The Goddess's Chosen

Homeward Bound

 We made it to the Fae Court in just a few minutes of riding. We all dismounted and began following behind Áine, disguised as Elle, as she marched towards through the maze to the Fae queen's throne. We made it to the gazebo quickly as Áine was on a warpath. She was angry that the queen had tried tricking me and killed Gabe, even if I was able to revive him. She marched right into the center of the gazebo, causing the soldiers to get into an attack stance, pointing their swords at our group. “Elle, what a....surprise.” The queen said, standing from her throne, her raven landing and perching on her outstretched hand. Áine straightened her back, and strode towards the queen, not paying the guards any mind. “You will stop right there, Elle.” The queen warned. Áine laughed and kept walking towards the queen. The guards rushed forward and stepped in between her and the queen. “Step aside, I must speak with the queen.” Áine said, her voice exerting her goddess like power, not like the voice she used when she was disguised as Elle. Stunned, the guards moved aside and let her pass. The queen looked furious, and I couldn’t help but laugh on the inside. This woman was a menace and was about to get put in her place. I was thrilled. “What is the meaning of this intrusion Elle?” The queen demanded. Áine just laughed. Your reign is over. I have heard of your actions towards Cassandra and your ruthless attempt to trick her into giving you more power, on top of killing one of her friends. You are a disgrace as a queen and I will be taking my rightful place, NOW!” Áine said, shouting the last word making the queen flinch. “You have no rights to this throne, Elle, you gave up your rights for a family. Guards. Remove her, and her entourage at once!” She said. As the guards started coming closer, closing in on us, Áine spoke in her goddess tone once more. “You will bow down gracefully, now, or I shall make you regret this decision.” The queen was shaking in anger, I cannot imagine anyone had ever spoken to her this way before, let alone someone she perceived as lower than herself. “You are my cousin, nothing more. Guards, remove her!” The queen was becoming petulant, shaking with anger, and maybe even fear. “I was never your cousin, child. The previous queens knew me for who I really am, but not you. But now you will see.” Áine said, transforming into her goddess form. The queen turned ghostly pale and backed away slowly. “Goddess Áine...but you...but...but you disappeared.” she muttered, stumbled over her feet as well as her words. Áine laughed, “I have been here the whole time, waiting for Cassandra and her friends, all the while seeing what you have done to our kingdom, biding my time when I could rise and take my rightful place. You will honor your deal with Cassandra and then you will give me claim to the throne.” She spoke and I could almost feel the power reverberating from her words. “Yes, goddess.” The queen was reduced to nothing more than a blubbering nobody before the power of the goddess. “Cassandra Thea Green, I bestow upon you, the light of the Fae, may you know what your enemy thinks before they do, and may you strike them down, in honor of all of us super naturals.” The queen said, stretching her wings and placing her hand over her heart and drawing out a bright light from her chest. She then walked to me and put her hand over my heart. “Use this power well, you have earned it.” she said, and I could feel the rush of power from her hand entering my body. “It is done, goddess.” she said, turning to the goddess and bowing her head. ‘You shall keep her power, and Kheelan shall go with her as she made good on her end of the bargain.” Áine said. “Now, release your mantle and get out of my court.” with tears running down her pretty face, the now ex-queen of the fae spoke, “I, Tallie of the fae, relinquish my title as queen to the rightful heir, Goddess Áine.” As she finished speaking, the bright glow from her wings dissipated and she turned around and ran from the court, now disgraced. Áine raised her head high, now as goddess, and queen, of the fae. “Cassandra, you and your friends have suffered many hardships, I will bestow upon you one more gift.” she said, approaching me. “Cassandra Thea Green, high priestess of the Maine Coven of witches, your quest to free my sister Hecate is a noble cause for all the supernatural community. I bestow upon you, the luck of the fae. This will ensure your success in your quest, and any other obstacles you may face. Thank you and take care of my boy.” she said, raising a glowing hand to my heart. I felt a warming sensation fill my body. I looked down to my talisman from Hecate and saw that all my symbols were now activated, and I knew that that meant it was time to hunt the hunters and rescue our goddess. “I will, Goddess Áine, thank you for all that you have done for me, and my friends.” I said, bowing my head. I heard her chuckle. “You can call me Áine, dear, no need to be so formal. And it was my pleasure. I can give you an estimate of where they are keeping her, but they are using so many spells and potions that I cannot be sure.” She said. Then she walked to the water and waved her hand, making a magic map appear on the surface. “Here, in the Grand Canyon, there is an old cave system, I believe that they have her hidden there. I cannot go with you, I need to stay here and rule over my people, but if you need me, Brenna can call me to you, and Kheelan has a few gifts of his own that I am sure he will be glad to finally use.” She said. “I can accompany you as far as the portal but that is all, let us go collect Kheelan and Rachelle. Shall we?” she asked, leading the way out of the gazebo and the maze. We climbed back on the unicorns and rode back to her humble home. We all gave Kheelan and Rachelle a rundown of events and collected everything we would need, then rode through the battlefield, that was now clean and back to normal, demon free. We crossed the bridge and found the mirrored pond. We all unmounted and walked to the ponds edge, Áine right beside us. “Think of where you want to go, much like when you entered. This portal will take you anywhere in the world that you might want to go. And don’t forget to keep your medallions, they will protect you still.” she said. Hugging us all one by one. “You are doing this world a great service, and I thank each, and every one of you for everything you are doing for us, and for Hecate. Be well.” She said. Linking arms, I told everyone to think of the original entrance, we needed to go back to the hotel and collect our things. All as one, we entered the portal, once again surrounded by the feeling of being submersed in cool water.  

   We appeared on the other side completely dry once again. Not wanting to waste any more time, we all walked out towards the road, finding it much more quickly than we had found the pond on the way to the fae realm. We called a taxicab back to the docks and caught the boat back to the other side of the lough from there. We reached the hotel in about an hour and a half after exiting the fae realm, and we were all exhausted. I went to the front desk and requested another room, using my card that they had on file, figuring that Rachelle and Kheelan would want some time together. We all went to what was now just mine and Gabe’s room and talked. We ordered Chinese take away, as the locals call it. Everything was delicious. It was nice to eat meat again. I had showered almost as soon as we got back, and found that somehow, Áine had slipped me some of her goddess body wash stuff, and I smiled. It was relaxing and I stepped out with the goddess like glow. When it was time for bed, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The next morning, when everyone was a bit more rejuvenated, we packed all our belongings and took a taxicab to the airport. We had a flight back to Nova Scotia. I wanted to resupply and give us the chance to check some books for anything that could help us against the hunters. The flight was about 10 hours long. We had gotten lucky and had seats all near each other, so we decided that we were going to sit the boys together and us girls could have a little bit of time to talk, you know, girl stuff. We sat and talked for most of the time before they started dozing off one by one, starting with Clara. I guess they hadn’t gotten as much sleep as me. I sat there, awake, by myself for a few hours. Concentrating on trying to contact Hecate in an awakened state, but to no avail, so I opted to try to take a nap, willing myself to be able to contact her. I didn’t know if it would work, as I hadn’t done it before, but I needed to try.  

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   I opened my eyes, and I was in a dark, dingy-looking cell. It was cold and wet; I could hear dripping in the distance. It was mostly dark, but there were a few candles lighting the space up just a little. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and looked around the cell. It was a decent size, and all over the walls were symbols in reddish paint. The symbols reminded me of the ones on Gabes necklace, and the cuffs that Nicholas had put on me back in California. “Cassandra?” I heard a woman's voice, calling me softly in a Greek accent. “Goddess?” I said, looking around until I saw a figure in the darkest corner of the cell. “Oh goddess!” I exclaimed, rushing to her. “Where are we?” I asked her. She moved forward, a little more into the dim light. She looked haggard. Her hair was a mess, and her skin was sunken, and her eyes were heavily bagged, she wore rags that were once a beautiful gown. “Cassandra, we are they are keeping me, but how are you here? These runes are meant to keep magic out.” She said. I truly had no idea how I was here, but I knew that I was merely an astral project of my true self. My true self was still on the plane headed for Nova Scotia, but my consciousness was here. “I was on a plane, and I willed myself to be able to contact you.” I said, Hecate looked like a proud and doting mother. “You are much stronger than I could have imagined, my daughter.” She croaked. Her voice was hoarse. The only reasoning is that, when I see her in my dreams, that is her projected version of herself, but this, this was her true self. “I will make the hunters pay for keeping you chained like a dog!” I said, feeling the power and fury in my voice. Hecate gave me a small, weak smile. “I knew I chose correctly when choosing you, my daughter. Can you try something for me?” she asked, and I nodded. “I want you to imagine an athame and a vial, imagine holding them in your hand.” She instructed me and I did as I was told. Sure enough, a silver engraved athame appeared in my right hand and an adorned vial with a silver cap appeared in my left. “Now, take my some of my blood, you will be able to track me that way.” she said. I hesitated, I did not want to cut the goddess, much less capture her blood. I had heard of this type of scrying, though, it was a much higher level than I had confidence in being able to achieve. “You can do this, you are my daughter, my direct bloodline, you are capable of so much.” she said, and I took a deep breath, breathing in the musty scent of this cell. I had to get her out and this is how I was going to do it. I took another breath, and I sliced her palm and allowed her blood to drip into the vial. Before it was full, I heard footsteps in the distance. Hecate squeezed her hand into a fist, causing more blood to rush out, filling the vial. “Here,” I said, taking the athame and cutting a strip of cloth from the shirt and wrapped it around her hand. She smiled weakly at me once more. “I will find you, and I will free you from this cell, I swear it to you, my Goddess.” I said, bowing my head. “I have faith my child, now go, they’re nearly here.” She said, and I obliged. I closed my eyes and willed myself to wake back up on the plane.  

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   “Please fasten your seatbelts, we will start descending in just a moment.” I woke up to one of the stewardesses making the announcement to descend. When I opened my eyes, I realized that I was still holding the athame and the blood-filled vial. Panicking, I shoved the athame and vial into carry-on bag and looked around to make sure that no one had seen, luckily, I do not think that anyone had. I looked over and Clara was beside me, snoring away. “Hey, wake up, we are about to land.” I said, gently nudging her awake. She woke up and wiped the drool from her mouth and sat up. “You ok, Cas, you look like you have seen a ghost.” She said, once she had woken up a bit more. I nodded, “I will fill everyone in once we are back to the sanctuary.” I said. 

   Once we had disembarked from the plane and exited the airport in Halifax, Ava called an Uber XL to bring all of us and our belongings back to the sanctuary. The drive was long and quiet, and I was toying with the athame and blood vial, wondering how in the hell neither of them had set off the metal detectors in the airport. After about an hour and forty-five minutes, we were pulling up to one of the houses beside the sanctuary, as we did not want the driver to ask us any questions. When we had all unloaded our things and the driver pulled away, we began walking to the old school building that served as our home base of sorts. “What is this place, it looks so...dismal.” Varwen had said, making me roll my eyes. “It’s supposed to look abandoned.” I said as I opened the front door. As soon as we were inside, all the lights came on and lit the corridors. “They were made into apartments and abandoned. My mother bought the building and created a haven for the witches of our coven and any one they would invite in, being you gentlemen.” I said, leading the way to the elevator. The three men that hadn’t been here before were looking around bewildered. We decided that since everyone was pretty much mated up now, that we would split from our two apartments to four. Each pair would have their own space. I kept the one we already had, and Gabe moved into the second bedroom. The other three pairs took single room apartments around ours. After we got settled in and unpacked, we gave the newcomers the grand tour. We showed them the library, and even discovered that we had an indoor pool. After the tour, we all headed back to my apartment, as everything was still set up as we had left it, all the food, and whatnot. I began cooking, surprisingly, the food hadn’t gone bad as I would have thought it would have. I made a simple lasagna and Rachelle, and Clara magically grew some vegetables for salads, and Ava made her homemade Italian dressing. Which, by the way, was so much better than store bought.  We had the guys bring another dining room table from one of the vacant apartments and we put them together and we ate together. I told them about visiting Hecate and about the vial and the athame, which I had pulled out of my coat and placed at the center of the table. I told them about the conditions they had her in, and how weak she looked. It broke my heart all over again, and I could see it affected them all the same. In the middle of supper, I heard a tapping on the window, and got up to see what it was. It was dark outside, but the lights from the living room and kitchen lit up the balcony. I opened the door to find Brenna perched on the railing, looking at me. “Hey Brenna!” I said, holding my arm out for her to perch on. She glided over to my arm and perched on it. ‘Áine sent me, said she would feel better if I came to this realm to look over you and your friends. And she also told me to bring my friends along, for yours.’ she said, and 3 more dark purple ravens, and one dark blue one, flew up and perched on the railing. “This is Ravenna, Ava, and Roo.’ she told me, as she said each name, one of the purple ravens bowed their heads. “And this is Cormac.’ she said, and the blue raven bowed his head. Hearing her little chirpy voice in my head made me happy, and now each of my witch companions had a familiar as well. We had been told that once we had a familiar, our lives become bound to theirs, if either died, so did the other, but it also made our powers stronger. I opened the door and asked Clara, Ava, Rachelle and Gabe to come to the balcony one at a time and hold up their arms. They looked at me like I had grown another head, but they obliged. When Clara came to the balcony, the bird that had bowed her head when Brenna called Roo flew to her instantly. Next was Rachelle, and the bird called Ravenna flew to her. I laughed when the one called Ava flew to Ava but seeing how happy my Ava was made me cut the laughter short. Last was Gabe. When he came out, Cormac flew up to him and perched on his arm and bowed his head, and I swear I heard Brenna make a loving sighing noise. I smiled. I had my entire group here, and now their familiars, and soon we will rescue the goddess and get our vengeance on the hunters that have ruined every single one of our lives.