The Heartbreak Show (Bound By Ravens #3)

21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cian Lonan-Merrick

It is time . . .

Was that a coincidence?

I rolled a wine-soaked, reconstituted bilberry in my now gloveless palm. Three other Great Seeds stood with their backs to mine, starry-eyed and grinning like scuttered eejits. Except, they were drunk on magically heightened religious fervor—similar to the small handful of women in straw hats across from me.

Me? Horror had long seized my pulse and was now bleeding into my expression.

This would be my first and last cult ritual, dying stars above. I would blame the Carrion Crime Syndicate’s glamour, but these mainlanders performed this shite without being coerced to indulge their greatest fantasies.

A woman scratches feverishly in a journal, her cheeks flushed. A man calls for her. She startles to a stand and gently calls back, “On my way, darling!” She blots the ink and blows on the pages, then quickly covers her scandalous words with a lady’s magazine and leaves. My mind steps forward and sees past the obstacles to a titillating romance she penned between her and Lugh and his large, shining—

My mind snapped back to reality.

Naughty Lady of Lugh , I wanted to applaud. I hadn’t meant to meet her eyes but . . .

Wait.

Shining ?

My nose wrinkled. Did the illumination enhance his performance? Her pleasure? Or was that merely a decorative fantasy?

Where was that delightfully unladylike Lady? Was she the brunette or redhead? I needed to know the rest and—and that would not be happening.

The ladies started circle-dancing around us initiates while passionately singing a plucky ditty about planting seeds to honor Lugh’s foster mother, Tailtiu, the Goddess of Harvests, who had painfully died in the labor throes of turning forests into farm fields.

I blinked.

A happy song . . . about dying painfully . . . to seed plowed fields.

These were city women, not farmers’ daughters. They had cooks who baked their bread and prepared their vegetables. Brothers who spoiled them with excessive treats at a market designed for kings and queens, not rag quilt peasants like me. What did they know about surviving off the land? Of having to consider tree bark flour and milking wild deer to not feel the hollowed pains of hunger?

It was . . . disturbing.

Apparently, every day was Lughnasadh to these wealthy women too. Throughout the year, they traveled to different gods-blessed locations to worship Lugh and his family as well as to harvest more Seeds for their Plowed Fields. Seren was their early winter stop.

“She died for the shaft!” A collective breath was taken. “Of wheaaaat!”

The muscles of my mouth strained to remain neutral.

There was far too long a pause between those lines.

Through the blur of grinning, singing faces moving by, I caught Corbin peering my way. I expected to see delight twisting his lips at my suffering—mine sure would if roles were reversed. Instead, they were pressed into a straight line. I angled my head to peer over another set of shoulders and fruit-topped heads bobbing past and . . . two Raven Folk lads were in conversation with him and Owen by the Palace of Stars, near the center of Crescent Street on the Beggar's Hole side of Seren.

Carrion Crime Syndicate Ravens.

My heart jumped to my throat—

Something light hit my face and I reared back. A ball of cotton plopped onto the ground in front of me. I had just registered the object when I was hit again. The ladies were bouncing on the balls of their feet and throwing cotton balls and petals at us while crying out, “The seed! The seed! The seed!”

What.

Was.

Happening.

“Great Seeds,” the priestess intoned and the Ladies quieted. “Show us your berries swollen with life’s vigor!”

I lifted my palm, eyes round and mouth clamped tight. The blue ball rolled toward my fingers with the movement; I started to sputter and caught myself. One look from the fellas and I would crack.

Emeline, who was now positioned across from me, grinned and bunched her shoulders in excitement.

I found myself smiling back. The feminine part of me relished the girlishness of this moment. Men didn’t dance and sing around each other to welcome new acquaintances into their circle of friendship. Aye, the weirdly intense worship of Lugh was on an alarming, laughable level, their rituals were silly too. But their sisterhood and celebration of each other was beautiful.

“Repeat our sacred oaths,” the priestess intoned once more. “I, a handmaiden of Lugh.”

I murmured the words, a warmness blooming in my chest.

“A descendant in heart and spirit to the attendants once bound to Eithne’s care.”

That was an unexpected plot twist. They honored both of Lugh’s mothers then.

The priestess lifted her own berry for all to see. “I promise to uphold the ancient vows to honor the gods and cherish each other.”

I pretended to speak the lines, skipping the word “promise” and mouthing others. As a halfling, I wouldn’t risk the possibility of a magically binding bargain.

“And promise to not share our secrets outside of our Plowed Fields.”

Once more, I maneuvered around the bargain.

“By eating this berry, the fruit of Tailtiu, I will preserve the legacy of Lugh and his family.”

That part was easy enough.

The ladies placed the berries to their lips and, once finishing their repeated line, plopped it into their mouths.

We gathered these blueberry cousins in the hilly heaths around the northeastern villages when rolling through late summer. Usually, we added them to porridge. But wine-plumped, reconstituted bilberries were delicious, holy stars . . .

“Sponsors come forward.”

Emeline stepped toward me and I arched a brow.

“Top your Lady.”

Dying suns save me . . .

I compressed my lips together as tight as possible.

Pulling on the ribbon beneath her chin, Emeline untied the bow and my pulse kicked up. Ohhhh . . . gifting me her straw hat was the Topping Ceremony.

Well, shite.

Standing on her tip toes, she gently placed the elaborately decorated hat on my head.

Magic slammed into me. My muscles stiffened. A bright, effervescent sensation began pulsing in my veins.

Emeline kissed my cheek, then kissed the other.

She pulled away quickly, her dainty brows drawing close together. “Mrs. Merrick?” She jumped back and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Light was shimmering along my skin.

“A child of Lugh!” a woman shouted.

Terror ripped the breath from my lungs. I . . . I was glowing.

Soft wonder pinked Emeline’s cheeks. “I kissed the face of a goddess.”

One by one, the Ladies of Lugh fell to their knees before me. A few were weeping.

“A goddess walks among our Plowed Field,” the priestess said, practically panting in her excitement. “A daughter of Lugh.”

At the commotion, Owen and Corbin turned toward me and gaped—the Syndicate lads no longer in sight. I could make out Owen’s mouth forming, “Feck. Me.”

Hands touched the pink silk of my skirt and Ladies whispered, “Cordelia,” in reverence. My face started to grimace at the mention of that decapitated mainlander head of horrors. But, in a way, I supposed I was a Cordelia—a mold of the real women before me. I wasn’t a well-bred lady of upper-class eastern society. I was a backwoods Caravan lass who drank straight from the bottle, smoked cigarettes, and shamelessly walked around the train station in a strapless corset.

“Bless us, True Lady of Lugh,” the priestess beseeched me.

Magic shimmered down my body at the prayer.

“Daughters of Man . . .” I said before I realized I was speaking, and in my native dialect too. “You are all cows of plenty. Turn your Plowed Fields into a great harvest for those who hunger.” The words were light on my tongue. “Share from your tables the food Tailtiu sacrificed her life to provide for all instead of hoarding her provisions. Make this an act of worship to Lugh, who generously shared from his table in memory of his foster mother.”

“I swear it to you,” the priestess cried out. “We will share Tailtiu’s bounty and provide a Lughnasadh feast for those who hunger. We will become cows of plenty.”

“May the blessing of your prosperity also be theirs.”

The magic rushed from me. I wobbled on my feet, my head spinning, but miraculously remained upright.

What . . . that . . . Holy Mother of Stars , I answered a prayer! As a living, breathing fae deity!

The weeping around me increased.

Fanatical joy shone in Emeline’s round eyes.

Panic, however, was bubbling inside of me again and ready to hit a full boil at the feel of their pawing hands and whispered praises. Eventually they’d snap out of their goddess struck fervor. Or claw me to death in their glamoured-heightened states. I was the closest to touching Lugh they’d ever know.

Raising my skirts the barest inch, not wanting to flash cock boots in their faces, I attempted a step. A ripple of alarm moved through the Ladies.

“Don’t leave us!” a voice cried out, followed by equally as agitated agreements.

Frenzied fingers gripped my skirt.

Oh feck no.

I grabbed the parasol hanging off my arm and, locking onto Owen, popped open the umbrella.

He jumped into the air the moment he saw what I was about to do.

But fight-or-flight demanded I run—NOW.

The hands holding onto my skirts tugged. But I was in a full panic at this point and barreled forward. The ties for both my dress skirt and petticoats ripped. I tripped over the falling silk, dropping the parasol, yet managed to hop out of the pools of fabric without losing my balance. Then I was sprinting across the lawn in a bodice, drawers, stockings, my cock boots on full display, and while gripping the straw hat in my fingers.

Pleas and shouts were far too close for how fast I was running.

I glanced over my shoulder and nearly fainted.

Those fecking unhinged Ladies of Lugh were chasing after me!