The Embers of Light

by Tammy Farrell

  This was not the reaction Malcolm had expected. And judging by Seren’s laugh, his face must have shown it. “Do you understand what I am telling you?” Malcolm asked in disbelief. “I killed my guardian, the only Dia I’d ever known as a father. I took his power, and then cheated his niece of hers…and raped her.” Malcolm froze. He couldn’t believe he’d said it. Couldn’t believe he’d just said it to another woman. Somewhere deep within him, he thought he felt relief.

  Seren smirked and leaned back on one hand. “A vengeful woman,” she said. “It doesn’t take a scholar to know why she took your Light. I just wanted to hear it from you myself.”

  That’s when Malcolm noticed the incredible calm he felt. His stomach no longer ached. Neither did his hand. He reached in his boot and took out the dagger he’d used to kill Bram and lunged for Seren’s throat, pinning her to the ground. She fell back easily with a laugh.

  “Stop messing with my head, you witch,” he growled. “How did you get me to tell you all of that?”

  Seren smiled and wiggled seductively beneath him. “I’m a Seiren, Malcolm.” She tapped the side of her head. “Or have you forgotten? Men are moldable at my will.”

  Malcolm pressed the blade to her throat harder, his body trembling with rage. “You know steel can kill a Dia. I know from experience,” he growled angrily.

  Seren’s eyes flashed. “But you won’t kill me, Malcolm. You need me. And you like me.”

  In an instant she had Malcolm on his back and the blade, stolen from his grasp, held at his throat. “I’m too fast for you to kill me,” she said triumphantly.

  Malcolm took tumultuous breaths and gave a laugh at his own defeat. “You won’t be so sure of yourself once I get my Light back.”

  Seren arched a brow. “I’m sure that’s true. But for now, as I see it,” she looked from side to side, “you are under my control.”

  Malcolm’s heart raced, and despite himself, his body reacted to Seren’s sudden attack. The wicked smile that stretched across her lips revealed she noticed it, too. She wriggled back and forth on top of him, torturing him with the motion.

  “What are you doing?” he asked breathlessly, trying to stop his cock from rising.

  With one hand she undid the top laces of her dress so that a milky breast with a dark round nipple popped out. “How long has it been since you’ve felt the touch of a woman, Malcolm?” She kept the dagger at his throat, though lax, and leaned in. “And I mean touched,” she breathed. She swiftly grasped his good hand and shoved it up her skirt.

  “Get off of me.” Malcolm wanted to pull his hand away, but he was as hard as steel beneath his trousers, and the more she rocked back and forth on top of him, the more he thought he would explode. The months—nay years—it had been since he’d set his hands on a woman came rushing back to him in one deliciously painful moment. His face became hot as he gave in to her and let his fingers slide inside the warm crevice between her legs, poking and prodding until a low moan escaped her lips.

  “That’s it, Malcolm,” she breathed, rocking back and forth.

  Seren threw her head back and moaned again as Malcolm thrust his hand inside her. The harder she breathed, the harder he became, and when her body clutched him, his also let go, sending him over the edge with a surge of shudders.

  The knife dropped to the ground and Seren rolled beside him, her cheeks flushed. Malcolm stayed pinned by an invisible hand as his lungs burned for air and his mind grasped to understand what had just happened. “Why?” was all he could manage to say, his body so relaxed he could fall asleep.

  Seren sat up and laced up her dress. “Well,” she said, not looking at him immediately. “First, I wanted to show you that even if you don’t get your Light back, a man with one hand is better than a man with none.” She winked. “And second, I like you. I like you very much.” Her smile may have been meant to comfort him, but it unsettled him more than anything.

  He composed himself and sat up. “You mean to tell me that I’ve just told you I’m a murderer and a rapist, and you like me?”

  Seren laughed. “D’you think you’re the only man who’s taken advantage of a less than randy maid?” She laughed harder. “By the gods, Malcolm, if I’ve ever met a man who hadn’t poked his stick in the wrong fox hole at least once, let them strike me down now.”

  Malcolm frowned at her. He’d never been horrified by his own actions before, but her flippant acceptance of them was more than a little disturbing. Malcolm shook his head and turned away from her, hoping he was no longer under her spell. An uncomfortable silence fell over them and hovered there until they heard a screeching cry overhead. The large raven swooped down, and just before its talons touched the ground, it transformed into Tristan, his feet landing with a thud. He stood with a smirk on his face.

  “What did you find?” Malcolm asked, getting to his feet, hoping Tristan hadn’t seen what they’d just done.

  “There are many of them,” Tristan said.

  “How many?” Seren asked.

  Malcolm answered before Tristan could respond. “Seven. And a child.”

  “Yes,” Tristan said. “But two of them, a stocky man and one with a scar on his face, have taken the child somewhere west. The older Dia, the one with the beard, has left with a woman.”

  “Which woman?” Malcolm asked.

  “The queen, I’d imagine,” Tristan said. “The one with the black hair and eyes that could cut through a man.”

  “Where did they go?” Malcolm asked.

  Tristan shrugged. “They headed southwest. Though something is wrong with her. She looks weak.”

  “Interesting,” Seren said.

  “And the other three? What of them? The warrior, his blond friend, and a young woman with a scar beneath her eye?” Malcolm asked impatiently.

  “They remain,” Tristan said.

  Malcolm rubbed his chin and began to pace. “From seven to three,” he said. “And Mara is gone. But for how long?” He stopped and looked up at the mountain again. It would take him hours to climb it, and doing so meant he was running the risk of being discovered. Corbin would surely kill him where he stood if he had the chance.

  “What do you plan to do?” Seren asked.

  Malcolm looked to Seren and Tristan and a wave of uncertainty came over him. Were they truly trying to help him? He knew Tristan was merely following his sister, and would take no risks for Malcolm. So how could he use them to his advantage?

  “You must go up there.” Malcolm said to the both of them. “Walk right up to the sidhe as you are, and beg for shelter.”

  Seren raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “You expect us to simply walk up there?”

  Malcolm nodded. “Yes. Corbin is a bleeding heart. Trust me. A real knight in shining armor, he thinks he is. He’ll take pity on you. And without Mara or the ancient there to protest, you can distract him while I search for my body.”

  “It’s in a vault,” Tristan said with a wry smile. “Locked beneath their throne room. I saw the warrior go down there this morning.”

  Malcolm stopped pacing, his heart hastened with excitement as he looked hard at Tristan. “You’re certain of this?”

  Tristan nodded. “I didn’t go down there myself, but it’s the only place it could be.”

  “Thank you,” Malcolm said with all sincerity.

  Tristan shrugged indifferently. “When do you want us to go up?”

  “Now,” Malcolm said. “Now is my only chance.” He turned to Seren, looking her up and down. “Do your powers work on Dia?” he asked, avoiding Tristan’s inquisitive stare.

  Seren’s lips curled. “I guess we’ll have to find out.”

  Drake halted the horses at the foot of an endless mass of dark forest. Lush green ash and sycamore trees crowded the ancient sessile oaks, and the smell of damp earth saturated the air. Drake left the horses loose to graze on the grass in the clearing, and reached for Mara’s hand.

  “You look like some life has come back to you,” he observed.<
br />
  Mara nodded. “I feel much better, thank you.”

  And she did. Almost as soon as they’d lost sight of the mountains, her senses had returned to her and the cloud in her mind had lifted. It was a curious thing, and only added to her suspicion that something or someone was trying to extinguish her Light. Now she could think clearer than ever, and rallied her strength to find answers.

  Drake guided her through the sheltered forest where bits of starry sunlight poked past the leaves, and lemony wood warblers trilled their songs high up on the branches.

  “How do you know they’re still here?” Mara asked.

  Drake looked down and tucked her arm around his. “Stop for a minute and let your senses guide you,” he said. “Can you feel them? Their energies give off a gentle warmth. And if you listen carefully, you can hear the faint whirr of centuries trapped in time.”

  Mara stood perfectly still, separating the many sounds of the forest with the subtle breath of preternatural life that caught her ear. It was like the hum of the other Dia she’d felt at Ayrith, but this one was indistinct, as though intentionally concealed. She gave Drake a nod. “They are here,” she said calmly. “Are you certain they will welcome us?”

  Drake tilted his head. “So long as their minds have not fallen victim to time, or their hearts not taken by darkness, I imagine they will.”

  Drake’s tone was certain, but Mara noticed his hand on the hilt of his sword as they continued to walk forward into the blackness.

  “Just how ancient are they?” Mara asked, trying to ease the tension.

  “More than a millennium,” Drake said. “Quite possibly the oldest living Dia left.”

  “And will they die?” Mara asked. “Won’t they die once they pass a millennium?”

  Drake nodded. “Aye. One would think—” he began, but he was interrupted by a melodious voice echoing through the trees.

  “But one would be mistaken,” the woman chimed.

  Mara and Drake stopped, their eyes raking the forest, when no more than twenty feet away, a man and woman stepped in front of them on the path. “Who goes in our forest?” asked the male, whose young countenance belied the gravity of his voice. “Do my eyes deceive me, Eira, or can this be our old friend Draca?” he said, speaking Drake’s name in the old tongue.

  “I believe so, Silas,” said Eira.

  “It is,” Drake said with a slight nod of respect. “Many thanks to find you alive and well.”

  “And who have you brought with you?” Eira asked. She took a step closer, followed by her companion. Both were quite possibly the most beautiful creatures Mara had ever seen. Neither made any attempt to veil their unearthly nature. Eira was a tall, slender woman with deep citrine eyes peering from an oval face, and skin so impeccably smooth that she looked wholly inhuman. She wore a circlet of silver atop her golden hair, and cuffs of ornate silver on her wrists.

  The man, Silas, exhibited the same unnatural air. His short sandy hair burnished flecks of sunlight, and he blinked his exquisite brown eyes at Mara with a kind but curious stare. The long robe he wore was from some other world, Persian perhaps. It was black fabric covered in a golden conical thread and belted at the waist.

  Drake took Mara’s hand. “This is Mara,” he said.

  Like Drake, Mara gave a slight bow of respect. “We’ve come to seek your help,” she said.

  Eira and Silas moved closer so that they were now only a few feet away, staring at them as if through reflective glass. Mara shuddered under their scrutinizing gaze.

  Finally, after a long moment of inspection, Eira and Silas both bent their knees in a bow, and when they looked up, the uncomfortable tension lifted with their smiles.

  Silas lifted Mara’s hand and kissed it. “You’ve brought us our queen, Draca,” he said, his eyes shifting to Drake.

  “Yes,” Drake said. “She is Ethnea’s daughter.”

  Eira lifted a golden brow but her expression showed no surprise. “Of that I can see,” she said, looking Mara over, her eyes landing on the stone around her neck. “The first daughter of our kind to inherit the Ruler’s stone.” A sympathetic smile warmed her slender face. “Which means Ethnea is no longer of this earth.”

  “No,” Drake said, liberating Mara from having to speak of it.

  “How did it happen?” Silas asked.

  “An execution,” Drake said. “Burned at the stake.”

  Silas and Eira exchanged troubled looks. “It’s hard to imagine one so strong perishing in such a way,” Eira said. “But we are always prey to the flames. Always,” she said woefully. She laced her hands in front of her. “I am sorry for your mother, Mara. She was a courageous spirit.”

  “Thank you,” Mara said.

  “Please.” Silas made a gesture toward the forest. “Follow us. You will be our guests. It’s been some time since we’ve had contact with others of our kind.”

  Mara and Drake followed the ancient Dia through the forest. They walked at a mortal pace, taking their time while Drake recounted to Silas and Eira his years lost under Ethnea’s spell, her death and Malcolm’s defeat, leaving out the tale of the body now housed in the vault. Silas nodded thoughtfully, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Eira and Silas showed no surprise that Drake had chosen Ayrith as their new home. “It’s the only place fit for a queen,” Silas said to Mara with a nod.

  Before Drake could tell them about the new Dia and Ailwen’s strange power, they arrived at a grand stone cottage with a wooden roof, in the middle of the forest.

  “Can mortals see this place?” Mara asked, looking up at the structure.

  “They can,” Silas said, holding open the door for her. “We’ve not been troubled to hide from mortals for ages. They have little reason to come here.”

  The inside of the cottage was filled with ornate couches, chairs, and expertly woven tapestries depicting Egyptian and Greek scenes of gods and wars. Mara’s eyes darted from one thing to the next, looking over the time capsule of treasures. The ancient Dias’ travels came alive in this place.

  Eira smiled proudly at Mara’s reaction, walked over to the sideboard and filled several glass cups with wine. “We’ve spelled the forest, you see, not the cottage. Mortals see a lovely forest, and simply walk past it,” she said, moving her fingers to demonstrate.

  Mara and Drake took a seat, glasses of wine in hand, while Eira and Silas sat across from them. Their stares were intimidating, these two ancient Dia, and Mara suddenly wished she had Corbin with her. But as they sat a moment in silence, sipping from their cups, Mara reminded herself that despite the age of these two beings before her, she was the Keeper—and their queen.

  She straightened her back and raised her chin. “We have come to seek your guidance,” she said in her most regal tone.

  “Oh?” Eira said. “I’m not sure how we can help you, but by all means, please tell us what brings you here.”

  Mara looked sidelong at Drake and began. “I am the Keeper of the coire,” she said, and paused.

  Silas and Eira nodded.

  “I would imagine as such, given your mother’s station as Keeper,” Silas said.

  Mara glanced at Drake. “You knew my mother had the coire?” she asked. “I was under the impression Keepers guarded their secret.”

  Eira nodded. “They usually do,” she said. “But your mother once sought our help, and in exchange, she gave us true immortality.”

  Mara did her best to mask her surprise. “What is the true immortality?” she asked.

  Silas ran a hand through his sandy hair. His face, though serious, had a boyish charisma that Mara found unsettling. “It means the Otherworld will not call to us as it has to so many of our kind,” he said. “Years will not weaken our Light. So long as we avoid the flames, we are truly immortal.”

  Mara nodded. “And this power comes from the coire?”

  “Yes,” Silas said. “The Keeper is the only key to the gateway. They guard immortality, can restore life. So, you can see why it
’s such a precarious position to hold.” His eyes fell on Mara’s neck. “The coire is a talisman that gives life. The Ruler’s stone is a talisman of judgment, meant to take life and Light away.”

  “They balance each other,” Eira said, the jewels on her dress catching light as she shifted. “Like dark and light, these two treasures balance life and death.” Her face suddenly darkened. “They were never meant to be controlled by one Dia.”

  “But now they are,” Silas said musingly.

  Mara eyed them for a moment, trying to interpret their expressions, but these ancient beings had such little humanity left in them, she might as well have been reading the faces of statues. “You are ancients,” Mara said. “Why don’t either of you have the stone or the coire? Why me?”

  Silas regarded her with sympathy for a moment. “That answer is simple, child. We don’t want it.”

  Eira got to her feet to fill their cups. “It was presented to us, you see. Ethnea offered it to each of us, desperate to be rid of the dueling powers.”

  “But we refused,” Silas finished. “Like us, she wanted a peaceful life. And the one who carries the power of either charm will never attain it.” Silas rubbed his chin. “This is why no Keeper has survived. They can’t sustain their immortal lives under the weight of the power. And one who carries both, well…” he said ominously, “that would be a life of unadulterated chaos.”

  Mara’s heart sank and a wave of regret came over her. If her life was meant to be chaos, then that meant the lives of those around her would be chaos as well.

  “What did you help my mother do?” Mara asked.

  Silas took in a controlled breath and set his cup down on the table. “We were never to speak of it, I’m afraid.” He flashed a look of warning at Drake.

  Drake leaned forward. “You must tell her, Silas. Why else would I bring her here?”

  “I do not know, Draca. I find myself questioning your motives, as it were,” Silas said, the hint of a long held rivalry in his voice. “Are you the girl’s guardian?”