Age of Druids (8 page)

“Okay,” Rory said. “If I get this Cup for you, you’ll heal my bond?”

“For a price.”

“But the artefact—”

“Is but an instrument I require.”

“What more do you want?” His mind went to the bank accounts the druids held in the human realm. No, that wouldn’t be the price. What use would money be to Ewain?

“The female,” he said, flicking his hand to indicate Flùranach.

“What about her?” Rory asked.

“She is my price.”

Sheng laughed. “You must be joking.” When he noticed Rory hadn’t joined him, he lowered his voice. “You can’t sell her.”

“Of course not,” Rory said, unable to keep the hesitation out of his voice.

“Hell, Rory,” Sheng said. “You
can’t
sell her.”

Suddenly angry, Rory rounded on him. “You don’t know what it’s like, having her inside my head all the time, her emotions seeping into my mind like an oil you can’t wash off. She’s my bloody albatross.”

Flùranach turned her face as though slapped.

Something changed in Sheng’s eyes, a clear disillusionment. “She’s a person. Do you have any idea what Munro would say if he knew you were even
talking
about selling her?”

Rory had to concede the point. Munro had been the only one who came close to understanding. He’d seen what happened, knew what Flùr had done to Rory. Probably even understood that all the time Rory thought he was in love with her, she’d manipulated his mind. Every time they’d had sex, she’d stoked his feelings. She’d taken everything good and ruined it, perverted it. Rory hated her. He sighed. Even with all that, Munro wouldn’t condone selling her.

“I can’t,” Rory said. “Is there anything else?”

“I want to stay,” Flùranach said quietly, and all eyes turned to her. “He is the Father of the Sky. Who would not be honoured to serve? You despise me, and because of your judgement, you have mistreated me.” When Rory started to argue, she said, “I’ve never said I don’t
deserve
your ire, but I don’t enjoy it.”

Ewain’s eyes sparkled, swirling with the silver of his spirit magic. “Then you have no excuse not to do as I ask,” Ewain said. “Release your hold on her; say the unbinding words. Once you return the Cup of Cultus to me, I will restore the seat of your bond and you will be free to search for another.”

Rory stared at Flùranach. “You’d rather stay in this place, possibly forever, than return to the Druid Hall? Take a good look before you answer.” He didn’t even like the idea of spending the rest of one night and the next day here. How could she prefer this, even given her situation?

For the first time in months, he saw a spark in her eyes. Her red hair glowed in the reflected firelight. “I’d rather die than return with you. I just never had anywhere else to go before.”

Just when he thought they couldn’t hurt each other any more, there it was, the death blow for whatever love may have once been real. He wanted to make some retort, but he felt broken. “Fine, she’s yours.” He looked at Flùranach and concentrated on their bond. “I release you.” Immediately, the magic tying them together began to unwind, and his control slipped away.

A smile crept onto Ewain’s face. He bowed slightly to Rory. “I will care for her.” He held out a hand to Flùranach. “Come,” he said, and she obeyed without hesitation.

Chapter 5

Munro sat on a wide, plush chair across from Griogair and took a cup of fruit juice from a servant’s tray. Griogair refused a drink and waved her away. “Nice digs,” Munro said. The palace that served as the prince’s prison was only a five-minute run from Canton Dreich. Even the many uniformed Watchers couldn’t make the place seem like any holding cell Munro had ever seen in the human realm.

He kept his tone light, but the dark circles under Griogair’s eyes told him the prince hadn’t slept in a while.

“Our mate apologised when she had me arrested. Did she mention that?” Griogair asked.

Munro shook his head, but he wasn’t surprised. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how heartbroken she is.”

Griogair’s violet eyes darkened. “No.” He tilted his head at Munro as though seeing him for the first time. “You look like hell, brother,” he said.

“Thanks. You too. Changing the subject?” Munro took a sip of his drink before setting the cup aside.

“I wish it were that easy.” Griogair was immaculately dressed in soft leather dyed a deep purple with gold piping. He looked every inch the royal, but somehow, he seemed diminished.

“Tell me what happened,” Munro said gently. “I knew the trip to Eirlioc Falls was planned on short notice, but I didn’t think anything of it.” He didn’t want to admit he’d been relieved when Eilidh went away on these trips on kingdom business. It lessened his guilt about all the time he spent in the human realm.

“What did Eilidh say to you?”

“I want to hear your version. Start at the beginning. Last I heard, Koen was being held at Eirlioc Falls and the trip had something to do with him. His cell was a place similar to this, I’d guess?”

With a glance around the room, Griogair nodded. “Yes. The palace is more formal, more to Queen Cadhla’s taste than Eilidh’s. It’s where I first met Eilidh. It seems so long ago. A lifetime.”

“I remember,” Munro said. “So you had Koen sent there when you charged him with treason.”

“Yes. After he and Eilidh were joined, he spent a great deal of time there, as you know. I thought it kinder to put him somewhere familiar.”

“Not to mention away from the joint conclave and out of your hair.”

“Indeed,” Griogair said with a fleeting smile.

“When Eilidh returned from the Halls of Mist, she told you what she planned to do about Koen?” Munro prompted.

“We discussed it several times, and I gave formal testimony to the joint conclave regarding what Konstanze had said to me. Eilidh and the elders also questioned me regarding my conversations directly with Koen when she was…ill.”

The sentiment was irrational, but Munro felt responsible. The breaking of his bond with Eilidh when Munro had died sent her mind into a tailspin. Even three months after his spirit had been returned to his body, he didn’t feel quite right. He wondered if Eilidh still suffered as well. “You disagreed with her decision?”

“I did,” Griogair said.

“What did you do next?”

“Do? Nothing.”

“You confessed to having killed Koen,” Munro said.

“Yes.”

“So after you realised Eilidh was not going to order his execution, you decided to arrange the trip to Eirlioc Falls?”

Griogair frowned. “Not right away.”

Munro took a sip of his drink, waiting for the prince to continue.

After a moment, Griogair went on. “Brother, I promised his death before Eilidh even returned from the Halls of Mist. After the reunification of the Otherworld and the breaking of the portal, I returned home to Canton Dreich. Eilidh had you to care for her, several elders including Oron. She needed time to recover, but Caledonia needed me here.”

“No one would criticise you for not staying with her. It must have been difficult to leave her behind when you’d spent so long worrying at her bedside after my death. You did the right thing. Caledonia
did
need you.”

With a tilt of his head, Griogair went on. “A week after I arrived, I received a message. I’d personally commanded the Watcher who arrested him. If Koen tried to escape, he should be restricted to his suite and I was to be informed. This step had been taken after the Watchers discovered Koen trying to climb over a wall. I don’t know what he was thinking. Since my arrest, I sense the guards’ touch on my mind night and day. I know the moment they change the duty rotation. He had to realise he would be caught.”

Munro agreed the move was stupid, but Koen hadn’t been very bright. “Desperation, I suppose.”

“Perhaps. I suspect he managed to send letters to his father and possibly some followers or others I don’t know about. Maybe that was his only goal. Part of my order was no communication in or out. I didn’t want to risk him trying to organise a rebellion with Eilidh so vulnerable.”

Again, Munro felt the blame squarely on his own shoulders. He sighed. Their bond gave them both strength and power, but this was the price they paid. “So what happened next?”

“I was angry,” Griogair said. “Not at Koen, I suppose upon reflection, although he certainly deserved my ire. I went to Eirlioc Falls the next day. In front of half a dozen Watchers, I told Koen that if he tried to escape again, I would return and put an elemental sword through his gut.” With a rueful smile, he added, “I thought my words might deter further attempts.”

Munro sat back in his chair and exhaled loudly. “Did they?”

“For a while. Still, I had no right to issue the threat. Eilidh’s faculties had been restored. The decision to order his death was not mine to make from the moment you returned from the shadow realm.”

“Christ.”

Griogair shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I knew my position when I gave the command. In truth, after Eilidh returned to the kingdom, I didn’t give the incident much thought. This happened some weeks before. I only relay the story because it seems to indicate I planned to kill him all along.”

“But you didn’t,” Munro said. Guilt washed over him at having been gone often and so preoccupied with the search for Huck and Demi that he’d missed such important events.

“No. He goaded me and I lost my temper. A few weeks after she returned, she began hearing testimony concerning Koen’s betrayal to try to decide what to do with him. Two nights ago, we travelled together to Eirlioc Falls to hear whatever ridiculous defence he’d managed to contrive following his arrest.” Griogair put his feet on a low table. His posture was casual, but Munro knew him well enough to detect the tension beneath the surface. “We arrived close to dawn. We planned to rest, then see him the following evening. I received a note from one of the Watchers guarding him. Koen had been caught trying to escape. The attempt, according to his guards, was pathetic, with little chance of success. But because I had made the threat I did, they informed me as I had commanded them to.”

“Did you tell Eilidh?”

With a sigh, Griogair gave a minute shrug. “Upon reflection, I should have. But Eilidh was tired. Although she has recovered much in these three months since your return from the shadow realm, she still becomes exhausted easily. I went to see Koen, hoping that if I told him Eilidh was not inclined to execute her own mate, despite his treason, he would be relieved and not test my patience and her endurance.”

Munro thought Griogair’s estimation of Koen’s ability to be reasonable was far too indulgent, but he understood the motivation. So far, nothing sounded out of character for anyone involved. “What happened when you arrived?”

“Four experienced Watchers blocked his access to magical flows. Others guarded the doors and windows in pairs since his second attempt at escape. I entered, but didn’t find him as I expected.”

“In what way?”

“He was haughty, smug. Not at all like someone facing a death sentence.”

“Sounds like him, actually,” Munro said. “Anyone who knows Eilidh would guess that she’d never want to sentence him to die. Did he deny the treason?”

“How could he? I have no doubt he might plead innocence to Eilidh, but he and I were alone.”

“No Watchers stayed in the room with you?”

“Why should they? Without his magic, he was of no threat to anyone. Even you could best him in that state.”

Munro didn’t take offense. Humans were virtually helpless against faeries as long as the faerie had access to the flows. Without magic, however, they stood little chance faced with the brute strength of human muscle. The loss left them disoriented and bereft, hardly a danger.

“He boasted ridiculously, predicting a revolution in Caledonia. His eyes were glazed and he was frenzied with his own delusion.” Griogair shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “I listened to him rave for a while but grew bored.”

“You weren’t concerned?”

Griogair shrugged. “Only about how his raving might affect Eilidh. She would find a way to blame herself.” He brushed a piece of lint off the knee of his fine leather trousers. “I started to leave, but he began to scream as though in distress. When I turned to see what had upset him, he charged me with what I believed at the time was a knife in his hand.”

“An elemental knife?”

“Yes.”

That shouldn’t have been possible without access to the flows. Munro frowned, wondering if there was something he was missing. “And you conjured one of your own?”

“Yes. I drew my sword to defend myself. He flew at me, and I reacted. In an instant, Koen was dead.” The prince’s tone was flat. He didn’t meet Munro’s gaze.

“You could have blocked him with a shield of air and not hurt him.”

“Probably,” Griogair agreed.