Page 76 of Demure
Sierra hugged Aodhan one final time, before he broke away from her to slide on his clothes. Sierra grabbed her new clothes and began slipping them on as well.
“Remember,” Aodhan said, turning back to her one moretime as he prepared to leave. “No matter what, stay with Fia. I will come to you when it is safe.”
Sierra didn’t reply as Aodhan closed the door and made his way down the hall. She finished dressing, stopping by the mirror to try and make her hair somewhat presentable, but by the time she made it to the kitchen, Aodhan had already left. Fia was sitting at the table, stirring another beverage, a second cup placed at the empty seat across from hers.
“You did the right thing,” Fia assured her, as she slid into the empty seat, grabbing the mug.
“I know,” She sighed. “It was just a lot harder than I thought to let him go.”
Fia placed a hand on Sierra’s. “It’s never easy to let go of those we love.”
Sierra opened her mouth to argue that she didn’t love Aodhan, that they had just started dating, so how could she? But she found the words wouldn’t come.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she did love Aodhan. Burying her face in her hands, Sierra groaned.
“It’s okay. He knows. You didn’t have to tell him.”
“But I should have, now, before he left, just in case.”
Fia shook her head. “No, it might have changed his mind. You did the right thing. Like I said, he already knows. No ordinary woman puts her entire life on hold to follow a man around to try and save his world. If you didn’t love him, you would’ve gone back home the minute it was even suggested.”
Fia was right; Sierra had been acting in Aodhan’s best interest for the last few days. Of course, what they were about to do now was in her best interest, but it was also in hopes of making a change to the future she had seen last night.
“So, is Conlan really coming? Or was that the only way you could think to get Aodhan away?” Sierra asked Fia. Their planning the previous night had been brief; as Fia had seen the plan and there wasn’t much to discuss, but she had mentioned that shewould come up with a way to get Aodhan to leave so Sierra could put her plan into action.
Fia shook her head. “I wasn’t lying; you know as well as I do that the Fae can’t. Conlan’s future hasn’t necessarily changed, but I did see a shift last night. That shift, however, had nothing to do with the two of you, so I showed Aodhan some of the images from his future which happened to overlap with his, and he made his own inferences.”
“But isn’t that technically a lie?” Sierra thought back to what Aodhan had said, about how the Fae could kind of lie, but typically didn’t.
“If he had asked me to swear on it, we would have been in trouble, yes, but that’s also why I came in the middle of the night. I couldn’t warn you in advance because I needed your reaction to be real as well.”
Sierra had to hand it to Fia; her plan had worked flawlessly.
“So, what’s next?” Fia looked at Sierra, anticipation creeping over her features.
“Wait, you don’t know what my plan is?”
A slow smile grew on Fia’s lips. “No, I don’t, but I do see lots more images for you now, some of which are activities of us together, but it’s hard to know what is happening when.”
Sierra felt a smile steal over her features as well. “It was that easy?” She felt her heart rate speed up. “To change my future?”
Fia held up her hand, “Not so fast. Remember, this is the future I see for your current path, but you and Aodhan taking different paths has already made some changes, yes.”
Sierra tried to calm her excitement, not wanting to get ahead of herself, considering this was the easy part of her plan. “Well, I…uh…need to know information about the ritual of asking Mother Earth for something.”
Fia’s eyes grew wide. “You’re going to ask her…now?”
Sierra had assumed that Fia had seen the ritual in one of the images in her future. “Yes. I honestly just want to talk to her, but Ifigure if I’m going to go through all the trouble and face the possibility of a curse, I might as well ask for what I really want.”
“And what’s that?”
“To be able to spend at least a few hundred years solving the magic problem in Sidhe.”
Chapter Forty-Five
As it turns out, the ritual of asking Mother Earth, or Gaia, for something was far more intensive than Sierra had mentally prepared for. The entire first day, Fia simply coached her on what to say, if Mother Earth deigned to come.
“So she doesn’t always come when summoned?”
