by Scott, Amber
Danny glared, his nostrils flaring. “You know full well what I mean. And soon, Ailyn will, too. You canno’ fathom what you are tempting here, friend.” He fairly spat the last word.
“By my estimation, you have two choices here, Daniel.” He meant his sarcasm as a challenge, to prick the lad’s patience. One hit was all Quinlan needed to justify putting the wee pup in his place. “One, you explain yourself in full—why you are here, what your intentions are, and what really occurred this glorious morning as Ailyn and I slept—or two, you leave us.”
Ailyn growled, stepping between them. “I swear by Morrigan’s wrath, if you louts dinna explain yourselves to me, I’ll rid myself of you both. I’ve enough troubles to face all on my own! I don’t need to suffer the mess of a war of fool honor.”
Her hair had become quite a sight, unbound and having been slept on. The wild disarray of the locks matched with the deep red hue. Combined with her flashing eyes, her hair exaggerated her ire to the point that it took effort for Quinlan to not burst out in a deep guffaw.
What in the world had she just sputtered? Suffer the mess of—what was that? Oh, and to boot, she clearly thought to be taken seriously. He bit against the bubble of laughter as his anger eased. Thankfully, Danny was the first to cave. A small chuckle escaped, which he attempted to cover with a cough.
“Ailyn, dinna fash yourself, lass,” Quinlan said, reaching for her as she stormed away.
“Ah, let her go,” Danny said. “I’ve enough to attempt without her interfering.”
Quinlan knew defeat when it stared him in the face, and Danny wore it well. “Fair enough. Mayhap you can start with what the two of you are really after.”
“Fine. But you’ll be helping me look for signs of treachery as I tell ye. Someone was in our midst this morn, and years’ worth of research I’ve collected are gone.”
Ailyn disappeared past a copse of trees, likely heading to her horse, or perhaps the stream. Quinlan trusted she’d have the good sense to come back, so he nodded to Danny. “What items? You’re certain someone was here?”
“Parchments, and aye, I’ve no idea who, but I have a guess as to how as well as why. You’ll not like my conclusions any more than aught else I’ve to share, though.”
The knowledge that someone was in their camp at all unnerved him beyond words. Anger would serve them little at this point, but he couldn’t help but blame Quinlan. He’d utterly failed his watch. He was mad at himself. He counted himself as a light sleeper, vigilant even during rest. He’d failed as well.
They strode the perimeter of the site, beginning at the north end, looking for tracks of any sort. Even signs of covering tracks would do to affirm that someone had entered the camp right under their noses. Did Ailyn have her dagger? Aye, it had been strapped to her thigh through the night.
“What sort of parchments exactly?” He itched to share details of the parchment Jamison had found, to tell Danny of the drawing that he suspected matched Ailyn’s pendant. Except he’d not seen her pendant since, and verified as much.
“I’ll be asking you to bear in mind who my sister is. Better yet, the gifts you’ve witnessed in her. She is dedicated to the old ways. Some five years ago, on the eve of Ostara, I came upon a shimmering light I’ve never witnessed or heard speak of.” Danny paused a moment and seemed to search for the right words. “You never told me what you came to share with us.”
Quinlan winced.
Danny jabbed his left side ribs. “A whopping lie, it was, aye?”
He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around Danny’s mercurial moods. Hopefully, once he knew the truth of matters, the man’s reactions would seem logical. “Aye, I should have known you saw through me when you didn’t press me for it.”
Danny shrugged. “Why press? You were here, just as Breanne predicted. I had a wee bit more on my mind, you ken.”
“Breanne predicted, you say?” Quinlan’s gaze fell to the wee bit Danny gestured toward. Ailyn had seated herself on a far rock and was finishing the thick braid of her hair. She tethered it and faced them, her jaw set with determination.
“She’s Fae, Quinlan,” Danny said.
“Are you addled?” The words sent a warm shiver over Quinlan’s back despite his utter disbelief. “What in shite are you spewing, Danny?”
They’d come full circle with nary a sign of man or beast entering or exiting the camp, save themselves. Quinlan gave up the search. His attention swung from Danny to Ailyn in the distance, and back to Danny.
“I swear it. Faerie. The hill folk. Sidhe. The night you found her she’d passed through her world into ours. But she isna the only one who came through.”
His mind spun, stopped, then spun again. “I’m taking her back to Tir Conaill. I dare you to try to stop me.”
He strode toward Ailyn, who had her back to them.
“Quin, wait. You dinna believe me, I ken as much. But at least listen before you judge.”
Quinlan shook Danny’s grip off his arm as the man caught up with him and tried to stop him. Ailyn stood up and faced them, her brow wrinkled with confused concern.
“Tell him,” Danny insisted.
“Nay. Tell me nothing. Gather your things. I’m taking you back to where you’ll be safe.” He shot Danny a look with the last remark. He meant to quell even the notion of resistance.
But Ailyn wasn’t moving. She merely stood there looking from Danny back to him. “What did you say?” she asked Danny.
“That you are of the Fae realm. He doesna believe me.”
Quinlan didn’t like the fear that passed over her face. Or the resolved set of her chin when she met his gaze. “Ailyn, if we leave now, we’ll be back before nightfall. You’ll be safe.”
“I am safe.”
“You canno’ force her, Quin. You’ll either listen, join us, or leave yourself,” Danny said, taking position at Ailyn’s side.
Quinlan shook his head. “He’s mad, Ailyn. How can you think you’re safe? Do you realize someone entered our camp as we slept this morn?”
Her gaze swung to Danny.
“Aye, and none of us detected it.”
“You’ll make her think I fell asleep, put like that.” Danny faced Ailyn. “Whoever came through here had powers enough to conceal himself from all of us.”
“What did he take?”
She asked the question as though she not only believed Danny, but also knew who had been here. Why was she not at all disconcerted? Quinlan scrubbed his hand over his face. By his life, with each passing moment, he recalled less and less his cause to come here. A drawing? What more? This woman did something to him. She sent his mind into a frenzy. He was behaving like some lovesick fool, blind to reality.
He had done so once before. He knew the signs, and he knew the outcome—pain staring him in the face. Pain there waiting all along, but before, he refused to see it. No matter how odd the idea felt now, he had once wanted Breanne with every ounce of his being and thought she returned that love. When she chose Ashlon, it had crushed Quinlan. Not only because he did not win her heart, but, in hindsight, that fact was there for him to see all along. He simply had refused to.
He would not make such a mistake here.
He would not project what he wished for in his most secret thoughts onto a reality that very clearly did not support it. He wanted her. Instead of entertaining the impossible, he would offer her safety. If she refused that, the lot of them be damned.
They were on their own. Quinlan turned on his heel.
“Aye. Leaving is your favorite trick,” Ailyn called at his back.
Quinlan halted, spinning back around. “What’s that?” Heat shot up his face and neck.
“It is your favorite trick,” she said again. “Dislike the silly lass’s actions, leave her. Canno’ handle the situation yourself, speedily depart.”
The heat increased tenfold. “Are you suggesting I’ve a habit of abandoning you, lass, because by my recall I’ve done naught but aid you at each step, saving you
r pretty neck more than once.”
She shrugged. “You do come back; I’ll give you that much.”
Jabbing a hand in Danny’s direction, he scoffed. “Come back, she says. Have you any idea the trouble this woman attracts? Or what foolishness I’ve witnessed in her actions? She clobbered a wolf one moment, and the next swore it was a pet. She makes no sense at all.”
Danny’s eyebrows rose, but to his credit, he kept his mouth shut.
“I need you here, Quinlan.” Ailyn closed the small gap between them. “Danny doesna lie. And, aye, hard it will be to believe, but I am not one of you. It terrifies me to admit as much, but you’ve shown me nothing but kindness and honor. I choose to trust what I see and ask you to stay.”
Folding his arms, Danny moved to speak, then apparently thought better of it, likely because of the look Ailyn shot him—one Quinlan could only imagine from his current vantage point. It did the job; that he could see instantly. Damn it all, but the fact intrigued him.
Ailyn returned her attention to him, her eyes searching his. “I canno’ force you to stay and I will not beg, but I will ask you to consider what I say first.”
Her lips seemed pinker than before. A flush crept into her cheeks. It wasna easy for her to ask him, was it? Finally, Quinlan nodded. He’d hear her out. And if her madness matched Danny’s, he’d have to wish them well and depart. He’d no wish to live inside the constant swing of reacting to what disaster might next strike this woman’s journey.
“When you found me, soaked and stumbling in the dead of night, I’d passed into your world but moments before. Passed is a generous term, really. More like chased. Maera is my liege.” She paused until he nodded. “She is to inherit the throne. A truce between all four Fae tribes, called three generations past, will come to an end unless Maera accepts certain duties.”
“A betrothal,” Danny added. “Much like any clan in our world, except in Fae law, birth order, blood magick, and so much more take precedence. This has been worked out generations past through prophecy and agreements.”
Ailyn shook her head. “He doesn’t need the history, Daniel.” She looked back to Quinlan, her eyes again searching his. Beseeching. “You saved my life by protecting me from that rite. You are right about the wolf, too. I did clobber him. Trust me, he deserved it. He is no pet, but that is another tale entirely. Please just know this. A man so vile I haven’t the words has come through to your world as well. He means to destroy me. To destroy you. To destroy all that is mortal. To take back this world and rejoin what our ancestors cleaved in two for our individual race’s protection.”
Quinlan crossed his arms. He wanted to believe her. But how could he? Better yet, if he did believe her, would it not be a death wish to then stay?
She struggled with her words, worrying her mouth and taking a breath.
“Ailyn is the key to stopping him.”
Her forehead wrinkled up deeply over that. “I am not the key, Daniel. Her hand went to her chest. “But I do hold the key.”
“And you are the only one who can use it,” Danny rejoined, which earned him another look that Quinlan envied him for.
She looked beyond fetching when irked. Fiery. Fierce. The part of her was showing through that had braved knocking a huge, ravenous wolf upside the head, then calling it a pet. The part of her he’d first seen when she’d knocked him onto his arse and tried to slit his throat.
Images flashed in his mind. Maera’s wings. Ailyn’s strange, warriorlike garb, the glint of her pendant that could be more than the sunlight’s reflection on facets. Much of what she’d said. Much of how she behaved. The pieces moved, flitted, and rearranged themselves through his mind under the possibility that Ailyn was not of this world.
“What do you mean, you have the key?” Quinlan asked.
Aye, Ailyn not being of this world would explain much. His rational mind grappled with it, but only because he’d stopped believing in such things at some point. Or mayhap because the woman he faced did not match up at all with the Fae of his imaginings.
In all his life, he never guessed that sidhe folk could look as human as he. What a good, sly trick on men to make the mischief-makers able to blend in so well.
Ailyn tipped her head at his question and pursed her lips. He decided she was searching for the right words until she reached down into her tunic and pulled out her pendant. The teardrop-shaped stone glowed a pale, bright green in the morning sun. Against her palm, the light seemed to burn from its center outward.
Ailyn looked at Danny, in silent warning, then drew the stone to her lips. She shut her eyes, her mouth forming silent words. Opening her eyes, she blew on the stone.
Quinlan sucked in a gasp of air as soft green sparkles floated off the gem like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze. One of the sparks became a tiny butterfly that lived three wing beats, then wisped away, vanishing.
Magick.
He reached for the pendant unconsciously. Ailyn pulled away, her fist closing over the gem. She softly shook her head, tucking it back into her tunic.
“You canno’ touch it,” Danny said gravely. “No one can save Ailyn.”
“The man who wants it must be able to,” Quinlan said, aiming to poke a hole in Danny’s logic.
“Nay. Not even him.” Danny looked in the distance, his expression sober. For a moment, he appeared far wiser than his years could justify.
He thought of the drawing he’d seen, and opened his mouth to share as much when something else sank in. “Then why didn’t he take her along with whatever else he came for?”
Ailyn and Danny exchanged a look. Ailyn shivered, turning away.
“I dinna ken,” Danny said.
“Because he doesn’t know I have it,” Ailyn said over her shoulder, facing the sun. The light crowned her hair, giving it a pinkish red hue akin to a summer sunset.
“But if he did—”
“Once he does,” Danny interrupted, then nodded, “he’ll take her, to be sure.” He came to stand next to Quinlan, clapping him on the shoulder. “And that, friend, is where you fit in.”
Ailyn looked down a moment, then faced them. “I’m brown-blooded. I have little magick in my world, and far less in yours. I’m trained. You’ll not be burdened with a lamb is all I mean, but if I’m to stop him and get to what I need to get to, I’ll need to be able to fight.”
“You’re asking me to teach you?” He looked at Danny also, to be certain.
“We both know I can wield a blade, but I canno’ improve her skills there,” Danny said. “I can help her amplify the magick.”
Quinlan scowled. “But you both have decided that I can.”
Danny shrugged one shoulder. Ailyn looked askance. Not the eager reassurance he was seeking, to be sure. “I’m all you got, is that it?”
“Nay, I’ve got plenty,” Danny said, giving him a wide grin. “Least I will, once I get my pages back. You’re all she’s got, though.”
Ailyn had given them her back again and strode toward the horses. Quinlan’s mind seemed to be plummeting under a well of watery information and far too much emotion. A choice lay at the bottom. Stay.
Or go.
As if any real choice remained.
Chapter Fifteen
The vestiges of her dream drifted through her mind and heart long after they departed for another day’s ride. The might reach the Giant’s Causeway by nightfall. Daniel—she no longer thought of him as Danny; the name seemed unfitting—and Quinlan spent most of their time brooding, then talking, then brooding more.
Not that she could blame them.
There was much to be taken in. Daniel shared what he could about their goal, about what was contained in the missing pages. Quinlan focused on what could be done to better hide from this man who wanted the bloodstone. He had little choice but to trust Ailyn’s certainty of who sought it—and her.
Ailyn wanted quiet. The beating hooves, the hushed timbre of their voices, the roar of her mind as it shouted for understanding.
She couldna be certain, though, and that sent her mind into a bit of a fit. Her scalp felt itchy with it. Her shoulders tensed. A good, long scream might be the only thing to bring real relief.
Quinlan would stay. She was so relieved; Ailyn inevitably circled back to that fact repeatedly. He agreed to teach her what he could by way of mortal combative skill;, perhaps he would hone what skills she already had.
Training would keep her busy, and mayhap she would learn a move or two to fell her brother onto his knavish arse. She blamed Colm for these recent events. If he’d listened to her about the sacred pool. If he’d not become a wolf. If he had not conspired with Maera, and how she wished she knew the how, why, and what of their plans.
Colm would be here, at her side, helping her see her true role in this. He could protect her, and she him. Kristoph was so powerful. Did her brother have any idea who else had come through to this world? Had he any inkling the fate to which he had condemned them?
Ailyn sighed in exasperation. There her mind went again, churning with irritation. She had to come to terms with what was—to simplify it all so that her mind could focus. Ride hard, retrieve the stones, and protect them She watched Quinlan’s back. Every so often, he would glance back at her, his gaze intense. Daniel would send her nods.
He meant to help her find magick here. She found that laughable. Not because she doubted his ability to do so, but because this world felt dry of magick. Parched of any sort of source energy. Even the lush, green, rolling landscape felt flat compared to her vibrant, nigh pulsing, homeland.
