by Tamara Gill
“Which would become a curse and well ye know it. There is only darkness in ye. Demon born magic, Aldreth. You’ve colluded with demons, taken oaths to them. I want no part in that. My clan will have no part in that. What ye propose is madness.”
“’Tis power.”
“’Tis wrong.”
“Coward. The lot of ye. An entire clan of cowards. Reach out and seize what is yours. I offer you that.”
“Ye offer naught but shadows and death for all of Limont. We've seen this before. We know what happens to those who take upon too much magic that is not inherently their own. Darkness, Aldreth, like the darkness that rides upon your blackened soul. Think you I cannot see the blackness lifting from your flesh even now?”
“What ye call dark, I call liberation.”
“Aye, the liberation of all vows to duty.”
That hit a nerve. Aldreth yanked his head back, quick and hard, like a striking serpent. “Vows are meant to be broken. Think on that, sorcerer. My grandsire had the courage to challenge the Fae and unleash the magic upon the land. All magic.”
“Magic that was given freely from those he challenged. The Fae are right to have guardians to balance what they have given. 'Tis an honorable covenant and blessing bestowed upon our kind. Your grandsire was mad to believe that magic has no need of protectors.”
“Then protect magic. With me. Who better suited than a daughter of Alduein blended with the descendant of Limont? Together. Our magic will be the most potent blend the land has ever witnessed.”
Toren closed his eyes. A daughter of the clan first deemed as magic protectors whose High Sorcerer turned on the Fae as a hound turned on its master. 'Twas a sorrowful day to all magic born when Burnes Alduein fell and his entire clan was banished. And these centuries later, the wee granddaughter returned grown to take back what she believed was rightfully hers. A powerful witch in her own right, but her magic was tainted. All could feel the underscore of darkness obscured within her essence. Should Toren or any of his siblings join their magic with hers, the scale between light and dark would be unbalanced, throwing their world into an unimaginable night where darkness overshadowed everything.
He could not give her what she sought without severing his oaths and dooming all earth magic to the balance of darkness. The world would be overrun by creatures best left skimming the shadows.
“Nay, Aldreth, joining with you would be the breaking of all I hold dear.”
She hissed and slammed his face into the stone floor. He felt bones in his cheek crack, nearly going blind with the pain.
She swung away and threw the dirty plaid at him. “Then rot here until you've changed your mind. And give him a shave,” she tossed to the guard waiting outside the dungeon. “I despise hair-roughened skin.”
Her clipped steps marched across the floor just before the heavy wooden door creaked and banged shut, splashing him in moldy darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I can't believe it. One of the fabled sorcerers of Limont came to you. In the flesh.”
“In nothing but his flesh.” Charity helped her sister haul the ancient tome down from the second highest shelf. As self-appointed keeper of their family's knowledge, Lenore's dining nook-turned-library was wall-to-wall flea market book cases cramped with books, texts, even scrolls that museum curators would give their eyeteeth for.
Together they carried the heavy tome between them and laid it on the table that took up the center of the room.
“You sure it's in here?” Charity eyed the large book dubiously.
“Oh yeah, I remember reading about it when I first convinced mom to let me look at the book.”
“You were ten.”
Lenore shrugged with one shoulder. “It was a romantic story. An entire clan, every individual gifted with some form of magic as long as they remained the man...and then all of them vanished. Poof. The village must have fallen to ruin because no one knows where it once was.” She opened the little ornately carved box she kept sitting on the table and pulled out the white gloves she kept in there. Lenore was meticulous about not letting the oils in her fingers damage any of the ancient books.
“That's so weird.” Charity sat down and leaned over the large velum pages that Lenore turned with delicate reverence. “What does that even mean? Protectors of man?”
“Got me. Something about the innate balance of magic. As long as the Limonts kept the dark side of magic from overtaking the good, the entire land would prosper. Magic would remain abundant and the flip side of magic, like the dark fairies, ghouls and vampires wouldn't get much of a foothold in the world. Here it is.” Lenore tapped a page and slipped her black reading glasses on.
Charity scooted her chair closer so that their heads were side by side. Celtic writing wasn't exactly her forte. Their grandmother had insisted that as practicing healers, both girls at least know enough to pick out runes and symbols for spells and incantations in several nearly dead languages. Charity could get by, but her younger sister's huge brain excelled in it.
She scanned down what looked like a listing of names—genealogical records with years and, wow, magical abilities. Her heart jolted when she came to his name. “Toren Limont,” she whispered, making her encounter with him seem that much more surreal. “High Sorcerer of Limont, born in Crunfathy.” Her breathing stilled, frozen in her chest. An ancient wounded Highlander really had flung himself through time to seek her aid, and then he was gone—to a place she couldn't reach him or help him. The urge to somehow help was damn near overwhelming. After she came to by the tub, she hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Her thoughts replayed everything that had passed between them and the more she thought of him, the more urgent the feeling to help him grew. “Have you ever heard of Crunfathy?”
“No. Never.” Lenore's fingers swept over hers. “You okay?”
“Yeah. It's just weird, you know?”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No, I want to know what happened.” She needed to know. She didn't understand it, but since she'd healed Toren, saw what he'd gone through, felt his resolve; she desperately needed to know that he was okay. She frowned. Who was she kidding? It was more than that. She knew the man, knew him better than she knew anyone. She had felt his inner essence, everything that made him him. From what irritated him to what he held dear. With the healing, he had somehow gotten deep under her skin as though he were almost a part of her now.
It was weird. This attachment to someone she’d known only moments, yet it felt as though she’d known him forever. So yeah, weird, yet strangely wonderful too.
She was going to find out what happened to him and his story had better end up being a happy one or else...or else what? What could she do about anything? She'd healed him and he'd gone back to where he belonged. That was that. That was all it could ever be. Right?
Right?
Hell no that wasn’t right. He didn’t belong in a dungeon.
She had to know if he escaped, and if not, she had to help him somehow. She couldn't stop thinking about helping him. She had to help him. That was all there was to it.
Which was monumentally stupid to dwell so much on, considering whatever the outcome with the terrible woman who was torturing him, Toren Limont was still centuries long dead.
None of it mattered now. Except it did.
“All right.” Lenore was back in research mode—all business with her glasses sliding down her little nose. She'd twisted her Faerie-soft blond hair on top of her head out of the way, slipping a pencil in the knot to hold it in place. “Your Toren was the last known sorcerer before the clan vanished for good. You see these other names below his?”
Charity squinted, her belly taking a tumble at the word vanished.
Lenore traced the names with the tip of a gloved finger.
Toren Limont
Shaw Limont
Edeen Limont
Col Limont
“He had two brothers and a sister. It looks like that together the four sib
lings kept their people safe and the balance of magic in check. They also...” Lenore's eyes lit up. “They also each had their own unique brand of magic. The sister was an empath.”
“She could tap into other people's emotions.”
“Yes, but back then when magic was part of everyday existence and so much stronger, an empath would have been able to do way more than feel emotions. We're talking the ability to really get into people's heads, dive into memories they don't even know about if she wanted to.”
“Seriously? So if she touched one of us, she'd see everything we know?”
“Yes. Can you imagine our healing potential if we lived back then? Magic was in everything, as simple as plucking it from the air.” Lenore's smile was bright, excited.
Charity could very well imagine the potential. She'd experienced the power of Toren's magic firsthand, had tapped into its strength and healed him as easily as a thought. Almost so easily it had gotten out of control and she’d been sucked into his emotions and experiences and now she couldn’t get him out of her head.
Lenore chattered on, the deep-seeded learner in her charging ahead full bore. “So your Toren was the sorcerer, Edeen an empath. The youngest brother, Col, was a shapeshifter, and Shaw—” Lenore's nose wrinkled and her glasses slipped down farther. “Moon sifter.”
“Which is?”
“I have no idea.” But Lenore's lips puckered outward in that way that meant she was determined to find out. “So now you know. Your visitor really was a Highland sorcerer, last of his line before the entire Clan Limont vanished and magic hasn't been as potent on the earth since. It's all pretty amazing when you think about it.”
“Yeah.” Charity sighed. “Amazing.”
“Hey.” Lenore reached over and pushed stray wisps of hair behind Charity's ear. “It is amazing. It's not every day things like this happen.”
“I know.”
“You did what you could for him. And you got to feel incredible power flow through you, more than either of us could generate in these days. That had to feel awesome, right? I know it's hard when you heal someone. You feel like you're responsible for them, but there's nothing more you can do. It's not like you can travel back through time and check on him.”
Charity's gaze snapped up. That's exactly what she wanted to do. “We have time-travel spells. Grandma's done it.” Healers couldn’t open time and space rifts like a sorcerer could, but when a healer’s emotions were focused strongly enough on helping someone else, there were spells and formulas that could do the trick for very short stretches across time. Very short. A few hours, possibly a day to help someone avoid an accident or illness that a healer didn’t have the magical strength to heal. The connection between healer and patient had to be very strong, very motivated. The emotions on high-voltage.
Lenore pulled her glasses off. “She went back half a day to stop Uncle Frank from getting in that car accident that took his leg. Even if you could pull it off, what would be the point in going back to last night and your Highlander? You’ve already done what you can for him. It’s not like we have the ability or spells to travel across centuries. Not even the sorcerers of today have the juice to do that anymore.”
Frowning, Charity glared down at the open pages.
“I'm sorry,” Lenore said. “I get it, but it's not possible so there’s no use in worrying about him anymore. Whatever happens—happened—to Toren Limont is out of your hands. You got to just let it go.”
“I know, okay.” Charity got up and pulled her grandmother's little pink book of spells from one of the lower shelves, the book she knew had the time-travel incantations. “I'm going to take this home, all right?”
“Sure.” Lenore's lips puckered out again. “Just don't...you know.”
“Like you said, no one has the juice to travel back that far anyway.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Toren lay in the dungeon, his cheek against the cold stone exactly where the mercenaries had left him after shaving him raw. At least the witch had left him alone without starting immediately back in with her whips, or worse, her magical tortures.
She was correct in that even with the recent healing, he wouldn't be able to endure much longer.
He stared at the enchanted band on his wrist, feeling the frustration of no choices as deeply as the exhaustion enveloping his body.
He could goad her into outright killing him, but then her attention would be turned to his siblings. Nay, he had to continue as long as he could to give them a chance to flee. If they hadn’t already. There was no way to know.
He was just so achingly bone-weary.
Squeezing his eyes closed, Toren drifted away, allowing sleep to bolster the reviving energies the little healer of the future had gifted him with.
At the last moment before Aldreth had pulled him back, the young healer thrust everything she had into him. It hadn't been anywhere near the amount needed to restore what Aldreth had bled from him, yet Toren was touched that the maiden would give him all that she had.
Toren escaped to sleep with the swirl of a name on his lips. Charity.
He knew her. Somehow during her healing, a connection between them had been forged. He knew all the depths and layers to this woman of the future and marveled at the sweetness that existed in her demeanor. She hoped deeply and loved fiercely. Family meant everything to her. She would dive into the murkiest waters to protect them.
A faint smile curved his lips in sleep. He’d had nothing to smile about for so long, yet the lass had managed to coax several from him.
She came to him then—in his dreams—all creamy skin and lustrous dark hair. He'd wanted to feel the softness of it when he'd first seen her, but coming as a beggar in search of a Healer Enchantress's aid, he had refrained.
But he walked in the dreamworld now and she but a manifestation conjured by his mind.
She ran to him across the moor, mist curling at her hips, teasing cloudy swirls around her breech-covered legs until she stood before him, slender hands upon his crisp white shirt.
“Toren,” she breathed.
He smiled at the unusual inflection she gave to his name and since she was but a dream, he indulgently dragged his fingers into her hair, sighing at the silkiness.
“Toren, I need you to tell me where you are. I'm going to help you.”
What's this? Toren grazed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. ‘Twas soft and warm. His dream conjured enchantress shouldn't look so troubled.
He wanted her to be pleasant, pliant, a lovely peaceful memory to hold on to, to focus his mind on during the worst of what Aldreth would surely bring. He knew naught how long he'd be given uninterrupted sleep and he intended to make the most of it. Toren willed his dream to fall into order, arranging his thoughts so that the focused lines above Charity's pert little nose would smooth.
Her lips tightened in exasperation. “Toren, focus please. Tell me where you are. Where is the dungeon? Within a castle? Tell me how to free you.”
Toren pulled back, holding her at arm's length to really get a good look at her. Impatience and sharp intelligence stared back through disarming violet eyes, filled with far too much life to be a dream-induced manifestation.
“Are ye dream-trailing?”
Dainty shoulders hitched up in a shrug. “I'd just dozed off, exhausting day you know, even though I didn’t intend to sleep. Now I'm here.” She fluttered her hands. “But I know enough to realize that sometimes truths that you normally can't see in the light of day will come to the surface in your dreams. I took an entire course on dream analysis once. Well maybe not a course, more like a weekend workshop. Anyway I figure since I'm dreaming about you I may as well be direct and ask you what I want to know. Who is that horrible woman? She’s a witch, isn’t she? Has to be a witch. Nobody else could hold a sorcerer. And those spelled leather on your wrists, the glowy bands...definitely a witch. Where is she keeping you and how do I get you out?”
She was talking rapidly about things she couldn’t
possibly have any hand in and all Toren wanted to do was silence those lips with his own. The blood in his veins heated, dropped below the waist of his kilt. Toren clasped her hands between his in an attempt to stop her from rambling since her fingers twirled and gestured to emphasize every word. The only thing certain was that she was real and believed him to be the dream.
His lip quirked up, pleased that she would deem to dream of him at all, especially after the state he’d come to her in.
“Charity.” Hands still within his, he brought her finger to his lips and kissed each tip. That brought her ramblings to a quick end. She blinked owlishly up at him as his lips moved from one finger to the next. Her breasts lifted on the swell of a breath and everything in Toren went still. He stared at her over her hand at his mouth. Déithe, she was lovely, her soul brimming with a passion he yearned to explore.
He spoke to her simply to distract him from the dishonorable thought of taking her here and now within a dream when she had merely come to help him. “Ye are dream trailing. We both are. You're here. I'm here. Yet neither of us really are. We have a connection somehow, you and I.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again, but only swallowed. Then blinked again. The flit of emotion filing across her face was mesmerizing. He could watch her for an eternity and never tire. Pulling a hand out from between his, she poked his arm. “You're real?”
He grinned. “As real as the part of me that can travel to the realm of dreams.”
She jabbed him again. “So you're not real.”
He recaptured her hand. “I am real enough to feel that...” As well as other more potent things. “...so cease, though in truth my flesh and blood sleeps in Aldreth's dungeon.”
Her eyes narrowed like a hawk that just spotted prey. Cunning little hunter. “Aldreth is the witch then? Where is she keeping you?”
So she was back to that again. “Shhh, 'tis naught ye can do from centuries beyond mine. Forget about me.” He tugged her hand, bringing her closer where she stared up at him with those huge beguiling eyes. “My time is finished before yours ever begins, little hunter.”