“You have my ear.” She inclined her head regally.
And on rare occasions, Adam thought, other parts of her when she so graced him. Aoibheal had a certain fondness for him, and he was counting on it now. He was unlike any other of their race in small ways that baffled both he and them. But the queen seemed to enjoy those differences. Of all her subjects, Adam suspected he was the only one who still managed to surprise her. And surprise was nectar of the gods to those who lived forever, to those who’d lost wonder and awe an eternity ago. To those who spied on mortal’s dreams because they possessed no dreams of their own.
“My queen,” he said, sinking to one knee before her, “I know the Keltar broke his oath. But if one examines these Keltar, one finds that they have, for thousands of years, comported themselves in exemplary fashion.”
The queen regarded him a long cool moment, then shrugged a delicate shoulder. “So?”
“Consider the man’s brother, my queen. When Drustan was enchanted by a seer and forced to slumber for five centuries, the Keltar line was destroyed. When he was awakened in the twenty-first century by a woman, he went to extraordinary lengths to return to his time and prevent the catastrophe from happening so their line would remain intact, always protecting the lore.”
“I am aware of that. Unfortunate his brother wasn’t more like him.”
“I believe he is. Dageus broke his oath solely to save Drustan’s life.”
“That’s personal motive. The line was not threatened. They were expressly forbidden to use the stones for personal gain.”
“How was it personal gain?” Adam countered. “What did Dageus gain by so doing? Though he saved Drustan’s life, Drustan continued to slumber. He didn’t get his brother back. He didn’t get anything.”
“Then more fool he.”
“He is as honorable as his brother. There’s no evil in what he did.”
“The question is not if he is evil, it’s if he broke his oath, and he did. The terms of The Compact were clearly defined.”
Adam drew a careful breath. “We are the ones who gave them the power to travel through time. If we hadn’t, the temptation would never have existed.”
“Ah, now it’s our fault?”
“I’m merely saying that he didn’t use the stones to gain wealth or political power. He did it for love.”
“You sound like a human.”
It was the lowest insult among his kind.
Adam remained wisely silent. He’d had his proverbial wings clipped before by his queen.
“Regardless of why he did it, Adam, he now harbors our ancient enemy within him.”
“But he still isn’t dark, my queen. It’s been many mortal months since they took him. How many mortals do you know that could withstand those thirteen Druids by will alone? You knew them well. You know their power. Yet you would subject him to the trial by blood the council has called for? You would kill every person this man cares for to test him? If you destroy his entire line for this, who then will renegotiate The Compact?”
“Perhaps we shall live without it,” she said lightly, but he saw the merest hint of unease in her lovely, inhuman eyes.
“You would risk that? Our worlds colliding? Shall human and Tuatha Dé Danaan live together again? The Keltar have broken their oath, but we have not yet violated our end of it. The moment we do, The Compact will be void and the walls between our realms will crumble. Trial by blood will force us to share the earth, my queen. Is that what you want?”
“He’s right,” her consort stirred himself to speak. “Did the council consider that?”
If Adam knew the council half as well as he thought he did, yes. There were those on the high council who missed the old ways. Those who thrived on chaos and petty machinations. Fortunately, they did not include his queen. With the exception of whimsical entertainment, she disdained humans and had little desire to see them walking in her world again.
Silence shrouded the court.
Aoibheal templed slender fingers and rested her dainty chin upon them. “Interest me. Are you suggesting an alternative?”
“An order of Druids in Britain, descendants of those you scattered millennia past, has been awaiting the return of the Draghar; they have plans to force the Keltar’s transformation. If they succeed, do what you wish with him. Let that be his test.”
“Are you presenting a formal plea for his life, Amadan?” Aoibheal purred, her iridescent gaze shimmering with sudden intensity.
She’d spoken part of his true name. A subtle warning. Adam stared off into the distance for time uncounted. Dageus MacKeltar meant nothing to him. Yet he had a relentless fascination with mortals, indeed, spent most of his time among them in some form, to some degree. Yes, his race had power, but mortals had another kind of power, an entirely unpredictable one: Love. And once, long ago—almost unheard of among his kind—with a mortal woman, he’d felt it.
Had sired a half-mortal son.
Though he’d long endeavored to, he’d not forgotten those brief years with Morganna. Morganna who’d refused his offer of immortality.
He glanced at his queen. She would exact a price should he lodge a formal plea for a mortal’s life.
It would be a heinous price.
Then again, he thought, with a shrug of immortal ennui, eternity had been placid of late. “Yes, my queen,” he said, tossing his hair back and smiling coolly when the court gasped collectively. “I am.”
The queen’s smile was as terrifying as it was beautiful. “I shall name your price when the Keltar’s test has been met.”
“And I shall bide your law, given this boon: Should the Keltar best the sect of the Draghar, the thirteen will be reclaimed and destroyed.”
“You would barter with me?” A faint note of incredulity laced her voice.
“I barter for the peace of both our races. Lay them to rest. Four thousand years was long enough.”
What could only be called a very human smirk crossed the queen’s delicate features. “They wanted immortality. I merely gave it to them.” She cocked her head. “Shall we wager upon the outcome?”
“Yes, I wager he’ll lose,” Adam said rapid-fire. There it was, what he’d been waiting for. The queen was the most powerful creature of their race.
And hated to lose. Though she would not raise a hand to help him, at least now, she would not raise her hand to harm him.
“Oh, you’ll pay, Amadan. For that, you’ll pay dearly.”
Of that, he had no doubt.
• 17 •
“Stop peering at me like that,” Dageus hissed.
“What?” Silvan bristled. “I’m not allowed to look at my own son?”
“You’re looking at me as if you’re expecting me to sprout wings, a forked tail, and cloven hooves.” No matter that he was feeling as if he might. Since the moment he’d come through the stones, since the moment the thirteen had found their voices, he’d known that the battle betwixt them had moved into a new and much more dangerous arena. The ancients within him had been fed pure power when he’d opened the bridge through time.
With an immense effort of will, he shuttered, closed, tightened himself and projected pretense that all was well and fine. Using magic to conceal his darkness was an egregious error and he knew it, feeding precisely that which he endeavored to hide, but he had to do it. He dare not let Silvan see him clearly at the moment. He needed to search the Keltar library and if Silvan felt him now, God only knew what he’d do. Certainly not wave him into the inner sanctum of Keltar lore.
Silvan looked startled. “Is shape-shifting one of their arts?” he inquired, evincing utter fascination.
Typical Silvan, Dageus thought darkly, curiosity exceeding caution. He’d worried a time or two that Silvan might one day be tempted to dabble in black arts himself, out of naught more than driving curiosity. His father and Chloe shared that, an insatiable need to know.
“Nay. And you’re still doing it,” Dageus said coldly.
“I’m mere
ly curious about the extent of your power.” Silvan sniffed, affecting an unassuming expression. With such piercing intellect in his gaze, it was far from convincing.
“Well doona be. And doona be poking at it.” Och, aye, the ancients inside him were growing more aggressive. Sensing Silvan’s power, they were trying to reach for it. For him. Silvan was far richer fodder than Drustan; he’d always had a stronger center than his sons.
His father was also adept at the art of deep-listening that Dageus had never managed to perfect, a meditative regard that peeled away lies, exposing the bare bones of truth. ’Twas why the hopelessness he’d glimpsed in his da’s gaze the eve he’d fled had fashed him so. He’d been afraid Silvan had seen something he himself couldn’t see, and wouldn’t want to.
And it was why, now, he was using all his will both to keep them in, and his father out.
“I ken it, lad,” Silvan said, sounding suddenly weary. “You’ve changed since last I saw you.”
Dageus said nothing. He’d managed to avoid looking directly into his father’s gaze since the moment Chloe had fainted, taking only cursory glances. Betwixt the heightened awareness of the thirteen and the sexual storm that was raging hot and unsated inside him, he wasn’t about to look him in the eyes.
When he’d carried Chloe abovestairs to his bedchamber, tucked her into bed, and whispered a soft sleep spell over her so she would rest easy through the night, Silvan had followed him and Dageus had felt his measuring regard hammering at the back of his skull.
He’d nearly not been able to let go of her. And though he’d not look at his father, he’d been grateful for his presence, for it had made short work of the dark thoughts he’d been having about bringing her only partially awake and—
“Look at me, son,” Silvan said, his low voice implacable.
Dageus turned slowly, careful not to meet his gaze. He took measured breaths, one after another.
His father was standing in front of the hearth, his hands buried in the folds of his cobalt robe. In the soft light of dozens of tapers and oil globes, his white hair was a halo about his wrinkled face. Dageus knew the origin of each line. The grooves in his cheeks had appeared shortly after their mother had died, when he and Drustan had been lads of fifteen. The wide creases on his forehead had been worn into his skin by a constant raising of his brows as he pondered the mysteries of the world and the stars beyond it. The lines bracketing his mouth were from smiling or frowning, never weeping. Stoic bastard, Dageus thought suddenly. No one wept in Castle Keltar. No one knew how. Except mayhap Silvan’s second wife and Dageus’s next-mother, Nell.
The lines feathering Silvan’s deep brown eyes, winging upward at the outer edges, were from squinting in low light as he labored over his work. Silvan was a fine scribe, possessing an enviably steady hand, and had devoted himself to recopying, with exquisitely embellished carpet pages, the older tomes whose ink had faded o’er time.
When he’d been a lad, Dageus had thought his da had the wisest eyes he’d ever seen, full of special, secret knowledge. He realized he still thought that. His da had never been toppled from his pedestal.
His gut clenched. Mayhap Silvan had never fallen, but he certainly had. “Go ahead, Da,” he said tightly. “Roar at me. Tell me how I failed you. Tell me how I’ve been naught but a disappointment. Remind me of my oaths. Throw me out if you’re of a mind to, for I’ve no time to waste.”
Silvan’s head jerked in sharp negation.
“Tell me, Da. Tell me how Drustan never would have done such a thing. Tell me how—”
“You truly wish me to be telling you that your brother is less of a man than you?” Silvan cut him off, his voice low and carefully measured. “You need to be hearing me say that?”
Dageus stopped speaking, his mouth ajar. “What?” he hissed. “My brother is no’ less of a—”
“You gave your life for your brother, Dageus. And you ask your father to condemn you for that?” Silvan’s voice broke on the words.
Much to Dageus’s horror, his da crumpled. His shoulders bowed and his lean frame jerked. Suddenly his eyes were glistening with tears.
Och, Christ. Dageus cursed silently, bearing down hard on himself. He dare not weep. No cracks. Cracks could become crevices and crevices canyons. Canyons a man could get lost in.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” Silvan’s words echoed starkly in the stone hall.
“Da,” he said roughly, “yell at me. Berate me. For the love of Christ, scream at me.”
“I can’t.” Silvan’s wrinkled cheeks were wet with tears. He skirted the table and grabbed him, hugging him fiercely, pounding him on the back.
And weeping.
If Dageus lived to be a hundred, he never wanted to see his father weep again.
It was some time later, after Nell had appeared and the whole awful matter of tears had been repeated, after she’d bustled about preparing a light repast, after she’d retired again to check on his wee brothers, that the conversation turned to the grim purpose of why he’d returned.
Speaking in brisk, detached tones, Dageus updated Silvan on all that had transpired since last he’d seen him. He told him how he’d gone to America, and searched the texts, only to finally admit that he was going to have to ask Drustan for help. He told him of the strange attack on Chloe, and of the Draghar. He told him they’d discovered the texts about the Tuatha Dé Danaan had disappeared, and that it seemed intentional.
Silvan frowned at that. “Tell me, lad, did Drustan check beneath the slab?”
“Beneath the slab in the tower? The one on which he slumbered?”
“Aye,” Silvan said. “Though to date I’ve put but two texts there, I’ve been planning to find aught I could that may be of help and seal them away beneath it. In anticipation of that, I left clear instructions for Drustan to look there.”
Dageus closed his eyes and shook his head. Had this trip been unnecessary? Might he have avoided all of it? Probably. In a few more years, it was quite likely that Silvan would have gathered up every tome he’d been searching for and tucked them beneath the slab. They’d been there in the twenty-first century the whole time. “Where were the instructions? In the letter you left for him?”
“Aye.”
“The same letter in which you told him what I’d done?”
Silvan nodded again.
“Did you spell it out, or say something cryptic, Da?” Knowing his father, it had been cryptic.
Silvan scowled. “I said, ‘I left some things for you beneath the slab,’” he replied peevishly. “How much clearer must a man be?”
“Much more, because apparently Drustan never looked. ’Tis my guess he was so distraught by the news your missive contained, that he crumpled the letter and threw it away. From the way you worded it, like as not, he thought you’d left mementos or some such trifles.”
Silvan looked sheepish. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You said you’ve been searching the tomes. Have you discovered anything yet?”
A wary expression flickered across his father’s features. “Aye, I’ve been looking, but ’tis slow work. The older texts are much more difficult to read. There was no uniformity of spelling, and ofttimes they had little grasp of the alphabet.”
“What about—”
“Enough about the texts for now,” Silvan cut him off. “There’ll be time enough on the morrow. Tell me of your lass, son. I must confess, I was surprised to see you’d brought a wee woman with you.”
Dageus’s heartbeat quickened and his veins were filled with that peculiar icy heat. His lass. His.
“Though she seemed to be having a hard time fathoming your use of the stones as a bridge betwixt the centuries, I sensed a strong will and fiery mind. I suspect she’ll come around without too much fuss,” Silvan mused.
“ ’Tis my belief as well.”
“You haven’t told her what’s wrong with you, have you?”
“Nay. And doona be telling her. I’ll tell her wh
en the time is right.” As if there would ever be a “right” time. Time was his enemy now as never before.
A silence fell then. An awkward, ponderous silence filled with questions but too few answers, rife with unspoken worries.
“Och, son,” Silvan said finally, “it was killing me, not knowing what had become of you. ’Tis glad I am you’ve returned. We’ll find a way. I promise.”
Later, Silvan pondered that promise ruefully. He paced, he grumbled, he cursed.
Only after Dageus had retired abovestairs and the wee hours of the morn had filled his weary bones with disenchantment—by Amergin, he was three score and five, too old for such doings—did he admit that by now, he should have something to show for his work. He’d not been entirely forthright with Dageus.
He’d been devouring the old texts since the night Dageus had confessed and fled. Oddly, though he’d damn near torn the castle apart, he couldn’t find any documents predating the first century. And he knew they’d once had many. They were referenced in many of his texts in the tower library.
Yet he couldn’t find the bletherin’ things, and granted the castle was enormous, but one would think one could keep track of one’s own library!
According to the legends, they even had the original Compact that had been sealed betwixt the race of man and fairy. Somewhere. God only knew where. How could they not know?
Because, he answered himself wryly, when so much time passes that a tale becomes far removed from its origination, it loses much of its reality.
Though he’d dutifully told his sons the Keltar legends, he’d privately thought that the tales from millennia past were surely embellished a bit, possibly a fabricated creation-myth of sorts, to explain away the Keltar’s unusual abilities. Though he’d obeyed his oaths, a part of his mind had never fully believed. His daily purposes had been purpose enough: the Druid rituals marking the seasons, the care of the villagers in Balanoch, the education of his sons and his own studies. He hadn’t needed to believe all the rest of it.
The sad truth was, not even he’d really believed there was some ancient evil in the in-between.
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