The Immortal Highlander (22 page)

21

Aoibheal paced a tract of silica sand on the Isle of Morar, staring out at a frothing turquoise sea, her iridescent eyes flashing.

Time, usually of no relevance to her, a thing of which she was, indeed, scarcely aware, had suddenly become a pressing concern.

A short amount of it ago, she’d sensed an unfamiliar sensation, a growing lack of cohesion in the fabric of the realms she’d created for her race. Because she’d not felt such a thing before, she’d not immediately comprehended what it was.

The walls between the realms of Tuatha Dé and Man were thinning.

It took her yet another amount of time to pinpoint the origin of distress in the weft and weave of worlds: The Keltar Druids had not yet performed the ritual of Lughnassadh, the ancient rite that was to be completed at break of the feast day, as it had been for millennia.

She shook her head, astonished. By Danu, would they test her mercy again?

She narrowed her eyes, looking not outward but inward, stretching her far-vision across time and place. Seeking which Keltar was failing her now.

Stunned to find it was the same ones. Again.

Stretching farther to know the why of it . . .

She snapped ramrod straight, eyes wide with disbelief.

“Amadan,”
she hissed. “How
dare
you?”

Perhaps even more to the point, how
could
he?

She’d stripped him of everything, rendered him powerless—or at least she thought she had—unable to be seen, heard, felt. She’d consigned him to a vile existence, insubstantial as a ghost, and cast him into the human realm. Banished him, cut him off, denied him even the merest glimpse of his own kind.

She’d chosen the parameters of his punishment carefully, to force him to taste the bitterness of the human condition with none of the attendant sweetness, to cure him of his foolish fascination with mortals once and for all.

Her repeated indulgence of her favored prince—the only one of her people who ever managed to surprise her, and surprise was nectar of the gods to a sixty-thousand-year-old queen—had cast her in an unfavorable light with both her courtiers and her advisers. Not to mention the eternal cleaning up after him she was obliged to do.

The High Council had been insisting she take action for centuries and, after his most recent defiance, she’d had no choice but to agree. Adam had argued against her in front of her court and council, a thing she could never permit, lest her sovereignty be questioned, lest she be blatantly challenged. Though she was the most powerful of the Seelie, that power was hers only so long as she held the support of the majority of her people. That power could be taken from her.

She’d been certain fifty or so years of such punishment would be enough to make him grateful to be Tuatha Dé, to bring him to heel, to stop him from meddling with humans.

She’d not believed it possible for him to find a way to meddle in the form she’d given him.

Oh, how wrong she’d been. As always, if a loophole existed, her iconoclastic
D’Jai
prince found it. And in a mere few months’ time. There he was, on the Keltar estate, and there was no doubt in her mind that he’d created this problem. Even cursed and powerless, he’d somehow found a way to do something to keep the Keltar from performing the ritual.

She stretched her senses again, feeling for dimensional faults. The ramifications of the thinning walls would first be felt in Scotland, then would spread quickly to Ireland and England. It had, in fact, already begun. The effects would radiate outward until, by nightfall, hidden Tuatha Dé realms would rise up all over the world in the midst of human ones.

By nightfall, any Tuatha Dé walking among humans in anything less than full human glamour would be exposed.

By nightfall, even the silica sands of Morar would gleam palely beneath a human moon.

Dimensions would bleed into one another, temporal portals would open. The Unseelie would be freed.

In a nutshell, all hell would break loose.

Adam was sitting with Gabrielle in the great hall, in the waning afternoon light, when he sensed the queen drawing near.
About bloody time,
he thought. Even he’d begun to get a little edgy waiting, wondering what was taking her so long.

He had no words for how he sensed her, was, in fact, rather surprised he could, being human and all, but there was a tensing in his body, a pressure inside his skull. He tightened his arms protectively around Gabrielle.

Hours ago, he’d insisted the MacKeltars leave the hall, get out of the castle—over their strident protests—persuading them it was wiser they be elsewhere, as Aoibheal would be furious when she arrived.

He’d kept Gabrielle with him. He would protect her against the queen’s wrath, however need be, but he didn’t want the distraction of vulnerable MacKeltars too.

A fierce gust of wind kicked up suddenly, extinguishing the fire in the hearth, then the air was drenched with jasmine and sandalwood, and Aoibheal was there, shimmering before them.

“Oh, God,” he heard Gabrielle whisper, awed.

“My Queen,” Adam said, rising instantly, bringing Gabrielle up with him, an arm around her waist.

Ah, yes, Aoibheal was furious. She was in high glamour, so terrifyingly beautiful that, even for him, she was almost impossible to look at, shimmering brilliantly, lit by the radiance of a thousand tiny suns. Though her form was essentially human, her body chillingly perfect, nude beneath her gown of light, there was nothing human about her. Pure power pulsed in the air, the presence of an immense, ancient entity.

“How dare you?”
Her words reverberated through the great hall, steel striking off stone.

“My Queen,” Adam said swiftly, “I would not have taken such extreme measures were your welfare not at risk. Gravely at risk.”

“I’m to believe this is about me, Amadan? You would have me interpret your latest—and I must say by far greatest—act of defiance as a selfless act?” Mockery dripped from her voice.

She was using part of his true name, not Adam, but Amadan. Ah, yes, she was pissed. “It
is
about you,” he said. A pause. “Though if you were inclined to reward me, I would not be averse.”

“Reward you? What would I be rewarding you for? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you know that already humans have begun slipping through the fabric of place and time where the old magic lies fallow?”

“The dolmens have opened?” Adam was startled.

“Yes.”

“Well, why the bloody hell did you wait so long?”

She gave him such an arctic glare that he was surprised his skin didn’t ice. “How am I at risk? Speak. Now. Fast. With each passing moment, I grow more inclined to punish you further than hear you out.”

“Darroc has made an attempt on my life.”
There. Face that, Aoibheal,
he thought,
and restore me to immortality as you should have months ago.

The queen stiffened. “Darroc? How do you know that? You can no longer see our kind.”

“
I
saw him,” Gabrielle spoke then.

Adam glanced down at her, tightening his arm around her. Her eyes were narrowed, her face was averted, yet she was actually managing to peek at the queen from the periphery of her vision. The queen had chosen high glamour deliberately, knowing humans couldn’t focus on it. But she didn’t know Gabrielle, he thought with a flash of pride; she was strong, his
ka-lyrra
.

Aoibheal didn’t deign to acknowledge her. “How?” she demanded of Adam.

“She’s a
Sidhe
-seer, my Queen.”

Aoibheal’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed.” She cast a raking, imperious glance over Gabrielle. “I believed them all dead. You do know that by the terms of The Compact that makes her mine.”

Adam stiffened. “She helped me gain an audience with you so I could warn you that Darroc is plotting against you,” he said tightly. “In exchange for acting as my intermediary, I assured her safety.”

“
You
assured? You had no right to assure anything.”

“My Queen, Darroc has brought forth Hunters from the Unseelie kingdom. There are a score or more in his service.”

“Hunters?
My
Hunters? You jest!” The breeze swirling through the great hall gusted, bitterly frigid, licking around him.

Adam’s breath frosted the air with tiny ice crystals when he said, “It’s no jest. It’s true. The second time he attacked, he didn’t bother to conceal himself or his Hunters. I saw them myself.”

“Tell me,” she commanded.

Speaking briskly, he told her all, from finding Gabrielle, to approaching Aine and her companion, to Darroc’s first attack and subsequent one.

“You saw all this, too,
Sidhe
-seer?” the queen demanded.

Gabrielle nodded.

“Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Watching the queen with that half-averted gaze, Gabrielle told her what she’d seen in detail, describing the Fae involved.

“And we both know,” Adam concluded when Gabrielle fell silent, “there’s only one thing Darroc could have promised the Hunters to sway their fealty from you.”

Aoibheal spun in a swirl of blinding light. She was silent for a time.

Beside him, Gabrielle was tense, breathing shallowly. He could feel the unease in her small body and realized that she was seeing the kind of Fae she’d been raised on tales of. The queen was truly formidable—there was no other word for it. Awe-inspiring, ancient, forbidding, alien, incredibly powerful. He only hoped his
ka-lyrra
would remember that he was not like his queen. That Tuatha Dé were no more like unto one another than humans were.

Finally the queen turned back to him. “Darroc is a High Council Elder. One of my strongest supporters, staunchest advocates.”

“For Christ’s sake, lip service, no more! Will you
never
see through that?”

“
He
has never left my realm to play with humans.”

Adam bit back a caustic,
No, just Hunters,
and remained silent.

“He has served on my council for thousands of years.”

Again he said nothing. He’d told her what he had to say; he knew she understood the ramifications of it. He knew also it would be difficult for her to accept that one of her Elders had betrayed her.

“I have forbidden any Seelie to bring forth the Unseelie for any reason, under threat of a soulless death.”

“Gee,” he couldn’t resist saying dryly, “you think maybe Darroc forgot?”

“Don’t think
I’ve
forgotten the bad blood between the two of you!” she hissed.

“I’m not the one walking with Hunters!” he hissed back.

Another silence. Her fury at him was easing, turning toward another as she digested his news. The air was slowly beginning to warm again.

“And for this you had the Keltar fail to perform the ritual of Lughnassadh that keeps the walls between realms intact? You took it upon yourself to risk our worlds colliding?”

“It was the only way I knew to gain your ear. To warn you. No matter that my queen had chosen to punish me, I could not permit an enemy to attack her without doing all in my power to protect her. I will always protect my queen. Even,” he added pointedly, “when she has stripped away my power to do so. Besides, it’s not as if I didn’t try to find Circenn first. It occurs to me now that perhaps you were the reason I couldn’t find him.”

“Perhaps I was,” she agreed. “Perhaps he and his family have been enjoying an extended holiday on Morar.”

Adam shook his head, lips curving in a faint sardonic smile. “I should have known.”

She stared at him a long moment. “I must have proof of this. I must see this with my own eyes. I must carry firsthand vision back to the council.”

Adam shrugged. “Use me as bait.”

“And you seek what in return?”

“The honor of serving you,” he said smoothly. “Though, there is also the small matter of the return of my immortality and full powers.”

“There is something you owe me. I’m waiting.”

A muscle leapt in Adam’s jaw. “I said it in the catacombs, mere moments after you cursed me.”

“I would hear it again. Here. Now.”

Adam’s nostrils flared. With an imperious incline of his head, he said, “I see now that countering you before the court might have been ill-advised, my Queen. I acknowledge that a show of my fealty might have better served you. It is possible I might have endeavored to find a more appropriate venue to air my concerns.”

“And counted yourself fortunate I bothered to hear you at all.”

Adam said nothing.

“Don’t think I missed all the ‘might haves’ in that ‘apology.’ You still have not admitted you were wrong.”

“I believed at the time that there were those among your council who had personal motives for advocating trial-by-blood. I was concerned then that they plotted against you. It would seem I was right.”

Aoibheal smiled faintly. “Ah, Amadan, you never change, do you?” She eyed him measuringly. “You will leave protected land. You will make your way back to where he first found you.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“The two of you will leave in the morning, then.”

“You mean, I will,” he corrected.

“Don’t tell me what I mean. I said what I meant. You and the
Sidhe
-seer.”

“I said
I
would draw him out. Gabrielle isn’t—”

“Gabrielle? Lovely name. You sound fond of your human. You wouldn’t be about to argue with me, would you? You wouldn’t be about to try my patience further, when I’ve yet to tidy up after your most recent mess?”

Adam stopped mid-word; when he spoke again his voice was carefully dispassionate. “When the
Sidhe
-seer,” he rephrased, “agreed to act as my intermediary and help me find a way to contact you, I promised her safety in exchange. She has risked herself to aid us, we who hunted her people for so long. Her assistance has helped preserve your reign and the safety of all the realms. It has long been our custom to bestow gifts upon mortals who aid us. I promised her we would leave her in her own world when all was done, alive and well, free of any Tuatha Dé persecution, assuring her safety and that of those she loves.”