Page 149 of A Courage of the Chosen

It grows until it’s a ball of flickering blue. Then grows again. And again, until it takes the shape of a tall figure suspended a few inches over the ground.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

Callahan’s gasp is the only confirmation I have that this is real.

That she’s real.

Dhia.

Her ethereal hand reaches for me, and cuts through the magic encasing my body with zero effort. The Seelie Goddess dips her hand into my chest, as though it’s a pool of water, and wraps her fingers around the bond that’s almost stripped me bare.

“All that is, belongs to you.” Her voice is a thousand delicate bells peeling at once. It’s life, and everything good about this world, and she begins chanting something of her own.

Tavish’s words were rugged and barbaric, designed to cause pain. Hers are the exact opposite. Eloquent, musical, and bathing me in a deep-rooted peace that I’ll never experience again.

Those fragments of my soul being scattered into the void between our minds begin answering Dhia’s call, and Tavish howls his defiance as she summons the parts of me almost within his grasp. They drift toward her like she’s their center of gravity, bound to obey her.

Dhia heals me. Fuses all my edges back together one sliver at a time. The pain evaporates, too. The roaring in my ears dims, and the rattling in the room is my own breath as it slows, my sense of self returning.

When the last shard slots into place, I reach for her, and my trembling hands ghost through her apparition.

Warm arms are banded around me as I’m hauled against a solid chest. “Elsie? Elsie, look at me. Are you okay?”

I blink up at Callahan while he pushes the hair from my forehead, wiping the blood that trickles from my nose.

Cupping his cheek, my voice croaks on the way out. “I’m ‘kay.”

He looks to the figure hovering nearby. “Thank you, Dhia. Thank you.”

“He will come for you again, child.”

She’s power incarnate, and her voice, while soft, is laced with eons of strength. Her presence makes even the fearless parts of me tremble, and my bones tingle with the need to throw myself at her feet.

The will-o-the-wisps are one thing, but to feel the full might of her is humbling.

I scramble to a sitting position with Callahan’s help.

“He will not stop until your power is his to command,” she reiterates.

I swallow. “I know.”

“You must not let that happen. I cannot stop the Anamara again.”

Callahan growls. “That’s what he was doing? Forcing the soul bond?”

Dhia answers him. “Yes, Callahan. It was almost done.”

“I thought it had to be chosen?” he says, drawing me in until I’m sat in his lap and secured by his arms.

“There are things that can be changed, given the right rituals.” She offers no further explanation before continuing. “There is only one way to prevent it, an taghadh.”

Callahan goes rigid around me.

“You must choose your own Anamara.”

◆◆◆

By the time guards and Lorna burst into the room with Reyne hot on their heels, Dhia has disappeared, leaving no sign that she was here aside from the stunned expressions on mine and Callahan’s faces. I didn’t even get the chance to thank her for saving me. Again.