“What exactly is a kistvaen?” Michael interrupted, wanting to understand every detail, for Emily’s sake.
“It is an ancient tomb. The one I am speaking of is the burial place of Deira, a powerful priestess who walked the earth well over a thousand years ago. Her spirit is said to have the power to break any curse, so it is to her that you must appeal.”
“And how do we go about appealing to her?” Michael inquired, smiling his reassurance to Emily.
The color drained from her face. “Michael, no. Please, it is too dangerous.”
“It will be fine, love. I promise,” he pledged, nodding at Rebecca to indicate that she was to continue.
Rebecca remained silent for a beat, glancing from him to Emily and back again, then said, “It might be best if I tell of the consequences first. If you still wish to know the spell afterward, I shall be obligated to tell you.” She transferred her gaze to Emily, her expression regretful. “I am sorry, Emily, truly I am, but I have no choice in the matter. As go-between, it is my sacred duty to help mortals right the wrong done to them by magic.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” Michael agreed with another nod. “Please do proceed.”
Rebecca nodded back. “Deira will accept your appeal only if your love for each other is true. When she looks deep inside of you both, which I promise you she will do, she must find nothing wanting in its nature. That means that your love must be utterly pure and untainted by the slightest hint of uncertainty, selfishness, mistrust, or duplicity. It must be the sort of love that encompasses not just your hearts, but your souls and every fiber of your beings. If she discovers anything at all that she deems unworthy, she will invoke the full wrath of the curse, and you, Michael, shall most probably be destroyed. If she judges your love true, she will banish the curse and you will be free to live and love in peace.”
Michael took several moments to digest Rebecca’s warning, his eyes slowly narrowing as he looked back at Emily. Viewing her with a slight frown, he quizzed, “Do you fear the counterspell because you doubt my love, or your own?”
There went her head again, shaking. “I love you, Michael. I have no doubt about that. Indeed, if it were I who risked being destroyed, I would gladly stand before Deira and beg for her judgment.”
His frown deepened at her response. “Ah, I see. Then you doubt my love for you.”
“No! Oh no, Michael, never!” She shook her head so violently that her curls danced. “I have never felt so loved as I do when I am with you. You make me feel safe and warm and cherished. It is just the notion that—that—” A ragged sob escaped her. “Oh, Michael. I simply could not live for the pain if something were to happen to you.”
“And I could not live without you in my life,” he countered, taking both her hands in his and pressing them to his heart. “I would not wish to do so.”
“Yet you must unless you break the curse on Samhaine … this coming Samhaine to be exact, and no other, or all shall be lost forever,” Rebecca gravely advised him.
“What is so special about this particular Samhaine?” Michael queried, tenderly brushing away a tear that had escaped down Emily’s cheek.
“It is special in that you fell in love this year.” At Michael’s frown of incomprehension, she explained, “Samhaine marks the end of the witches’ year. According to the rules of magic, a couple plagued by the sort of curse you find yourselves under must break it on the Samhaine of the year they fall in love. If they fail to do so, then all is lost and there is no chance for them to ever be together. Thus, they must part company forever, or suffer the wrath of the curse. That fact aside, Samhaine is when the veil between the otherworlds and our world is thinnest, so you shall have the best chance of summoning Deira then.”
“Is that all then?” Michael asked, smiling tenderly at Emily, who looked on the verge of shattering.
“Well, there is the preparation of the oils, candles, and such. And you must learn the summoning incantation. But yes”—a nod—“that is all. As I said, it is a simple spell. The question now is: Are you willing to risk the consequences should you fail?”
Michael didn’t have to think twice before replying. “I understand and am fully prepared to face whatever consequences come from enacting the counterspell.”
“No, Michael. Please …” Emily brokenly whispered. “You mustn’t risk your life for me. I am not worth it.” Her face was the color of ashes now, streaked with tears.
Michael returned her anguished gaze for several beats, searching for the words to ease her fear. When he was unable to find them, he grunted his frustration and hauled her into his lap. Crushing her against him, determined never to let her go, he growled, “To hell with Deira, and to hell with me if my love for you isn’t pure enough to pass her scrutiny. I would rather stand before a thousand ghostly priestesses and be killed a thousand times over than lose you.” And it was true. Though he didn’t believe in the curse now any more than he had before, he would gladly face any peril to keep Emily by his side.
“But, Michael—”
“No, love.” He captured her tearful gaze with his steady one, compelling her to see the strength of his purpose. “I have made up my mind. I shall go before Deira, with or without you.”
“If you go alone, you shall most certainly perish,” Rebecca soberly informed him.
“Then so be it. I would rather be dead than live without the love I have found with my darling Emily. Now do your duty as go-between and tell me how to lift the curse.”
The next hour passed with Rebecca explaining the counterspell, during which Michael, who refused to allow Emily to leave his lap, asked detailed questions, making certain that he, and more importantly, Emily, understood what was to be done and why. That task completed, he waited while the women made the protective amulet, unwilling to let his wife out of his sight.
When the amulet was finished, something that turned out to be a small, spicy-smelling linen bag upon which had been drawn several queer symbols, and Emily had hung it around his neck, it was time for them to take their leave. It was then, when Rebecca retrieved Michael’s outdoor garments, that Emily saw the helmet.
Her cheeks infusing with soft color, she watched as he placed it on his head, shamefacedly confessing, “I am so sorry, Michael. I forgot all about the surprise in my distress over the curse. Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it!” he fiercely declared, impulsively sweeping her into his arms to hug her close. “It is the best gift anyone has ever given me.”
She tipped back her head to gaze up at him, her eyes lit with love and her face flushed with pleasure. “Really and truly?”
“Really and truly,” he murmured, unable to resist pressing a kiss to her enticing lips. They felt and tasted every bit as luscious as they looked. Left hungry for more, tempted almost beyond salvation to crush her against him and thoroughly ravish her seductive mouth with his, he forced himself to pull away, huskily whispering, “Thank you for the wonderful gift, my love. I shall treasure it always.”
Grinning, she rose up onto her tiptoes and kissed him again. “You are welcome, darling.”
As Michael stood recovering from the pleasurable shock of their second kiss, he heard Rebecca laugh. “It is apparent that neither of you has anything to fear from Deira,” she remarked. “I cannot recall the last time I saw two people so in love.”
Pleased by the look of relief that swept over Emily’s face at her comment, Michael turned to Rebecca and took her hand in his, wishing to thank her. The instant he did so, he felt an intense tingling that shot up his arm and radiated through his body, vibrating like a hum in his blood.
Power. It was the sensation of pure, raw power, the source of which he could only imagine. Startled and not just a little shaken by the experience, he abruptly dropped her hand and backed away, gazing at her with a new sense of awe.
Could it be that Rebecca Dare indeed
possessed magic?
Chapter 17
It was the darkest night that Emily could ever remember seeing, dense and black, as if someone had tarred the sky, obscuring all the stars and most of the moon, leaving only a feeble sliver of light to mark this Samhaine night. All around her the mist seethed thin and pale, rising from the ground like spirits from unhallowed graves, shrouding the Merrivale landscape in a filmy pall of ashen white.
Emily shivered and snuggled deeper into the folds of her heavy woolen cloak, wondering if she would ever be warm again. Not only was she chilled to the bone from the frigid dampness of the mist, her heart was clutched by icy dread and her blood ran cold with fear. For tonight at midnight, a scant half hour from now, she and Michael would stand before Deira and put their love on trial.
Would Deira find their love worthy? Would she judge it pure enough, true enough, that she would banish the curse and allow them to love each other in peace? Or would she rule them as undeserving and—and—
No! Emily’s mind screamed, her eyes welling up with tears at the monstrous thought of what would happen if their love was found wanting. Deira would find their love worthy … she had to … how could she not? She, Emily, loved Michael Vane, the duke of Sherrington, above all else, even her own life, and he loved her in equal measure. She was sure he did. Hadn’t he proved it time and again in countless ways, his every word, his every glance and action eloquently expressing the tenderness in his heart? Why, she doubted if there was a woman alive
who felt more cherished than she did with Michael. And yet … yet …
Despite everything, despite their undeniable attraction to each other, despite their steadfast devotion and the immeasurable strength of their affection … what if there was something deep inside of one or both of them, something which they, themselves, were unaware of, that somehow tainted their love in Deira’s eyes? Or—or—what if Deira’s definition of love differed from theirs?
The sick, gnawing sensation that had plagued Emily since Michael had announced his intent to attempt the counterspell intensified at that new and infinitely unnerving thought. There were, after all, millions of different ways to love, as many ways as there were people on earth, which meant that one person’s perfect mode of loving might be completely wrong for another. That being the case, who was to say that one couple’s love was less worthy than another’s if all parties involved were happy and fulfilled in their lives together? As for Michael and herself, well, who could possibly judge their love as untrue or impure when they cared so very much for each other and were willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of that love?
Oh, true. There were those who would fail to see Michael’s sacrifice in what they did tonight. After all, he did not believe in the curse and thus saw no real danger in invoking the counterspell. But those people would be wrong, blind. He was making a sacrifice, an enormous one. By accepting her belief in the curse and willingly adopting it to partake in a ceremony that he hoped would lay her fears to rest, Michael, a man of strong convictions, was surrendering his tenets of reason and logic, principles that were as much a part of his being as his flesh and soul. If such an action did not constitute a sacrifice for love, then what, pray tell, did? Besides that—
“I see ’em just ahead, yer grace,” Isaac announced, shattering her reflections and the somber silence that surrounded them.
Since the canon of the counterspell dictated that Michael and Emily remain apart from the dawn of Samhaine day until half past eleven on Samhaine night, when they were to meet and commence with the spell, Isaac and two of the Windgate footmen had been charged with the duty of escorting her to the stone circle. The circle lay but a short distance from the quaint inn where they had all spent the previous night, and where Michael and Emily had each passed the day alone performing rituals to prepare their bodies and minds for the coming ceremony. Because the spell also forbade her and Michael to address anyone but Deira after nightfall on Samhaine, Emily simply nodded in response to Isaac’s announcement and looked in the direction in which he pointed.
There in the distance, radiating through the gathering fog like a spectral glow, was the eerily diffused blur of torchlight. The sight sent her heart plunging to the pit of her stomach. She was almost there. The moment she had been dreading for the past five days was upon her.
Praying with every fiber of her being, imploring God and whoever else might be receptive to her pleas tonight to keep and protect her beloved Michael from harm, Emily forced her suddenly leaden feet to continue advancing forward. From beneath her boots came the soft crackling of dry twigs and moldering leaves, fallen from the skeletal trees surrounding them, their noise like dying rasps against the whispered warning of the desiccated grass over which they passed. All too soon she reached where Michael and Mr. Eadon awaited her outside the circle of towering stones.
Though Michael, Mr. Eadon, and the footmen had come to the circle the day before to locate it and to attend to its preparation, this was Emily’s first glimpse of it. Seeing it now, set against a shadowy, torchlit backdrop of swirling mist and twisted, barren trees, sent a frisson of ice slithering down her spine. Rebecca had said that the stones were shaped like maidens, and they were … nine ancient Amazons standing silent vigil over Deira’s lonely resting place. If Deira was to be their judge, then these formidable stone giantesses were most certainly their jury.
Stricken by the sight with a dark sense of foreboding, Emily quickly looked away, her vision blurring with tears as her gaze fell upon Michael. Seeing him standing in the flickering light of the torch he held, his expression tender and his smile reassuring, merely deepened her feeling of doom, fueling her with a powerful urge to throw her arms around him and beg him to abandon his perilous quest.
But of course she didn’t give in to her impulse. She didn’t dare. To speak out of turn would go against the dictates of the counterspell, thus reducing the likelihood of its success. And since Michael was determined to cast it, regardless of what anyone said or did, she must do everything in her power to afford him his best chance of surviving the experience. And so she simply returned his gaze, mutely begging him to forsake the hazards of magic and preserve himself.
He shook his head once in response to her silent plea, then shot a meaningful glance at the solemn-faced footmen accompanying her. Both servants promptly stepped forward and presented her with the objects they carried. Francis, who flashed her an encouraging smile, bore the leather satchel of sacred artifacts that she and Rebecca had prepared for the spell. The appreciably tense Ralph carried the crude pine branch broom she’d made two days earlier.
When she had relieved the men of their burdens and Michael had taken his own bag of conjuring tools from Eadon, Michael nodded to indicate that the servants were to leave them. He waited until they had melted into the mist before offering her his black-gloved hand, indicating his desire to lead her into the circle. After several heartbeats, during which she frantically grappled for a way to turn him from his purpose and dismally failed to find one, Emily reluctantly did as he bid, her dread doubling with every step she took.
Like herself, Michael was dressed all in black, his somber suit of clothing covered by an ankle-length greatcoat with two wide shoulder capes that flapped in the sodden air as he marched toward his destiny. Rebecca had advised them to don their plainest black garments, saying that Deira would view the act as a symbol of their humility, which would encourage her to look upon them with favor. As Emily followed Michael through the narrow, inky fissure that served as the entrance into the ring of stones, she prayed that her friend was right.
Once in the circle Michael went directly to the kistvaen, a rough, crumbling stone coffin, before which he kneeled in a show of respect. When she, too, had paid homage to Deira, he moored his torch in a nearby pile of stones, which, judging from the jutting remains of charred branches and staffs, had been used as a holder many times before. That done, he busied himself with remo
ving the articles from his bag.
There were four white candles, each incised with a symbol that Rebecca had said represented Deira; a small brass brazier; a pouch that she knew contained a special blend of incense; and two tapers, all items that he set on the tomb, which would serve as their altar. When he had arranged the brazier in the center with the candles forming a semicircle around it, he nodded to her, indicating that she was to empty her satchel.
Gravely nodding back, Emily withdrew four black candles, also incised with Deira’s symbol, which she used to complete the circle around the brazier; a vial of consecration oil that Rebecca had helped her prepare; and a muslin bag of dried flowers and herbs. After glancing at Michael, who smiled in a way that made her long to weep from the tenderness it roused within her, Emily picked up the pine branch broom and carried it to the edge of the circle.
Sweeping the gorse-flecked ground with long, fluid motions, she chanted, “I purify the land and make it pleasant for you, Deira, so that you may call upon us and judge our love.” Repeating the motion and the chant over and over again, she spiraled counterclockwise around the circle until she had swept her way back to the tomb.
Sweeping with pine branches, Rebecca had explained, purified and sanctified the land for the spirit’s visit. The next step was to light a circle of fire around the cleansed area, an act that would seal in the purity and mark the ground as hallowed.
Taking the broom from her now, Michael held it to the torch, setting it on fire. Carrying it aloft, like a beacon of his purpose, he strode to the edge of the circle to light the ring of fagots he and the servants had fashioned the day before. If they had followed Rebecca’s instructions, and Emily had no doubt that they had, there were cedar branches to cleanse the air, birch to ward off evil, and rowan to summon Deira from the spirit world, all kindled with dried oak leaves.
Bewitched Page 30