“J’adoube,” she whispered. I touch. I adjust.
Seven times now she’d prevented the extinction of the purest and most potent of the Druid lines.
And positioned the five most powerful Druids that had ever lived precisely where she wanted them. Where they could ally her.
Where they could save her.
There was Dageus, possessing far more knowledge than any one Druid should have: all the knowledge of the Draghar, the thirteen ancients. The memories she’d left in him were doing things to him he wasn’t admitting. Not to Drustan, not to his mate.
There was Cian, possessing far more power than any one Druid should have: the genetic fluke, the unexpected mutation born once in a bloodline. The things Dageus and Cian could do together if they put their minds to it worried even her.
Then there was Drustan: compared to his dangerously endowed kin, modest of power, modest of knowledge, yet superior in a way they could never be. Dageus and Cian could go either way, good or evil. Drustan MacKeltar was that unique kind of man whose name lived forever in legends of men—a warrior so pure of heart that he was beyond corrupting. A man who would die for his beliefs, not just once but ten thousand times over if necessary.
As for her other two chosen, she would be seeing them soon.
Below her, in Castle Keltar’s great hall, the humans stood talking, oblivious to her presence. Blissfully unaware that a little over five years in their future, their world was in chaos, the walls between Man and Faery were down, and the Unseelie ruled with an icy, brutal hand. The Shades were feeding again, the Hunters were enforcing compliance, calling death sentences for the slightest infraction, and the exquisite Unseelie Princes were indulging their insatiable appetite for mortal women, brutally raping, leaving mindless shells.
And she?
Ah, that was the problem.
Her gaze shifted inward from the tableau below.
Though her race could move at will through the past, they could not penetrate a future that had not yet occurred. If one attempted to go forward beyond one’s present existence, one encountered an oppressive white mist, nothing more. If one went too far back in the past, one encountered the same mist. Not even the Tuatha Dé Danaan understood time. They knew how to traverse only the simplest facet of it.
She’d sifted back countless times now, from five and a half years in Earth’s future—her present—delicately altering events while trying not to change too much. Concealing from all, even those of her own court, that she was temporally displaced while doing it. Worlds were fragile; one could destroy an entire planet inadvertently. She already carried the weight of such an error. It was a heavy burden. As did her long-ago consort, though the unfathomably ancient Dark King cared nothing about the blood of billions.
She’d been alive for over sixty thousand years. Many of her kind wearied of existence long before that.
Not she. She had no wish to cease. Though the loss of Adam Black to his mortal mate grieved her, and she’d considered undoing that as well, she’d learned that there was a human element that was highly dangerous to meddle with. Love’s power was violently unpredictable; it affected events in ways her Tuatha Dé mind had failed to anticipate on more than one occasion.
She could not hope to predict what she could not understand. There were times when she suspected human love harbored a power more elemental and greater than any her race possessed. It infused things with strength in impossible excess of the sum of its parts. Indeed, it had been the matching of each Keltar below with his mate that had tempered them, given them cores of steel, and made her Druids into allies worthy of a queen.
The room below fell into a sudden hush. The silence drew her gaze back to the small group of men and women.
Dageus, Chloe, Drustan, Gwen, and Jessica were all staring at Cian, who had a startled expression on his face and was gazing directly up at her, where she stood beyond the balustrade.
She stiffened. Impossible! She wasn’t even truly there, but a projection of herself, concealed by countless layers of illusion, beyond an impenetrable Fae veil. Not even the most adept of Sidhe-seers would be able to isolate her formless form within the dimensional deception she’d created!
Ah, yes, this Druid had power beyond any other.
“What is it, Cian?” Drustan said, glancing over his shoulder in the direction Cian was looking. “Is aught amiss? Do you see something, kinsman?”
Aoibheal stared at the Highlander, her lips tightening. She smoothed them again. Waited for him to betray her presence.
No, no, no, it was not time yet—it could too drastically alter things—it could destroy what chance they had!
She’d attained a tenuous balance of possibles at best. She needed more time.
She held his gaze, used her human eyes to convey a mute plea. Say nothing, Keltar-mine.
The ninth-century Highlander regarded her silently. After a moment he inclined his head in the barest nod, then turned and glanced at Drustan.
“Nay,” he said. “ ’Tis nothing, Drustan. Nothing at all.”
Dear Reader:
Though the MacKeltars tried to persuade Cian and Jessi to remain at Castle Keltar, Cian had had enough of stone walls surrounding him, and hungered for the great wide-open.
With the aid of her contacts at the Manhattan museum at which she used to work, Chloe arranged the sale of Cian’s ninth-century, jewel-encrusted wrist cuffs and skean dubh, making Cian a wealthy man.
After a quick trip back to the States—where Lilly St. James bestowed her ecstatic blessing upon them and insisted upon a second wedding attended by the entire extended St. James clan—Cian and Jessi set off to tour the British Isles, so he could see the future he’d missed, and she could indulge her passion for the study of the past.
Cian used his unique “talents” to clear his wife of all blame in the matter of the missing mirror and attendant events, and Jessi plans to one day finish her PhD, but right now she’s too busy living life to worry about planning it.
The two of them were last seen, a little bit tipsy and a whole lot in love, dancing slow and sweet to an old Scots ballad, in a tiny pub in the northern Highlands of Scotland.
On a different note, a great many of you have written to ask whether there will be more Keltar and Fae stories in the future.
Yes. More of both are in the works. I have no intention of ending the Highlander series for some time to come.
Thanks to all of you for loving these Keltar Druids as much as I do.
All my best, and happy reading!
Karen
Sources
Astaire, Lesley, Roddy Martine, and Eric Ellington. Living in the Highlands. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2000.
Bahn, Paul. Archaeology: The Definitive Guide. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003.
Ellis, Peter Berresford. A Brief History of the Druids. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002.
Green, Miranda J. The World of the Druids. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1997.
Kennedy, Maev. The History of Archaeology. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2002.
Konstam, Angus and Richard Kean. Historical Atlas of the Celtic World. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001.
Melchior-Bonnet, Sabine. The Mirror, A History. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2000.
Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh and Christopher Simon Sykes. Great Houses of Scotland. New York: Universe Publishing, 2001.
Pendergrast, Mark. Mirror Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2000.
What Life Was Like Among Druids and High Kings. New York: Time Life Books, 1998.
DELL BOOKS BY KAREN MARIE MONING
Beyond the Highland Mist
To Tame a Highland Warrior
The Highlander’s Touch
Kiss of the Highlander
The Dark Highlander
The Immortal Highla
nder
Dell Books by Karen Marie Moning
Highlander Series:
Beyond the Highland Mist
To Tame a Highland Warrior The Highlander’s Touch
Kiss of the Highlander
The Dark Highlander
The Immortal Highlander
Spell of the Highlander
Fever Series:
Darkfever
Bloodfever
Faefever
Dreamfever
Shadowfever
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KAREN MARIE MONING graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in Society & Law. Her novels, which have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, have won numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA Award. She can be reached at www.karenmoning.com.
Read on for an excerpt from Karen Marie Moning’s
Into the Dreaming
One
928
NOT QUITE SCOTLAND
IT WAS A LAND OF SHADOWS AND ICE.
Of gray. And grayer. And black.
Deep in the shadows lurked inhuman creatures, twisted of limb and hideous of countenance. Things one did well to avoid seeing.
Should the creatures enter the pale bars of what passed for light in the terrible place, they would die, painfully and slowly. As would he—the mortal Highlander imprisoned within columns of sickly light—should he succeed in breaking the chains that held him and seek escape through those terrifying shadows.
Jagged cliffs of ice towered above him. A frigid wind shrieked through dark labyrinthine canyons, bearing a susurrus of desolate voices and faint, hellish screams. No sun, no fair breeze of Scotland, no scent of heather penetrated his frozen, bleak hell.
He hated it. His very soul cringed at the horror of the place.
He ached for the warmth of the sun on his face and hungered for the sweet crush of grass beneath his boots. He would have given years of his life for the surety of his stallion between his thighs and the solid weight of his claymore in his grip.
He dreamed—when he managed to escape the agony of his surroundings by retreating deep into his mind—of the blaze of a peat fire, scattered with sheaves of heather. Of a woman’s warm, loving caresses. Of buttery, golden-crusted bread hot from the hearth. Simple things. Impossible things.
For the son of a Highland chieftain, who’d passed a score and ten in resplendent mountains and vales, five years was an intolerable sentence; an incarceration that would be withstood only by force of will, by careful nurturing of the light of hope within his heart.
But he was a strong man, with the royal blood of Scottish kings running hot and true in his veins. He would survive. He would return and reclaim his rightful place, woo and win a bonny lass with a tender heart and a tempestuous spirit like his mother, and fill the halls of Dun Haakon with the music of wee ones.
With such dreams, he withstood five years in the hellish wasteland.
Only to discover the dark king had deceived him.
His sentence had never been five years at all, but five fairy years: five hundred years in the land of shadow and ice.
On that day when his heart turned to ice within his breast, on that day when a single tear froze upon his cheek, on that day when he was denied even the simple solace of dreaming, he came to find his prison a place of beauty.
“My queen, the Unseelie king holds a mortal captive.”
The Seelie queen’s face remained impassive, lest her court see how deeply disturbing she found the messenger’s news. Long had the Seelie Court of Light and the Unseelie Court of Dark battled. Long had the Unseelie king provoked her. “Who is this mortal?” she asked coolly.
“Aedan MacKinnon, son and heir of the Norse princess Saucy Mary and Findanus MacKinnon, from Dun Haakon on the Isle of Skye.”
“Descendent of the Scottish king, Kenneth McAlpin,” the queen mused aloud. “The Unseelie king grows greedy, his aim lofty, if he seeks to turn the seed of the McAlpin to his dark ways. What bargain did he strike with this mortal?”
“He sent his current Hand of Vengeance into the world to bring death to the mortal’s clansmen yet bartered that if the mortal willingly consented to spend five years in his kingdom, he would spare his kin.”
“And the MacKinnon agreed?”
“The king concealed from him that five years in Faery is five centuries. Still, as grandseed of the McAlpin, I suspect the MacKinnon would have accepted the full term to protect his clan.”
“What concession does the king make?” the queen asked shrewdly. Any bargain between fairy and mortal must hold the possibility for the human to regain his freedom. Still, no mortal had ever bested a fairy in such a bargain.
“At the end of his sentence, he will be granted one full cycle of the moon in the mortal world, at his home at Dun Haakon. If, by the end of that time, he is loved and loves in return, he will be free. If not, he serves as the king’s new Hand of Vengeance until the king chooses to replace him, at which time he dies.”
The queen made a sound curiously like a sigh. By such cruel methods had the Unseelie king long fashioned his deadly, prized assassin—his beloved Vengeance—by capturing a mortal, driving him past human limits into madness, indurating him to all emotion, then endowing him with special powers and arts.
Since the Unseelie king was barred entrance to the human world, he trained his Vengeance to carry out his orders, to hold no act too heinous. Mortals dared not even whisper the icy assassin’s name, lest they inadvertently draw his merciless attention. If a man angered the Unseelie king, Vengeance punished the mortal’s clan, sparing no innocents. If grumblings about the fairy were heard, Vengeance silenced them in cruelly imaginative ways. If the royal house was not amenable to the fairy world, Vengeance toppled kings as carelessly as one might sweep a chessboard.
Until now, it had been the Unseelie king’s wont to abduct an insignificant mortal, one without clan who would not be missed, to train as his Vengeance. He went too far this time, the Seelie queen brooded, abducting a blood grandson of one of fair Scotia’s greatest kings—a man of great honor, noble and true of heart.
She would win this mortal back.
The queen was silent for a time. Then, “Ah, what five hundred years in that place will do to him,” she breathed in a chilling voice. The Unseelie king had named the terms of his bargain well. Aedan MacKinnon would still be mortal at the end of his captivity but no longer remotely human when released. Once, long ago and never forgotten, she’d traversed that forbidden land herself, danced upon a pinnacle of black ice, slept within the dark king’s velvet embrace …
“Perhaps an enchanted tapestry,” she mused, “to bring the MacKinnon the one true mate to his heart.” She could not fight the Unseelie king directly, lest the clash of their magic too gravely damage the land. But she could and would do all in her power to ensure Aedan MacKinnon found love at the end of his imprisonment.
“My queen,” the messenger offered hesitantly, “they shall have but one bridge of the moon in the sky. Perhaps they should meet in the Dreaming.”
The queen pondered a moment. The Dreaming: that elusive, much-sought, everforgotten realm where mortals occasionally brushed pale shoulder to iridescent wing with the fairy. That place where mortals would be astonished to know battles were won and lost, universes born, and true love preordained, from Cleopatra and Marc Antony to Abelard and Heloise. The lovers could meet in the Dreaming and share a lifetime of loving before they ever met in the mortal realm. It would lay a grand foundation for success of her plan.
“Wisely spoken,” the queen agreed. Rising from her floral bower with fluid grace, she raised her arms and began to sing.
From her melody a tapestry was woven, of fairy lore, of bits of blood and bone, of silken hair from the great, great-grandson of the McAlpin, of ancient rites known only to the True Race. As she sang, her court chanted:
Into the Dreaming lure them deep
where they shall love whilst they doth sleep<
br />
then in the waking both shall dwell
’til love’s fire doth melt his ice-borne hell.
And when the tapestry was complete, the queen marveled.
“Is this truly the likeness of Aedan MacKinnon?” she asked, eyeing the tapestry with unmistakable erotic interest.
“I have seen him, and it is so,” the messenger replied, wetting his lips, his gaze fixed upon the tapestry.
“Fortunate woman,” the queen said silkily.
The fairy queen went to him in the Dreaming, well into his sentence, when he was quite mad. Tracing a curved nail against his icy jaw, she whispered in his ear, “Hold fast, MacKinnon, for I have found you the mate to your soul. She will warm you. She will love you above all others.”
The monster chained to the ice threw back his dark head and laughed.
It was not a human sound at all.
Two
PRESENT DAY OLDENBURG, INDIANA
JANE SILLEE HAD AN INTENSELY PASSIONATE RELATIONSHIP with her postman.
It was classic love-hate.
The moment she heard him whistling his way down her walk, her heart kicked into overtime, a sappy smile curved her lips, and her breathing quickened.
But the moment he failed to deliver the acceptance letter extolling the wonders of her manuscript, or worse, handed her a rejection letter, she hated him. Hated him. Knew it was his fault somehow. That maybe, just maybe, a publisher had written glowing things about her, he’d dropped the letter because he was careless, the wind had picked it up and carried it off, and even now her bright and shining future lay sodden and decomposing in a mud puddle somewhere.
The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 214
