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“Ard-siúr, if you would listen—”
She was cut off with a lifting of one imperious hand. “Let me amend that. I should have said content. You would be all that was proper. None would fault your dedication. But would you fulfill your duties with a heart full of gladness in the rightness of your devotion, or would you grow restless and discontented? The gods would know. They see even more than I do. And what I see is clear as the ghosts in your gaze.”
Sabrina dropped her head. There would be no timeless, ancient ritual to calm the tempests in her heart. No safe harbor where she fit in. No place where she belonged. She was truly alone.
“Will you send for my brother?” As if he wasn’t furious enough with her.
“I will notify him of your safe arrival. And I will make it clear to him my feelings on the matter. But as I said, you are free to remain with us for now. We are a sanctuary, Sabrina. Not just for you, but for all who need us.”
“Thank you, Ard-siúr.” Sabrina trembled despite the warmth of the room.
“We shall see soon enough.” She rose, nodding to someone who must have just entered the room.
A shadow slanted across Sabrina’s shoulder.
“Dyma’r joc gwaethaf erioed.” The deep lilting voice rumbled through her. Her throat squeezed shut as a rush of heat swamped her frozen limbs. “Devil take it!”
She turned to face him. Body heavy. Muscles alert and quivering. Heart pumping madly.
He watched her from eyes black as night, features carved in savage angles and stern lines.
Daigh. Perfect. Sinful. Breathtaking. Deadly.
And she, as head over heels as ever.
A fire purred in the stove, the flicker of lamplight and the scents of orange peel and dried herbs creating a calm oasis.
Or what would have been a calm oasis if Sabrina weren’t stalking the room like a madwoman. He’d be doing the same if she hadn’t beaten him to the floor. Ard-siúr had set him up. And like the simplest of fools, he’d walked right into her trap.
His last sight of Sabrina had been in a gown of palest green, hair a dark treacle spill of silk, lips bruised with his kisses, skin flushed pearl and pink. Yet here in the bandraoi’s drab garb, hair hidden beneath a kerchief, and features twisted with frustration and shock, she was unspeakably more beautiful.
“I left you safe in Dublin,” he growled.
She rounded on him, fire in her gaze. “What are you doing here, Daigh? How could you follow me after . . .” She returned to her frantic pacing. “After everything.”
“I didn’t follow. I came two days ago.”
He leaned against the desk, arms folded over his chest. It kept him from doing what he wanted, which was smashing the furniture to splinters. He’d meant to put Sabrina out of his life, if not out of his head. Yet she was here, only feet away, where every curve and shift of her body and every flash of emotion in her face ripped new scars across his heart. Tempted him with a lifetime of memories—the real and the glimpsed might-have-beens that plagued them both. “Your brother will see my hand in this.”
“I can handle Aidan.”
“Not the Unseelie that lives within him.”
She shoved her hands deep into apron pockets. Turned away from him in a deliberate rebuff. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for the tapestry.”
She sucked in her breath on a silent oath, eyes wide and frightened. “But it’s been stolen already.”
The corner of his lip curved in a cool smile. “No. A tapestry was taken. But not the one Máelodor seeks.”
“What’s so important about a tapestry that—” Her brows contracted. “A map. A stone,” she mused. “Máelodor seeks a map and a stone.” Her gaze lifted to his. “The tapestry is the map, isn’t it? Somehow it shows the way to Arthur’s tomb.”
“It does. Máelodor must come for it. And I’ll face him when he does.”
“You can’t.”
“I must end this, Sabrina.” Now that he’d begun, the words came easier. “I can’t be scraped and pulled until the only parts of me left are faded and ragged as a fallen standard. The presence is always within me. Fighting for dominion. If I don’t find a way to die, it will take me over body and soul. The Amhas-draoi give me no help. I choose the only path left.”
