Sparkling white froth, glittering white sand, endless expanse of aqua crystalline water.
She narrowed her eyes.
It was too perfect. Something was askew here. Even the air felt strange. It smelled… She sniffed cautiously.
Like Circenn.
How could an island smell like Circenn?
She felt a pain deep inside at the thought of him. First she'd had her mother, but no life. Then she'd had Circenn, but no mother. Now she had neither, and missed them both with the whole of her heart.
"What did I do to deserve this?" she demanded of the cloudless sky.
"As if there is anyone up there who cares," she heard someone say dryly. "Why do they always look up when they wax rhetoric? Better the creature should tithe to us."
She pivoted on the sand. Two utterly beautiful men stood on the beach, dressed in simple white robes. One was as dark as the other was fair, and both were regarding her with disdain.
The blond Adonis gestured to his companion. "How strange, for a moment I almost thought it heard me. It appears to be looking at us."
"Not possible. It can neither see nor hear us unless we permit it."
"I hate to burst your smug bubble, but I do see you and I am mortal. Are you more of those pernicious fairy-things?" she asked irritably. The hell with them. They were not going to manipulate her. Besides, how much worse could her life get?
"Fairy-things?" The blond one's eyes widened. "It called us a fairy-thing," he informed his companion. "It sees us. Do you think it may be one of those meddling mortals who see both worlds—the ones our Queen and King kidnap at birth?"
The dark one arched a brow. "Then where has it been since then? For it appears fully grown to me."
"I am not an 'it' and I am fully grown and I was not kidnapped at birth and I would appreciate it if you did not speak of me as if I didn't exist."
"Then how did you come to be here?"
"Where is here?" Lisa asked swiftly. She was going to assume control of events from moment one in this strange place.
"Morar. It is where the Tuatha de Danaan repaired after the Compact," the Adonis said.
"Take me to your Queen," Lisa commanded imperiously.
They exchanged glances, then simply vanished.
Lisa's shoulders slumped. So much for imperial demeanor. She'd thought she'd sounded pretty regal.
She blew out a breath and started walking down the beach, determined to greet with aplomb whatever new phenomenon fate chose to spew from the ocean's teeth. A whale-sized piranha biking down the beach wouldn't have surprised her right now.
* * *
"Morar," Circenn repeated, his jaw tightening. "And why did you send her to the isle of your people?"
"To keep her out of time for a bit, while I awaited your return. To buy you time to make up your mind."
"Make up my mind about what?" Circenn asked icily.
"About what you wish to do with her."
"I doona need time to decide that: I want to marry her, I want her here, and I want her immortal. But I doona understand your motives. I thought you wanted her dead, Adam. Did you not force an oath from me—
"Never take anything I say or do at face value, Circenn. It was never about that. You needed to break some of your ridiculous rules. I merely put you in a position where you would be forced to question them. Had you truly killed her, I would have been vastly disappointed. You never understood what I was really after."
Circenn shook his head, muttering beneath his breath. All his angst about breaking the vow had been for naught, because Adam had never wished it fulfilled to begin with. "And I doona understand now, so why not explain it to me?"
Adam circled around him, studying him. "Why don't you put down that sword?" He shuddered. "We gave it to you so we wouldn't be tempted to fight among our own kind. We trusted you."
"You coerced me into the guardianship and well you know it," he said bitterly. Still, he let the tip dip toward the floor, although he kept his hand firmly on the hilt.
Adam relaxed. "The way I see it, you have several choices. You can go join her where she is. In my world," he added smugly. "Or you may bring her back here. Or you may go fix her future and then send her back. She is safely out of time while you decide."
"Why do you mock me, Adam? You know I doona know how to accomplish any of those things. Are you offering to perform such magic for me?"
Adam looked pained. "I cannot. Aoibheal has clipped my wings, so to speak."
"Then exactly how do you expect me to dart about through time? Morar is not accessible by mortal means. You have trapped my woman on a fairy isle to which I have no means of traveling," he said, growing angry again.
Adam eyed Circenn challengingly. "Yes, you do."
Circenn flung a hand up in the air. "I cannot sift time—if I could, I would have offered to return her when I discovered what she'd lost and how much it pained her."
"You can sift time. You know that. You know also that there was a time recently when you would have given anything to have long ago accepted my lessons. You refused to let me teach you, but you know you have the power—it seethes within you. It begs to be freed. You would learn quickly. It would take me mere days to teach you how to sift time. We can practice with short jaunts."
Circenn regarded him, saying nothing. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
"Circenn, I have been telling you for five hundred years that I can teach you how to move through time and place. You have always sneered and walked away. Now I offer again: I can teach you how to sift time, weave worlds, how to change her future so her parents don't die. I can teach you enough that you can prevent the car wreck, perhaps even prevent the cancer, and return her to her future with her memory of you intact. When it is done you may join her there, or bring her back. Or split your lives between the two places. You can do anything you want, Circenn Brodie. I've always told you this."
"And what price for such knowledge, Adam? What price for my woman back?"
"Oh, it's so simple," Adam said gently. "It's all I have ever wanted, all along." He nodded encouragingly. "You know what I want. I offer you a trade. Let me teach you. Let me take you where you belong. Let me show you my world. It is not evil."
Circenn grunted and rubbed his eyes. Five hundred years ago he'd sworn to avoid this moment at all costs. Throughout the centuries Adam had tempted him repeatedly with anything he could think of, and failed each time. Apparently Adam had realized that the trap would have to be more cunningly laid, and this one had succeeded brilliantly. That which Circenn had refused for five centuries had now become inevitable. The ninth-century man within him shrugged, stepped down, and ceded defeat. Was it evil? Were Adam and his race evil? Or had Circenn simply never forgiven Adam for slights inflicted long ago?
His choices were painfully simple: Be with Lisa, or not be with Lisa.
The latter was unacceptable, and Adam knew that. Circenn felt bitterly manipulated by Adam, and anger burned within him. This situation had been designed and orchestrated by Adam Black from the onset.
But then he thought of Lisa. What existed between them had nothing to do with Adam. Adam may have cleverly manipulated events, but Circenn alone had fallen in love with Lisa. He would have loved her no matter where he'd found her. His anger melted away.
If he accepted what Adam was offering, he could change her life: He could slip to the future and save her parents and return to her everything she'd ever wanted, and be with her again. And hadn't he been toying with that idea for some time now? When he'd asked her to tell him everything about her life, when he'd listened and taken mental notes—aye, even then he'd been analyzing possibilities in the back of his mind. His bitterness over Adam's making him immortal five hundred years past had caused him to violently reject everything about the Tuatha de Danaan. But perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all.
He knew she loved him. Since he had to accept Adam's lessons, if only to rescue her from the fairy isle, why not go all the way? Why not perfe
ct her world and give her all her heart's desires? What a gift, to be so powerful that he could ensure her wildest dreams. What else might he be able to give her?
Everything, Adam said wordlessly.
Circenn glanced at Adam.
Dare he brave her time? Dare he go forward and love her there?
He would love her anywhere.
Dare he give Adam what he wanted?
Circenn Brodie drew a deep breath and regarded the blackest elf. He saw before him the potential for corruption, unlimited power, terrifying freedom.
Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in those dark eyes.
"It's so easy," Adam assured him. "It won't hurt a bit, once you've said it for the first time. You'll find it feels quite natural after a while."
Circenn nodded. "Then teach me. Teach me everything you know… Father."
* * *
SOARING…
So sweet a kiss yestreen frae thee I reft,
In bowing doun thy body on the bed,
That even my life within thy lips I left.
Sensyne (since then) from thee my spirits
wald never shed.
—To His Mistress/Alexander Montgomerie
* * *
CHAPTER 29
"doona think this means i forgive you for seducing my mother," Circenn said later.
"I didn't ask you to," Adam said with a chiding, paternal expression that made Circenn uncomfortable. "She was irresistible, you know. Rarely has one of our kind successfully bred with a mortal, and had the child survive to maturity. But you Brudes have such life force that it was possible, as I'd suspected when I seduced her."
"You destroyed my father."
"His own jealousy destroyed him. I did not raise a hand against him. And that man had nothing to do with siring you. You are my son, and mine only. No seed of his made you. When Morganna died, I refused to lose you, too."
"So you made me immortal. I hated you for that."
"I know that."
The two men were silent for a time.
"Is it truly possible to alter her future and return her to a better one?" Circenn asked.
"Yes. We will go to her future and change it, twice. Actually," he amended, "we will likely need many trips to her time to get it right. Then we will go to Morar, and we will send her on to the new future."
"But won't she have lived portions of it twice?"
"She will have the equivalent of five years of dual memory."
"Will it damage her mind?"
"Lisa? Need you ask that? The woman is nearly Brude."
Circenn felt a flash of pride. "Aye, that she is." He was silent for a moment. "But I doona understand how to do it."
"Patience. You've been a quick study on your own, you know. I've watched you. I know you use heightened speed, I know you scry, I know you've altered space around you without even being aware of it. We will proceed slowly."
"Slowly is good," Circenn said. "My head pounds with too many strange concepts."
"We will move at a snail's pace," Adam assured him. "There is much to be learned about our kind, Circenn, but you must learn it in stages. The madness doesn't result from immortality. It is an annoying and temporary side effect of our far-vision. We see how everything interconnects, and if you seek that knowledge too quickly, it can make you lose perspective, even cause madness."
"Someday I will be able to see those things too?"
"Yes. I learned too quickly, arrogantly certain that nothing could ever harm me. When the understanding came, it overwhelmed me just as Aoibheal had warned it would. But I will bring you to the knowledge of our race slowly enough that you can absorb it while learning it."
"Adam—the spear," Circenn said hesitantly.
"What of it?" Adam replied, a hint of amusement curving his lip.
"The spear and the sword are the only weapons that can kill immortals. The spear was used to wound Christ."
"You're beginning to see connections. Keep looking."
"But what—"
"You will find your own way. These are the things that must come slowly. You cannot expect to overthrow too quickly everything you've thought was true. You are still a ninth-century man in many ways. There will be plenty of time to talk of these things later. For now, let us concentrate on Lisa, and you discovering who and what you are. This is all I ever wanted from the beginning, Circenn—for you to accept that I am your father and be willing to learn about your heritage. I am the only Tuatha de Danaan who has a full-grown son," he added smugly. "Some of them resent me for it."
Circenn rolled his eyes, and Adam, caught up in adoring himself, ignored it.
"I can teach you to sift time, but a fuller understanding of your abilities will not come for many years. Are you certain you wish to proceed? I will not have you later cry foul and be angry with me again. Five hundred years of your bad temper is all I can stand."
"I am certain. Teach me."
"Come." Adam extended his hand. "Let us begin and regain your mate. Welcome to my world, son."
* * *
Circenn's instruction at Adam's hands commenced the next morning, and the laird of Brodie began slowly to understand what he'd always sensed within him, and feared: the potential for unlimited power. He began to see why it had frightened him, he—a warrior who feared nothing. Such power was terrifying because the ability to use it carried immense responsibilities. What had once seemed a vast unexplored wilderness—his country, Scotland—was now put into astonishing perspective.
There were other worlds, far beyond the one they inhabited. He realized why the Tuatha de Danaan seemed detached to mortals. The tiny bit of land called Scotland and their tiny war for independence was one of millions in the universe.
Over the next few days of learning just a tiny bit about himself, he began to develop (loath though he was to admit it) some respect for the man who had sired him. Adam was indeed given to strange amusements, prone to meddle and to be prankish. However, considering the extent of what his "blackest elf" could actually do, Circenn realized that Adam generally exercised admirable restraint. He also began to realize how mortals, who had no such magic, could so gravely misunderstand those who wielded it.
He eyed his father, who was bent over an ancient tome from which he'd been reading aloud, giving Circenn more background on his race. It was difficult to conceive of the exotic man as his father, for Adam wore his customary glamour that made him seem even younger than Circenn.
"Adam, what of this bond I have with her? What happened that night when she and I…"
"Made love? Ah, tupped as Duncan would say." Adam raised his head from the book. "What did Morganna tell you when you were a lad?"
"About what? She told me many things." Circenn shrugged.
"What did she tell you about spilling your seed in a woman?" Adam asked, trying not to laugh.
"Oh, that. She told me it would fall off," Circenn muttered darkly.
Adam tossed back his head, shaking with mirth. "That is exactly something Morganna would have said. She knew better than to reason with the stubborn boy you were. And did you ever spill in a woman?"
"Nay. At first I believed her and feared it would indeed fall off. Then, when I was old enough to realize she'd been jesting with me, I didn't because I didn't wish to scatter my bastards across the land. Finally, when I wed Naya and was ready to have a family, I discovered what you had done—
"I told you the same day, didn't I? I knew you would plan children."
"You told me to prevent me?" Circenn said, startled.
"Of course. I knew what would happen if you did. You would have been bound to a woman you did not love, and that is the purest hell for us."
"So spilling my seed in a woman links us?"
"It seems to be a side effect of our immortality. Our life force is so strong, so potent, that when we find our release inside a mortal woman the union that is forged connects us. And that link will soon include your child."
"Lisa's not pregnant," Circenn said
quickly.
Adam glanced at him mockingly. "Of course she is. You—half-fae and half-mortal—are much more virile than we are. You might be our hope for the future."
"Lisa is carrying my child?" Circenn roared.
"Yes, from the moment you spent your seed, the first time you made love to her."
Circenn was stuck silent.
"The first seven months are splendid. It's amazing when the child's force starts to mingle with yours and hers. You feel the babe's awakening, its excitement, and burgeoning life. You marvel at what you have created, you hunger to see it arrive. Then the last two months become hellish. You, Circenn, were a pain in the ass. You wanted out, you kicked and brooded and argued, and suddenly I developed cravings for ridiculous foods I'd never wanted before, and ah—the birth, sweet Dagda! I suffered her labor. I felt the pain, and I felt the creation, the wonder. By the time you birth your first child, you and Lisa will be so deeply bound you won't be able to imagine breathing without her."
Circenn was silent, awed by the thought of Lisa's pregnancy and what was to come. Then the enormity of what Adam had just admitted struck him. "You had such a bond with my mother?"
"I am not without emotion, Circenn," Adam replied stiffly. "I endeavor to keep it still."
"But she died."
"Yes," Adam said. "And I ran to the farthest ends of the earth trying not to feel her death. But I couldn't escape it. Even on Morar, even on other worlds, I felt her dying."
"Why did you let her?"
Adam gave him a black look. "At least now that you understand that what I had with Morganna is what you have with Lisa, imagine what I endured permitting her to die. Perhaps you can find it within you to be less harsh in your judgment of me."
"But why did you let her?" Circenn repeated.
Adam shook his head. "My life with Morganna is another story and we have no time for it now."
Circenn studied the exotic man, who would no longer meet his gaze. Permit Lisa to die? Never. "But you could have made her immortal?" he pressed, with a sense of desperation.
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