Odhrán chuckled. “You might not always know your mind, but you have little trouble speaking it.” Taren was about to apologize when Odhrán added, “I like that about you, Taren. It’s quite refreshing. In some ways, you are very different from Treande.”
Why were Odhrán’s words comforting? Was he so afraid of becoming Treande and losing himself that he feared to be anything like him?
“Do you understand what you are asking for?” Odhrán knitted his brow in obvious concern.
“I only know that I need it. That my people need it.” Taren wished he understood more, but even Vurin claimed to have no knowledge of how the stone functioned.
“Only the wielder may become one with the stone,” Odhrán told him. “Although a priest may carry it.”
“How will I know if I can wield it? Treande couldn’t.”
“I don’t know.” Odhrán offered him a sympathetic smile. “So much was lost when the Ea left Callaecia for the island. Treande refused to speak of it. The subject of the stone was too painful. There were other priests after Treande, but the mysteries of the stone died with him.”
“How did he die?”
“I don’t know that either, I’m afraid. They say he never returned to Ea’nu after he left the stone in my keeping.” Odhrán sighed. “I believe he knew his time was short when he came to me. He was nearly 350 years old. Perhaps he just swam until he could swim no more. He’d have wanted to die in the water, where he belonged.”
When Taren remained silent, Odhrán frowned and said, “You haven’t remembered your past, have you?”
“No.” He’d tried more times than he could count to use the techniques Vurin had taught him, but he still had seen only fragments of Treande’s past. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I truly wish I did.”
“I know little about reincarnation,” Odhrán said, his expression pensive, almost sad. “But I sense much of his soul in you. Perhaps you’re not meant to remember.”
“I need the stone,” Taren blurted, knowing he shouldn’t be so impatient but unable to contain himself.
“There is no rush.” Odhrán refilled his wine, then Taren’s. “The stone has been in my keeping for hundreds of years. Another day or two will matter little.”
Taren held his tongue, knowing it would be rude to challenge his host and afraid that if he did, Odhrán might not give him what he’d come for. And Odhrán was right, wasn’t he? The stone would be there tomorrow. Still, the restlessness he’d felt before stirred in his heart.
“Drink, Taren,” Odhrán said with a knowing smile. “We will talk about the stone later.”
Fifteen
TAREN PACED his small room. The bars were gone, but they might as well have locked him in here, for all the progress he’d made in his effort to retrieve the stone for Vurin and his people. He’d tried to speak to Odhrán that morning, but James had told him Odhrán had left the caves and would not return until evening.
Damn him! Odhrán had known how anxious he was to return to Ian and the others, and yet he’d gone for a stroll? The lights in the cave had dimmed hours before, and still Odhrán hadn’t returned. In anger, Taren had nearly tossed the tray of food James had brought him for dinner. He still wasn’t sure what had stopped him. In the end, he’d thanked James for the food and eaten it without caring what it tasted like.
He couldn’t deny that this was exactly as he imagined Ian would act in this situation. But knowing that did little to change his dark mood. Even if somehow Ian’s fear for his safety was the cause of his frustration, Taren knew the only thing that would give him relief would be to find the stone and return to Ian’s side.
After another hour passed, Taren decided to find Odhrán himself. He’d expected it would be difficult and that Odhrán would try to avoid him. So when he found Odhrán in his rooms—the first place Taren looked—Taren was surprised.
“Taren,” Odhrán said as he waved him inside. “So good to see you.”
Taren took a deep breath and tried to school his expression. “I’ve been waiting to speak to you.”
“So James tells me.”
Odhrán smiled and motioned for Taren to sit. Taren ignored this. “You knew I was waiting for you? How long were you going to keep me waiting?” he snapped.
Odhrán eyed him warily and poured himself a cup of tea. “It seems you’re quite anxious to recover this stone.”
“And you seem not to care how important it is that I do so.” Immediately after speaking these words, Taren put his hand to his lips. Why had he said that? Odhrán had what he needed. Angering him was foolish. “I’m sorry,” he said when Odhrán did not respond. “I have no right to speak to you as I did.”
“You have every right,” Odhrán said. “You have been through much to find the stone.”
“Then why do you keep me from it?” Taren ran a hand through his hair and shook his head, uncomprehending.
“Why do you think I’m keeping you from it?” The edges of Odhrán’s mouth moved upward and he cocked his head to one side, as if appraising Taren. Or reappraising him.
The question took Taren aback. Why would someone like Odhrán, someone infinitely old and obviously wise, care what he thought about anything?
“It’s not a trick question, Taren,” Odhrán said as he leaned back on the cushions. “I truly wish to know your thoughts.”
Taren swallowed hard. “I…,” he began. “I think you don’t really care what happens to the stone.”
“And?” Odhrán prompted.
“And I think you don’t want me to leave.” Taren said these words so quickly, he barely realized what he’d said until he’d finished speaking. He immediately regretted having answered the question.
Odhrán chuckled and appeared entirely nonplussed. “Indeed. And why do you believe this is true?”
Taren hesitated.
“You risk nothing by speaking your mind.” Odhrán sipped thoughtfully on his tea.
Taren drew a long, slow breath. He sensed nothing but truthfulness in Odhrán, although he silently wished Vurin were here to tell him if Odhrán spoke the truth. “I… I think you’re lonely.”
Rather than angry, Odhrán appeared amused to hear this. “And why would you think that?” he asked. “I have James and the others to keep me company. I’m hardly alone.”
“It’s not the same.” Taren remembered the sensation when he’d felt the magic in the tunnels. Odhrán’s magic.
“How so?”
“You care for them like children,” he said. “You love them and see to their needs. But you long for more. You long for friendship. Conversation. Someone….”
“Someone like Treande?” Odhrán finished.
“Aye.” Taren nodded.
“You really are like him, you know. Bold. Unafraid to speak his mind. Curious.”
“I can’t stay here,” Taren said. “You know that. You’ve known it all along.”
An awkward silence fell between them, one Taren forced himself to endure. He waited for Odhrán’s response, knowing that he’d said all he could. Several minutes passed as Odhrán drank his tea, set the empty cup on the table, and appeared to consider Taren’s words.
“Yes,” Odhrán said at last. “I knew I couldn’t keep you here. I knew it the moment I met you. I felt your determination. I felt the call of your bond mate, the one you call Ian.”
“What are you afraid of?” As always, Taren spoke without thinking and immediately regretted it.
“I’m happy here. What do I have to fear?”
“That’s no answer,” Taren said.
“I never fooled Treande either.” Odhrán pressed his lips together and smiled. “Although I’m not sure you will believe the truth.”
“I might surprise you.” Taren returned Odhrán’s smile. “Often I surprise myself.”
“I spoke the truth when I said I am happy here.” Odhrán set his feet atop several pillows. Tiny feet, the size of a child’s. Seeing him like this, Taren could hardly imagine he was old e
nough to have known Treande. “I’m old. Tired of living.” Odhrán sighed. “Much like Treande when I last saw him. And yet unlike him, I know that I will not die soon.”
Months before, Taren knew he wouldn’t have understood the desire to die. “Have you lost someone as he did?” he asked.
Odhrán shook his head. “No. I’ve served my purpose. I’ve kept the rune stone safe for him for four hundred years.”
“And if I reclaim it, you will no longer have a reason to exist?” Taren shook his head. “That’s a coward’s explanation.”
“And what do you believe is the truth?”
“You know nothing beyond this cave,” Taren said without hesitation. “Perhaps once you lived in the world, but you’ve become complacent. You fear change. You’re content to live through others. You watch them, care for them, but you do not share yourself with them.”
“You’re young. You don’t know—”
“I know enough,” Taren replied. “I understand enough. You wish me to stay because you see me as someone familiar. Safe. And yet you keep the men and women who dedicate their lives to you at a distance because you do not wish to feel pain when they die.”
Taren knew he had spoken the truth when Odhrán frowned and did not challenge Taren’s words. Taren feared he had pushed Odhrán too far when Odhrán once more fell silent. Again, Taren braved the silence and waited.
“I will give you the stone,” Odhrán said at last. “I promised him—you—this.” His expression softened, and Taren saw longing there. “But there is one thing I ask in return.”
“Name it.” Taren met Odhrán’s gaze unflinchingly.
“I would like to get to know you, Taren. Perhaps it’s true that at first I saw you as someone familiar. Perhaps I still do.” Odhrán gestured for Taren to be seated, and this time Taren acquiesced. “But I think there is far more to you than what I remember of him. And I would like to discover it.”
“I would like that,” Taren said. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Odhrán said with a sigh, “I will take you to the stone.”
Sixteen
TAREN SLEPT little that night, too anxious to think of anything but claiming the stone and rejoining Ian aboard the Phantom. Several times he reached for Ian only to find himself alone in Odhrán’s guest quarters. His dreams were murky, a tantalizing blur of images, smells, and sounds that called to him but vanished as soon as he awoke. The tinkling of tiny bells, the scent of incense, the taste of bitter fruit on his tongue, love, lust, and betrayal wound themselves through his consciousness, never settling so that he might understand.
The next morning Odhrán led Taren out of the caves to a brilliant sunrise. They climbed down the side of the island opposite the one where they had made landfall days before. The entry here was far easier. The clear water met the land on a sandy beach at a gently sloping angle.
“What if I had not caught you?” Taren said as he repressed a grin. “On the cliff face, when you—when Brynn faltered?”
“I never doubted you would” was Odhrán’s answer. “But had I fallen,” he continued, “I’d have survived.”
“If you were so sure of who I was, why did you feel compelled to test me?”
This time Odhrán grinned. “A fair question, and one deserving of an honest answer.” Odhrán looked out over the water and sighed audibly. “Would it trouble you to know that I believe I craved the excitement that might come of it?”
Taren considered this. “No. Although I feel I should be angry with you for lying to me.”
“Misleading you,” Odhrán corrected, though Taren could hardly see the difference.
“How have you lived so long beneath the island?” Taren asked as he breathed in the fresh air and inhaled deeply of the salt and the ocean. He couldn’t imagine spending years, let alone hundreds of years, in the caves.
“I made my home long enough above the earth to know that it is a wretched place. In my caves, I found comfort. Peace. The generations of men and women who have dwelled there with me have become my family. And although they sailed without me, they always returned.”
Taren wondered what had happened to Odhrán that he so hated the world beyond his caves.
“If you wish, I will show you,” Odhrán said in answer to his unspoken question. “But for now, we will swim. I have promised to show you where you can claim the stone, and I’m eager to fulfill my promise to Treande.”
Odhrán shed his clothing and walked naked into the surf. Taren followed a moment later and they swam away from the shore. It had been less than a week since he’d last transformed, but to Taren it felt like ages. He allowed his body to change as he watched Odhrán, eager to see his transformation.
“No one alive has seen this form,” Odhrán told Taren. He’d clearly understood Taren’s curiosity, because he waited for Taren to swim near him before he said, “But I suppose it’s time that changed.”
Odhrán drew his arms above his head as if he were stretching skyward. His body grew, his arms and his legs now inhumanly long. The water around him flickered with a warm reddish light, and his skin took on a similar reddish cast. Small appendages grew from his elbows and wrists, similar to those of the Ea, but longer, more like the fins of an exotic fish. Like Taren’s, the fins sported pointed barbs, though they were more plentiful and sprouted from every juncture of the fins.
Odhrán’s tail was longer by far than Taren’s own. Unlike Taren’s, which was marked by silver, Odhrán’s was the color of the sunset, with trails of purple and fuchsia running in soft stripes from his waist to the fins at the end. Odhrán’s chest expanded, his delicate concave belly growing muscled and taut. It was difficult for Taren not to marvel at Odhrán’s size: he was nearly half again as large as Taren.
More surprising still was that, in this form, Odhrán’s eyes shone as though illuminated from within. Not human, like the Ea, for at their center Odhrán’s irises were a silvery grey, like the color of the full moon reflected in calm waters. Freed from its long braid, his hair cascaded over his broad shoulders like a waterfall. Its strands undulated with the current, as though blown about by the wind.
Odhrán was larger than any Ea Taren had ever seen. No wonder the Ea had feared the young Odhrán. In this form, he was nearly as large as the whales Taren sometimes swam with off the mainland. Like this, Odhrán was still beautiful. Taren, who had only begun to understand how to use his own magic, sensed power radiating from Odhrán’s body. It pulsed fiercely, then ebbed, as though Odhrán consciously reined it in.
Terrifying and beautiful.
“But you do not fear me.” Odhrán’s words in his mind made Taren wonder if he’d meant for Odhrán to hear his thoughts.
“No. You did not choose to share your thoughts with me,” Odhrán explained. “In this form, I can sense all of your thoughts and your emotions. This ability, more than any other, is the reason the Ea cast me out.”
Taren realized with surprise that he could sense Odhrán’s thoughts as well as his emotions.
“The ability is reciprocal,” he heard Odhrán say. “A fair trade, you might say.”
You are beautiful, Odhrán. Taren felt Odhrán’s pride at hearing this. Something else as well: relief. You feared I would reject you? Taren found this difficult to comprehend. In this form, Odhrán was so obviously powerful that Taren assumed Odhrán would be confident as well.
“I do not doubt my power,” Odhrán explained. “But acceptance in others is something I cannot create for myself. To know that you accept me in your heart is a powerful balm.”
Taren did not answer. There was no need. He sensed the truth of Odhrán’s words.
“You look much like him in your human form,” Odhrán said as Taren followed him through the water. “But in this form you are his twin. They say our true appearance is a reflection of our soul.”
My true form, Taren mused. He’d never considered his Ea form to be his natural state of existence, but Odhrán’s words resonated in his soul. Since he
’d discovered his true nature, he’d nearly forgotten what it had been like to be human. It was as if he’d been reborn when he’d discovered the truth of his birthright, much like Treande’s soul had been reborn in his body.
Tell me about Treande, he said as they swam side by side. How did you meet?
“Several years after Treande led the Ea to the island,” Odhrán explained, “he became despondent over the loss of his mate.”
Owyn.
“Aye. Owyn.” Odhrán turned and met Taren’s gaze for a moment, as if he were searching for some understanding there. “He’d done everything to help his people establish the colony on Ea’nu, but his people wanted more.”
They wanted him to be their priest.
Odhrán shook his head. “If they’d just wanted him to be their priest, he would have been content. Instead, they wanted not only a priest but a leader. A savior.
“He was lost. He loved his people, but he was no god, nor did he wish to be treated as one.”
In his visions, Taren had sensed Treande’s despair. He fled the island.
“You remember, then?”
No. But I know it to be true. Treande had been quite young when Owyn was killed—no older than Ian. Taren once had been afraid to ask Ian how long Ea lived. And when he’d learned that the Ea lived hundreds of years, he’d taken no comfort in that knowledge.
“Mages live even longer,” Odhrán put in.
Treande was a mage? Taren had never thought to ask, although it made sense: Vurin believed he, too, was a mage. Taren still wasn’t sure.
“All of the ancient priests were mages. Some possessed more than their share of the ancient gifts.”
How did you meet? Taren asked.
“By chance. Although Treande often said the goddess had a hand in it.” Odhrán shook his head and Taren saw great affection in his expression. “I had spent many years traveling. Exploring the Kingdom of Derryth. I found him on a beach in the northern part of the country. Frozen. Starving. Near death.
“He was too weak to transform and heal his human body. He begged me to leave him be, but I couldn’t. I needed to understand….”
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