My father slowly shook his head. “I think I’ll wait here.”
Though it was untied, my dress suddenly felt too tight. My palms began to sweat as I paced, trying to find the right way to say the words that would break my green bestie’s heart. “Dad, it’s alright. I need to talk to Kerdik in private.”
“No,” Dad replied without apology or equivocation.
I swallowed a lump in my throat, still unable to look up at Kerdik. “Darling, what is it? Does Lane need my help? She was doing so much better this morning.”
“I love that you love my family.” I shook my head with my chin lowered. “I don’t deserve how good you’re being to us.”
“I don’t love your family; I love you.” Then he nodded toward Urien. “And you.” He reached out and took my hand in both of his, running his thumbs over my knuckles.
“I… I… I need you to take your ring back.” I cringed, knowing that I would choose all the wrong words.
Kerdik’s grip on my hand steeled. “I’m not taking back my gift. It’s meant for you to wear.”
My mouth went dry, and I feared the confession might remain stuck inside of me forever. It would take one sentence to crush him, and for the life of me, I couldn’t get it out.
“Don’t you like it? I thought you loved the look of your ring.”
“I do! Kerdik, it’s only the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen in Avalon or Common. It’s gorgeous, and you’re wonderful for giving it to me. I can’t wear it anymore, though.”
“Tell me why,” he demanded, his tone turning sharp. My fingers were still winched in his grip, but I didn’t try to wriggle free. Everyone was afraid of his temper, and I wouldn’t add to that stigma.
“Because I… I can’t wear it because…” I shifted and rolled my shoulders back, as the material of the dress started to make me itch. I wished for a black hole to open up and swallow me into its depths.
“Just say it!” The door banged open, and an angry gust of wind encircled us, creating a legit vortex that whirled a pair of my shoes and a few other items from the room around me. My hair whipped around my face, my eyes wide at the flare of his temper.
“Kerdik, you’ll calm yourself down in front of my daughter!” Urien commanded, standing and bracing himself against the cyclone he was now on the outside of. “Rosalie, tell him!”
My dress flapped hard on my thighs, and despite everything, I leaned into Kerdik and wrapped my arms around him. Though he was the source of the chaos, I clung to him in hopes that he could shield me from the wind that tugged my dress to the side and loosened the ends of my braids. “Kerdik, you have to calm down! This is hard enough without a tornado in my bedroom!”
My dad was trying to get to me, but the wind separating us was too rough. “Kerdik, it’s enough!”
“Tell me why you won’t wear my ring!”
I was scared, not of him, but of the harm my words would do to him when they tumbled out of me in a rush. “I can’t wear your ring because I’ve asked Bastien to marry me, and he said yes. I can’t wear his ring and yours!”
Kerdik jerked my chin up, holding me tight to him so that my breasts were pressed to his chest. My hair swung out to the side, the wind keeping us in our own little world. “You asked him?”
“I did. We’re going to be married.” My eyes begged him to understand. “You knew this was coming.”
“I thought I had more time! I thought you…” His expression turned a mix of frustrated, wounded and confused. “But I love you!”
“Kerdik, stop this wind! I can’t think when you do crap like this.”
The wind quieted, but didn’t completely die. Still, I remained affixed to him, my chin cradled in his hand so that I couldn’t turn away. My dad grumbled about Kerdik’s temper.
Kerdik was in no mood. “Get out, Urien.”
My dad crossed his arms over his chest. “Not while your temper’s so unsteady.”
“You all want me to be a person, but you won’t grant me privacy during the worst conversation of my many lives? I’m not an animal to be put on display; I’m a man. I love your daughter, Urien, and she’s marrying someone we both know isn’t worthy of her.”
“Are you worthy?” my dad questioned.
Kerdik sucked in a deep breath, and let it out as the wind finally died around us. “Give us a few minutes to sort this out like adults.”
When his voice seemed calm, my dad looked to me to gauge the situation. “Are you alright in here without me?”
I nodded with confidence, though my nerves were rattled. “Go on down to court. I’ll see you there in a few.”
31
The Truth About the Darkness
When my dad left, Kerdik locked the door behind him. “It was supposed to be me,” Kerdik all but snarled. “Bastien’s nothing like you. He’s infatuated with you, which isn’t the same as compatibility.”
Despite the intensity of the moment, I scoffed. “How would you know? Bastien and me are good together.”
“You two can’t stay together for a month without breaking up.”
Darn Kerdik and his valid points. “If that’s true, then what are you getting so worked up about?”
Kerdik yanked me tight to him again, gripping me around the waist and making my heart race. “I don’t want his ring on your finger!”
My glare met his, and despite how angry I wanted to get at him, I chose my words carefully. “It’s not your choice. It’s mine, and I’ve made up my mind. I’m marrying Bastien, and you’ll accept it.”
“I’ve never wanted to snap anyone’s neck more than his right now.”
“Stop it with that kind of talk. You’re supposed to want what’s best for me.”
“I’m what’s best for you!”
“You want to talk about incompatible? You and I don’t even have the same life expectancy.”
“Neither do you and Bastien!”
Crap. I winced that he’d gotten in a second all-too-true point. “Why are you doing this to us? I don’t want to lose you over what should be the happiest decision of my life.”
“Make no mistake, marrying an Untouchable will be the worst decision of your life. I’ve been around for centuries, Rosie. I’ve seen how the men turn out who’ve managed to escape their armies. They can’t calm down. They succumb to a vice that dulls the pain – alcohol, women, more fighting. They’ve got anger that runs deep. I don’t want you married to that.”
I shook my head, taking a few breaths to quell our fight. “Look, I wasn’t naïve enough to expect you’d be happy for me, but we have to find a way to get somewhere stable with this.”
“You love my ring.”
I lowered my chin. “I do. But I love Bastien more than a piece of jewelry. I know it makes him uncomfortable – like you’ve got some claim on me.” I rubbed the nape of my neck uncomfortably.
Kerdik’s frustration lightened by degrees, and I saw a small smile curve the corners of his mouth. He reached his hand out and brushed over my shoulder the braids that had fallen to loose waves. “Where’s the treachery in that? I thought you liked it when I claimed you.”
My skin was practically crackling with the electricity I pretended I couldn’t feel. I shouldn’t feel it, but there it was – taunting me as Kerdik leaned in to brush his lips to my cheek. I felt the heat rise where his lips grazed, and knew that he’d seen the crime I couldn’t deny in my blush. “I’m engaged,” I reminded us both. “You shouldn’t kiss my cheek like that.”
“Like what? I’m just a friend of your father’s, come over to pay your family a visit. You don’t want me to kiss your cheek now?” His tone took on a scolding note, as if I was being ridiculous.
I shot him a baleful look. “You’re making it sound dirty. Like you’re an old man who’s trying to seduce a teenager.”
Kerdik’s eyes narrowed, and I could spot his temper making its dreaded climb once again. “Did you ever seriously consider us? Or have you only ever had eyes for Bastien?”
&nbs
p; I didn’t know how to answer that. My hands were twisting in the fabric of my dress, and I couldn’t look at him. “I don’t think sparks like that fly from two people who’ve never considered the possibility of more. But it doesn’t change that we shouldn’t, and we can’t. I love him, and you know it.”
Kerdik nodded, and the silence that fell between us weighed heavy on my heart. “I think I’ll leave the province for a while. Get myself some… something I can have.”
Panic choked me around the throat at the thought of my… whatever Kerdik was to me, leaving. I knew it would be selfish to ask him to stay, but the confession bubbled out of me before I could access my higher reasoning. “I don’t want you to go.”
Kerdik shrugged, as if my words didn’t pierce him. “I don’t want to watch you marry someone else.”
I chewed on my lower lip, willing my eyes not to mist over. “Here. You should have your ring back,” I repeated, fumbling with my fingers to slide the treasure off my hand.
Kerdik caught my wrist and rolled my fingers into a fist. “No, darling. I have to… The ring isn’t… You can’t…” He exhaled his frustration. “You have to keep that ring on your finger, and not just because it would break the heart you gave me if you took it off.” He ran his palm over his pressed pants, alerting me to his nerves. His eyes glanced to the lock on the door, and then he shot me an apologetic grimace when he stretched out his hand and raised up a stone wall out of thin air. I yelped in surprise, but trusted him enough not to totally freak out. The wall covered the door, closing us firmly in my room. He did the same thing to the windows, but when he saw my growing alarm, he moved his hand over the stone to make flowers appear on curly vines up the walls– as if that made it less of a prison. He turned the lantern up, but it was still dim, the atmosphere private and hushed.
“What’s going on? Are we okay in here?” I fretted, glancing around warily.
“I have to tell you something, and I need you not to run out on me when I do.”
I groaned internally. “Nothing good ever started with a preface like that. Out with it.”
Kerdik took my quaking hands in his, turning on the bed so we were facing each other. He seemed older this way, more mature, as if he was about to break down the timeless secrets of the birds and the bees. “I don’t know how much of my conversation with Brìghde made sense to you.”
“About fifteen percent.”
Kerdik leaned forward and brushed his nose to mine. It was a breath away from kissing, so I pursed my lips together, lest I tackle him with too much lust. “Tell me that you love me.”
“You’re killing me here. Out with it.”
He brought my hands to his cheeks, so I was holding his face, his palms glued to the backs of my hands to keep me in place. “Long before you came to Avalon, things were different. There weren’t just the Fae and Wildmen with innocuous abilities. Some could fly, others could turn invisible. The magic was stronger back then, which was sometimes a good thing.”
“Okay, I knew a little bit about that. Bastien mentioned something like that a while back, and I think you or Lane, too.”
Kerdik closed his eyes. “When you say his name, I begin to forget all the good you’ve shown me.” He tilted his chin to the side to plant a kiss in my palm, reminding us both to be gentle. “Some of the magic still lingers, especially if you leave Faîte for a time and give yourself a chance to recharge. But overall, much of that higher magic is gone. It wasn’t all good, mind you. Brìghde and Cailleach came to me with concerns that the moon was twisting some of the magic in their land. There were Fae biting each other, drinking blood to gain extra abilities – speed, strength, heightened senses, and things of that sort. Some of them were the type to lose their minds, seeking out only more blood, and more. We were worried that Éireland might devolve into chaos if the magic grew in its strength and continued to evolve as it had.” He closed his mouth, gearing up to say his piece. I could tell that whatever he said next would be a doosie. He kissed my palm again to steady himself. “The three of us decided the magic was getting too hard to monitor. The people weren’t using it for the greater good, but mostly to tear apart their land. I was worried about the twisted magic spreading to Avalon from Éireland, so we sort of took a little of it.”
I tried to keep a level head, though I wanted to interrogate him right good. “You stole the magic from Avalon and put it in the nine jewels, right? Then you gave the jewels to my aunts and my moms.”
“That’s a good guess, and a popular one, but no. I took away the magic and kept it hidden from them. I took the excess and put it away. The blood drinkers, the Weres, and a few other creatures were slaughtered, and no more were born into the world. Faîte became a world of simple Fae, which made for less upset overall. That’s when the people started to need me more often. Even nature needed me more often to maintain the land, so I made the nine gems for the Daughters of Avalon to sustain the land after the higher magic was taken.” He rolled his eyes at the nature of life. “Morgan saw to upsetting the balance, of course, but I suppose nature has to find its way to revolt homeostasis somehow. That’s neither here nor there, though. I took the higher magic and hid it for years until the tales of the chaos in Éireland fell to rumor and myth by the time they reached Avalon. Every year, I would move the stores of higher magic, so no one could find them and steal them from me. Trust me that Avalon wouldn’t be able to handle power like that. The little I gave the Daughters – vitality, is all – they abused and fought over to the bitter end. I didn’t have anyone to trust with the responsibility. If they knew what they held, it would surely corrupt the purest soul.” He leaned forward and pecked my lips. “But then I met you. From the beginning, you were more concerned about me than you were about yourself. I’d never met anyone like you. I have a sixth sense about who I can trust, and I knew in the first five minutes that I could tell you all my secrets, and you would keep them as your own.”
“Of course I would. I love you.”
He closed his eyes to savor my words. “And I love you. It’s why I knew I’d found someone I could truly trust. The higher magic is safely stored somewhere only I know.” He cleared his throat and shifted on the bed, and I could tell he was nervous. I stopped breathing, worried that any movement might somehow rock the trajectory of the world too much. When Kerdik delivered the blow, I knew there was no bracing that could be done to steady myself against the blast. “I put all the higher magic – both the good aspects and the bad – into the ring that I gave you, so the people couldn’t destroy themselves with it. Then I placed a binding charm on your ring, so that only you or I could remove it without severe consequences.”
My hand froze on his face, and my whole body went stock-still. “I don’t understand. This ring has Vampire and Werewolf magic in it? This is how people could get back their abilities to fly and go invisible?”
Kerdik nodded, contrite. “Among other things, yes. But they can’t handle that kind of power. We can only intervene so many times before it’s simply easier to take away the pot everyone’s burning themselves on.”
Panic gripped me around the throat as I rose up from the bed, tearing the ring off my finger. “Take it! I can’t be trusted with that kind of power. What were you thinking? What if I’d taken it off to bathe or something, and lost it? You seriously gave me a gigantic load of magic without telling me? What if Morgan figured it out? You could’ve made me her target, Kerdik!”
Kerdik stood and clamped his hand over my mouth. “The stone walls give us a little extra privacy, but they’re not completely soundproof. Yes, I made a judgment call, and it was the right one. And you already were a target for Morgan, if you recall. She didn’t need any prodding from your ring.” He shook his head at the mess of it all. “Faîte would crumble if I restored their full magic to them. It would infect them like a virus, changing their makeup without their consent. People think I don’t care what happens to Avalon, but I do. I was gone for so long because I needed to keep the dangerous m
agic away. It broke my heart to return and find that Morgan was abusing the little power I’d given her. The Jewels of Good Fortune were a test to see if I could trust any of them with the Darkness.” He motioned to my ring, letting me know that the beautiful gem he’d given me had a name associated with horror.
“My ring is called the Darkness?” I shivered at the indication of doom.
“That’s one of the things that’s locked inside, yes. Lane and Tyronoe passed the test. They gave their jewels back to me when they saw all the destruction that was happening between the sisters. Then Tyronoe was killed, and Lane left Avalon to take care of you, so again, there was no one except for me who could be trusted to keep the higher magic from infecting the land.”
My mouth fell open beneath his palm. So many people assumed Kerdik didn’t have a soul, but I knew better. To fathom his heart breaking over the downfall of Avalon still surprised me, though. “This Cailleach woman, what if she decides one day she wants the magic back? Secrets like this always come out. What happens then? Will she come after me? I can’t defend myself against an immortal!”
“She can’t kill you. Only a Daughter of Avalon can murder a Daughter of Avalon. You can’t die from her hands, but only by the hands of an animal, natural causes, or time.” He gripped the back of my head and pulled me forward, so our foreheads were pressed together. “And I’ve given you more time, plus extra power to heal from the errant animal attack. Cailleach doesn’t want the higher magic roaming about the world any more than I do. She’ll not come after you, darling.”
I closed my eyes, feeling his breath fan across my nose. “What about Morgan? I don’t want what happened to Lane with those terrible soldiers to happen to me. If Morgan finds out...”
Kerdik thumbed my lips that were malleable to his call, despite my aching conscience. “I saved you from that attack, didn’t I? I would never let that happen to you, my love. I’ll always come for you.”
“You have to take the ring back.”
Untouchable Girl_A Fantasy Adventure Page 18