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And then there was another.
Someone he felt he knew. Familiar. Beautiful and sensual and smoky-smooth. A narrow face. Long, shimmering corn-silk hair. A gown of purest white. Eyes vast and endless as stars. He knew her. Somehow in some part of him, she was extremely important.
A hand cupped his face, the fingers cool against his skin. “He will come to Ynys Avalenn as my guest and my charge.”
“Are you certain, Sedani?” Scathach sounded troubled by this decision.
“He bears my gift and my blood. I will honor the pledge I made. I can do no less.”
Arms lifted him. Hands gentled him.
“Wait!” Something was placed round his neck. Lips touched his in a kiss of farewell. “You promised you’d not leave me again. I’m going to hold you to that.”
Light filled him, banishing the shadows crowding his vision.
“I love you, Brendan” wrapped him in a peace he never thought to feel again. The sound of bells became the rush of water became silence. He drew a final breath of soft earthy air as the portal closed behind him.
The world he left already no more than a hazy memory.
“It was the only way. He would have died had he stayed behind,” Killer said as the last of the gray-gowned attendants faded into the cavern walls. One minute there was a coterie of beautiful crowned women and the air was alive with liquid silver and the dance of a million flickering stars; the next, there were no figures and the rock hardened dull and gray and empty.
“My brain knows. My heart isn’t convinced,” Elisabeth replied, hugging her arms to her body to ease the tight, breath-stealing pain beneath her ribs.
Arthur shifted awkwardly, as if he wanted to offer reassurance of some kind while Killer loomed protectively, his presence—strange as it was—comforting.
“I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye,” she said weakly.
“You spoke it in your heart.”
She gave Killer a curious glance, eliciting a self-conscious dropping of his head. “I’m able to read minds—a telepath of sorts. Sometimes I can act as a conduit between two others, but only if the two sending are strong. Your thought was sent as clearly as if you’d spoken it. I simply . . . helped it along.”
Instantly she felt herself redden. “You can hear everything I’m thinking?”
“No,” he hastened to assure her. “Only when I concentrate and only then if the thought is clearly pathed.”
Her stomach unclenched. Imagining Killer seeing her thoughts as he’d seen every other part of her would have tipped her over the edge. She was barely hanging on now.
She placed her hand upon the cold marble of Arthur’s sarcophagus, tracing the sword as it entered the chunk of rock. It helped to feel the solidity of it when everything else about this place and her life remained pure fantasy. “Do you know how often I heard the story of Sir Archibald Douglas and his faery lover? I can’t wait to see the look on Aidan’s face when I tell him I’ve met her in person.” She giggled, slightly hysterical.
“Sedani’s honor will compel her to do all she can for one of her line, no matter the generations between.” Arthur’s gaze followed the track of her hand, though whether his mind was on her or the oddity of staring at his own tomb was impossible to tell. Those strange silver eyes gave nothing away.
“And Scathach? She didn’t approve of Brendan accompanying her to Ynys Avalenn.”
It was Killer who answered this time. “Scathach may have her reservations, but she knows what is owed to Douglas. The Amhas-draoi have been shamed. Máelodor came too close to succeeding in opening the gates to the abyss. Had the Dark Court been freed to hunt on the mortal plane, it would have been disastrous not only for your world but the Fey as well.”
That future didn’t bear thinking of, so she didn’t. Instead, Elisabeth turned her attention to Arthur. “Will you return as well? Or are you”—she scanned the cavern with dismay—“trapped in our world?”
When Arthur smiled, it was like the sun breaking through the clouds. He seemed to beat with a light all his own. A majestic charisma that made one want to be near him just to bask in that aura. It was clear how such a man could grow to be a legend. And how the legend could forever inspire. Immediately the shoulder-crushing weight of her grief lifted. She wouldn’t say she was happy, but she wasn’t as close to smashing her fists against the stone in desolation either.
“I’m not trapped,” he answered, “but the Sh’vad Tual did work its magic. The portal was opened and I was summoned, if not in the way the mage intended.”
Killer put a hand upon her shoulder, his voice growly and rugged as a dog’s bark. “We must go.”
Understanding, which she’d held back through stubborn will, hit her all at once as if the cavern’s walls had just collapsed on her. “Brendan’s really not coming back, is he?”
Killer and Arthur exchanged wary male-to-male glances, but it was the shape-changer who was brave enough to answer. “It is”—his brow furrowed as if searching for the right word—“doubtful.”
Arthur added, “Mortals taken into Ynys Avalenn soon forget their former lives. How they came to be in the summer kingdom. Even their names. They know only what the Fey wish them to know.”
