Caledonia Fae 04- Druid Lords (2 page)

Her gaze remained fixed on the pink crystal. Huck was surprised she had touched it without asking, but he didn’t try to stop her. She appeared entranced, and the longer she stared into the crystal, the more glazed her eyes became. “Fire-heart,” she whispered.

Huck stopped cold. Those were the exact two runes he’d imbued into the crystal to give it that living spark of fire within. How could she have guessed? He rubbed his temple. Maybe his growing headache made him imagine what he’d heard.

Maarten returned as she picked the rock up. “Amazing artist, isn’t he? A hundred euros for this one. It’s one-of-a-kind.”

She rushed to set it down as though the price shocked her. Maarten added, “Only fifty for the smaller ones.” He handed Huck the agreed upon three-hundred euros cash for the entire lot.

She stared at Huck for a moment but flinched as she looked into his eyes.

Damn
, Huck thought. Had she noticed the faint glow in his eyes in the dimly lit coffee shop? The gleam wasn’t as pronounced as with some of the other druids, but he couldn’t deny it was there. “I’ll make you another,” Huck said on impulse. “No charge.”

Maarten threw up his hands in disgust. “You’re killing me,” he said. “She would have bought one.”

The young woman dashed out the door. Huck grabbed his backpack and without a word to Maarten, he rushed to the shop’s entrance, keeping his gaze locked on her short black hair bobbing through the crowd outside. He didn’t know what possessed him, but he couldn’t stop watching her. Was she a druid? An outcast faerie in disguise, hidden behind an astral illusion?

“When will you be back with more?” Maarten asked, but Huck didn’t turn to answer. The girl had read his rune, and he had to find out who she was.

The nights in this part of Amsterdam were nearly as busy as the days, but with a different clientele. The bars and coffee shops throbbed with patrons, and further down the way, the red-light district and its sex shops and peep-shows would be doing brisk business. Huck wove amongst the foot-traffic and followed the young woman. She ducked through the crowds with purpose, and several times she doubled back and took an oddly circuitous route.

With the strength and speed and sharp night vision the Otherworld had given him, Huck didn’t have any trouble keeping up. His head cleared as soon as he moved away from the cannabis smoke of the coffee shop, sharpening his senses even further. He kept to the shadows. Occasionally, she would stop and turn around. She shouldn’t have been able to see him, but she tilted her head as though listening hard.

When she stopped, he did too, watching her closely. She looked terrified. Of what? Of him? The last thing he wanted was to scare her, but he needed to know how she recognised his runes.

Finally, she ducked into a small, narrow house, glancing over her shoulder after she put the key in the lock and turned it. Once she disappeared inside, Huck exhaled softly. Now what? He couldn’t ring her bell at this hour of the night. He glanced at a street sign and made note of the address. He needed to think about this.

A pair of glowing eyes stared at Huck from an alleyway across the street. They blinked once, then reappeared. The sight startled him. Could it be one of the other druids? The fae almost never came into the human realm, and if they did, they avoided the cities. Plus, there weren’t any Otherworld gates in Holland. He’d had to travel through Germany to get here. Huck moved forward, but the eyes shifted as though the figure turned. Although Huck never heard any movement, when he stepped towards the darkened alleyway, he found it deserted. Whoever had been watching had vanished. He cast his eyes upward, to the house the woman had entered. He didn’t even know her name.

∞

“What do you think is happening?” Munro asked, meeting Keeper Oszlár’s gaze. The druid scrubbed his hand through his golden hair, a very human habit he’d managed to keep, despite the other transformations he’d undergone in the past two years.

The ancient faerie frowned. “The gates are shifting.”

Munro blinked. With everything he’d learned, from how to create objects of power to uncovering the true destiny of druids within fae society, there was still so much he didn’t understand. For the fae, two years seemed like nothing. Their world was ancient compared to the human realm, and they lived much longer. Most faeries considered Munro’s own fiancée, Queen Eilidh of Caledonia, almost too young for her station at only a hundred and twenty-seven. “The Otherworld gates? All of them? Shifting to where?”

Normally Oszlár was a patient teacher who
found delight in Munro’s discoveries and inquisitive nature. Today his tone was sharp and serious. “We must gather the queens at once.” He raised his voice and shouted, “Yurnme!” Because of his advanced age, even by faerie standards, the name came out in a rasp.

“I’ll get him,” Munro said. Before Oszlár could protest the propriety of a druid lord running errands, Munro jumped to his feet. He trotted from the vast chamber below the library, up the winding staircase, and made his way to the keepers’ study rooms.
He found the sharp-faced Yurnme talking to a group of keepers.
Bursting into the room at a jog, Munro said, “Oszlár needs you.”

With a barely perceptible sigh, Yurnme stood. “Where can I find the head keeper?” he asked with just enough respect to
save himself from chastisement.

“Below,” Munro replied.
The lower part of the library housed only one chamber
, and that room held one object: the Source Stone, the most sacred and mystical object in the faerie realm. Munro had discovered a few months before that the artefact had been made by human druids, a revelation that changed the way faerie society regarded him and his brother druids.

Yurnme’s lazy attitude annoyed him
. At one time, Munro wouldn’t have detected the subtle insult in the faerie’s expression. Now Munro recognised the minute gestures, the flickers of emotion that had once eluded him. To snap the faerie into action, he added, “The gates are shifting.”

Every faerie in the large sitting area gave him their full attention. Faces turned, and a cold silence fell over the already quiet room. Then, just as abruptly, the faeries leapt into motion, whirring as they moved with super-human speed. One approached him. “Will you be summoning Queen Eilidh yourself, my lord druid?”

“Yes,” Munro replied. He hadn’t considered doing so, but if something important was happening, she might want to hear the news from him.

“Then I suggest you make haste,” the keeper said. “The queens must gather immediately.”

Munro turned to go, urgency swirling around him. What did this mean? The Halls of Mist, which contained the Great Library, The Druid Hall, and halls for every one of the faerie kingdoms, connected to the kingdoms through a portal near the library entrance. The huge blue ball of light that allowed the kingdoms to connect in this strange, in-between place rested directly over the Source Stone. This, Munro had learned, was no coincidence.

When he arrived at the portal, two queens were already there. He didn’t know either of them well, but then there were many faerie queens, all ruling independent nations, some small and some much larger. Eilidh’s kingdom was, in comparison to most, quite small, at least as represented by its connection to the human realm. Faerie kingdoms were anchored in what he still thought of as the
real
world by a series of gates. The more gates a queen controlled, the more political sway she had.

He nodded to the two queens, and they inclined their heads, showing their respect. As he stepped into the dazzling blue light, he thought about how much things had changed. Not too long ago, faeries regarded humans with disgust, like some kind of talking animals. His discovery about the ancient artefact called the Killbourne Wall forced them all to reconsider those opinions, whether they wanted to or not. The runes on the wall told the faerie creation story and revealed that human druids were
draoidh
, sorcerers of ancient tales the fae revered above all others, even queens.

The draoidh once wielded almost unlimited power in the faerie realm, and Munro had discovered why. They were creators. Not only of runes and artefacts, but possibly of the entire fae race. The druids now living in the Halls of Mist had nowhere near the level of knowledge required to create sentient, living creatures. So much had been lost over the thousands of years since the original draoidh disappeared. But these modern druids did have remarkable abilities, and he had hope they would someday restore what had died out.

The moment Munro arrived on the other side of the portal, he felt a sense of belonging, of warmth and love. His bonded faerie, soon to be his wife, filled his mind. Something about the portal between Caledonia and the Halls of Mist dampened their connection, and her presence always relieved him.

The round portal shimmered on an immense circular platform, surrounded by Watchers. He saw one he knew. “Bran,” he called and walked down the steps quickly.

“Yes, my lord druid,” the Watcher said with a bow of his head.

“I need the queen to come at once,” Munro said. “Can you send your fastest runner with a message?”

“If your need is official and urgent,” the Watcher replied, “I will send a signal.”

Munro hesitated a moment. “Do that,” he said.

Bran nodded and turned to another. Raising his voice, he said, “The druid lord summons the queen.” The somewhat younger Watcher’s eyes went a bit wide.

Munro had only lived in the Otherworld for a couple of years, but he knew summoning a queen was a rare occurrence. He opened his mouth to explain, even though technically he didn’t have to, when a familiar voice intruded into his thoughts.
How I love to sense your presence, Quinton. You seem disturbed. I hope you plan to stay in Caledonia for a while. I miss you.

His inability to answer her frustrated him. He hoped she would receive whatever signal Bran sent and come quickly.

“If you’d step back, my lord druid. The beacon will become quite bright,” Bran said. He lifted his right arm to the sky and whispered. All the Watchers in the circle did the same. From his fingertips came a blinding golden light. The beam shot into the air and joined with lights each of the other Watchers created.

Munro realised he didn’t have cause to worry that she would miss the signal
The higher it grew, the more the vast ball of light dwarfed the portal itself. Together the Watchers called, “Advance!” and the light flashed once, then zoomed away, leaving a glowing trail behind it.

“She’ll come?” Munro asked Bran. He’d never seen them use anything like this before.

“Yes,” Bran said. “Her majesty will most certainly come.” He smiled. “That was exciting. We haven’t sent a signal in a long time. I cannot help but express my curiosity,” he added.

Munro didn’t see any harm in telling the Watchers the news. Nobody had indicated he should keep the events to himself, and with the big ball of light flying towards the queen, his message wouldn’t stay secret long. “The gates are shifting,” Munro told him.

The faerie’s eyes widened and swirled with a flash of magic. “Caledonia?” he asked.

“I don’t know. The keepers are summoning all the queens.”

“They always do,” another faerie nearby said.

Munro didn’t quite understand, but the Watchers were clearly worried about the implications of what he told them. “I’ll send word as soon as I have some information.”

Bran looked startled. “You are too kind, my lord druid.”

With worry now weighing more heavily on him than before, Munro stepped through the portal and returned to the Halls of Mist.

Demi Hartmann locked the door behind her and pulled the bolt into place. The habitual action wouldn’t stop
him
, locks never had, but the sound of the metal sliding into place comforted her anyway. Leaning against the door in the darkened entryway, she breathed for a moment.
Damn.
She’d needed that job. The savings she and her grandmother lived on wouldn't last forever.

Her grandmother called from the other side of the house, in German, of course, “Is that you?”

“Yes, Omi,” Demi shouted. “It’s starting to rain harder now.” She unwound the long scarf from her neck and hung it on a hook near the door, then placed her jacket next to it. She shivered, but not from the cold. She didn’t want to tell her grandmother she’d been followed home. She was tired of moving. When they left Berlin, they’d moved to southern Germany, then over into Austria. Then when
he
found them, they’d doubled-back to Zurich. The larger the city, the longer before he found her, but he always did. Omi had been the one to choose the Netherlands. Nearly three-quarters of the population spoke German, and even more English, which Demi had learned in school. Her grandmother’s English was passable, but they hoped this time, they would have a while before he caught up with them. Part of her dared to hope he might not find her at all.

She tousled the damp out of her hair and made her way up the stairs to the main living room. By the time she arrived, she managed to paste a smile on her face. “Where’s my little man?” she called through the doorway.

A small boy lay on the couch next to her grandmother, his head nestled on the older lady’s bosom. He beamed through sleepy eyes. The bright smile melted her worries away. “Mama!”