Aware that she wore next to nothing, that she’d just revealed her deepest secret to Celeste and the chevalier, Mariel felt exposed in so many ways, she preferred not to think at all. She gratefully plunged her arms into Waylan’s enormous coat even though it was damp. Wrapping it around her, she sought Trystan’s embrace after he clambered on board. She refused to lift her head from his shoulder once he cradled her against his chest.
Near death made all other concerns irrelevant.
They remained speechless too long for Nick’s impatient eagerness.
“Can you ride whales, too ?” he demanded. “Why don’t you drown?”
There was the problem in a nutshell. After all these years of concealing her secret, she had now revealed the freak she was.
And she was relieved.
“Mariel can swim like a fish,” Waylan growled, but Nick wasn’t so easily satisfied. He waited expectantly.
Lifting her head to Trystan, Mariel smiled. “We’ll have to cast him overboard.”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “I’m in enough trouble already without drowning a chatterbox.”
“You interfered,” she said sadly, her smile disappearing.
“By letting Murdoch and his dangerous knowledge loose upon the world, Aelynn has interfered. I could do no less.”
“I am eternally grateful that you saved my home. But what happens now?”
Nick looked from one of them to the other with puzzlement. The tall Aelynn men backed away to give them privacy.
Trystan tugged Mariel’s hair free of the coat and smoothed it over her shoulders. “I am not a Seer. I can only take one day at a time. For now, we sail the de Berriers to England.”
The baroness rushed forward to hug them. “The two of you were marvelous. We’ll never forget what you have done.”
The chevalier stepped forward, hat in hand, and bowed formally. “I do not think I wish to have the events of this day explained to me. I am merely grateful that we came away with our lives. With bankruptcy looming, I foresee the need for others to move their investments out of France, and I will be in a position to help them, thanks to you. Our home will be yours.”
“Do you think we can buy a christening gift for Marie-Jeanne in England?” Mariel asked.
Reminded of the twins Mariel carried, Trystan pushed her toward the cabin. “We will buy everything her heart desires. For now, I need to lie down and return my heart to beating. I think I am paralyzed.”
His crew laughed knowingly and parted to their separate tasks. The chevalier and the baroness steered their ward to the bridge to watch the dolphins.
And Mariel clambered below to celebrate the wedding night she hadn’t expected to have, with the husband who accepted her as she was, who had forfeited his world for hers.
“I love you so much, I think I may burst of it,” she told him quietly as he led her inside his cabin. “I don’t know what lies ahead, but tell me we never must part again. I thought I would expire of regret the moment I saw you sailing away.”
Trystan grabbed fists full of her hair and drew her toward him. “I hope you will never know what I felt when you did not appear after that fire. I think I’ll wring your neck for scaring me like that.”
Instead, he covered her face with kisses, captured her mouth with his, and drank the breath from her lungs.
Fortunately for both of them, she didn’t need much air to breathe.
Which meant he had to come up for air first. Laughing, they fell into the bed, stripping off their soaked clothing as they did so.
Kneeling over her, Trystan ran kisses across every inch of her exposed skin. “I love you, mermaiden,” he declared while she gasped in pleasure. “It is not a word I comprehended until today. Love is not about possession. This is not a manacle that binds us unwillingly. It is a force within our hearts that hold us together, mi amacara.”
“You are quite possibly right, husband.” Mariel reached up to tug Trystan’s head to her mouth where she could brand him with her kisses. When he gasped for air again, she concluded, “We must dedicate the rest of our time to testing your theory.”
Placing his big hand over the place where their children grew, he looked solemn for a moment. “I have learned my lesson. I cannot bear to be parted from you again. If you will not stay in the safety of my home, then I must go with you. Your world is too dangerous without my protection. Are you prepared to return and rebuild your village, to live there as we are?”
With people thinking them freaks, talking of witches and magic, making the sign of the evil eye against them? As opposed to his home, where all was peace and calm?
Mariel finally understood the Oracle’s ambiguous prediction. Looking him in the eye, she tried to convey what she understood in her heart. “I am prepared to live where I am needed,” she said quietly. And she meant it. Her family would always love her. She need not seek approval elsewhere.
“I love you even more for that,” he agreed, nuzzling her ear. “It is time we recognized that what affects the Outside will ultimately affect Aelynn. I am needed more off Aelynn’s shores than within them. If Murdoch lives, we must guard against him and his kind.”
Thinking of the devastating weapon the banished Aelynner had unleashed, Mariel shuddered. “Your peaceful world is lovely,” she said in regret. “I hate that you might have to give it up. I see now why your people have been forbidden to interfere.”
“But we’ve done it and must live with the consequences. Our peace is derived from selfishness. Dylys will have my head for saying so, so let us not impart our discovery to her. For now, I much prefer the role of besotted newlywed.”
With that, he turned his attention to more important subjects, like pleasuring his wife.
Epilogue
Dylys stood before the Council and raised her arms for silence. The island leaders, both male and female, grew quiet. She bowed her head in brief prayer, and her humble silver braid fell forward before she flung it back again and gazed defiantly upon the audience.
“I have prayed for guidance before coming to you today. In the waters, I have seen fire and war, but I cannot see beyond them. Perhaps the gods are telling me it is time that I step down and let my children rule.”
The audience burst into shocked argument until Iason and Lissandra stepped up to the podium with her.
Dylys spoke again. “I know my offspring have not chosen their mates to replace the leader we lost in my husband. I have ordered them both to search outside as well as within our boundaries for their equals. It is a dreadful burden I place upon them, and I regret that I must be the one to bestow it, but the day has arrived when we must acknowledge the world beyond ours. I will leave it to the Council to decide how this must be done, but I request this final act of you before I step down.” She nodded at the couple waiting to one side.
Clinging to Trystan’s hand, Mariel stepped up with him. They wore matching blue, hers a sari similar to the one Trystan had given her earlier, his a tunic that clung to his shoulders and enhanced his authority in the heavy embroidery and wide belt of his position. She still thrilled when she looked at him, even though they’d spent every moment of these last weeks together.
She knew he had wielded his significant powers of persuasion and authority to bring them to this moment. She did not know what had been decided. She did not yet know his world well enough to understand their laws. They still had much to learn of each other’s homes.
Standing beside her, Trystan waited silently for Dylys to continue.
“I cannot ask you to forgive me for unleashing Murdoch Leguerre upon an innocent world, and for my inability to fully suppress his powers,” Dylys announced. “But I ask that you forgive Mariel and Trystan l’Enforcer for attempting to right my wrong, and allow them to marry here this day and take their rightful seats upon the Council.”
Mariel inhaled sharply at the Oracle’s request. Trystan’s hand tightened on hers, but his stoic expression gave no other indication of his surprise.
> Murmurs whipped through the room as all eyes turned to them, but Dylys was not yet ready to cede her position. “The Council must decide how to proceed in an uncertain future, but Trystan has made us all aware that to continue isolating ourselves from the affairs of the Other World in a time of increased travel and naval warfare will only speed our demise.”
More gasps. Flares of outrage. Mariel cringed, but she could feel Trystan’s confidence. He knew these people as she did not. She took courage from him and managed a smile.
“Since he is our Guardian and shield, I ask that we channel more of Aelynn’s strength to give him the power to protect us while he is far distant in his wife’s world.”
“But that will reduce the power that others command,” someone in the audience shouted.
Dylys bowed her head in acceptance. “But we are safe here, and those of us who venture afar are not. We need to send our young men into the Other World to seek what we do not possess, and we must ensure their safety. The Finder will search for other Crossbreeds who can speak with the creatures beneath the sea. They can be l’Enforcer’s messengers, sending warnings through his wife against dangers we may not foresee.”
Mariel glanced up at Trystan in surprise. His mouth bent slightly upward, but still, he did not look at her. He’d known what Dylys intended to ask of her. How had he thought of that?
Iason spoke into the stunned silence. “If the Finder is to go into the Outside World to seek more mermaidens, he must also seek mates for Lissandra and me. This means we may have more Crossbreeds on our island, people like us who have homes and families they must leave behind. We cannot ask them to help us, while we offer nothing in return. That is selfish.”
Shocked silence fell across the chamber as all Aelynn gazed upon the future.
Lissandra’s clear, high voice rose over the first murmurs. “We cannot change all the laws that protect us, but we can change the one that prevents us from correcting our mistakes, the one that says we cannot use our strengths to interfere outside this island. Let us right our wrongs, the ones we’ve created in the past and those we might create in the future. And in so doing, let us welcome Trystan and Mariel to our Council as a wedded couple, allow them to move freely from shore to shore, and bless their children now as true Aelynners.”
A cheer started in the back of the room where Trystan’s bachelor friends stood tall and stalwart in his favor. Applause broke out in front of them where others of their age sat in the lower seats of the Council. Gradually, the wave of approval spread from the back to the foremost seats of the elders. As one, the audience rose to its feet and clapped its agreement.
Mariel nearly fainted in awe and shock—and from the sudden movement of the infants in her womb. Trystan caught her, grasping her waist to keep her from falling. Concern lined his bronzed face as she clung to him.
“Are you ill? Do you need to sit down?” he asked worriedly.
As the applause continued, Mariel bestowed a smile of joy upon her husband. “I think your children are expressing their approval.”
“Let us not hinder their festivity.” In front of family and friends, the normally stoic Guardian grinned hugely and kissed his bride. And did not complain in the least when Mariel threw her arms around his neck and returned his affection with great enthusiasm for all to see.
***
Later, standing beside the steaming waters of the grotto with only his mother and sister to observe, Iason opened the velvet bag Trystan had returned weeks earlier. “Perhaps now is the time to show you this?” he asked, opening it to reveal the glittering silver chalice.
Lissandra and the Oracle lifted the vessel from the pouch and studied it in horror.
“This is not the sacred vessel,” Dylys hissed.
“I know.” He shrugged a brown shoulder. “But would you tell our newlyweds that? The honorable Trystan would immediately head to Versailles to confront Murdoch. And you’ve seen for yourself that he is needed to guard the coast.”
Dylys seemed to shrink inside herself and gazed bleakly into the pool. “I have lost the Chalice, half the purpose of our existence. I pray the gods punish me and not the island for my failure. The two of you are our future now. You must find mates, and soon, then find the Chalice and return it.”
“Perhaps it is time we all explored what is beyond these shores,” Iason agreed.
“One at a time,” Lissandra said, surprising him. “One of us must remain safe behind while the other explores. I foresee too much violence in the time ahead.”
“You are both adults, well able to make your own decisions. Do as you see fit.” Dylys bowed her graying head. “I had once hoped Trystan’s strength and sense would lead us into the next century.”
“He and I are like brother and sister, Mother,” Lissandra objected. “In our own ways, we would both be dictators. It would never have worked. But I agree, now that he has learned to listen to his heart and to work with others, he is a true leader.”
Iason glanced at his sister with respect and nodded approval. “Mariel has only just learned to embrace her talents and accept that her differences are strengths rather than handicaps. She will grow wiser with time.”
Lissandra added reassuringly, “The Finder has never failed. He will find the chalice.”
“I daresay it will take a wealth of pearls to pry it loose from the king, if that is where it has gone,” Dylys responded with a sigh. “With Murdoch still out there, you had best send a fighting man who carries a stronger sword than Kiernan’s pen and paper.”
Accepting his new responsibility, Iason considered his choices. “Nevan will attend the Finder,” he decided. “He can charm a bird from a tree, and strike a crow from the sky.”
Dylys harrumphed. “That works if the court is a flock of birds. Let us hope the chalice has chosen a different path.”
“It found Mariel and made twins,” he replied. “Perhaps the Plenty it promises is more children with great abilities.”
“That should give our Guardian a task worthy of his strength,” Dylys agreed. “It is a good thing we sent one of us to act as priest in the Other World. If we continue on this path, we will have to send more to guard our children, so they need not hide their secrets.”
Watching the rippling images of the future in the water, Iason envied the newlyweds their happiness. Aelynn had blessed the lovers. Despite the black clouds gathering on the horizon, they would live in sunshine, and provide the aid both of their kinds would need in the upheaval that lay ahead.
He wished he could see the same for himself.
Author’s Note
This is—obviously—a work of fiction. The island, the village of Pouchay, and the characters are all figments of my imagination.
But I have set them against a very real historical background. The era leading up to England’s Regency and Napoleon’s reign was an exciting, demanding time, a period of great scientific discovery as well as a period of class warfare and revolution. I have used real incidents, settings, and actual quotes from people of that era to reflect the atmosphere. The Castle de Rohan in Pontivy exists, but since most of its improvements were made in Napoleon’s time, I have taken liberties with my version, and the events there all belong to my imaginary characters.
With regard to language, it is always difficult to choose between historical accuracy and ease of understanding for the contemporary reader. In this case, since the two languages my characters speak are Breton, which almost no one speaks today, and the language of Aelynn, which I completely made up, I have taken creative license to translate my imaginary dialogue into modern English.
Copyright & Credits
MYSTIC GUARDIAN
A Mystic Isle Novel
Patricia Rice
Book View Café Edition March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-359-1
Copyright © 2007 Patricia Rice
First published: Penguin Putnam, July 2007
Cover illustration © Hot Damn Designs
Cover
design by Kim Killion
Production team: Proofreader: Patricia Burroughs; Ebook formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today’s lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance’s hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged romances have won numerous awards and been honored as RITA® finalists in the historical, regency and contemporary categories. She is thrilled to be expanding into mystery and urban fantasy.
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