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Chapter one
For John
My heartfelt gratitude goes out as always to those who have brought this book from blank page to “The End.”
My fellow desperate writers, Maggie and Do. The best friends and critics a writer could have. They question, answer, inspire, and prod in equal measures. Thanks for the popcorn, the Martini Bianco, and the laughter. Without you, this book would have been a whole lot harder to write.
Kevan Lyon and Megan McKeever for their editing polish.
Bethan Davies for helping Daigh find his Welsh.
The Beau Monde and their infinite knowledge of the Regency.
And, as always, my wonderful family, who know when the door closes, they’re on their own.
Off the southwest coast of Ireland
November 1815
He’d prayed the storm would kill him. One solid lightning strike to splinter his body into so many pieces no amount of mage energy could fit him back together.
A vain prayer. He’d moved far beyond the reach of any god’s aid.
The ocean had calmed from the froth of hurricane swells to a slick of black, rolling water. Good for inducing nausea, but not death. Clouds passed eastward, taking their lightning with them, leaving a sky shimmering with frozen stars, full moon hanging low on the horizon. Picturesque, yet his mood longed for a cyclone’s destruction to match the chaotic madness infecting his mind.
The storm had pushed them off course. He’d heard the sailors mutter and witnessed the captain’s frown as he prowled the quarterdeck. Behind schedule. Battered and in need of repairs. And Cobh harbor another day and a half away if the winds held.
So if the gods had deserted him, it fell to his own devices to find oblivion.
He’d been denied a split second’s painless annihilation. But there were other paths to Annwn. Trackless dark ways that led just as surely to the land of the dead.
He only needed to discover them.
Leaning against the rail, he scanned the sea, his answer written upon every wave. But could he go through with it? Would the wards that kept him alive and untouchable unravel within the sea god Lir’s cold fathoms, bringing the solace he craved? Or would the attempt result in endless suffering of a different kind within the clawing pull of the ocean tides?
The stars above rippled gold and silver upon the surface of the sea. Curled and eddied as if a hand drew shapes with light and water. Turned moonlight to a woman’s pale face. The ocean’s foam drifting across her features like a spill of dark hair, she breathed her love across the separating veil. Shone luminous in a world blanketed by shadows.
Had she been conjured from his tattered memories or was she mere dream? Impossible to distinguish. Names and faces drifted through his consciousness like ghosts. Sometimes as vivid as the existence he found himself trapped within. At other times, only emptiness met his probing efforts to remember. And he was left alone to fight the demonic rage that burned through him like acid. The fury of the damned.
He expected her to dissolve back into the waves any second, but she remained. Her eyes gleamed blue as corn-flowers. Her smile brightening for a moment the hopelessness pressing against his heart, and he knew he must take the course offered. Now. Here. Before she vanished. Before she was beaten back by the howling viciousness, and he was once again left bereft of memories or even the comfort of memories. At least this way he wouldn’t face the uncertainty of death alone.
Slinging a leg over the gunwale, he glanced to be sure none watched. But no, the deck remained quiet. He’d not get a better chance.
With a hard shove to propel him out of the ship’s shadow, he plunged into the water. Arrowed far down below the waves.
The water jolted him alert. A stomach-punch of icy pain, stabbing needles of agony through every nerve. Releasing his breath on a cloud of bubbles, he dropped deeper. Lungs burning and muscles cramping as he fought the instinctual need to breathe. To live.
He struggled against the claustrophobic crush of water, but the seeping drugged cold of the sea made every movement excruciating. And then impossible.
The woman’s smile urged him deeper.
Water filled his lungs. His body surrendered. Death came like a lover.
He answered her smile. And stepping through the curtain between them, embraced her at last.
“Sabrina! Where have you gotten y
ourself? Answer, or so help me . . .”
Normally such a threat would have shot Lady Sabrina Douglas from her hiding place like a bullet from a gun. Not so today. Today was different. It was the sixteenth of the month. Seven years ago on this date, her world had been turned upside down, and nothing had ever been quite the same since.
It wasn’t like her to spend time reminiscing on the past. The head of the Sisters of High Danu said it was useless spinning what-ifs in your head. One could lose oneself in the infinite possibilities of action and consequence until reality grew dangerously frayed. Madness lay in second-guessing.
But today, Sabrina courted madness. She’d forced herself to remember all that had occurred that long-ago November day from beginning to end. Let it flow from her brain to her journal in a mad scrawl. And at Sister Brigh’s first shout was only as far along as noontime.
“You ungrateful, undisciplined hoyden, come out this moment.”
When Sister Brigh scolded, Sabrina felt more like a disobedient ten-year-old than the woman of twenty-two she was. But then, Sister Brigh considered anyone younger than herself a recalcitrant child, which included almost the entire bandraoi community. The woman was a hundred if she was a day. Only Sister Ainnir rivaled her in age. The two like mossy twin holdovers from centuries past.
“Sabrina Douglas! I know you can hear me!”
Sister Brigh by far the mossier. And the louder.
Sabrina sighed, closing her journal on the pen marking her place.
November 16, 1808, would have to wait.
November 16, 1815, was calling.
The priestess’s clamoring faded as she left the barn. Turned her search to the nearby outbuildings—creamery, laundry, gardener’s sheds. The convent was large. It would take the head of novices ages to check everywhere.
Rising from her hiding place behind the stacked straw bales and grain bins, Sabrina dusted the grime from her skirts. Straightened her apron and the kerchief covering her hair before slipping back into the bustle of the order’s life. And right into Sister Brigh’s ambush.
“Gotcha!” Her talons sank through the heavy wool of Sabrina’s sleeve. Squeezed with enough force to bring hot tears to her eyes. “Ard-siúr’s had me searching for you this hour and more. And here you are, hiding as if there wasn’t honest work to be done.” She snatched the journal away. “Are you scribbling in that silly book again? You’ve been warned more than once about frittering away your time unwisely.”
Sabrina stiffened, giving Sister Brigh her best quelling look. “I wasn’t frittering. And I wasn’t hiding.”
It passed unnoticed. “Hmph. Come along. You’ve kept Ard-siúr waiting long enough.”
As they passed through the sheltered cloister, a group gathered at the front gates. Voices raised in surprise and confusion, drawing even the determined Sister Brigh’s eye from her purpose.
Sabrina craned her neck to peer over the crowd. “What’s happening?”
Sister Brigh responded with a scornful huff. “No doubt a lot of stuff and nonsense. Wouldn’t have happened in my day, you can be sure of that.”
Her day being sometime during the last ice age. Sister Brigh dressed in furs and sporting a club, no doubt.
She tightened her hold on Sabrina. Doubled her pace. Up the steps. Throwing the door wide with barely a word. Slamming it closed with a whisper equally as effective.
The old priestess’s sanity might be in doubt, but her magic was irrefutable.
The temperature plummeted once inside and out of the bleak afternoon sun. Frost hung in the passage leading to Ard-siúr’s office, causing Sabrina’s nervous breath to cloud the chilly air. The cold seeped through her heavy stockings and the double layer of petticoats she’d donned beneath her gown.
