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“Appreciate it. Take the path you painted,” Riley advised. “In the moonlight it was pretty fantastic. Going out from here’s a winner, but coming back? Absolute champ.”
Sasha rose, then stopped. “Bran wants me to meet his family.”
“Well, sure.”
“There are so many of them. And I’m—I’m this American woman they’ve never met, and who’s only known Bran for—”
“Cut it out.” Still eating, Riley sliced a finger through the air. “Stop putting up problems. Meeting the parents, et cetera? You can be a little anxious, sure, but, Jesus, Sasha, you’re a freaking warrior. You’re fighting gods here. This’ll be a snap.”
“I know I have to meet them—want to meet them,” she corrected. “Eventually. I just don’t want to mess anything up.”
“Look at the man. He’s pretty great, right?”
“Beyond that.”
“And it’s a pretty sure bet his parents had something to do with that. They’re probably great, too. Relax.”
“It’s silly to worry about something like this when there’s so much else to worry about.”
“It’s human,” Riley corrected. “Can’t get around being human. Except for me, three nights a month.”
Sasha smiled. “And even then. You’re right. I’m putting this aside and away. Leave your notes there, and I’ll see what I can do with them after I take a walk.”
“Will do. And I’ll be around if you have any questions.”
• • •
Doyle walked to the cliffs, and as he had as a boy, climbed down the treacherous rocks, down the unstable hunks of turf. The boy had believed, absolutely, he’d never fall. The man knew he’d survive if he did.
He told himself he risked the fall—the pain of dying and resurrection—in order to survey the caves pocked in the cliff wall. However unlikely the star lay so close to hand, you didn’t find until you looked.
But under the excuse, he knew full well he climbed, without rope or harness, simply because he’d done the same as a boy. He did so then, did so now, as the whip of the wind, the throaty roar of the sea, the slick and chilly face of the cliff exhilarated. To cling like a lizard high above the wave-tossed rock, defying death, gulping life like the salt-flavored air.
Oh, how he’d longed for adventure as a lad. To fight brigands, or to be one, to ride off to swing a sword against tyranny, to set sail on a journey to some undiscovered land.
Mind what you wish for, he thought as he paused on a narrow ledge to watch the lash and swirl of sea and rock below.
He’d had adventures, fought brigands—been one from time to time. Lived a soldier’s life in war by war by war until he’d lost all stomach for it. He’d sailed, and he’d flown, to lands ordinary and exotic.
And Christ knew he’d grown weary of it all.
But he’d set himself on this quest, and set that course centuries before any of the other six had been born. He’d see it through.
And then . . . he had no notion whatsoever.
A quiet life for a time—but then he wasn’t built for the quiet life. Traveling? But there wasn’t a place in the world he had a burning desire to see again. He could entertain himself bedding women, as that desire always burned—though tedium could creep in when the spark guttered.
Whatever he did, however he did it, wherever he did it, he could never stay above a decade or so. Could never create bonds, even loose ones, as after a time people noticed a man who never aged a day.
And to those who wished for immortality, he’d again advise: Be careful what you wish for.
No point brooding over it, he reminded himself. His lot was his lot. But the trouble was once this quest was done, so was the companionship he’d, however reluctantly, come to prize.
Being part of an army equaled comrades, true enough. But being part of this? Part of six who lived and slept and ate and fought and bled together against such odds?
It made family.
Each of them, despite their talents and powers, would go through the natural cycle. They would age, they would die.
