Authors: S A Archer,S Ravynheart
Defender of Magic (4 page)
Chapter Nine
The dragon’s outpost possessed a comprehensive stash of supplies, including clothing in most conceivable sizes. Though Lugh didn’t indulge in his curiosity as to the purpose of such a trove, he was truly grateful for the clothing allotted to himself and the Scribe. The denim of the jeans was a durable fabric for the hiking he anticipated. The jacket was denim, too, warm and thick, good for the chill of the night. The sleeveless shirt he wore underneath didn’t constrict his shoulders when he wanted freedom of movement. His pack, with its few essentials, was already propped by the door. “I’m heading east, following the Dublin lead.”
Willem huddled in a chair at the head of the long dining room table in one of the guest suites in Jonathan’s mansion. He sifted through the parchments, reorganizing them for the millionth time, as if the answers merely lay in the sorting of the pieces. Beside him was one of the combs they’d retrieved from Rhiannon’s temple. Of all the artifacts, those combs occupied some special interest for the Scribe.
All the while, Jonathan leaned over the documents, hands planted on the tabletop to give himself an overview. “You know the magicraft is incomplete.” He waved a hand over the mess. “This can’t be all you’re going on.”
“Danu didn’t leave comprehensive notes. Once we collect more artifacts, I trust that things shall fall into place.” Lugh resettled the shoulder straps for the scabbard beneath his jacket that kept the short sword sheathed against his spine.
“You’re counting on that? On things just falling into place?” Jonathan shook his head incredulously.
“What else have we, but hope and faith?”
Jonathan smirked. “You have a dragon with an extensive library and a talent in magicraft.” He gave Lugh’s back a slap of camaraderie, nearly toppling him with the gregariousness of the gesture.
After the dragon’s footsteps faded down the hallway, the Scribe cleared his throat, the sound more of a stall than an attempt to gain notice. He squirmed as Lugh’s attention focused upon him. Willem’s fingers worried over the comb. “May I inquire as to a matter that is clearly none of my business and yet has weighted heavily upon my conscious?”
Lugh raised an eyebrow. The phrasing of the request was rather formal, not the more casual tone to which they’d become accustomed. It only accentuated just how unsettled Willem felt in introducing the topic. Lugh encouraged him. “Please, speak freely.”
“Perhaps, it is time.” He lifted the comb, as though admiring its craftsmanship. “Since we are so few.”
“Time for what?”
Willem tucked the comb away. “I spoke out of turn. My apologies. I shan’t broach the subject again.”
The Scribe mistook Lugh’s lack of understanding as discouragement, for denial was oft used as a Seelie tactic when reprimanding. “Willem, will you not speak frankly and fully? For I meant not to deter your line of inquiry. Perhaps it is time for what?”
The Scribe paused, gaze still cast away. He sighed, finally verbalizing what tormented him, as though releasing the burden of it physically ached. “To bring Rhiannon home.”
The shock of comprehension so stunned Lugh that he could do nothing but blink. His body froze as if a lance struck right into his heart, pinning him.
“I have angered you.” Willem slipped to his feet in his haste to escape reproach.
Lugh’s longer strides overtook the Scribe. With a straight arm he slammed the door closed before the Scribe could fully open it. He snatched the Scribe’s elbow and spun him about. His heart failed to beat for fear he’d misheard. “Rhiannon wasn’t in the Mounds when it Collapsed? You know this?”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. The All-Mother’s motives and judgments aren’t for me to question. I only thought you knew or I wouldn’t have uttered a sound.”
Lugh fisted the lapel of Willem’s shirt, not to intimidate, but to capture this fleeting glimmer of hope before, like gossamer, it vanished before him. “Danu has perished. You have pledged your aid to recreate a fey realm. We can ill afford to bury secrets with the dead. Withhold nothing from me. Do you understand? Do you so affirm?”
“I swear it.” Willem’s hands covered Lugh’s.
“Then speak. Confide in me.” He barely constrained the hope that struggled to burst free of his caution.
“Danu favored Manannan greatly. I’ve never seen her so enamored of any of the Seelie kings before him. Periodically, a Sidhe threatened Manannan’s goal for the unification of the courts. Danu said they were confused. Sick. Poisoned by the lies of the Unseelie.”
Lugh’s grip tightened. “What did she do?”
“She sent them away. She forced them to retreat. To allow them time to heal.” He swallowed and then confessed, “To prevent them from interfering with the unification.”
“Where are they?” Lugh demanded.
“I don’t know, but not in the Mounds. They would’ve been too easily discovered there.”
“Which means that Danu detained these Sidhe somewhere on the surface. Trapped. Helpless and Fading as surely as we.”
Lugh released the Scribe. With a hand against Willem’s breastbone, Lugh wordlessly discouraged him from pursuing.
As he strode away from the Scribe’s suite his thoughts tumbled. Searching. Repositioning the facts as he knew them. Rearranging the assumptions. Turning things over and finding a new shape to the events of the past few centuries.
Lugh barged into the chamber where Danu’s body reposed. Still beautiful. Still perfect. Encased in a glass casket.
His hand stroked the glass over the All-Mother’s young features. “I trusted you,” he murmured. “Is what Willem says true?”
Lugh’s fingers glided over the silver dagger that had taken her life and now rested easily within Danu’s gloved hands, the blade gleaming on the white brocade between her breasts. So much he didn’t know. So many lies. Was this what culminated in her murder? This conspiracy? What had happened the day the Mounds collapsed?
Lugh studied Danu’s serene face. “After Rhiannon began campaigning against Manannan, you implored me to convey her to you, knowing she would venture, fully trusting me, anywhere I escorted. You reassured me that, with your council, she chose to take a sabbatical. Did you deceive me?”
His fingers brushed over the glass, as if trailing through her long, golden hair. “I loved you. As we all loved you.” His hand withdrew from the glass. “As we had no recourse but to love and obey you, Creatrix.”
Lugh backed away from her. “The Unseelie suspected that their prophetess hadn’t retreated of her own accord. Were they right? Are there more? How many others?”
“Where are they?” His voice deepened as he demanded, “Where is Rhiannon?”
Of course, she offered him no reassurance. No explanation. No denial.
It mattered not, for within his heart he comprehended the truth.
“I shall find them. I shall free them,” he pledged, “And once I have restored the realm of fey, I shall save them.”
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Thanks for reading this episode we hoped you enjoyed it!
~Read on for a sample of Lugh’s first episode~
The
Glossary and Name Pronunciation Guide
is after the sample chapter.
All fifteen episodes of Season One of The Sidhe are now available in collections!
One Dangerous World… Three Intense Storylines…
Season One of The Sidhe consists of 3 mini-series. Each of these mini-series follows different characters in the same world.
Champion of the Sidhe
contains all 5 stories from the Unseelie’s perspective. However the three series have major crossovers, so if you want to get the full picture then you’ll want to read the entire season in the suggested reading order, as presented in
Scattered Magic
(80,000 words) and
Remnants of Magic
(over 102,000 words).
~Enjoy a sample chapter of~
In Whom You Trust
“Celebrating prematurely, aren’t you?” Lugh used his glass to indicate the party filling the grand ballroom of the Seelie Court. It was as spectacular an event as any other victory gala he’d ever partaken in, with the notable exception that this time victory had yet to be secured, and to Lugh’s mind, probably never would be.
“Have faith.” Manannan offered a handsome smile full of arrogance. The Seelie king cut a dashing figure in his brocade doublet of a color that matched his ocean blue eyes. To gaze upon him, one would have believed nothing could tarnish his confidence, not even the rather inconvenient truth.
“Faith? I know the Unseelie. They shall never submit, not to you or any other Seelie king. That is at the very heart of the Unseelie, to never surrender their wild ways.” Lugh scanned those in attendance. All Seelie, which rather proved his point. The brightly attired Sidhe danced the familiar waltzes in the center of the rotunda to the traditional songs. The conversation groupings milling around the fringes were in the usual pairings, so much so that Lugh could almost with certainty describe the topics of conversations without even guessing. He knew the ones discussing politics, or domestic trivialities, or the gossip about the latest romances. All of the trappings of civility and pleasantries that the Seelie did so enjoy, and would have sent an Unseelie’s skin crawling.
Manannan tilted his head back to finish his drink, and then said, “This time, they shall accept our invitation. Danu herself is presiding.”
That did capture Lugh’s attention. He searched the guileless, even expression on Manannan’s face. Perhaps a shade too controlled. Something lurked unsaid just beneath the surface. To be certain, the king owed him no explanation, but Lugh rather wished he would accept his council in the spirit with which he offered it. Though he did not wish to see Manannan fail, in this matter he saw no conceivable way he could succeed. Save one possibility which could never be. Although it should have gone without saying, Lugh reminded his king, “Danu would not compel the Unseelie to obey her. Not in a matter such as this.”
“Certainly not,” Manannan dismissed the notion, “But they are the weaker court. Their strength is waning. The time for division is declining. We shall soon embrace our wayward brethren in one united court.”
Though ruled by their king, the Seelie Court moved by Danu’s bidding. She crowned the king for whatever term she deemed appropriate. Lugh himself had held the crown twice, and served his court with the love and dedication that ruled his life. While each king governed in his own fashion, no other had drawn more controversy than Manannan, crowned only a mere century earlier. Almost immediately the prophetess of the Unseelie Court spoke against him. Aoife predicted a grave doom would befall all fey should the courts be united, and that Manannan would drive them toward that doom with a relentless passion. Before she’d spoken of it, Lugh would have never even suspected such a thing as uniting of the courts would be possible, but Manannan embraced the prophecy as a challenge, as a prediction not of doom, but of his success and the Unseelie fear of it. A legacy no other Sidhe could outshine. The unification of the Sidhe. One people. One court. And, of course, all ruled by one king.
Ambitious, even for the arrogant Seelie.
Lugh gave no credence to predictions, Aoife’s or anyone else’s. Too often circumstances changed, defeating the disasters before they even manifested. But there were many that saw conspiracy woven into every action and every utterance, unconsciously determined to fulfill the very prophecy they claimed to battle. This movement among the fey, this undercurrent of fear, alone should have been enough to defeat the summit’s goal to find peace between the courts. In truth that was probably the very reason Aoife spoke of it, a political maneuver rather than a true vision. How Manannan thought this time would be any different than any other, Lugh could not fathom. The Unseelie queen and her king declined to even attend the last several times Manannan invited them to discuss the issue.
The king raised his empty goblet in a comradely salute, “Don’t trouble yourself about this tonight Lugh. Let us freshen our drinks and find ladies in need of a dance.”
As Lugh casually surveyed the room, he noticed one of the wood elf waiters moving too quickly through the crowd. He did not offer the glasses on his tray to any of the guests. In fact, his gaze was fixed on his destination. His target.
Lugh’s heart nearly stopped, the wrongness struck him that bluntly. Though he had no doubts that the summit would once more fail, there were those who feared it enough to do even the unthinkable to defeat it. It would not be the first time an assassin struck in public.
Lugh departed from Manannan without taking his leave. He cut through the crowd. Closing the distance.
The elf headed for Kaitlin, a princess and Manannan’s sister-in-law. The princess saw the elf coming. Her chin lifted. Eyes lit up. She breathlessly froze in anticipation.
Lugh slowed mere strides before reaching the elf. Had Kaitlin seemed frightened, or even unsuspecting, he’d have quietly detained the elf and discovered his true intent, for serving drinks certainly was not it. The elf removed a folded napkin from his tray. As he moved passed Kaitlin he passed the napkin to the girl without slowing down.
Kaitlin accepted it and then cast an anxious glance about her. Lugh turned away before her eyes could fix upon him. He murmured a random compliment to one of the ladies and she rewarded him with a musical laugh. When he pivoted back toward the princess she no longer faced in his direction, but rather slipped through the crowd with hast. The silk of her dress flowed about her lithe, dancer’s figure. Her loose hair spilled down her back before curling into soft ringlets that bounced youthfully against her back, too eager to make her escape to depart without noticeable excitement.
Curiosity sharp, he trailed behind her. The barrier over the castle prevented Glamour as well as teleportation. Not that following the young princess required an inordinate amount of stealth. Once he saw her safely to her private chambers, he suspected he knew her intentions. And the potential dangers.
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