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He steered the horse up out of the water, back towards the road leading south out of Lanivet. If Ellery had followed instructions—not a given, as he was finding out—she’d have passed this way only a short while before him. He’d cut time and miles from his journey by leaving the roads, using remote tracks and paths only the animal instincts of the Heller could find in this weather.
The rain increased, a downpour more suited to November than April. Asher may be restrained by the mortal world, but he was not without power. Which brought Conor right back to his greatest problem. What to do with Ellery until Beltane.
The steady plod of hoofbeats carried back to him first. Peering through the gloom, he caught sight of a horse and rider, heads bowed against the storm.
His mount gave a whinny of welcome. The rider whipped her head around, a grim determination in her white face. A dull gleam flashed off the knife she held out in front of her. Then she recognized him.
“I almost buried this in your chest,” she commented, sheathing the dagger. She was safe for now, and all her earlier fury had returned.
He pulled his horse alongside. “Would that have been before or after you realized it was me and not Asher?”
She bit her lip and looked away, but Conor noted the tightening of her hands upon the reins and the stiffened square of her shoulders. An angry brittle silence fell over them.
“You should have told me,” she said finally, without looking up.
“And when should I have done that?” he asked. “When you were holding a gun to my chest? Or when I was trying to explain the fey to you and hope you didn’t think I was a madman? Or mayhap when you were lying wounded from a Keun Marow attack?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered.
“And what would you have done if I’d told you I killed your father?”
She flinched. “Look at me, Ellery. How could I explain such a thing to you and make you understand?”
She faced him. “You couldn’t then. But now. Perhaps. There is a chance I’ll listen.”
He had wielded her father’s death as a weapon, hoping to hold her at bay. He’d not foreseen her walking out that door, enough hatred in her gaze to punch a hole through him. And that miscalculation had almost unmanned him. The shock of it still stung. He couldn’t allow her to run again. She was too important to his mission.
No. That wasn’t the real danger.
She was becoming too important to him.
“Very well. But hear me through before you judge.”
“Fair enough,” she answered.
But would she truly understand? And why did it suddenly matter so much to him that she did?
“To your father, the reliquary was an artifact—a treasure of the fey realm to be examined,” he explained. “I had to stop the Triad’s release. By closing the seals with the blood of the guilty. The trespasser.”
“My father.”
“Yes. But Asher had already been freed. Not even your father’s death could undo that damage. It needed a greater magic than I wield. To effect a true victory, I must draw on the deeper magics of the fey. Those that surface only in the thin places and peak at the turning of the seasons.”
“Beltane. Lands End,” she said.
“Just so. I must bring the reliquary to the stones of Ilcum Bledh by dusk on April’s last day. There, at the mouth of the quoit, I can reseal it. I can send Asher back to join his brothers. I can end it,” he said, despite knowing now that every moment with her was turning him from his chosen path.
Ellery sat, head bowed, for long minutes after. Conor waited for her to rant, curse him, or simply ride away. Fog swirled around their feet, drifted up over them until they wandered through a cloud. No sound but their own breathing. The rhythm of the horses as they traveled. When she finally looked at him, not even his keen eyesight could penetrate the unfathomable expression in her eyes. “If it was anyone but you,” she said.
“I’m amhas-draoi. I do what I must.”
“The good little soldier,” she mocked, her voice bitter.
“I regret that it’s caused you sorrow.” He paused. “I know grief, too.”
“But do you know where you’re going?” She rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, her cheeks damp with rain or tears. He couldn’t tell. His muscles knotted, waiting. “I’m freezing and tired and I have to pee.”
“I do.” He felt a rush of release, immediately replaced by a strange sense of excitement. It was the last place he wanted to go. He’d avoided it for over a year, but he’d run out of options. “Daggerfell,” he answered. “I’m going home.”
