musical fountains, rooms with a fairy-tale gleam that glowed with light and glinted with sparkle.
No one approached them as they followed three goddesses up a sweep of silver stairs strewn with flowers and white candles as tall as a man. Jeweled ropes dripped from the ceiling, raining light as they traveled along a wide corridor into a large chamber.
An elaborate sitting room, Doyle supposed, decked out with curved sofas and chairs in the same jewel colors as the ropes of light. Tables held food—platters of meats and fruit and bread, cheeses and olives and dates. Desserts all but bursting with cream. Wine and crystal goblets.
He thought of Riley’s fast. Her hard luck.
He didn’t question that his clothes, his hair and body, so thoroughly drenched by the storm and the sea, were now dry and comfortably warm.
They didn’t walk in a world of logic now.
A fire crackled invitingly, and though light seemed to emanate from the walls, candles flickered.
From somewhere, soft as a whisper, came harp song.
“You have questions. But the body, mind, and spirit must be fed.” Celene poured wine into goblets. “And rested. Your chambers are prepared for you, when you’re ready.”
“There is beer.” Arianrhod poured from an amber bottle, offered it to Doyle. “There will be food for her in the chamber you share when she wakes.”
“And if I go out to look for her?”
“You are free to go as you please, as she is. As all are. Might I see your sword? And you mine,” she added when his eyes narrowed. She drew hers, held it out to him. “I forged it when I was very young, tempered it with lightning and cooled it in the sea. I named it Ceartas.”
“Justice?”
She smiled. “I was very young.”
He accepted her sword, gave her his own.
“It has good balance and weight,” Arianrhod decided. “It still carries her blood.”
“Apparently not enough of it.”
“My sword, despite its name, was not meant to bear her blood. I envy you that. I would like to spar with you.”
Doyle arched an eyebrow. “Now?”
He saw a warrior’s gleam in her eye before she glanced back where the others filled plates, tended wounds. “My sisters would object, but perhaps tomorrow.”
“You’d have an advantage.”
She exchanged swords with him, sheathed her own. “Warrior to warrior, not god to immortal.”
“No. You look like my mother.”