Secrets of the Starcrossed

by Clara O'Connor

  We emerged back onto the bank and turned left to continue to freedom when I spotted the lights. Many lights approaching fast. My breath stopped in my constricted chest.

  “Devyn,” I whispered. He turned and looked at me, then his eyes moved to take in the lights behind me. He looked back at me.

  “Back,” he instructed. Turning back into the woods, we picked our way as fast as we could through the trees on horseback. The lights were gaining on us and had started to follow us through the trees, the sounds of men and dogs in pursuit.

  We raced across the open field. Devyn was holding back so he didn’t get too far ahead of me. I looked behind at the mounted men in pursuit. We weren’t going to make it.

  As we arrived at the treeline, I made a decision. My punishment for trying to escape would be severe but Devyn’s would be fatal. I couldn’t let him be caught.

  “Devyn,” I called, my throat so tight I could barely manage his name.

  He turned, holding back his horse until I came alongside.

  “Go. It’s me they’re after.”

  His eyes widened as he took in my meaning.

  “No,” his tone was resolute. “We stay together.”

  I shook my head. “No, we stay alive. If they catch us they’ll kill you. I need you to go. I’ll be fine. Just go.”

  His jaw was set, his eyes looking behind me, judging the approaching sentinels. He reached across and tore my reins from my fingers.

  “If you won’t come with me, I will lead.”

  He started forward again holding my reins, setting a pace that was reckless in the uncertain dark terrain.

  I held onto my horse’s mane and kept my head low as we charged along. I could hear the hooves pounding behind us; our pursuers were gaining on us. There was no way we could make it. We exited the woods into an open space and Devyn picked up the pace, heading towards the hill opposite when lights suddenly appeared over the crest. Torches and men and dogs.

  We veered left, heading back for the cover of the trees. Devyn slowed some as we approached the woods and I threw myself off the horse and tumbled onto the ground.

  Feeling the change, Devyn turned and saw me on the grass behind him.

  He roared, a sound filled with anguish, echoes of the child’s pain mingled with the man’s.

  “Cass.” He came back towards me. “Get on the horse.”

  I shook my head, backing away from him.

  “You’ve got to leave,” he pleaded. “I’ll buy you some time to get away.”

  This had to be his worst nightmare – the past repeating itself. A repitition that every fibre of his being would protest against, the idea of riding away from me in the face of oncoming sentinels.

  This was not the same. I was not alone. This was my choice.

  “No.” I looked back over my shoulder. They were nearly here. I ran over to the chestnut and held his hand so he could feel my strength, understand my decision. “Please. Please, ride. I’m begging you.”

  He stared down at me. I could barely see his face in shadow with the moon bright behind him. How I wanted to see his face. I could feel the turmoil within him, the pain, the fear… not for himself, for me.

  “Please. You’ve got to go now.” I willed him to heed me. If he was caught they would kill him.

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  “I know.”

  He would always come back for me.

  He leaned down. He was going to do it. He was going to leave. I smiled into the kiss as our lips touched. He straightened up and I let my hand fall. With a thundering of hooves he was gone.

  I turned to face the oncoming sentinels. He needed more time. I could give it to him.

  I let my pain and fear swell and swirl within me. I called out into the night and felt nature herself answer.

  The leaves started to rustle and the trees started to sway as the winds built. The moon disappeared as the clouds scudded across the night sky and thunder rolled. I gave myself up to it, lifting my head to the night sky as rain started to fall.

  Devyn rode further away, north to home, to safety. The creeping lights slowed; they knew they had me now. The rain poured down great sheets of water, the wind whipping through the trees behind me.

  The lights flickered and extinguished.

  But the dark shadows edged ever closer.

  They hesitated as the world became mine. Energy crackled through me.

  Lightning flashed and forked into the open field in front of me, giving the oncoming sentinels pause. Again and again the world lit up in a stark white flash.

  I laughed as power rushed through my veins.

  Let them try to ride me down.

  A flash cracked through a great oak in front of me. My protector, it gave itself for me, the flames licking up into the night sky.

  A single figure appeared through the storm, a shadow in the night.

  “Cassandra.”

  The fiery tree revealed his identity. Marcus. What was Marcus doing here? The storm lessened as he approached. He stopped when he was only a couple of feet from me. The rain plastered his hair and clothes to his body.

  “Cassandra, you have to stop,” he ordered.

  “Make me.” I grinned.

  He looked back at the sentinels, his hand taking mine tentatively. The touch brought me back and I felt my energy waning. “Cassandra, he’s gone. You have to stop now.”

  The wind that whipped across the field gentled and the sheets of rain eased off. I swayed on my feet, suddenly exhausted. Marcus leaped forward and caught me as my knees threatened to give way from underneath me.

  “He’s gone?” I asked Marcus, my lip wobbling, from exhaustion or a sense of abandonment I wasn’t sure. The latter was hardly fair as I wanted Devyn to be far from here, where he couldn’t be caught. Where the sentinels lined up before me couldn’t lay their hands on him. He must be a long way away by now.

  “Yes,” Marcus said, his voice reassuring. “Long gone.”

  I nodded. I’d wanted him to leave me here. I’d asked him to go. Finally, the rain ceased and the wind died completely. I felt better for having Marcus here.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure why but I felt bad for Marcus. Nobody was going to enjoy the fact that their match was willing to bring a storm down on the world in order to get away from him. Of course, it wasn’t that I was trying to run from him so much as I was trying to run to someone else.

  “I want you to have this.” I scrabbled at Devyn’s wristband. I didn’t need two charms and maybe if he could see through the fog of the handfast he might help. It couldn’t hurt to try. It was a gamble but what if Marcus was able to think clearly again and wasn’t just marrying me because of the handfast bond? Before the handfast, Marcus hadn’t been entirely their puppet. He’d manoeuvred things in order to be able to get his own way at the hospital. He hadn’t told them about Fidelma and I had to believe that he wouldn’t marry me knowing what he knew now were he free of the fog blanketing everything.

  Marcus looked at me slightly bewildered as I placed the charm on his wrist.

  “Please, help me.”

  “What?” He blinked.

  “Why are you here, Marcus?”

  He looked down at the wristband again before answering.

  “I’m afraid I was the one who alerted them to your escape,” he confessed ruefully. “Again.”

  I leaned wearily against him, his broad chest supporting me. I was so tired. “You did?”

  “The handfast cuff… I didn’t know it caused pain when your partner got too distant,” he explained. “I complained to one of the senior doctors and the next thing I knew the world had erupted. Sentinels were pouring out of every nook and cranny.”

  “Ha,” I laughed weakly. I really did feel most appallingly weak and sentimental. I wondered where Devyn was and whether he would be worrying about me.

  “How on earth did you manage to get out?” he asked.

  “I just walked,” I told him simp
ly.

  “Well, you’d think they were mobilising for war the way they reacted when they discovered you were gone. And that was before you actually rained Hades down upon us.” He raised a brow. “I’m presuming that was you.”

  “I think so,” I admitted, biting my lip. I looked across the field. It looked like they had finally gathered up their courage and were coming across the field.

  Even though I wore my pendant, I felt better for holding Marcus’s hand as I watched the uniforms march towards us.

  “Donna Shelton.” I recognised praetorian Alvar as he stepped forward. “That was quite the display.”

  I met his gaze rebelliously. I would not cower before them.

  “It appears you are a girl of hidden talents,” he commented. “What an interesting turn of events.”

  Wasn’t it though? If they were surprised, I was shocked. My hand reached for the comfort of my pendant. I looked around at the destruction I had wrought. The field was flooded, the trees split and aflame. I had no idea how I’d managed it.

  “Bring her,” he ordered, indicating that two of his sentinels should take me from Marcus. Marcus attempted to hold on to me but a quelling glare from Alvar put an end to his protestations. Alvar looked back at me and stalled as something caught his eye. He beckoned for me to be brought forward.

  “What is this?” he queried, taking my pendant between his fingers, turning it over and finding the Celtic knot on the back. “A triquetra, what an unusual design choice. In the city.”

  “No,” I cried as he pulled it from my neck with a snap. “Wait.”

  “Is there a problem, Donna Shelton?”

  A problem? Why would there be a problem? He could have the pendant. I had far prettier ones at home.

  “No, of course not, sir.” I smiled demurely at him, looking in confusion at the guards who held my arms. What on earth did they think I was going to do? “Can you take me home please?

  Alvar’s head tilted to one side as if he were considering a conundrum before his eyes lit up and he looked down at the pendant before looking back at me.

  He smiled.

  “Of course, Donna Shelton. It would be my pleasure.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  With only days to go until the wedding, the apartment was a flurry of activity. Praetorian Alvar had left after we had another long chat about the pendant and what had happened in Richmond. He really was incredibly curious, and while I was happy to talk to him, I did find walking him through the events of the other night incredibly tedious. If I knew where Devyn was, I would tell him. Asking me the same questions over and over again wasn’t going to catch me out in a lie. I’d told him everything but you had to admire his thoroughness, I supposed.

  “Marcus, you’re here at last,” I cried as his head poked around my door. “Come in, come in.”

  He stepped over the clothes and general detritus strewn across the floor.

  “I know, the room is an absolute mess. I don’t know where Anna is,” I complained.

  Marcus looked at me strangely.

  “Anna’s been arrested, Cassandra.” He looked vaguely disapproving as he said it.

  “Oh yes, I keep forgetting. She shouldn’t have got caught up with Devyn Agrestis.” I dismissed the whole affair and his judgey expression. The old servant had made her bed and now she’d have to lie in it. Shame, I’d liked the way she tucked the sheets in on my bed. I didn’t like them too tight.

  “Anna didn’t get caught up with Devyn Agrestis. You did. And she didn’t do anything to help him, she did it to help you,” Marcus said slowly as if speaking to a small child. One he was running out of patience with.

  I arched my brow at his tone. “Yes, well, it’s not my fault.” Yet part of me was squirming. Just a little. “Do you plan to spend the evening lecturing me?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve been wondering, your magic abilities… did you know all the time?”

  “What? Here we go again. Yawn. Everyone is very interested in my magic.”

  He came over and sat on my bed facing mine. “Cassandra, you created a storm from nothing to protect your friend. Did you know you could do that?”

  “I’ve already told Alvar that I didn’t so I don’t know why you’re asking me again,” I protested. I didn’t like talking about it. Magic was against the Code and there was still a chance they were collecting the wood to burn me at the stake. As soon as the wood dried out, I smiled to myself. Funny. I reached out for Marcus to take his hands in mine. “I don’t know what happened or why I did it. I just want to focus on the wedding and put all that behind us.”

  “Cassandra, you’re in love with another man. You were willing to set the world alight to keep him safe. You do not want to marry me.” Marcus’s jaw was set, his eyes conveying his hurt.

  “No, no, that was all a mistake. I don’t know why any of that happened. I don’t care about him. I want you and our life here together. I want you,” I told him frantically, my hands reaching up to cup his face, forcing him to look at me.

  Marcus smiled wryly at me. “Why, so we can go and have those children that the state wants us to have? Who will undeniably be strong in magic. You warned me, and I didn’t believe you. I didn’t want to believe you.”

  Why was he talking about this stuff? I didn’t care about any of it. It wasn’t relevant. It would be fine. He was Marcus Courtenay. There is no way they would take his children from him and if the city needed our children to help them by using magic for some reason, then who were we to argue?

  “Fidelma showed me how to target my magic. How much better would it be if I had been trained,” he mused aloud. “The Wilders have some kind of medicine that treats the illness. Did Devyn tell you what it is?”

  “Marcus,” I reprimanded, looking towards the door Why would he even mention that person? “Shh, we don’t need to get in even more trouble. Let’s just focus on the wedding.”

  Marcus got up from the bed and paced up and down the floor. What on earth was going through his mind? I’d never seen him like this.

  “Okay, I’m sorry for talking about things you find upsetting,” he said, coming to sit back down beside me. It wasn’t that I found talking about Devyn and magic upsetting so much as that I didn’t care; it just wasn’t relevant to my life. “I was hoping to discuss our last night before the wedding actually, our one last night of revels.”

  A much better topic. I clapped my hands. A party. My face dropped mid-celebration. I was not going to be allowed out.

  “I’m not allowed to leave the apartment.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Marcus said, giving me his most charming smile.

  “I don’t know how you did it.” I laughed as we stepped out into the night two days later.

  But I did know how he’d managed it. He’d thrown a massive fit and said the city would expect to see us having our pre-wedding revels and that we must show the city that everything was normal. Nobody knew anything about my attempted escape, just that a freak storm had hit. There might have been some whisperings of magic but what reason would the Britons have to hurt the city that way? It had been generations since anything like that had occurred. Marcus mounted a convincing argument that what the city needed was something new to gossip about, and what better than Marcus Courtenay and his bride ripping it up before their big day?

  It was amazing not just to be out of that horrid stifling apartment, but to be partying at the outer walls. Was this what married life would be like? No father frowning on your behaviour with boys, no mother saying where you could and couldn’t be seen. I gripped Marcus’s arm and laughed up at him as we were ushered to the front of the queue.

  All our friends were in the club and it had the makings of the best night of my life. To Hades with the wedding, this was the party I’d wanted. Everyone dressed to the nines, dancing and drinking at the outer wall. I couldn’t believe I was here, couldn’t believe that Marcus had managed to convince my parents to let me come to this side of town. The club wa
s dark and decadent, full of loud music and writhing bodies. I was having the time of my life. I swirled from one partner to the next.

  My new partner twirled me into the thickest part of the dance floor, his hands on me, and my entire body stilled. I leaned in and inhaled. Him. It was him.

  “Devyn.”

  “Cass,” his voice whispered in my ear as he continued to sway to the music, our hips moving together. I looked around; no one was paying us any attention. My hands roamed over him, reassuring myself that he was really there with me. His broad chest, his muscular arms. He had come back. He had come back for me.

  “What do we do?” I whispered frantically. “Tell me you have a way out.”

  “I have a way out.”

  We moved towards the side of the dance floor and wound our way through the crowd until we came to a staff door. Devyn pushed it open and that easily we were through.

  In the darkness of the corridor I threw myself at him, wrapping myself around him. If I could have I would have buried myself inside him. I was desperate for his touch, need surging through me. I didn’t want to be the Cassandra I became when he left, I wanted this. I wanted Devyn.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I murmured as I pressed tiny kisses to his jaw, his throat, wherever I could reach.

  “For what?” He pulled away so he could look down at me.

  “For coming back,” I said, my eyes glistening.

  His head went back in shock that I had ever doubted him.

  He took my head in his hands. “I will always come for you.”

  He hugged me to him fiercely. I was in his arms. I was safe. The horror of the last few days was over. The endless questioning, Anna’s arrest.

  “Anna, they took Anna,” I told him. If anyone could find a way to get her out, Devyn could. He had untangled us but was keeping our hands threaded together to maintain our physical connection as he started dragging me along the corridor. “They took her. She helped me and they arrested her.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Cass.”

  “You won’t help her? We have to help her,” I told him.