by Lora Andrews
Caitlin translated the words.
A look of surprise, wonder, and then heartfelt emotion flooded Orhavet’s expression. The merman touched his chest with his bloody hand and spoke in what Caitlin could only assume was his native language. The sound, both beautiful and haunting, moved her to tears.
The females stepped forward and bowed. One of the women offered a huge seashell resembling a conch. She mimicked blowing into one end of the narrow spine and then gave it to Ewen with reverence in her every move.
“We come,” she said in broken Neridian. “We hunt now. We rest. But we serve with honor.”
“Thank you,” Caitlin said. “For returning our things. If there is anything we can do, please ask.”
The three bowed in unison and returned to the sea.
Ewen wiped a tear from Caitlin’s face. He smiled and gently tucked a loose strand of her crazy hair behind her ear. “You have skills I may need to call upon in the near future.”
She busted out laughing. “Thanks for the warning.”
“You did well lass. Your kin would be proud.”
Her throat completely clogged. For the first time in a long time, she believed they would, too.
Lachlan clapped Ewen’s back. “You’ve got the makings of a fine laird, son.”
Ewen growled. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m no laird.”
Lachlan MacLean ignored his son’s comment and winked at Caitlin. “I’ve got the perfect piece of land for a castle by the sea if you be changing your mind, lad.”
Dyn and Braern, Ewen’s grandfather, came up on Ewen’s left.
“You’ve made formidable allies,” Braern said. “The Havet were once a fierce race who ruled the seas. Some powerful enough to call forth storms and sink human ships. He will rally the rogues. This is good for our cause.”
Fionn folded his arms across his chest and stared off to the sea. And for the hundredth time, Caitlin wondered what happened to Valoria. Was she out there somewhere? Is that what he searched for?
Brigid handed Caitlin and Ewen a pile of clothes, interrupting Caitlin’s musing. “Bathe. Eat,” she commanded. “Then meet us in the library. We have a god to catch.”
TWENTY-THREE
CLEAN, DRY, and with her belly stuffed with bread, cheese, and wine, Caitlin felt ready to take on the world. A pair of leather pants adorned her legs. Comfy boots wrapped her feet. A green tunic fell past her knees, and the leather belt at her waist held more loops for weapons than she could possibly wield. It was like stepping into a costume on Halloween and becoming the character. All she was missing was Faolan’s sword and her own unique warrior cry. Athena had nothing on her.
Of course, now she was mixing up her pantheons. But there was a certain freedom to the clothing, and boy did she miss a good pair of twenty-first century jeans and a comfortable top. The gowns she’d been forced to wear these past several days were heavy and restrictive, weighing on her like heavy drapery. In this getup, she felt more like herself than she had in weeks.
Or maybe she’d drank too much wine. But hey, it was either wine or mead, which tasted like fruity sugar water, so she chose wisely.
Or not so wisely.
Ewen’s arm bumped her shoulder as they made their way down the narrow hallway toward the library.
Mm-mm. Eau de Highlander. She giggled.
Ewen cast her a curious glance.
Another giggle escaped. Oh man, she chose unwisely. What a lightweight. She cleared her voice and tried to wipe the smirk from her face. It’d been a long day.
“I must warn you, lad,” Brother Rupert said over his shoulder, and boy was that look the jolt of caffeine she needed to zap the booze from her head. “The abbot is in a rage. Says ye didna have the authority to negotiate a truce with the merfolk.”
“Let him,” Ewen said. “I’ve no care for what the man thinks. I did what was right.”
The monk stopped in front of a simple door. “I’m proud of you, lad. But I will warn ye both. We are entering a time of unrest. The Vertendi, the group you know as the Order, will seek to destroy the veil and revert to the old ways. They grow stronger with each passing day. I’ve heard rumor of secret wars fought in the holy land. Even within our ranks, there are those who believe the covenant should be destroyed. Or at the very least, rewritten. Some say that no immortal creature should walk the earth among man. That we shouldna negotiate for that which is divinely ours.”
Ewen put a hand on the door. “And where do you stand, Rupert?”
“I stand with you, lad. But I’ve lived long enough to know that when a sickness takes hold of a man’s mind, there be no changing it. I fear the unrest will create a fissure within the Brotherhood that we willna heal. One that will lead to a war we cannot win alone.”
“That’s a lot of cannots. I think humanity needs a kick in the ass.” Caitlin hadn’t formed an opinion about Dominic MacKenzie, but his “vile creatures” remark hadn’t sat well with her. Or his animosity toward Ewen. “Which team is the abbot on? For or against intermingling with supernaturals?”
“He’s a man who believes in protecting human life above all else. There are many in the brotherhood who would wish to isolate our world from the others. They fear what they do not understand. Tread carefully. Both of you.”
“You don’t trust him?” she asked.
Brother Rupert smiled. “All are entitled to walk whatever path their heart calls and follow whatever god soothes their soul. Beings, whether human or immortal, are taught fear. There is magic in faith, and if we insist on seeing the good in others, then that faith doesna allow prejudice to breed. But like a garden, you must tend the soil, nourish it, and pluck the occasional weed.”
“Where does the manure fit into your gardening metaphor?” Heat flushed her neck. “God, don’t answer that.” Jesus, that’s it. No more wine for Caitlin.
Ewen laughed and nudged her with his shoulder. “You haven’t been privy to one of Brother Rupert’s sermons or you’d have the answer to your question.”
The monk slapped the back of Ewen’s head playfully. “And what exactly would ye be implying, lad?” He gave Caitlin a poor-me shrug. “Do you see the heavy burden the good Lord has tasked me with?” When the snorts and chuckles faded, he said, “Mind what I’ve told you. Come, we delayed long enough.”
He opened the door into…
A closet?
Where was everyone?
She and Brother Rupert walked to the center of the tiny room. Ewen closed the door, the click reverberating through the space. The monk pulled out his pouch and sprinkled herbs on the floor. “Quod revelare, non potest videre.”
A staircase leading below ground revealed itself.
Whoa. Magic never got old.
“After you,” Brother Rupert told her.
“Okay.” A sprig of nerves sprouted. She held onto the balustrade and descended. Voices—angry voices—rose from the lower level. Brigid and the abbot’s voice dominated the argument.
The stairs went on forever, but when she reached the bottom floor, her annoyance flew out the window and her mouth hit the floor. The room was at least a hundred feet long and two stories high. A domed ceiling covered in murals soared above their heads. Winged angels and demons commanded blue skies, while naked men and women walked the earth. If someone told her Michelangelo had painted this ceiling before the Sistine chapel, she wouldn’t doubt it for a minute.
How is this possible?
Walnut bookcases, enough to house thousands, if not tens of thousands of books, scaled the walls on every side of the room. Fancy moldings adorned the edges. A railing led to the second floor, which explained the bazillion stairs on the way here.
She closed her mouth and moved to the center of the room. On one side of the large table sat Brigid, Fionn, and Ewen’s father—in that order. And across the divide was Abbot MacKenzie and a second monk Caitlin didn’t know. He looked familiar, though.
Brother Rupert urged Caitlin and Ewen to the table, apologized to the abb
ot for the delay, and then took the seat beside the unknown monk.
Ewen pulled out the chair at the far end of the table for Caitlin, and after she sat, he took the seat to her right, beside his father.
“We were discussing our options,” Brigid told them.
“Ah. What have we missed?” Ewen asked her.
Fionn rocked his chair back to see Ewen. “A ton of babble with no substance.”
“Babble?” the abbot huffed.
“Aye, babble,” Fionn retorted.
And the arguing ensued.
Ewen’s father edged forward so Caitlin could see his face. He smiled. “You look well, lass.”
“Thank you, sir. I feel better.” Ewen had Lachlan’s eyes and his break-a-million-hearts smile.
To Ewen, Lachlan said, “They’ve rehashed the same argument about the jail on Lismore. Neither side has been willing to reach a compromise.”
“What compromise is there to reach?” Ewen asked. “They can’t send the creatures back through the veil, now can they?”
No. Not without the stones or a shitload of magical power.
“Aye, you’ve a fine point there, lad. Perhaps one you should be making out loud.”
The voices escalated until they hit a near shouting level.
Ewen put two fingers into his mouth and blew. The whistle pierced the air. The abbot snapped his head to Ewen and turned a very ugly shade of red, but said nothing more.
“Who is Balor?” Ewen directed the question to Fionn and Brigid. “The merman revealed Bres risked his life to free this being from your prison.” He leaned forward. “Now why would he do that?”
Rubbing his face with both hands, Fionn said, “Balor is the greatest Fomorian warrior of all time. He is also a Fomorian king, ruler of the Hebrides, and a half-breed. His mother’s people are Elfenni.” He said the word as if it were common knowledge. At what must have been her and Ewen’s blank stare, he added, “An ancient race with ties to this realm.”
“Immortals, too?” Caitlin asked.
“Yes. Elfenni magic is primordial and dark, pre-dating our own.” Gone was the soft, warmhearted Brigid of Caitlin’s dream. This woman was frigid, but maybe that’s what happened when you spent an eternity hunting down the man you once loved. “Balor funneled this indomitable energy into an eyepiece he fashioned himself. He led the charge against the Neridians in the war to restore my husband to the throne.”
“An ally, then.” Ewen drummed his fingers against his thigh. He was working something out in his head. But what?
“The legends speak of a giant with a single eye covered by seven cloaks to keep his gaze from scorching the earth. The dark-skinned man you fought outside the jail in Lismore, the man blinded in one eye, this is Balor?” he asked Brigid.
“Yes.”
Well, crap. Balor had to be the “king” Ohravet the Merman warned her about.
After balancing his elbows on the table, Ewen steepled his fingers and regarded the motley crew assembled before him somberly. “From what I remember of the Second Battle of Moytura, it took the strength of nine attendants to open the polished lid of Balor’s eye. His grandson, Lugh, launched a stone with his sling that pierced the eye and crushed the man’s skull, fulfilling a prophecy that Balor would be killed by his own kin. The eye fell from his head, spilling magic that slewed twenty-seven Fomorians.”
He lowered his hands. “Tell me there is no truth to that part of the legend.”
“Myths are stories written by the common man to explain things he cannot understand. But the lore…” Pride rang in the abbot’s voice. He waved an arm out to the thousands of books surrounding them. “The lore is our only truth.”
Sure it is.
Caitlin tried to keep her voice calm. “Unfortunately, the seed of truth in every myth we’ve encountered so far has come back to bite us. This one will, too.”
“Portions of the legend are accurate. The Eye is capable of mass destruction.” Leaning to the left, Brigid perched her arm on the chair’s armrest and focused her eyes somewhere on the center of the table, probably to avoid her archenemy’s glare. The abbot’s expression held nothing back. “Lugh’s arrival turned the tides of the war in our favor. Bres surrendered, and Balor was presumed dead. The truths end there. The artifact is indestructible. Our strategy was to immobilize Balor.”
“To prevent him from wielding the Eye,” Ewen said.
Brigid nodded. “Our armies met at Lough Arrow, a loch in northwest Ireland. There was much bloodshed. Many, many lives were lost.” She grimaced and exchanged a look with her brother. “The stone Lugh slung was a magic globule laced with Draconian blood. It has a tranquilizing effect on a Fomorian when ingested.”
So they aimed for his mouth instead of his eye. Huh.
“In the aftermath of Bres’s surrender, Balor was critically injured. We thought him still sedated. We—”
“We underestimated them both.” Fionn’s voice brimmed with eons of pent-up anger, whereas Brigid looked ready to spit.
“Balor used the loch to open a portal,” she said. “We pursued, but by the time we’d recaptured him, he’d hidden the Eye. We have searched for centuries. The artifact has never been recovered.”
“As far as you know,” Caitlin said wryly. “If this Eye is as powerful as you proclaim, there’s no way he would have hastily buried something so valuable during his escape. No, he would have left it with another immortal. Someone he trusted.”
But who?
“Power of that magnitude would not go unnoticed.”
“Doesn’t mean someone doesn’t have it in their possession,” Caitlin countered.
Brigid’s jaw clamped. She turned her head and pinned her stony gaze to the bookshelves behind the abbot.
“I understand Bres escaped your custody before his execution,” Ewen said, very diplomatically. “Yet Balor was jailed without the death sentence. ’Twould seem both were guilty of treason and deserving of the same penalty, no?”
Brigid pressed two fingers to the center of her forehead, then fisted her hand. “A lawbreaker’s deeds are weighed and judged by our council of Elders. They dispense justice in a variation of three verdicts. Relinquishment, the permanent removal of one’s godhood, or magic if you will, is reserved for our most heinous of crimes.”
Fionn had compared it to removing a part of their soul. It left a god nearly mortal. “And in some cases, it is paired with death. Like Bres,” Caitlin said.
“Or paired with Exile. If a wrongdoer is deemed worthy of Retribution, he or she can be ordered to seek a penalty from the injured party, but should the lawbreaker reject the demands of those he harmed, he is exiled. Some of Bres’s followers were offered Retribution. Balor and his army were not given the choice.” Her lips pursed again, and this time both hands drew into fists. “The Elders were not able to remove Balor’s godhood. They bound his magic, and his men were imprisoned.”
“To the jail in Lismore?” Ewen asked.
“Lismore is but one. There are several others spread throughout the nine realms.”
Holy shit. “Nine?”
“Supernaturals have been exiled to Lismore long before the covenant, the veil, and the birth of your species.” That last part, Brigid directed to the abbot.
The holy man’s nostrils flared. “Are you admitting to knowingly withholding information crucial to the construction of the covenant?” His eyes narrowed. “I would think carefully and choose my words wisely before answering were I you, goddess.”
Caitlin made eyes at Ewen, then cleared her throat, determined to put a stop to the bickering before things between his holiness and the goddess got out of hand. She might snicker at the abbot’s over-inflated sense of pride about the lore, but this library and the knowledge he possessed were assets no one could ignore.
“If I may, your eminence.”
The abbot focused his beady eyes on Caitlin.
Here goes nothing.
“I shouldn’t divulge what I know about the future, but
I can tell you the Brotherhood plays a pivotal role in our time.”
Was she seeing things, or did he just sit taller in his chair?
She was going to Hell.
“I’m sure we have your levelheadedness and wise counsel to thank for that.”
A snort sounded from Caitlin’s right side. Most likely Brigid.
“The brotherhood protected me for most of my adult life, and I believe that’s because they knew my purpose was to come back here. To this time. I mean, you guys are the protectors of the lore, are you not?” She almost cringed. Maybe she’d laid that last bit on too thick.
The abbot inclined his head. The tight lines around his mouth no longer looked like wriggly worms.
Her bullshit was working. Yay, future girl.
“So, if you’d be so kind as to put aside your well-founded criticism of the past actions of the gods, who I believe had our best interests at heart, I’d like to formally ask for your help in neutralizing Bres and saving our world. Please.”
Lachlan elbowed his son. “I like this girl.”
Ewen ignored his father and leveled his steel-eyed gaze on the abbot who had visibly relaxed but sat quietly, watching Caitlin intently.
She resisted the urge to wipe the sweat beading on her forehead.
“Very well,” the abbot replied.
Fionn rose from the table and walked to the other side of the room so he was facing Caitlin. He stood at the abbot’s back, and she doubted the holy man would twist his body to look at the assassin when he spoke.
Subtle politics at play. Sheesh.
“Our focus needs to be on Balor, not Bres. Should he find the Eye…” Fionn clenched his jaw. “All we’ve lost will be for naught.”
“They are in league. We stop one, we stop the other,” Ewen said. “Balor’s first priority will be to regain his abilities. Can the Norns restore his power?”
“They’ve got the cauldron, but it will take the power of three.”
“And one of them is injured.”
“Aye.” Ewen rapped his knuckles against the table. “We may have time before he begins searching for the Eye in earnest.”