Lord of Shadows

by Alix Rickloff

  She closed her eyes, letting the music and the voice wind its way through her.

  A tenor joined the soprano. Dipping in and out of the melody. Picking up when the soprano flagged. Then taking over completely. The tune changed as well. No longer solemn and reverential, now the melody leapt and skipped like the measure of a dance. Latin giving way to a strange lilting tongue she didn’t understand though somehow she knew the song spoke of love and heartbreak and loss.

  Opening her eyes, she gasped her dismay. No. Not again. It wasn’t possible. This wasn’t supposed to happen now that Daigh was gone. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting beside a hissing fire. Its dim light should not be gilding his hair with a fiery glow as he sharpened his blade. She could not be hearing the rhythmic slide of his stone up and down the heavy sword or a harper’s agile fingers and clear bell-like singing.

  But she was.

  Daigh slid the sword back into its sheath. Stood, drawing her up beside him where she encountered not his usual empty black gaze, but eyes, clear and gray-green. As yet, unchased by shadows.

  “I leave for Caernarvon at dawn. There’s trouble brewing, and Prince Hywel has asked I attend his father there.”

  She frowned. “Then I go too. I’ve seen those women at court looking at you. Like a feast.”

  He laughed. Planted a kiss on her cheek. His chest rose and fell beneath her palm. His heart a rapid drumbeat. His voice vibrating in a deep rumble she felt all the way up her arm. “Jealous? I’m flattered, but I can’t take you. Not this time.”

  The harper ended his song, the last plucked strings quivering to silence.

  She opened her mouth to argue just as a hand clamped her quiet. An arm held her close.

  And she came terrifyingly awake.

  Success.

  Máelodor opened his eyes, though even that tiny action tired him. His heart crashed against his ribs. Pain squeezed his chest, shooting down his arms. His breathing came in wheezy bursts. Every gulp of air cramping his straining lungs.

  He’d crossed distances and dimensions. Tracked the murkiest paths. Followed the trail into the deepest abyss and back out. The Unseelie sensed him as he passed. They called to him. Beseeched their release. He ignored their pleas. They would need to wait for their reward. It was not yet time.

  Instead he reached ever outward. Mind to mind. Pushing himself far past his normal breaking point. But his efforts had been rewarded. He’d succeeded. Felt an answering touch. Sensed the mage-bond between master and slave. Stretched taut. Barely functioning. But intact.

  He would rest. Recover. And when next he attempted the crossing, he would repair the connection between the Domnuathi and himself. Reinforce his supremacy. Regain control.

  “You nearly scared me to death.”

  Daigh rested his arms on the back of her pew, his eyes burning in a stricken, haunted face. “I didn’t want a scene.”

  “Grabbing and gagging me was supposed to keep me calm?” She frowned, trying to pull her mind back from the vision still haunting her of Daigh as he’d been in her dream. The teasing smile. The kiss. The warmth of his body beneath her hand. She massaged her temples. Why was this happening to her?

  The Daigh in front of her now looked ready to go up in flames. He fumed with suppressed rage, his body radiating violence. “No, I meant only to keep you quiet.” He leaned toward her, running a thumb over her cheek. “You’re crying.”

  Disconcerted, she put a gloved hand to her face. “Am I? A dream I had. It was nothing. And certainly not about you.”

  Amusement lit for a moment the scouring intensity of his gaze. “Tell me about this dream that had nothing to do with me.”

  She would not let him drag her back under his spell. He’d lied to her. Made her feel a yearning she didn’t want to feel. Made her picture a life that wasn’t hers, yet one she began to long for with every new encounter. Then made a fool of her for even imagining.

  She tipped a stubborn chin in his direction. “Very well. We were talking. You . . .” She paused, embarrassed. “You kissed me.”

  Grief dimmed his smile. “Then what?”

  “You told me you were being called back to Caernarvon. That Prince Hywel needed you.”

  His gaze fled inward. His voice coming low and certain. “There was to be a meeting with the English. I was summoned to translate. To spy.”

  At once, his shoulders hunched as if he’d been struck. Sweat sprang out upon his forehead, and he slumped heavy against the pew.

  “Daigh!” She reached for him, but he shook his head. “It happens when I remember. It passes soon enough.”

  He closed his eyes. Breathed deeply through his nose. Teeth chattering. Body shaking.

  Her eyes burned, a tear sliding down her cheek. “Spy on who? The English? Are you French? A soldier for Napoléon? That’s it, isn’t it? Oh gods, I’m harboring a war fugitive.”

  “Nay, Sabrina,” he coaxed her back from the brink of hysteria. “You needn’t add that fear to your others.”

  “But what I dreamt. It was a memory. Your memory. Just like the last time.”

  “Aye.”

  “Then you can tell me who Hywel is? Prince of what? Why am I dreaming your memories? As if I was there and a part of them?”

  He turned away, his jaw clamping. Eyes distant. Voice cagey. “I can’t explain. I don’t know.”

  She didn’t believe him for an instant. Even if she hadn’t felt his tension thicken like a cold fog, there was a tone in his voice telling her he lied. “What are you doing here, Daigh? Are you following me?”

  “Not you. The man you were with. What did he want? What did he ask you?”

  “Mr. St. John . . .” She paused, her brows drawn into a frown. “You know him?”

  “We’ve met before.” He flinched, spinning away. “And if I didn’t need him alive, I’d put a bullet in him right now.”

  She grabbed his hand. “Daigh, what’s going on? Why did you run away that night? And why are you acting as if Mr. St. John were the devil’s henchman?”

  “As if? The man could show Satan a trick or two.”

  “That’s not answering my question.”

  “How did the sisters explain my disappearance?”

  “They called you a thief. Said you broke into Ard-siúr’s office. Stole things.”

  “And the blood?” So casual, as if his life hadn’t been spattered from wall to wall. And yet here he stood. Whole and infuriatingly uninformative.

  “A quarrel among thieves,” she answered.

  The corner of his mouth twisted, his expression hardening. “Right enough as far as it went.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  His features rearranged themselves into cool impenetrability as he answered questions with questions. “My turn. What are you doing in Dublin? Damn it, Sabrina. You’re supposed to be safe at Glenlorgan. Not here. And certainly not with that villain.”

  “My brother sent for me.”

  He went rigid, every inch of steel reasserting itself. Now he towered over her like an erupting thundercloud. Menacing. Powerful. Dangerous. “The Earl of Kilronan? Sabrina, did he say why? Or ask you about a tapestry? It was kept with the bandraoi.”

  The blank wall. The frayed threads. “You stole it. Sister Ainnir was right.”

  He spoke over her. “Listen to me, Sabrina. Did Kilronan mention a tapestry? Someone named Máelodor? Or your brother Brendan?”

  “How could you take from—” She drew up short. “What did you say?”

  “Did Kilronan mention Brendan Douglas? That he’d seen him? Been in touch with him?”

  How did it all come back to Brendan? It was as if in writing about that horrible long-ago day she’d summoned some dark, threatening evil from the past. She stared at him blankly. “What have you heard? What do you know of Brendan?”

  Footsteps and voices growing louder. Aunt Delia’s voice hallooing as if she were on the hunting field. “Sabrina! Darling! Where’ve you taken yourself off to?”
<
br />   She turned to leave. “I’ve got to go.”

  He grasped her hand. Pulled her close, his face inches away from hers. “Stay away from St. John. Don’t talk to him. Don’t trust him.”

  She nodded dumbly. The black of his eyes drawing her in until the heat of a fire, the song of a harpist, and the rasp of stone on steel filled her head. She need only let herself be swept into that gaze to be back in that place.

  “I’ll see you soon.” He released her, shocking her out of the moment.

  “Promise me?” Challenge in her tone.

  He did not—or could not—answer.

  Daigh tossed back his wine. Poured another from the bottle left by the publican. Sought to gather the lost pieces of his life. Hywel. Caernarvon. Sabrina might not have known the significance of those tossed words, but he did. She had triggered a cascade of images. Two lives sliding simultaneously through his fractured mind.

  A man honor bound to his prince and liege lord, whose mixed lineage made him an asset to Gwynedd’s court.

  A man slave bound to a gnarled, haggard master-mage with a malicious nature whose hands dealt excruciating pain. Whose mouth spewed mind-twisting poison.

  Máelodor. The Other who’d unearthed his bones. Had pulled his spirit from the abyss of Annwn and bound him once more to this plane as a Domnuathi, a soldier of Domnu. To a life splintered and broken where memories brought with them body crushing pain, and where a dark force always lurked just beyond his consciousness. An evil that was both a part of him and a way to control him.

  The black rage had almost conquered him this afternoon. His nightmare come true. Lancelot, or as he now discovered, St. John with Sabrina. The whoreson touching her arm. Whispering his nauseating filth in her ear. Close enough to steal her away to be used as bait.

  Seeing them together nearly destroyed every wall he’d struggled to build between sanity and the howling storm of madness. Awakened his killer instinct, narrowing his vision to a pinprick, icing over a soul black with hate.

  What had pulled him from the brink? What had fed the demons pursuing him, allowing him to escape?

  He closed his fingers over the lacing of scars across his palm. Pushed himself back from the table to stand.

  A memory. A dream. A precious moment from a life that couldn’t have happened.

  Sabrina.

  This time the misshapen dwarf barely cracked the door open before tossing him a belligerent scowl. “Lord Kilronan’s still not at home.”

  “I know,” Daigh said, jamming his foot in the door before the man could slam it shut. “It’s Lady Sabrina I want. Tell her Daigh MacLir calls for her.”

  He might as well have told the man to strip naked and paint himself blue. He eyed him like a disease.

  “Lady Sabrina’s not at home,” he answered in an imperious tone. “But even if she were, she’s certainly not available to persons what look as if they’re straight from Newgate.”

  Daigh’s temper flared. “It’s urgent.”

  The man stood his ground, though his voice came shakier than before. “Urgent or not, if I was to let every Tom, Dick, and Harry in here what says they know my lady, I’d soon be out of a position.”

  It wouldn’t take more than a mere shove to propel himself inside. But what if the man spoke the truth and Sabrina had gone out for the evening. He’d gain nothing and be worse off than if he withdrew gracefully and tried again later.

  Removing his boot, Daigh said, “Thank you for your help,” not even trying to hide his sarcasm.

  The dwarf snorted. Slammed the door. Slid the bolt home with a resounding thud.

  So much for coming in by the front door.

  He stared up at the town house. A light shone from an upper window, but the lower floors remained dark. A narrow alley ran beside the house. Stairs led down to a locked door. An iron gate—unlatched—beyond which shrubbery crowded in a tiny patch of garden at the back of the house.

  Light from a second-floor window threw squares of yellow across the lawn. Thick vines climbed a trellis along the back wall, a few summer roses still faded and clinging.

  He withdrew silently.

  But he’d be back.

  Half asleep, she rose from bed, drawn to the window by an undefined apprehension. The icy floorboards chilled her fully awake, the sharp air she inhaled pulling her from the last of her dreams.

  Crossing the room, she tried ignoring the troupe of cherubs cavorting upon her mantel and the winged Hermes in perpetual flight upon her desk. But Aunt Delia’s odd bent in objets d’art only seemed to emphasize the world Sabrina had been shoved into against her will. A world as alien to her now as if she’d never been born into it. Never known the life of the earl’s daughter. Only the bandraoi apprentice.

  The city seemed to rise around her. Hemming her in. Drowning her out. So many voices. So many feelings. Humming and buzzing through her mind like an angry swarm of bees.

  Pushing the heavy drapes aside, she stared down into the garden. Leaves clung to the slippery wet branches of the trees despite the stiff wind. A cat yowled its desire to be let in. Raucous laughter echoed up and down the street from a few young bucks making a late night of it.

  She felt as if she were shrinking with each hour that passed. Stepping back to the time when she couldn’t speak without stuttering. Couldn’t move without stumbling. Couldn’t exist without feeling that every eye was upon her, waiting for her next embarrassing misstep. Even the fingernail moon riding low in the west seemed to wink at her in disdain.

  The days spent in Aunt Delia’s company hadn’t detracted from that feeling. Only intensified it. Her aunt’s greatest pleasure seeming to be ripping family and friends to shreds over the evening meal.

  Tonight for instance.

  Jane had smiled and eaten, now and then shooting Sabrina glances of shared amusement. Mouthing the word “rabble” at inconvenient intervals. But beyond that, she’d been absolutely no help in deflecting Aunt Delia’s attention or breaking into the one-sided chatter—her aunt more than able to hold up all sides of any conversation.

  Just as well. Sabrina’s mind swung from thought to thought like a pendulum, catching a comment here and there while wrestling with the echoes of her last conversation with Daigh.

  Aunt Delia recounted Aidan’s wife’s less-than-stellar origins . . .

  “A brewer’s stepdaughter of all things, darling.”

  Did Kilronan mention Brendan Douglas?

  The scandal with an as-yet-unnamed gentleman that sparked her fall from Society . . .

  “Some say she was actually with child, though I don’t countenance such vulgarity. Aidan would never tarnish his family’s name by marrying another man’s whore.”

  What do you know of Brendan?

  The rumors about her lost years that included, of all ridiculous charges, life as a thief in the employ of a murdered archrogue . . .

  “They say he was slaughtered. Not enough pieces left of him to bury.”

  Stay away from St. John.

  Aidan’s besotted love that had exiled him to the remote reaches of Belfoyle where Lady Kilronan’s lack of social entrée wouldn’t be an issue . . .

  “Not seen him since Kilronan House burned. Married by the village priest. No family present. Not even a proper wedding breakfast.”

  Don’t talk to him. Don’t trust him.

  By the time the servants had removed the dessert course, Sabrina’s sympathies lay squarely in Lady Kilronan’s camp. And she almost looked forward to meeting the colorful and much-maligned countess. Anyone who could ruffle Aunt Delia’s feathers couldn’t be all bad.

  Still, it made Sabrina acutely aware of the scrutiny she’d undergo while under her aunt’s chaperonage. What on earth would happen if Daigh showed up here? Would it be better if he didn’t?

  She shivered, recalling the warmth of his touch, his full, sensual lips, his hard, brutal beauty. She swallowed around the knot in her throat as heat pooled low in her stomach. And most important, how would she h
andle her growing attraction to a man whose past intruded into her mind with the clarity of memory?

  I’ll see you soon.

  What unknown force brought them together?

  What unknown link bound them together?

  And what unknown trouble would they face together?

  For trouble was coming. She felt it in the crisp November breeze. In the flutter of blood beneath her skin.

  She dropped the drapes back into place over the window. Crossed to the desk. And, scowling at winged Hermes, opened her journal. Put pen to paper in an attempt to fight off the realization that what she’d taken for the storm had only been the calm before the tempest yet to come.

  The wall, the trellis, and poorly pointed brickwork. Daigh was in.

  Sabrina’s scent hung in the air. A dying fire glowed red in the grate. The bed a jumble of gray against the darker shadows.

  He took a step farther into the room, and the world exploded behind his eyes. His legs crumpling. The floor rushing up to meet him.

  “You!” Sabrina hissed.

  He rolled over, touching his head. His fingers coming away sticky. “Bloody hell, woman. Are you crazed?”

  She glared down at him, still holding the heavy marble statue she’d used to crack him over the skull. “I’m not the one breaking into a lady’s bedchamber in the middle of the night.”

  Already regretting the reckless impulse bringing him here, he shoved himself up onto an elbow, wincing against the room’s dizzy whirl. “You asked me to come.”

  “Not like a thief in the night. That’s twice now you’ve nearly frightened me out of my wits.”

  “I needed to see you.”

  “You’ve certainly managed that.” She cinched her robe closed more firmly around her waist, but it only highlighted the shapely curve of her hips, the smooth skin showing above the collar of her shift, hair atumble down her back, wisps framing the narrow oval of her face. The fire reflecting in her eyes like flames upon a dark sea.

  Her face haunted his memories. He’d caressed the silk of her cheeks, kissed her sensual lips, caused laughter to brighten her eyes.