“I’m not sure,” Callum confessed. “I could look into it. The ceremony that was performed on the beach that day was unprecedented. I’ve never heard of abilities being transferred like that. The Lady of the Lake and the Griffin were empowered in a different era; magic was much stronger hundreds of years ago. It’s a miracle that the druid John did what he did. If the power of the Griffin were gone, we would be in big trouble now.”
Because of me. If there were no Griffin, then there would be nothing to ground me. I would be dead by now. Before Gideon and I had started to share more time in the same space, I had been wasting away from sheer inertia, from a lack of will. The will and emotion to enjoy life, to keep moving forward, that relationships brought, relationships with my daughter, my brother, with Callum. I still wanted to tend the ley line, to heal it if I could, but not at the cost of everything else.
As we approached the standing stones, I could feel it again. The wrongness here was so much worse than at Penrith, the hum so discordant, so out of tune. I saw the damage being done to the land as the greyness spread further north, that same lack of will that had gripped me. The land failing to thrive or to flourish as the seasons changed.
“I hadn’t realised,” I said to Callum. “How? You should have let me come sooner.”
Callum pulled at his beard. “Aye, well, we had to be sure you were well. It wasn’t as bad as this when I came last. Marina’s message said that since Mabon there have been odd notes that they had never heard before.”
I centred myself as we rode closer to the circle, the wide sky spread overhead from hill to hill, but it felt close, heavy. I felt tired already. Gideon hadn’t returned last night and I hadn’t managed to sleep much. I had to find a way to fix it, find a way to free him. And a way to fix the ley line as well.
Three silent robed druids waited for us as we dismounted just outside the circle of standing stones.
“Marina,” I said, embracing the youngest of them as she pushed her hood back.
“Lady,” she said formally. I frowned at her and the street urchin I had first met grinned back at me.
Elsa’s outstretched hands enfolded mine.
“You are well?” she asked. “I know you were at Penrith. We would not have asked for you to come, but since the equinox, the song has twisted and the current is overwhelming. We are having little impact.”
This close to the circle, the dissonance was already noticeable. I swayed slightly as I laid a hand on the table rock just outside the circle. The thrum was magnetically pulling in a strange rhythm, the cadence distorted. This was the worst I had ever known it.
I sat on the ground in a small circle with Elsa and Marina, the later taking the role of anchor. We each laid our hands flat on the ground and allowed our consciousness to become one. I could feel the thin threads they held out to me, binding me to them. I attached them to my boat, to the stronger rope that bound me to shore, as I let myself sink deeper and deeper.
I began the task of sorting through the notes, redirecting the good ones around me, ushering them on, while the jarring, offkey ones flowed through me, sinking down, distorted and mucky, before floating out the other side purified by whatever magic lay within me.
I could feel them coming, thicker and faster than before, worse than I was used to, similar to the ones in the May line Fidelma had taught me to deal with at Glastonbury, the ones coming through Stonehenge from beyond. From Londinium. The dark notes were plentiful, notes so dark and twisted that they hit me with force. There were so many of them and they took longer to deal with because there was little that was pure in them. The jagged dissonance wanted to be pure, to be clean, to flow, but these notes were heavy, resistant, and it was like trying to get water from oil. There was so much of it.
The threads were fraying; I needed to get away. The gunk stuck to one of the threads, corroding it, and I was being dragged me down. I was heavier than the current and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to rise up to the surface again. The corruption slammed into me, forcing me deeper. I felt heavy. My tether was weak. I was so tired, and it was so dark.
It felt bad but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t help anymore. It wanted more, it was a cacophony demanding I do more. The flow was pulling me down, heavy, unctuous, corrupted. If I let it, it would take over everything. Deaden everything. Everything. Including the smell of lavender.
Beauty and light in the dark. If it stayed here, it would be smothered.
If I stayed here.
I was tired. It felt like I was drugged, but I held on to the thread that that sang of home, the thread that wanted me to surface. My daughter. I needed to return home.
I could hear Marina.
I pushed up to the surface. My eyes opened to darkness, but a darkness lit by stars.
“Callum,” I said as I recognised the grizzly man leaning over me.
“You’re back.” He sighed in relief.
We were still in the stone circle.
“What’s going on?”
“I need you to stand,” Callum said. “You must stand and walk out of here.”
“Why?” I didn’t think I could stand.
“We haven’t been able to touch you. You must move of your own free will. The land senses that you are being attacked and it moves to defend you every time we try to take you from here,” he explained. The earth was torn and roots from unseen trees protruded from the ground.
“What happened?” It was an effort to speak as I levered myself up. I looked around and saw Elsa, blood seeping from her nose, lifeless on the ground beside me. I felt nothing as I looked at my friend, the woman who had spent countless hours helping me tend the songline over the seasons I had spent here. Her eyes were empty. She was gone.
Callum’s eyes were sombre. “It was too much. The corruption pulled her down. Marina says she was trying to pull you back, put too much strain on the thread, and it took her.”
“Marina?”
“She is well. But you must stand,” Callum insisted.
I tried to push myself up.
Callum reached for me, and the earth between us started to move. He pulled his hand back. There were other shadows in the dark beyond the stones. I could feel them all willing me to get up, the force of that will so much greater than my own. I felt so tired. The darkness was a softness waiting for me to fall back into it. Elsa was gone. My eyes closed.
“Cassandra, you need to walk from the circle on your own.”
I couldn’t imagine doing what he wanted me to do. It wasn’t possible.
“Please, let me take you home.”
There was a whisper of lavender on the wind. I looked at Elsa’s glassy eyes.
I stood.
We clattered into the courtyard at full gallop. I felt almost outside of myself again. It was difficult to keep my eyes open.
I could hear Rion’s voice demanding to know what had happened and Callum above me quickly explaining.
“Give her to me.” Gideon.
Callum hesitated. All he knew was that I wanted out of the lady–Griffin dynamic. He didn’t want to betray my wishes, but I needed Gideon.
My head listed back as I was handed down to him. I needed him now, and I didn’t care. He could restore me. He was the link I needed to hold on to. My eyelids fell.
I came to in Rion’s study. I could hear their voices above me. I was curled into the broad chest of the man who held me, his fingers tracing up and down my arm. I felt… Elsa.
“Was it my fault?” I asked softly, my lids slowly obeying my command to open.
Rion and Callum were half lit by the fire they sat beside. I lay cradled in the lap of the warrior most likely to throw me over the side of the battlements. I moved to sit up. Just being in the same vicinity was enough, he didn’t need to hold me like a child. His fingers tightened around my upper arm until I ceased and lay back again. I didn’t have the strength to resist. And I needed it. Just a little. Just for a few more moments.
“Did I do something wr
ong?”
“No, we don’t know why… Whatever is corrupting the energy in the ley lines was too strong,” Callum said. “Mayhap Fidelma has the right of it. The source is in Londinium and we need to fix it there.”
“No,” Gideon’s growl came from above me.
Rion raised an eyebrow.
“It’s too dangerous.”
Callum met and matched the glare over my head.
“What’s too dangerous?” I asked.
“No.”
Gideon stood with me in his arms and was out of the room in a few short strides. He carried me through the halls and up the stairs, and I watched listlessly as the tapestries and familiar stone walls rolled by.
He laid me gently in his bed, tucking the covers around me. I felt like a child in Londinium again, protected, loved.
I felt the dip of the bed behind me, and the covers slightly lifting before a big arm came around me, securing me against him. It was like being sat beside a heat lamp for the soul, like he was sunshine and the grime and gunk that made me feel dark and empty and burned out was just melting away.
“Féile?”
“She’s well. She doesn’t know you’re back.” So she hadn’t seen me land at the castle door half-dead. Good. No little girl needed to see that.
I slept.
I woke to the smell of breakfast and my own ravenous hunger. A quick survey revealed food on the table and I was not alone. I pulled on the robe that was laid across the bed as usual. Less usual was to find the room’s owner here come morning.
I padded barefoot across the room and sat carefully in the chair opposite. Was this food for me? Why was he still here?
“Eat,” he ordered.
I rolled my eyes.
“Feeling better then, Cat?”
I nodded. I reached out and took a nibble of a piece of apple.
I looked up to find his gaze assessing me coolly.
“I’m keeping Féile away from you today,” he said casually.
I shrugged. It was probably for the best. His lips thinned in reaction. What, wasn’t that what he wanted?
I ate the rest of my breakfast in heavy silence.
“I’m going to sleep now,” I said as I stood. He still hadn’t moved when I reached the bed. I felt cold so I left the robe on as I curled under the blankets once more.
When I woke the light in the room was dimming, and I was curled like a kitten on a broad chest. What the…? I bounced up. Lazy eyes watched me as I backed away to the far side of the bed. Why was he still here?
A lip curled up in amusement. “So skittish, kitty.”
I scowled at the play on my name.
He held a hand out to me. I watched it as if it were something that could scald me.
“Come here.” His eyes dared me.
Fine. I took the hand he offered and allowed him to pull me back to him. I knelt facing him and our eyes met and held. Then he pulled his shirt over his head.
“What are you doing?” My mouth felt dry. I didn’t understand what was going on.
“I need you to feel. We need you to be well. So hate me if you must, but feel,” he said, drawing me closer into the heat of him. I let him, but I still wasn’t sure. Lips touched lips. Oh. I startled away. Warm amber eyes held mine. Was he really doing this? Was I?
I exhaled a breath I wasn’t aware I had been holding. Every muscle in my body was tense, ready to run, braced against… what? Him?
His lips descended once more, warm, teasing, coaxing, and I kissed him back. It felt good. It felt real. And I wanted it to be.
I let him draw me down, and fire started to lick through me, flames that whirled as flesh touched, as he took me higher and higher. Him, me, two, one, we spun out together.
I lay curled up in his arms, all thoughts melted away. His hand stroked up and down my arm.
“Gideon,” I started, pulling in a shuddering breath before I managed to ask my question. “What was that?”
“Well if I have to explain I clearly wasn’t doing it right.” There was lazy laughter in his voice.
I elbowed the washboard at my back.
His arm came around me, and he held his hand out palm up. I stared at it. I had taken his hand earlier and look where it had got me. My lips twisted and I set my palm down on top of his and he entwined our fingers together.
He said nothing for a few moments.
“How do you feel?”
Right, like I was going to tell this man what was going on in my head right now.
“You did it right,” I said primly. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
He huffed behind me.
“Thank you,” he intoned. “But that’s not what I was asking. Explain to me how much you feel right now? More or less than usual?”
“Oh,” I examined my emotional state. “I feel a little blissed out, like I could…”
He flipped me over to face him, his eyes still prompting me to finish, to trust him.
“I feel amazing, like I could fly.”
His lips twitched. “Do you think you can?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should try.” Jumping out of the window suddenly didn’t feel like a bad option. I felt mortified.
“No,” he growled. “Wherever you’ve gone just now in your head, stop it.”
I looked up at him, and his hand swept down over my body, stoking the still fluttering embers back to life. His lips came down on mine again. Purposeful, demanding, enticing.
“What do you feel?”
“You know what I feel.” I couldn’t confess more, not to him, not to this man who hated me.
“I don’t hate you,” he said.
I tried to wriggle away, appalled that I had spoken aloud. He grinned down at me as he held me effortlessly until I realised that the friction was having the opposite effect to the one I desired. If I was trying to leave his arms, it was becoming clear that the movement of flesh on flesh was inspiring his thoughts in other directions.
I stilled.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I wanted to try something new.”
“Being nice to me?”
“Is that what we just did? Something nice?” he teased.
I squirmed again. I really would feel better able to think if his naked flesh wasn’t touching mine.
“Gods damn it, Gideon.” I pushed at his shoulders, anger and frustration surging through me. Why was he playing with me like this? “Get off me.”
He rolled off, palms facing up.
“Take a breath,” he said in soothing tones. I frowned at him.
His laugh stopped as the handle of the door was turned, and then a knock came.
He got out of the bed and swaggered over to it naked. He couldn’t answer like that! Everyone would know. Thankfully, he tugged a tunic off the top of the dresser and pulled it over his head before he opened the door. Then came the low rumble of his voice as he spoke to whoever was outside, his body lowering momentarily before he straightened and closed the door again.
He came back towards the bed, pulling off the tunic, his large muscled warrior’s body lit by the pale morning light that bathed the room.
Why was he coming back over here naked?
“What is going on with you?” I asked, suspicious. What was he up to? “Who was at the door? “
“Féile,” he answered, slipping back under the covers.
“You won’t let me see her?” I felt crushed.
“I want you to tell me how you feel,” he replied evenly.
“Piss off.” That’s how I felt. I was done with him asking me how I felt and dictating when and where I could see my own daughter. There was a rattle from the tray on the table as furniture started to respond to the emotion bubbling under my skin. He lifted one dark brow at the noise.
“The last time we did this, you weren’t entirely stable after,” he spoke softly, calmingly. “How do you feel, Cat?”
I took a breath, and another. He was right. I was all over the plac
e. “I don’t feel as crazy as last time.”
“Well that’s good. Replacing furniture gets expensive and I was quite fond of some of those pieces.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. Damn it.
“Is that why you slept with me?”
“To save myself the expense of new furniture?” His brow arched, amusement lighting his eyes.
“Ah.” I smiled weakly, gnawing at my inner lip. How could I put these thoughts into words. “To see… to experiment…”
His eyes narrowed. “You think I bedded you out of duty?”
“Did you?” Had they asked him to? Had they all decided it would be best if he became my bedmate in more than just proximity? All the better for me to serve the kingdom, to fix the ley lines. “The loyal Gideon, always ready to do whatever his king asks of him.” My eyes swept him – I wanted to say they did so coldly, but they weren’t cold. They were blazing. I was on fire.
His mouth slanted as he closed the space between us. He loomed above me, his big arms caging me.
“I live to serve…” His head lowered slowly and made for the vulnerable point at my neck, his kisses feathering their way up to take my lips possessively. By the time he lifted his head, all thoughts had ceased and I felt boneless and maddened once more.
“You think this is service?” he asked, his head lowering further, this time lavishing the same care on my breasts before teasing their way back to my lips again.
“You think I haven’t thought of this every day,” he whispered as his lips swept possessively over mine, “every night for the last three years?”
My breath trembled out of my throat as I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him sweep me back into the whirligig of touch and sensation.
When I awoke, the room was dark, and he was still there, curled around me. I felt safe, secure, whole.
“How do you feel?” his low voice came again.
I wet my dry lips. “Thirsty,”
There was movement as he stretched away and came back with a tumbler of water. I needed to see his face. The candles flicked into life as I lifted my head while he tilted the glass to my lips. I drank gratefully, water escaping down my chin onto my chest as I emptied the glass.
Legend of the Lakes Page 13