"No. Not quite so simple. I'm not certain what I mistrust the most—your cowardice, or Redmayne's ability to bend people to his will. This is the bargain I offer you, Butler. Pen a letter to Redmayne, then disappear."
"D-disappear? I don't understand."
"I think you do. Leave these lands in the hands of a generous steward, sail away from Ireland and never come back."
"B-but I've nowhere else to go!"
"I'm certain if you search hard enough, you'll be able to find some other hive of debauchery—willing women you pay for, plenty of wine to keep you in a drunken stupor. Unless you're so attached to this land you wish to be buried here."
"No. I'll do as you say."
"You will. Or die." Ciaran released Butler. The balding man scurried to a writing desk in the corner of the room. With one arm, he swept away an assortment of crumpled cravats and tall crowned beaver hats. He rummaged about, took pen in hand. After a moment, Butler sanded the missive, sealed it.
Ciaran stared into the man's face. What he saw there both disgusted him and reassured him—a coward, desperate to save his own skin, a man weak-minded enough to believe in ghosts and avenging angels and nine-hundred-year-old heroes called back from the land of the fairies. Butler couldn't wait to put as much distance as possible between his villainous carcass and Ciaran of the Mist.
"One last word of warning," Ciaran said, easing the dagger away from Butler's throat. "By the javelin of Cuchulain, and the tears of Deirdre of the Sorrows I curse you, Butler."
"No!" Butler wailed. "I've done what you wanted. I've done what you asked!"
"If you set foot on this land again. I promise you that you'll suffer torments beyond anything your image of paltry Christian hell could imagine. At my hands Butler—the hands of Ciaran of the Mist."
He left Butler quivering, sobbing in the loathsome bed like a terrified child, too shaken to even think of raising the alarm. Cautiously, Ciaran eased through the corridors he'd passed through earlier, then let himself out into the gardens.
A ghostly pearl of moon sailed on a drift of clouds turning the garden path into a silver ribbon, the cascades of flowers and hedges hovering like specters in the shadows.
The castle was safe. The quest was over, Ciaran thought. He should be elated, relieved. He should feel triumphant. Instead, he felt an odd emptiness, an ache as if he had lost.
Lost what? His sense of purpose? The hope that he could somehow shield the woman he loved? Be the legendary hero she'd wanted so desperately? He closed his eyes remembering her face as he'd left her behind. They'd both known that if anyone on Butler's land had seen them together while he was garbed as Ciaran of the Mist their plan would be ruined. Yet, she'd looked so small and lost and alone. "Ciaran?"
The soft voice made him freeze, his heart hammering first in alarm, then in recognition. She slipped from the shadows, her gown pale, her face kissed by moonlight. She looked desperate, fragile, vulnerable, the taint gleam of tears on her cheeks.
"Fallon? What the blazes are you doing here? We agreed you shouldn't come."
"I know, but I couldn't... couldn't bear the waiting I thought you'd..." She hesitated but an instant, as if trying to leash some force inside her. He could almost hear it snap free. She ran into his arms, a ragged sob tearing from her lips. "Thank God," she choked out, her fingers tracing the planes of his face, his hair, the muscles of his chest. "I've been so afraid!"
"Of Butler?" he asked, holding her, reveling in the precious feel of her in his arms. "Surely he was no match for Ciaran of the Mist! Especially considering all the other heroic deeds the legend claims I've done."
"Don't!" She cried fiercely, burying her face against his chest. "Don't mock me."
Ciaran felt her fear and pain twist about his heart. Had she really been so afraid? His bold, brave Fallon. "Don't cry, my love," he murmured into her hair. "It's over now. Everything is all right. The castle is safe. Redmayne can't destroy it."
"I'm not crying about th-the castle. I was afraid I'd never see you again. That you'd vanish into the mist."
The words struck something cold into Ciaran's belly, a dread so deep his grip tightened on Fallon until he feared he might bruise her. What would it have been like, to be swept away from this land, this woman? Unthinkable. A wound that would never heal. "I'm still here, my love.
"Yes. You're here. I can touch you. Feel the beat of your heart." She gave a broken laugh and raised her face to his. "It's so strange. When I found you that first night, I wanted so desperately for you to be the Ciaran of the legend. I made myself believe... But now, I'm so glad that you aren't Ciaran of the Mist!" She looked up at him, so hopeful, so fragile, this woman who had defied Redmayne, taken in an injured stranger, danced in the arms of a wild Irish night.
She didn't realize that he could still be taken away from her. That he had a rendezvous with his own destiny in the confines of the labyrinth they had traveled together. "You can't be the Ciaran of the legend, or you'd be gone, wouldn't you?"
"Yes. I can't be Ciaran." Blast, what was the matter with him? He'd spent every minute he'd been with Fallon trying to convince her it was all some pretty nonsense, that he was no legend spun over hundreds of years. He was a man. Just a man, like any other. He should be relieved that the charade was over, that the dream-dust could fade from her eyes and she could see him for what he was: a man. A man who had lost his memory. A man who might never even remember his own name. Her husband—but not one woven of hero-tales and her own vivid imagination—a far more commonplace husband. One hardly worthy of a fairy-kissed sprite like Mary Fallon.
But her fingers were threading through his hair. Her lips trailed against his jaw. "I'm so glad you're not the Ciaran of legend! I want so much to keep you with me, to love you. I want it more than magic, more than saving the castle. Is that so horribly selfish?" She peered up at him with wide sea-blue eyes, as if he held all the answers, when suddenly he felt more lost, more adrift than ever. Stark realization pierced him. He didn't want it to be over. The dream. The magic she'd poured into his doubting hands.
"You could never be selfish, Mary Fallon. You, who give everything, all of yourself to me, and to the crofters on Misthaven land."
"B-but the legend—it gives people something to believe in."
"Just because I'm not the Ciaran you summoned from the land of the fairies doesn't mean he doesn't exist somewhere, beyond the mist." It cost Ciaran more to say that than he could have imagined. Her perfect hero, the mythic man she claimed she had loved her whole life, might still be drifting in the place where dreams were kept.
