by Natalie Grey
When he crumpled, she stood looking at his corpse for a long time, and when she turned away, it was to look at Philip’s body before she met my eyes.
“Did you have to do that?” she asked me.
“Yes.” It was the answer for more reasons than one. “I did.”
“I see.” She considered.
“You upheld your part of the bargain,” she said finally. “And you did what I thought was not possible: you killed him without touching the rest of the hall.”
I nodded, but without any real thought in my mind. I was numb.
Philip was gone. I had never truly conceived of a world where Philip was gone.
“So I find,” Bronach continued, as if she had not noticed my silence, “that I really do feel in your debt after all, Nicola Beaumont.” She picked her way over the bodies and to Daiman’s side. “And with no reason not to do otherwise … I will give you what you asked for from the start.”
She reached out, and touched her fingers to Daiman’s cheek.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I had just enough time to be completely terrified about the idea of an emotional reunion. After all, what the hell was I going to say to Daiman? How could I begin to explain what I had done—or why I was crying about it?
I didn’t even entirely understand that, myself.
Fortunately, before I had the chance, the entire hall descended into chaos.
There was a momentary shift in time, bringing the hall forward instead of merely releasing it from the moment it had been stuck in. The amount of power it took to do so was enough to make me shudder—time wheeled slow-fast behind my eyes again and I stumbled dizzily—but Bronach seemed to have no trouble with it.
She sucked the spells from the air before the magic flying every which way could kill any of the people that were left, and a man’s voice boomed over the screaming assembly:
“Taliesen is no more.”
The screaming stopped. Everyone looked around at one another, and then—terrifyingly—at the two of us: Bronach, her hands raised to shift enough power that I was a bit worried about having set her free, and me, standing over Taliesen’s body.
I had the urge to laugh. It was totally inappropriate, and I knew that if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop—but it was just too funny: Remember me? Disappeared off into a druid rite? Well, I’m back. Killed the Chief Druid, no big deal.
The next moment, every though vanished from my head.
“Nicky?” Daiman pushed his way through the crowd. I was wrapped up in his arms a second later, hugged so tightly that my bones ached. “What in God’s name—how—you’re alive.”
I, much to my own chagrin, found myself sobbing. I tried to speak and couldn’t get out a single word. I buried my face against his chest and squeezed him back and tried to get a grip on myself.
It didn’t work very well.
Around us, a storm was building. Druids were murmuring ominously as they crowded around Bronach.
“I should—I should—” I tried to take a deep breath and only ended up giving myself the hiccups. “I need to explain.”
“Yes.” Daiman kept his body between me and Bronach. “Who is that?”
“Someone Taliesen banished and cursed, long ago.” I shook my head. “Great, now I need a tissue.”
Daiman pulled a handkerchief out of thin air and passed it to me absentmindedly.
“That is one of your best tricks,” I said, with feeling.
“Thank you.” He gave me a flash of a smile, but his gaze was drawn back to where the rest of the druids were still clustered. “Banished and cursed?”
“Yes, she’s….” The crowd parted, and my voice trailed away.
Bronach was nowhere to be seen. In her place stood a man with storm-grey eyes and dark brown hair. His robes were the same rough brown as those I still wore, and he had a very impressive beard.
He gave me a smile.
“I suppose I should introduce myself,” he said, with an almost mischievous smile at me. “Properly, that is. I am Merlin.”
“Merlin?” Daiman and I spoke at the same time.
“He’s lying,” Daiman added at once.
“No.” Morgana gave a long-suffering headshake. “He’s not. That’s Merlin.”
“You don’t have to seem so happy about me being back,” Merlin said drily.
The corners of her mouth twitched. Whatever had been there—rivalry, the prickly pride of two great magic users, or something more—it was clearly laced with affection of some sort.
“So Taliesen was the one who banished you,” Morgana said. “I did always wonder.”
“You didn’t truly think getting caught in a cave was enough to kill me, did you?” Merlin sounded aggrieved.
Morgana only shrugged, her grin threatening to break free again, and there was a round of nervous laughter from the druids assembled. They crowded close.
“And let’s get one thing straight,” Merlin said acidly. He looked around at all of them. “You let a snake into your court. You should have had the sense to know that something was wrong with Taliesen. You should have had the sense to realize that hundreds of years without a new Chief Druid meant something was wrong.”
I heard them murmur faint words in their own defense. He had been clever, a few said. They’d had doubts, only to find them suddenly washed away.
Daiman looked down at me then, though, and the rest of the world seemed to disappear.
“What happened?” he whispered. His eyes searched mine.
“I might ask you the same thing.” I hesitated. “Come outside with me? Away from all of this?”
“Of course.” He released me and took my hand, turning toward the biggest gap in the now-charred walls….
And stopped. He was staring down at Philip’s body.
To his credit, he didn’t say anything. He started walking again, and followed me when I led us up into the hills that surrounded the hall like a bowl.
“Did you know?” I asked him finally. My voice seemed oddly hushed in the morning mist. “Did you know that something was wrong with the rite?”
“Oh, God.” He breathed the words and his head bowed. “No. I should have. I was … worried. You seemed so scared, but Taliesen said that everyone was scared for their rite, and Morgana had administered the first part of it, and….” He shook his head. “I should have known,” he repeated. “What happened?”
“Exactly what you’d guess, more or less.” I found it easy to shrug now. “He threw me into the most dangerous place he could and figured I’d die one way or another. I was locked in some … false domhan fior. I think. It’s all a bit muddled. There was a sea beast, and some nymphs—”
“Nymphs are the worst,” Daiman muttered, with feeling.
I gave a peal of laughter. I could only imagine his own run-ins, and though I felt a twinge of jealousy at the idea of them beckoning him toward the water, it was very funny to see him all grumpy about it afterwards.
But my smile faded. “And it was Merlin—that was the woman you saw, beckoning me away into another world.”
“Merlin was a … woman?” Daiman raised an eyebrow.
“Part of the curse, most likely. Taliesen wouldn’t want anyone to recognize what he’d done, and the curse meant she—sorry, he—couldn’t tell me. She—dammit—he tried to get me to agree to burning the whole hall down around you all.”
“What?” Daiman shook his head. “Okay, slow down. How would there have been time?”
Time. Right.
“Oh. Ah….” I considered. “Tell me what happened in the hall,” I said finally.
Daiman tensed. “There was the conclave,” he said. “That night.”
“No one had noticed that I wasn’t back yet?” My voice was a little sharp.
“I had.” Daiman shook his head. “Lord, but I’m a fool. He wanted that. Two birds—you out of the way, where you couldn’t see what he was doing, and me distracted. He kept telling me it wasn’t necessarily that anyth
ing had gone wrong. That sometimes the rite took some time. But every time he said it, he managed to make it sound like you were dead and he was just telling me lies like you’d tell a child.” His face twisted. “I can’t—I can’t think about it.”
“Right.” I took his hand and squeezed it. My eyes met his briefly: I’m here. I’m alive. “So you had the conclave.”
“People started arguing,” Daiman said. “Morgana was … doing some sort of spell, and there was more anger at Taliesen than I’d ever seen. I think she’d begun to understand that he was casting spells in our minds—unfortunately, he realized that someone was onto him. He sent Farbod and Nimue to guard the doors, and….” He shook his head. “And he started a spell like nothing I’d ever seen. It was dark magic, Nicky, that’s all I know. We reacted, we didn’t have time to do more. We threw power at him but he was impervious, and then—and then you were there, with Merlin, and the bodies were all gone, and….”
He shook his head at me.
“You were frozen in time,” I told him. “When he started that spell, he triggered something that Merlin left behind long ago. Taliesen was trying to sacrifice you all to become a god. Merlin had left a spell, without telling anyone, that would freeze the whole hall if anyone tried that.”
Daiman’s eyebrows shot up.
“I got back from the rite to find the hall frozen,” I told him. “Farbod and Nimue—they weren’t human anymore. They’d been turned into something terrible. In the end … Merlin and I undid the spell together. He couldn’t use his magic, but he could show me how to.”
“And Philip?” Daiman asked quietly.
“I can’t talk about it yet,” I said quietly. “Not yet. I hope that’s all right.”
“It is,” he said. But his brown eyes searched mine, and I got the sense that the questions might eat him alive if I didn’t tell him soon. “Come on. Let’s go back. I’m sure everyone has questions for you.”
There was so much more I wanted to say, but I knew now wasn’t the time.
I didn’t have the words yet. I wrapped my arms around myself and followed him down the hill. “I get my clothes back, right?”
“I don’t know, I kind of like you with cutouts in your shirts.”
“So help me, Daiman Bradach, you get me proper clothes or I will skin you alive.”
His laugh warmed me, and he hugged me against his side as we went back to face the rest of the druids.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I found him later, outside the hall. Merlin was still surrounded by people asking questions about the events of the past 1500 years, and the rest of the druids were treating me with something halfway between wariness and outright terror.
It wasn’t every day a sorceress with death magic showed up and asked to become a druid, after all. And while the whole story of Taliesen hadn’t trickled to everyone yet, Merlin was unequivocal about the fact that I should receive training.
People were very curious, and I was tired of being stared at.
So I went to find Daiman. He was cradling a cup of whiskey in one hand, leaning on one of the big boulders that surrounded the hall and staring into the night sky. I saw him turn his head slightly when he heard my footsteps, but he didn’t speak.
I love you. We might have a child together someday. This has been the most confusing few days of my life. I had any number of good opening lines.
Instead, what I blurted out was, “I gave up on you.”
He turned to face me at that. His surprise was palpable.
“Um … what?”
Well, in his place, I’d have questions, too. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing nerves. I couldn’t exactly back out of telling him this now.
“Merlin told me that whatever was in the hall, whatever had triggered the spell, was an abomination. He told me what they had been trying to do.” I met Daiman’s brown eyes and bit my lip. “He said if we set them free of the time magic, there’d be no way we could fight them. He wanted to destroy the hall while it was frozen in time, and sacrifice all of you with it.”
There was a long silence. Somewhere inside, someone had started a rousing song that was being sung impressively out of tune by a lot of drunk druids.
Daiman’s eyes never wavered from mine.
“And you took the offer,” he said finally.
There wasn’t any way to tell what he thought of that. I wrapped my hands around my own mug and tried to come up with the words.
“Yes,” I said finally. I looked up at him. “I rejected it twice, and then I realized—Philip made me remember—that being a druid was about healing the world, not leading to more brokenness. And if I let them survive, they would break the world.”
He looked down for a moment, as if perhaps his whiskey had answers for him.
“Philip made you realize that?” he asked skeptically, at last.
“He asked what you would do.” I blew out a breath. “He was trying to get you out of the way and I knew that, but he was right. I hated that. I didn’t want to acknowledge it because it was him. And then … I thought about it, and he was right.”
“I know I’m going to regret this,” Daiman said thoughtfully, “but how, exactly, did Philip come to be in that hall with us?”
“I had him captive in the domhan fior.” I told the truth without wavering. I’d decided long ago not to lie about this.
I really was trying to be better.
Daiman blinked at me.
“I knew he had a plan, and I was trying to find out what it was and turn him over to the Acadamh.” I brushed a lock of hair behind my ears. “When the hall was destroyed, he was my only ally—other than Merlin, who was being kind of shady. Merlin convinced me to let him out, and … well, here we are.”
“Nicky.” He sounded almost amused. “You’re turning into an abysmal liar.”
“I killed him,” I burst out. “I killed Philip.”
As if I might be talking about someone else.
I saw the surprise flash across Daiman’s face, but to his credit, he only cleared his throat. “Oh?”
“He wasn’t ever going to stop.” The words tumbled out, one after another. “He only saw the way the world could benefit him, or how it didn’t, and he wasn’t ever going to stop trying to get power. He’s killed for it again and again and again, he had hundreds of chances to change and he never did. We would never be able to trust him. And so I used him to kill Taliesen’s lich … and then I used his life to kill Taliesen.”
I looked down at the ground. I was close to a panic attack at this point.
“Nicky.”
“I know it’s not what you would have done,” I whispered. “But you weren’t there. I didn’t have you to tell me what to do, I had to make the decision, and—”
“It’s not how I would have done it,” he corrected me. “But I’m not sure it was the wrong thing to do. You knew Philip better than anyone. If you tell me that he wasn’t going to change—”
“I gave Terric a chance!” I cried. “He gave me a chance! Why shouldn’t Philip have gotten one?”
He came to look down at me, one arm creeping around my back to pull me a bit closer.
“Maybe for all those reasons you said?” he suggested. “Maybe because you and Terric did what you did not out of a quest for power itself, but for a purpose, and all Philip ever wanted was to remake the world in his own image?”
I swallowed. “I’m still not sure.”
“If it helps … I’d rather you not be sure about things like that.” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “Nicky, you do the best you can in this world. Sacrificing us to defeat a necromancer, a man who wanted to be a god—that was the best plan you had. Killing Philip to kill Taliesen—it was the best plan you had. You tried to take brokenness away.” He kissed me, so softly his lips hardly brushed mine. “And you don’t need me to tell you how to be a good person.”
I stared up into his brown eyes and remembered the sheer terror of turning away from him, pre
tending to take Philip’s offer. I had decided for myself, hadn’t I?
I had chosen, unequivocally, not to listen to the siren call of Philip’s quest for power. To take a new path.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said softly.
Daiman laughed and gathered me up in his arms. “It’s not my belief in you that makes you a good person, you know.”
I smiled against his chest.
“Daiman.”
“Yes?”
We had a child together. The words froze on my tongue. I honestly had no idea how to say this. I looked up and he was staring at me curiously.
“I saw a vision of us together,” I told him. “I saw the life you would have led if you hadn’t been a druid.”
Something like pain crossed his face and he looked away.
“What is it? Should I not—”
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly.
“You’re an even worse liar than me.”
His arms were rigid now. He looked over my head at the darkness and seemed to be trying to find the courage to speak.
“I have very few regrets,” he said at last. “Very few. I have lived the life I wanted … for the most part.”
I looked up at him. Who didn’t have regrets after so many centuries? And yet … I was worried by what he might say.
“Sometimes I think of having a little house like my family had, though.” He looked down at me, and there was pain in his smile. “Coming home after a long day’s work in the fields. It’s not an easy life. You’re vulnerable and you work hard and sometimes illness takes you early. But when you go to sleep at night, it’s with your family around you. And sometimes I think what they would have been like.”
I tried to decide whether or not to tell him, and he shook his head.
“I can’t bear to know, Nicky. And now … now, even if I could father children, how could I bear to see them grow old and die?” He shook his head again. “I can’t bear to know.”
“Then I won’t say.” I reached out to wrap my fingers around his.
Silence. Another round of singing had started, this one even more off-key than the first.
