Lord of Shadows (40 page)

“He’s free of Máelodor’s taint.” Brendan lent the last of his feeble strength to her frantic attempts to keep Daigh from slipping back to
Annwn
’s underworld. “Free of his mage energy. And free of his protections.”

“He’ll die.” Her hands hovered above his chest as she sought to calm the frantic race of her heart. Concentrate upon the surge of the mage energy within her. Shape it to her needs.

“Your powers saved him once,” Brendan urged.

Daigh’s breathing slowed then stopped, the silence deafening. “I’m not strong enough,” Sabrina gasped, weeping. “I’m not—”

“You’re more than strong enough,” Ard-siúr replied sternly. “More than ready. A true High Danu
bandraoi
forged in fire and blood and magic.”

“Do it, girl, or he’s dead,” came Sister Brigh’s scold.

Drawing upon her training and her love, she concentrated on the mage energy. Felt it seep into every cell and nerve. Every corner of her mind and body infused with Brighid’s healing fire.

Behind her, voices floated through her consciousness.

“. . . do not run . . . confess . . . protect you . . .”

“can’t . . . Sabrina thinks . . . she’ll hate me . . . flee . . .”

A loud clatter in the passage then a voice from the grave, sardonic as ever. “Brendan . . . look bloody awful . . . passed them outside Glenlorgan . . . no more dallying.”

Wouldn’t Aunt Delia and the tragic Miss Rollins-Smith be surprised? But Sabrina dared not turn around. Not even to confirm her guess.

The mage energy poured like water from her hands. Filled Daigh with a shimmer of
Fey
-wrought healing. He jerked once, inhaling on a shallow, gurgling breath. The way to
Annwn
closed and barred. Though not forever. Mortality was his once more. He would die. But not today.

A fluttering roll quickened her womb. Not butterflies this time. But something infinitely more precious. Conceived in one life to be brought forth in another.

A girl child. We shall welcome her together
.

Daigh’s words muttered in the security of Gwynedd’s vast forests. She would see to it he held to them.

Tremors shuddered through him, chattering teeth, making fingers numb and jittery. Even his skull ached as if his brain had rattled itself loose. He tried swallowing, but his throat felt scraped raw, his tongue swollen and useless. He opened his eyes, squinting against a blinding glare. Sending new shocks of pain through his sloshy, scattered mind.

Slowly his sight returned. His surroundings fading into a cell-like room lined with cupboards, a low shelf running the perimeter. A sink with a pump. His pallet jammed into one corner. A cane-backed chair drawn up close.

But this time he remembered.

Everything.

“Back where I started,” he croaked, attempting a smile.

“Not quite.” Sabrina leaned forward, face aglow, tears sparkling upon her dark lashes. “You are free of Máelodor.” Her hand found his. “We are free of Máelodor.”

Her lips found his. Her kiss intoxicating as wine. His
body stirring with heat separate from the mountain of blankets heaped upon him.

“The life I remembered,” he murmured. “You really were there. It was true because you made it so.”

“It was. And it can be again.”

Movement caught the corner of his eye. A shadow against the wall. A body in the corridor. Listening. Awaiting his answer.

His smile faded as reality burst the dream like sun through cloud. He eased her away, his heart breaking at the doubt surfacing upon the gem blue of her eyes. “Nay, Sabrina. You have given me my life. But I can offer nothing in repayment of such a debt.”

Lines furrowed her brow, tiny creases beside her down-turned mouth. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple. My crimes against your family remain unanswered. I’m a man without hearth, livelihood, or country. It’s best if you simply forget.”

Her hand fell to her stomach as if he’d punched her, her gaze hard. “Best? For who? You? Me? My brother?”

He rolled away from her, wincing at the echoes of old pain beneath his tightly wrapped chest. Stared at the wall, hoping she’d leave before he changed his mind and to hell with the honorable thing. He felt her glare like a push against his temples.

Her final words came brittle with confusion and pain. “I told you once that my body and my love were mine to bestow where I chose. I had thought you were worthy. I thought wrong.”

He did not reply.

Lady Sabrina Douglas.

Sister and daughter to earls.

Bandraoi
priestess.

How could he let her throw herself away on a landless, penniless sword for hire?

He couldn’t. And so he lay hunched with tension until the door closed quietly and he was once again alone.

They had gathered in Ard-siúr’s office. Sabrina, a reluctant addition. She had not wanted to come this afternoon. Despite her bold words, she had wanted only to curl up in her bed and be gloriously sick. But Sister Brigh had not taken a polite no for an answer.

So instead, Sabrina had donned her baggiest gown, a camouflaging apron, and walked with rounded shoulders, hoping to disguise her condition. She had counted up the cycles. Checked her math. Five and a half months gone. It wouldn’t be long before no amount of disguise could conceal the child within her.

Daigh’s child.

The gods must be truly laughing at her. She had but to open her mouth and Aidan would repudiate her. Release her from the stranglehold of familial ties. But it was far too late. She’d snared herself in her own conniving and now must pay the price.

Miss Roseingrave parted the curtains, glancing out upon the feathery afternoon clouds. “We searched east and north as far as Cork and Macroom. West to Baltimore, but no sign of him. He could have sailed from any harbor or simply faded into the west country.”

“And Máelodor?” Aidan asked, pacing the room in impatient circles.

“We found his abandoned coach on the Kinagh road outside of Ballyneen, but he wasn’t aboard and his
coachman had been killed. No sign of the Rywlkoth Tapestry either.”

“But you finally believe me.”

The
Amhas-draoi
seemed reluctant to admit it, but she nodded. “I do, Lord Kilronan. But there will be many among the brotherhood who remain unconvinced of Douglas’s innocence and Máelodor’s survival. St. John had many years to sow his lies and half-truths. It may take as many years to root out them out.”

“Years we don’t have. Hell, we don’t have bloody months. Not if Máelodor’s obtained the tapestry and the diary. He needs only to discover the Sh’vad Tual to summon Arthur and launch his war.”

Cat’s voice broke into the argument between Aidan and Miss Roseingrave. “Brendan hid it, and Brendan’s not talking. Sabrina told you so.”

“But if Máelodor catches him again . . .” The sentence trailed away as each of them envisioned Brendan’s fate should he find himself once more subject to Máelodor’s mercy. Only Sabrina need not delve into her imagination. She’d lived through it. And still woke sobbing from fear.

“Are you sure Brendan didn’t tell you anything, Sabrina? Where he might go? Where he’d hidden the stone?” Aidan asked.

Unexpectedly the center of attention, she slumped farther into her seat. “No. Nothing.”

“And how did Douglas escape?” Miss Roseingrave prodded. “You say he was ill and wounded. How could a man so gravely injured disappear so completely without assistance of some kind?”

Sabrina lifted her gaze to stare upon the
Amhas-draoi
’s dangerous beauty. Forced herself from glancing toward
Ard-siúr or Sister Brigh, who remained silent as the arguments raged. “I don’t know.”

Miss Roseingrave returned her gaze unflinching. “Though if you did, I wonder if you’d tell us.”

Sabrina’s lips curved in a cool, enigmatic smile.

Dropping the curtain back in place, Miss Roseingrave dismissed her with an annoyed toss of her head. “We’re getting nowhere. I leave for Skye. Scathach and the leadership must be informed of St. John’s treachery and death. We must look to who else among the
Amhas-draoi
Máelodor may have turned.”

Aidan frowned. “And Máelodor’s
Domnuathi
?”

“Daigh,” Cat quickly inserted.

Sabrina’s affection for her sister-in-law grew with every new encounter. Cat’s staunch defense of Sabrina had done much to blunt Aidan’s wrath in the days since their harried arrival at Glenlorgan. And her sympathetic presence had been a calm amid the storm of Sabrina’s blighted hopes. Only now and again had she noticed Cat’s eyes upon her, a fleeting glimpse of some deeper emotion upon her face. A worry breaking through her usual tranquil calm. But whatever her thoughts, she said nothing, and Sabrina was left to wonder if Cat suspected.

“Were it not for him, Máelodor would never have gotten his hands on the tapestry at all,” Miss Roseingrave muttered.

Sabrina stiffened, her jaw clenched in a belligerent jut, her body shaking with outrage. “He did it to save me. And he almost died trying to stop Máelodor from escaping with it. Where were you, Miss Roseingrave?”

The charge brought a flush of angry heat creeping up the woman’s throat to stain her cheeks, but she still
dismissed Sabrina’s strident defense with an offhand shrug. “The man is no longer a threat. And therefore no longer my concern.”

Ard-siúr spoke up. “Mr. MacLir may stay at here at Glenlorgan until he is fully recovered. He has not been given an easy road, but he has shown he will travel it with much strength and courage.”

“Very well.” Miss Roseingrave’s mind was already moving beyond them to the challenges ahead. She threw a long traveling cloak about her shoulders as she strode for the door. “Lord Kilronan, I’ll send word to Belfoyle once I know more.”

Aidan answered with a sharp nod while Cat gave Sabrina a sidelong glance from beneath downswept lashes.

“We too leave shortly, Ard-siúr,” Aidan said when the
Amhas-draoi
had departed. “The sooner Sabrina is away from here, the sooner she can put this whole tragedy behind her.”

Ard-siúr’s answering stare had Aidan shifting uncomfortably, his expression losing a shade of its conviction. Sabrina knew that look all too well, and felt a pang of sympathy for her older brother.

Finally, Ard-siúr blinked, her hand reaching to stroke the cat curled dozing upon her papers. “Lord Kilronan, it is for you to steer the proper course, but sometimes it is best if we release our grip upon the rudder and let the currents guide us. We may find they bring us where we were meant to be from the very first.”

The stern bones of his face remained as implacable as marble, but then Cat drew up beside him. Her hand rested lightly upon his arm. Their shared gaze shutting Sabrina out like a slamming door.

He sighed. “Perhaps—”

But Sabrina interrupted, surprising even herself with the words that came. “Thank you for interceding, Ard-siúr, but I want to leave.” Her clenched hands whitened, her stomach rolling up into her throat. “It’s time for me to go home.”

Sabrina hung back after the others had left to see about traveling arrangements. Knocked upon the open door. “Ard-siúr?”

The cat leapt from its place on the desk to shoot for Sabrina’s ankles. Twining itself about them. Purring madly as it rolled belly-up at her feet.

“Silly tabby. You’ll get stepped on flinging yourself at people like that,” Ard-siúr chided fondly. “Come in, child. Come in.”

But even as she smiled her welcome, fatigue etched deep crags into her already wrinkled face. Worry trembled her hands, apprehension burning low at the edges of her gaze. It hardly seemed right to saddle her with more questions, but Sabrina must know.

“How did you know where to find us?” she asked.

This seemed to startle Ard-siúr from her deep reserve. Her eyes widened a fraction, her mouth curving in a clever smile. “Sister Brigh followed Mr. MacLir.”

“But she hates . . . I mean, she’s never liked . . . why?”

“Perhaps Sister Brigh should answer your question. But remember, Sabrina. This has moved beyond personal enmities. The future of
Other
and
Duinedon
lies in the balance.”

“I understand that. I’m just surprised Sister Brigh did too.”

The coach stood waiting. A groom at the head of the left leader while Cat and Aidan made their final farewells to
Ard-siúr. Catching sight of Sister Brigh hobbling out the gate, Sabrina made her hasty excuses to them all and chased after. She’d had no chance to speak with the
bandraoi
until now, and in fact hadn’t even laid eyes on her since the meeting in Ard-siúr’s office. As if Sister Brigh was avoiding her.

Beyond the gate, the road lay empty, the overgrowth to the right still rustling from a body’s recent passage. Sabrina followed. Down the hill and into the deep, stifling gloom of the heavy wood. Over the rocks of a shallow streambed. Beneath the scraping limbs and raucous stir of chattering birds until Sabrina spied Sister Brigh ahead, a stooped gray figure among the reach of winter trees and the dank smell of muddy leaves.

Here amid the oaks, the musty, sweet air seemed to vibrate with energy and always there moved the shadows of those unseen, their ears pricked and listening, their laughter like wind-tangled leaves. The true
Fey
had long ago claimed this place as their own. The
bandraoi
respected that and came here only when their hearts were sore or their minds afflicted.