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A woman with long blue-black hair, but for a thick streak of silver. A face unlined with years yet shrewd with ancient, immeasurable wisdom. She wore a gown of deepest azure blue beneath a surcoat of beaten silver scales. From a wide leather girdle at her waist, a sword hung ominously.
Even as statuesque as she was, her companion dwarfed her. His head crowned in hair that glowed burnished red and gold. His face set in bleak and battle-hardened lines. His sword, he clenched still in a scarred fist, black stains splashed up and down the blade.
A prickling shiver ran over Elisabeth’s skin before settling low in her stomach. This might be Arthur’s tomb, but if she wasn’t mistaken, this was Arthur in the flesh and very much alive.
Killer stepped forward, his expression respectful but not submissive. “I have brought you Brendan Douglas of the House of Kilronan. He carries a talisman of the Fey. One you cannot ignore.”
The woman’s gaze was like a bolt of lightning. “The ring allowed you to pass into the between separating our worlds, but do not presume, shape-changer. We owe this one nothing.”
Meanwhile, Arthur knelt down beside Elisabeth, laying a hand upon Brendan’s shoulder. “He is dying.”
As if she didn’t know that already, she wanted to snap, but didn’t. After all, one didn’t snarl at dead myths come to life. And there was real sorrow in his solemn voice for all that he stated the obvious.
“There is nothing we can do,” the woman replied, her voice cold as the first breath of winter frost.
Arthur shifted to meet her eye. “There is a way, Scathach.”
Scathach? This was the warrior-queen and head of the Amhas-draoi? Elisabeth held her breath. Brendan was under a death order. If this woman so chose, she could fulfill it with one fierce hack of her sword. There was no one to stop her.
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bsp; “Impossible,” the woman said, dismissing Arthur as if he were a child.
A sly smile curved Arthur’s lips. Despite the centuries that had passed since he’d lived among men, his humanity remained. No Fey could match that look of boyish mischief. “I am proof it’s not impossible.”
“There is a difference. You are a man conceived in magic. Your life among us was fated as soon as you drew your first breath in the circle of your mother’s arms. Douglas is fully human. To bear him to the summer kingdom is not wise.”
“He will die otherwise.”
“Then he will die. That is the way of mortals. And as he is the last of the Nine, it is right that his death should signal the end.”
Elisabeth glanced at Killer, but he remained placidly awaiting the outcome of this back-and-forth, his dark eyes unfathomable. Come to think on it, between the two of them, Arthur seemed the more human. Perhaps he was. She didn’t know anything about the Imnada other than the tiny bits she’d gleaned in the last few hours.
She decided to address Arthur, as he seemed the one most likely to be swayed by emotion. “Please. He may have been a part of them once, but he risked his life in the fight to stop Máelodor. To prevent a war that would destroy the Other— your blood kin. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
The three of them stared back at her with varying degrees of surprise, but no one had any answer for that.
Brendan had never been so cold in his life. Miserable Irish weather. He blinked. No, not the weather. He needed to keep his wits. At least a little longer, but it was difficult. He wanted to close his eyes. Wanted to sleep, but something screamed at him that sleeping right now would be very bad. Why? He tried concentrating, but he couldn’t remember. Not why he should stay awake. Not why he seemed to be in a room with candles blazing and all these people staring at him. Not why Elisabeth looked so sad.
“Stay with me, Brendan,” she called from down a long tunnel.
Was he going somewhere? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t even move. Not to touch her face. Not to caress skin he knew would be soft and warm. Lifting his arm was too much trouble, and his left hand felt as if someone had shoved a stake through the center of it and twisted.
“Fate decrees our path and our end.”
The voice. Those words. Both in his ears and in his mind as if spoken and thought simultaneously. The memories and the pain flooded back. A shame. He liked not knowing and not feeling a lot better.
“And this is the fate of the heir of Kilronan.”
Not him. Aidan. It was his brother who had been fated to die here. As one of thousands. It had been Brendan’s intervention that had kept that from occurring. His fate had thus been to change fate. He would have argued that point, but he’d no energy to talk.
A man’s face loomed over him, a face carved in solemn lines. His hair shone as red as Elisabeth’s, and his eyes glimmered like pools of silver light. “I would bear him company as he passes. As I would any warrior of my circle who fought so bravely.”
Elisabeth held one hand while Arthur took the other. Even numb as he was, Brendan felt the warmth of the king’s touch flood through him. The pressure of his grip digging Brendan’s ring painfully into the side of his finger.
Ring? He’d no ring. Yet, there it was, in place of Daz’s bit of dirty string. A narrow twisting band of pearl and silver. It shone against his waxen skin. Glowed in the milky dancing light of the cavern.
His vision narrowed as darkness rushed toward him. Voices rose and fell. Questioning. Quick. Sharp. He couldn’t hear what they said, but he understood the surprise and the confusion underlying the speech.
