“She sang as the sun dipped into the ocean, leaving vast purple streaks across the sky. Beneath her feet, the earth trembled against the onslaught of the sea.
“She could submit to her father’s choice and live in the far north, where summer sparkled briefly between long months of bitter cold and sunless skies. Refuse, and he would doubtless force her, at the point of a sword if necessary. Or she could die. Everyone would believe it an accident, and there would be no shame on his house.
“Keeping her gaze centered on the clouds, speaking a prayer for her soul and family, she jumped.”
Morrigan’s hands flexed, relaxed, and flexed again. Falling. Water cold as knife-blades.
“The sea surged around her, yet almost immediately, something pushed her to the surface, to a glint of watered rubies and starlight. She saw the face she loved. The face she never saw in the day. The one who existed, yet, perhaps, did not.
“He carried her from the sea and placed her on the sand. The songs you sang brought me to you, he said. I thought no harm would come of it, and I could not keep away. But I was wrong. Now we love each other and you have chosen death.
“For Eamhair, his voice merged into the towering rocks and blackening sky. She heard the music, not the words.
“You and I can never marry, her lover said. We can never live as other people do.
“Eamhair brushed his warning away like grains of sand from her skin. This path is marked by my unknowable destiny, she said. I cannot escape it.
“Her lover was also a king. He ruled over the vast, spraying ocean. Though he’d proven himself wise, strong, a ferocious warrior when necessary, he hadn’t the strength or ferocity to leave her, nor could she leave him. She pledged herself to him there, near the ocean at the tip of Scotland.
“When she returned to the fort, she stood before her father’s council and refused his decree. For days after, he and her brothers threatened her, shut her away without food, and made excuses to the northland man. But he saw she would never submit. The ill-concealed giggles of serving maids and the mockery of the other suitors rankled. He gave his host an ultimatum. Either the beauteous Eamhair would apologize by the following morning and accept that she was now married to his master, or he would return home and inform his king that the offer had been rebuffed. He is proud, the man warned. He will likely declare war with you over this, and he will lay waste to everything you possess.
“The chief whipped his daughter. He threatened starvation, and, with fair imagination, described the lives of slave women in far-away godless lands, hinting that she might meet a similar fate.
“But Eamhair would not be moved. I have given away what you think is most valuable about me. I will love no other, and I will die before another touches me.
“The northern king’s surrogate left. So did the other would-be suitors. They were no longer interested in Eamhair, calling her used goods, and spoiled.
“Eamhair’s father raged over his willful daughter’s defiance. She had made him a buffoon. Now he must go to bed at night terrified the northern king would appear at the head of an avenging army. His life was turned upside down, because of a woman. His wife pleaded for mercy, and received his fist in her face.
“Eamhair’s lover, in his magical way, passed through the thick oak doors and high walls of her tower prison. He waited in shadows, waking her with his thoughts, his need.
“Before long, a child quickened within her.”
Ah, Morrigan thought. The imprudent girl could no longer make choices for herself alone. She would have to consider the helpless, dependent one growing inside her. Eamhair might be willing to die rather than be sold to the northern king, but now, if she died, so would this child.
If her father but knew it, he possessed the most powerful weapon that could be conceived to force his daughter’s obedience.
“It was an offence to Eamhair’s father that she continued to breathe,” Mackinnon said. “Since beating and whipping had no effect, the chief gave the order for his sons to kill her. They dragged Eamhair down the stairs and out of the fort. They forced her to the precipices and threw her over, laughing as she plummeted, and went home to receive their father’s praise.
“Eamhair lay on the rocks, bleeding. After some time she heard a seal bark, and managed to turn her head and look towards the sea. There was a currach on the beach, and beside it eight seals. Her arms were not broken, though both legs were. She was able, slowly and with great pain, to pull herself to the boat and lift herself inside. The seals pushed her out onto the water.
“Currents swept Eamhair far from land. Storm clouds built and the wind rose, but the seals guided the boat to an uninhabited island.
“One of them swam closer. As he drew near he transformed in the ancient way. He became a man, her lover. The king of the seal clans.
“He placed his hand on Eamhair’s stomach and felt the movement of his child. She saw his joy, and though she was suffering, she felt joy as well.
“You will be free and happy, the seal-king promised. Our child will inherit my kingdom.
“In the secret way no human knows, the seal changed Eamhair, and in the changing, healed her wounds and broken bones. Together the lovers swam away, and were never seen upon the land again.”
“I’ve not heard that particular tale before, Aodhàn.” Seaghan drank a swig of whisky and passed him the cup. Aodhàn only shrugged.
Seaghan turned to Morrigan. “Do you understand now why it’s such bad luck to kill a seal? One can never know which might be beast, and which might be human, and we Scots do love a good romance.”
Morrigan stared at the dark-eyed, long-whiskered creature in the water. She imagined him stepping out of the ocean, water running off his pale skin, regarding her from eyes like sunlight through waves. He seized her in his wet, cold arms and pulled her down to his sea kingdom.
Mackinnon’s tale spun a web that left the actual world little more than a dry, colorless shell.
The seals swam away. Seaghan poured the final dregs of whisky and gave Morrigan the last bannock. Morrigan fondly contemplated her companions. Seaghan was an enormous man with hands capable of inflicting fatal damage, yet he also owned a most gentle voice and kind eyes. He reminded her of a sweet-tempered Clyde. Mysterious Aodhàn told a story so well she wished she could slip into his fantasy. He seemed a dark member of the daoine sìth. Didn’t legend say they were taller than human men, with skin like ivory? And hadn’t she clearly seen the faery luminescence emanating from him more than once?
“You’re a grand seanchaidh, Mackinnon,” she said unevenly. “Your tale was so real, I saw you living it, and me as well.”
Mackinnon’s regard remained unsmiling, yet there was something in his eyes— Agnes would scraich that he was casting his glamour. Oh aye, Morrigan felt it worming through her flesh, seeking her soul. At this moment Curran seemed far away, not of her world or Mackinnon’s.
Seaghan laughed, breaking through the spell. “It’s shen-a-chee. You must learn how to speak properly if you want to live in these mountains.”
He leaned back on his elbows, stretching out his legs, and sang:
“I am a man upon the land.
I am a selkie in the sea,
And when I’m far from any strand,
My home is in Sule Skerry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE REVERBERATING BOOM of the fog-bell at the lighthouse woke Morrigan from a serene, dreamless nap. For one careening moment, she had no memory of where she was, and no amount of blinking could clear her vision. Mist concealed everything except the blanket on which she and Olivia lay.
Someone had covered them with the free side of the plaid, cocooning them in warmth. Giving Olivia a reassuring kiss on the forehead, she stood, putting her daughter against her shoulder and draping the plaid over them both.
She heard nothing but water lapping against the shore, and the muffled cry of a seabird. “Mackinnon?” she ventured. “Seaghan?”
Trepidat
ion began to make its uneasy way through her backbone before she heard Seaghan’s voice, singing the seal-song, and felt her way towards it.
Aodhàn appeared, phantom-like, the mist feathering around him. “I don’t know how we’ll get home in this,” he said, his voice clipped.
Seaghan’s big comforting form materialized. He sent her a surreptitious warning glance from beneath his bushy brows.
She frowned. Aodhàn growled and vanished into the mist as though he’d stepped through a portal and closed the door. The fog swirled and danced, filling in the space where he’d stood.
Seaghan led her to the dinghy. A dead seal lay next to it, half-beached, its skull splintered and crushed, sodden torso undulating with the movement of the water.
“Aye lass.” He steadied her with one great hand. “It’s this has blackened his mood. He admires the beasts more than most.”
“What happened?” She settled into the boat. “It wasn’t here before.”
“Possibly an orca.” He gave the dinghy a mighty shove and joined her. “The tide probably carried it in.”
Aodhàn waded into the water and climbed into the boat. The fog-bell repeated, rumbling through Morrigan’s chest.
When they were on board the Endeavor, Aodhàn lit the lamps, port and starboard, and all three sails were unfurled in hopes of catching any wind. Seaghan worked the tiller to no avail, so they broke out the oars and rowed into open water.
Seaghan tucked the plaid more securely around Morrigan’s shoulders.
“You’re worried for Curran, aren’t you?” she asked, struck by his expression of guilt.
“Aye.”
Since she’d come home from the mountain bothy, Curran had been intensely protective. If only she could send him her thoughts. I’m with braw men who’d give their lives to see me home safely. “So am I,” she said.
He laughed. “You’re to blame for this, you and your red hair. The old superstition is proven. Oh lass, I was only teasing.”
“But it’s true,” said Aodhàn, who sat in the prow, smoking.
“Hist.” Seaghan patted Morrigan’s hand.
“I-I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve gone home.”
“It’s not your fault,” Aodhàn said. “Seaghan’s the one who insisted on bringing you out today. It’s his.”
“The wind will come.” Seaghan went up front to smoke with Aodhàn, and give Morrigan privacy to nurse.
They waited, listening to the wash of water. The thick sea haar swirled; the red and green fog-lights winked slyly. Olivia whined, warning her mother not to hold her so tightly.
Wind did stir with the onset of darkness. Seaghan rose, saying unnecessarily, “Here’s our breeze. Look, it’s clearing.”
She’d already felt it, a swell underneath that caused the boat to roll. The mainsail gave a ponderous flap.
Morrigan stared out at torn wisps of fog and an intermittent star or two as they made their way home. The boat’s sweet-tempered movement and rippling of the waves, accompanied by the murmur of male voices, lulled her into fanciful visions of selkies and wild, copper-haired lasses who loved unwisely.
Mackinnon’s voice came unexpectedly out of the darkness beside her. “You’ve a great trust in us, haven’t you?” As she turned and looked into his face, he added, so quietly she hardly heard, “I cannot bear him having you.” He traced her upper lip with one finger. “But sorrow and death bind you to me.”
At that moment the boat keeled then acquiesced to the pull of the buoy.
“Stop your dreaming, we’re home.” Aodhàn jumped away from her before she could ask what he’d meant.
Seaghan helped her into the dinghy and soon, Morrigan stood once again on Glenelg’s pier.
“Come away, lass,” Seaghan ordered. “We’ll get you and Livvy warm and dry before sending you to Kilgarry.”
He escorted Morrigan to his blackhouse and into a chair near the fireplace. Aodhàn handed her a dry plaid and lit the fire while Seaghan brewed tea. Olivia clasped at the air, gripped Morrigan’s finger, and let her mother know she was again hungry. With the plaid piled high around her and no light but what the blue peat fire offered, Morrigan felt secure enough to accommodate her, yet when she looked up from the baby she caught Aodhàn watching from the shadows by the door. Those colors she’d seen at her wedding feast swirled around him, making her blink as she questioned her sight. Red, aye, dark red, almost brown at the edges, and the red did seem angry, as Diorbhail had described it, throwing showers of sparks.
She was surprised to feel no shame or embarrassment. “Our fine day abandoned us,” she said, needing to break the spell for fear of falling so deeply into it that she could never climb out. “Was it dangerous?”
The colors faded as Aodhàn dropped to the floor and crossed his long legs. “It can be, but Seaghan and I know what we’re doing.”
“Admit it, Aodhàn,” Seaghan said. “You would’ve enjoyed spending the night on that wee rock.” He handed their guest tea, served in what must be the man’s finest cup.
“I might have,” Aodhàn said, and he met Morrigan’s gaze.
She sipped, thinking for some reason of the poor dead creature abandoned against Skye’s coast. Other animals would eat it. Nothing would remain but bones, and finally, not even that.
“I’ll take you home,” Aodhàn said.
“Best let me,” Seaghan said quickly, but Aodhàn shook his head. There was an instant of strained silence as the two men communicated without speaking. Morrigan tensed. Seaghan turned away with a shrug and a barely suppressed hiss.
Mist still clung to the coastline and caught like cotton in the trees. Aodhàn led her with unhesitating sureness, his hand gripping her forearm. He must know every stone and blade of grass around Glenelg.
“How did you meet Curran?” he asked.
“Aunt Ibby brought him to the inn.”
“And why did you marry him? Because he’s wealthy?”
She started to make a retort about his manners, but instead swallowed hard and said, “Because I love him, of course. We fell in love.”
“It wasn’t the child?”
Embarrassment rippled. “Everyone told me I must,” she said and inwardly cursed. Now he would think her not only a female without morals, but a daftie, who had to be ordered, molded, and guided.
His face remained expressionless. Even in the happiest of times, she knew his face would be difficult to read. His distrust was clear, though. What had scarred him?
“Tonight you’re more nymph than girl. One of the Meliae.” He picked a primrose, brushed back her hair, and tucked it above her ear.
She felt the contact of his fingers through her whole body. “Meliae. What is that?”
“They live in ash trees. The Greeks called the honey from those trees méli. That’s how they got their name.”
“Really?”
“They’re the sweeter sisters to the Erinyes, the crones of vengeance.”
“Mackinnon, how do you know these things?”
“You were so certain you had me all puzzled out, neat and tidy, simply from the way I live.”
It was true. She couldn’t deny it. “I’ve been obsessed with the stories of Greece since I learned to read.”
“Of course.” He shrugged as though she’d said something patently obvious. He lifted his brow, slightly mocking, slightly suggestive.
Inside, fear bloomed. Her female senses told her he was deliberately charming her. Though in some shamed part of her imagination she’d secretly wished for it, now that it had come she fought a desire to run away to Curran, her bastion.
“Seaghan told me you vanish for days,” she said. “Traipse the hills, stare out to sea. You forget to eat and fall ill.”
“Seaghan tells more than he should.”
She sensed a withdrawal but continued. “You know the glen? With the cave?”
They stopped. “I saw you there,” he said.
She heard his voice reciting the tale as she met his gaze.
This path is marked by my unknowable destiny. I cannot escape it.
Olivia stirred and yawned. Mist created unworldly chambers of privacy, muffling requirements and rules as it did sound. Perhaps the faeries had whisked them through a magical threshold and they were no longer in the ordinary world at all.
“Have you heard the Mackinnon clan motto?” His voice was low. “It’s older than the clan. Almost as old as Earth itself.”
She shook her head.
“‘Fortune favors the bold.’”
He bent then and kissed her, gripping her shoulders to keep her from fleeing, as part of her wanted to do.
Why did the image of that poor murdered seal flash again through her thoughts?
He might respect Curran Ramsay. He might like him. But in this matter, he could no more restrain himself than he could the sunrise. Mackinnon kissed her because death lay around the next corner; if one gave in to timidity, or respect, or social requirements, one’s only chance might be forever lost.
She closed her eyes and rose up on her toes. But Diorbhail’s face invaded relentlessly. Against the mountain, the seal is powerless.
If Mackinnon is the seal, does that make Curran the mountain?
This is wrong.
Only Olivia separated them, a delicate thread stringing her to Curran, to solemn oaths, and days, weeks, months of shared intimacy.
Once, long ago, Kit had kissed her. At first she’d enjoyed it, but all too soon revulsion had sent her scrabbling away. She still remembered that hurt expression on his face. No such thing happened now, though by rights it should— especially as she was a married woman. Instead she felt herself capitulating, wanting more, no matter the cost. Her legs grew weak and shaky and her breathing shortened. His arms lowered, holding her securely as she started to soften and diffuse.
His mouth moved to her cheek. “You and I,” he said. “For as long as the pyramids stand in Egypt. They’ve always been there. And so will we.”
He cradled the back of her head in one hand and kissed her again. For some reason, this man loved her. He loved her with ferocity and reverence. Aye, she sensed lust in his grip, sensed the effort to hold it in check, but there was more, something deeper, desperate, consuming. It made no sense. Yet it did. His age no longer mattered. His gruffness, his coldness, his reserve. None of it mattered.
The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) Page 53
