“But we have strengthened our blood with such mixing, have we not, Morcar?” she asked angrily. “By the foolishness and weaknesses of the superum, and because we became the most beautiful of those cast out of the spirit realm. More beautiful even than the descendants of Mactus, who in time came to call themselves Seymour, and far more beautiful than Osor, the father of the Cadmarans. They used us for their pleasure, to fulfill their bidding, but we were wiser than any of the pure-blooded ones. We waited and watched and learned the power of beauty, how foolish it can make even the strongest of the superum.” Serafina’s pretty mouth curved into a mocking smile. “We drew them to our beds to steal their seed until the blood of the Darays was as powerful as any among the magical Families.”
“Powerful, aye,” Morcar said, “but you are still animantis. You can never be pure enough to rule over the dark Families. And your powers will never match mine, great though they may be. Not even all of you combined,” he said, looking at those who stood behind her, “can overtake me. You should have tried it while I was blind, Serafina. You might have had a chance, then.”
“Aye,” she murmured, “we should. It was not for a lack of desire on my part, Morcar, I promise you. The others needed proof of your weakness before they would agree to come together. You provided it just as soon as Tauron departed our shores, and after, when you did nothing to return him to us.”
Morcar gazed at her for a silent moment before saying, “We cannot have him back, Serafina. Draceous Caslin is my equal in power, and more than able to handle a sorceress of your skill. Tauron alone can decide whether he will return to us or not, and considering the manner in which we treated him, I very much doubt that he’ll ever be eager to see us, or England, again.”
“But he will, nonetheless,” she said, the smile on her face widening. “And not even Draceous Caslin, powerful though he may be, will be able to hold him.”
Morcar’s eyes narrowed. “You have such a love of games, Serafina, but I’ve grown too weary for playing. Speak plainly.”
A spark of excitement flared in her gaze.
“The cythraul is coming soon,” she said. “Have you remembered it, Morcar? Have you even begun to prepare for it? The demon spirit comes but once every hundred years to test the mettle of our kind. Since the time of the exile the Cadmarans have failed to leash the great powers that the demon brings, to bring us that power.” She lifted a small gloved hand and made a fist. “If they’d not failed it would have been our clans who held the greatest power among magic mortals, not the Seymours.”
“I know the history of the demon,” Morcar said in a low tone. “Indeed, I have thought of little else since regaining my sight. The cythraul will be my means of at last dealing with the Seymours. With its power I shall take Malachi’s place as Dewin Mawr, and the Seymours will be ruined forever.”
“Aye, they will be,” she vowed, her voice softer now. “But you will not be the one to leash the power of the demon. It will be I who becomes its master, and I who takes the place of power over the Families. No magic mortal living will be able to gainsay me then, Morcar. Not you, not Malachi Seymour, and certainly not Draceous Caslin. Those who support me now will be the better for it. Those who are so foolish as to oppose me will be much the worse. I make this vow before the Guardians.”
Morcar steadied himself. It was a formal challenge, then, declared before the Guardians. He could do nothing but accept, despite wanting, instead, to fling his uninvited guests into the far wall. He briefly envisioned Serafina’s delicate body impaled upon a particularly large medieval spear that hung over the fireplace, but forced the thought aside.
“You’re a fool, Serafina Daray,” he told her. “You may be able to find a suitable mortal to offer up for the cythraul’s possession, but you’ll have no way of knowing when or where it will arrive. The signs are given only to those who are in places of great power. It is a test of our mettle, just as you said.”
“A test that the Cadmarans have always lost,” she said bitterly, “and the Seymours won. Malachi will send the demon back to its realm and the dark Families will remain second to the Dewin Mawr’s powers for another hundred years.”
“He’ll not,” Morcar vowed. “Not this time.”
Serafina laughed, a high, chilling sound.
“You’ll never best Malachi,” she declared. “You never have and never will. But I can best the both of you, and when I have, the dark clans will at last have the power we’ve craved. The world will live beneath our sway, and no one, not even the Guardians, will be able to take such power from us.”
Chapter Four
“Will there be anything else this evening, my lord?”
Malachi looked up from where he stood near the tall windows in his study. “No, Rhys. I’m content, thank you.”
The butler made a long-practiced bow, giving Malachi a brief view of the white halo of hair atop the older man’s head. Rhys had served the Seymour family nearly all of his life, just as his father had done, and had been born at Glain Tarran some seventy years ago. He was a mere mortal, one of the valuable sympathetics the Families depended upon to help them exist in a non-magic world. Rhys was also often the keeper of Malachi’s sanity, the one he trusted to hold the world at bay when the Earl of Graymar sought peace and respite within the borders of his several estates. Especially at Glain Tarran.
The land was, and had been since before memory, a refuge for those possessed of magic. Even Mervaille, the Seymours’ grand palace and place of safety in London, though Malachi loved it well, could never be what Glain Tarran was. This was the land that the children of Mactus had chosen as their home, where they had built their first dwellings, mimicking the native Celts, and had later erected a medieval fortress in the time of William, then a magnificent castle during the first Henry’s reign, and finally, when Elizabeth ruled, the manor that made Glain Tarran one of the most acclaimed estates in all of Great Britain. Generations of Seymours had defended Glain Tarran and kept it safe from those who would scarce understand the secrets the land held. The land, in return, repaid the favor.
Malachi wished he might remain longer, renewing his mind and spirit with the aid of the elements. Each day and night spent beside the wild sea, buffeted by salty winds and chilled by thick fog, the rain pouring down as a sweet release of heaven, was surcease from life’s pressures. After so many weary months in London, serving in his position as the Earl of Graymar as well as fulfilling the demands of being Dewin Mawr, he craved the succor that he found only here. And needed it, too.
It was lonely at Glain Tarran, of course, despite the presence of the servants and the occasional visits by friends and relatives. But loneliness followed him everywhere he went, even to London. It was a part of his life that Malachi had not yet found a remedy to. He’d long since given up hope of finding a wife among his own kind, and he’d not been blessed, as both his cousins Niclas and Kian had been, with a wife from among sympathetic mere mortals. Malachi’s mistress in London, Augusta, was one of their sympathetics as well as a woman of excellent lineage. He had considered her a suitable candidate to be his countess once upon a time, but when Malachi had broached the subject of a more permanent union, Augusta had made it clear that though she held him in great affection and wished to keep him as a lover, she’d experienced enough of marriage with her dearly departed husband to satisfy her for all eternity. More than that, she had no desire to bind herself to a magic mortal and take on all the difficulties that such a life required.
Malachi had tried to tell himself that he’d not been too terribly disappointed, but that wasn’t entirely true.
Augusta was an excellent companion and not given to a great deal of foolishness, as so many females were. He had thought that, perhaps, they might at least keep each other from feeling too solitary as the years passed. But it was not to be. He was now thirty-six and rapidly becoming an antiquity. There were no women near his own age whom he felt drawn to, and he no longer possessed the patience to deal with younger fe
males for more than an hour or so at a time.
It was for the best, Malachi thought philosophically. He was too busy with his various duties to be a proper husband to anyone. God alone knew how often he was obliged to depart on but a moment’s notice to handle some difficulty or other for one of the Families. What woman would want her husband disappearing in the middle of a ball or party, not knowing whether he’d reappear within an hour or perhaps not for several days? And such emergencies always seemed to happen far more regularly during the Season, when it was most difficult for Malachi to get away and when his frequent absences were so often noted. It was as if all the mischief makers among the Families suddenly sprang into action the moment Malachi set foot in London proper—which was another good reason for remaining at Glain Tarran.
But he could not stay in his private paradise much longer. Niclas had already returned to London and expected Malachi to follow soon. Parliament would begin meeting in a few weeks and the Earl of Graymar was a prominent member. There were several important matters to give attention to this year. France and Spain were on the verge of war, and the situation in Ireland was growing dire. Those members of the Families there who gave him their allegiance would expect Malachi to lend them his aid, and he was ready to do so, both outside of Parliament and in it, despite the unpopularity of his views. More important even than these were the prison reforms to be voted upon in the coming session. Malachi had longed to use magic to sway the obstinate mere mortals in Parliament to vote in the manner he thought best, but the Guardians would have punished him for using his powers to meddle in the governmental affairs of earth’s true citizens. It was very frustrating. Now, however, enough of them had begun to see the rightness of such reforms, and he meant to be there to cast his vote and see them come about.
Fortunately, there were to be no come-outs among the Seymour family this Season, else he and Niclas would be obliged to keep a close eye on whichever young relative had been brought to Town to be presented. The young wizards and sorceresses of their kind were always so careless and unrestrained in controlling their magical powers; keeping them in line and out of trouble was an exhausting undertaking. And it was a miracle, truly, that none of them had so badly erred while out in Society that many mere mortals had become suspicious. Those few who did had been dealt with easily enough, though Malachi disliked altering memories, necessary as it was. It seemed unsporting to take people by surprise and change their thoughts to a previous place in time. They could never fight back and stop him, after all.
Malachi felt, rather than heard, the gust of wind coming before it struck the window, lightly rattling the pane. He set a hand against the cold glass to pull the sensation into himself and closed his eyes with pleasure. The wind blew fiercely tonight, as it had done so many nights in the past weeks. He longed to be out in the dark, cold air, to let the wind flow over him, caressing, lifting him into the sky to become one with its wildness. So high that he would only see Glain Tarran and the village some miles away as small specks of light, incomparable to the glittering stars and gleaming moon in tonight’s crystalline sky. Aye, a few hours drifting in the heavens, transported beyond every care, that was what he wanted just now. He’d spent many such midnight hours since coming to Glain Tarran coursing over both land and lake, getting thoroughly soaked and cold and coming home at dawn to find a most unhappy and disapproving Rhys waiting for him with a hot bath and warm food at the ready.
But such pleasant evenings must come to an end, he told himself firmly, opening his eyes as yet another gust caused the pane to tremble. He would leave in but a few days’ time, directly after Saint David’s Day, which he could not miss celebrating with his people. Apart from Parliament, there was Miss Sarah Tamony to be dealt with and, above and beyond anything else, the cythraul. The former he didn’t wish to think about until he was faced with her in person, but the latter … that was on his mind almost without respite. He even dreamed of the demon’s coming, which made for an unpleasant night’s sleep.
Malachi had always realized that he would very likely have to face the evil spirit. Only a youthful death—definitely not a desirable alternative—would have put the unpleasant task into the hands of the next Dewin Mawr.
His great-grandfather Hollace Seymour had been the last Great Sorcerer to face and defeat a cythraul. The tale of his courage and wisdom was still told to children in the Families, for Hollace had managed to stop the cythraul at its moment of arrival upon earth, not even allowing the demon the time to inhabit the body of a mere mortal before sending it back to the spirit realm. The Dewin Mawr who had dealt with the test a hundred years before that had not been so adroit, and the spirit had not only inhabited a mortal body but also been able to roam freely for three full days, wreaking terrible havoc in the small English villages it visited before at last being vanquished.
Despite the certainty he’d offered Niclas the night before, thoughts of the cythraul wrought an unfamiliar sense of unease in Malachi. He’d known, even as a child, how powerful he was in the way of magic and had been entirely comfortable with that knowledge. The mantle of Dewin Mawr, when it had come to him, had fit as easily as if he’d always worn it. And if he’d had the understandable moment or two of panic in his life, especially when faced with particularly trying circumstances—which was not to be wondered at considering the dangers their kind faced—those moments had passed so quickly that he could scarce recall them.
But the cythraul gave Malachi pause. He had faced demons before and overcome them with a measure of ease, though these, admittedly, had been far less powerful than the cythraul would be. His confidence had carried him through such times. But this visitation was a test, sent by the Guardians for a purpose, and Malachi was required not only to deal with the creature but to find it as well. Signs would be given to both himself and Morcar Cadmaran, and then it would be a race as to who could first divine the signs’ meaning and reach the place where the cythraul would arrive, thereafter deciding the demon’s fate. None of this concerned Malachi, either, for conceit apart, he knew himself to be far more clever than Morcar Cadmaran had ever been or could hope to be. What troubled Malachi was the fact that the cythraul was to arrive sometime during the spring and yet not one sign had thus far been given him.
He suspected that there was a reason behind the delay, just as there was a reason—even if not immediately evident—to everything that the Guardians did. If they wished to test him, this was certainly the way to go about it. His confidence was shaken … only a little, but shaken all the same. He didn’t like the feeling at all.
“Oh dear, Sarah. I don’t like this at all.” Philistia paced nervously before the fireplace in the room that she shared with her cousin. “Julius is going to be so angry, to say nothing of Aunt Caroline and Uncle Alberic.”
Sarah smiled reassuringly and put one last knot into the laces of her left boot. “It’s no different than all of the other times when I’ve gone out on my own,” she said. “Have you forgotten Vienna and Copenhagen? Or that night in Florence”—Sarah gave a happy sigh—“when that delightful stranger saved me from those assailants and then took me to visit the gypsies?”
Philistia’s cheeks paled. “Don’t speak of it,” she begged. “It’s precisely such incidents that give me nightmares. You were attacked that night, Sarah. You might have been”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“ravished. Or even killed. Or both.”
“That’s true,” Sarah admitted honestly, finishing with the other boot and standing to smooth the front of her boy’s jacket. “But I wasn’t, and the trouble was well worth the risk, for the gypsies told me such fascinating stories. I used all of them in my last book, remember?” She bent to pick up the heavy coat that lay across the bed. “I have a feeling tonight is going to be another such success. You can almost touch the magic here,” she said, shrugging awkwardly into the warm garment. “The sense of it is so strong. I haven’t felt anything this intense since that night when I met with the sorceress of Aberdeen who sold me s
o many enchantments.”
Philistia hurried to help her. “I wish you wouldn’t speak of magic,” she said, tugging the sleeves up Sarah’s arms. “You know how it distresses your brother and parents. They’ll be so unhappy with me if they discover that I’ve let you go out alone in the middle of the night. Especially to Glain Tarran. Please, Sarah, wait until the morning. I’ll go with you to Glain Tarran and we’ll see if we can’t speak with Lord Graymar.” Another hard tug brought the coat up about Sarah’s neck. “Surely we’ll be able to find a way to hire a vehicle for a drive—we’ll tell your parents we want to see something of the countryside. They’ll believe us, for it is very beautiful, after all.” Pulling on the laces, she began to tie the front of the garment. “And if we make certain to return in good time, no one will be suspicious that we’ve gone to Glain Tarran. Don’t you think that’s a far wiser plan than you going now, in the dark of night, all alone?”
“No, I don’t,” Sarah replied calmly, setting both hands on her delicate cousin’s shoulders to force her into stillness. “You know full well that Mama and Papa and Julius are determined to keep me from Glain Tarran. I had the devil of a time simply getting them to journey this near the Earl of Graymar’s estate.”
“But it’s still five miles away, Sarah,” Philistia said with distress. “It’s so terribly dark and cold outside, to say nothing of this awful wind. You’ll take fever and fall ill, and how will I ever explain it to Aunt Caroline?”
“If I managed to live through that dreadful night in Martigny—do you recall that deluge of freezing rain?—I can certainly survive a windy night in Pembrokeshire.”
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