“Does the chalice show you its purpose here?” Ian inquired, because he had to know if Murdoch’s abilities were stronger than his own.
“Obviously, it is here to make amacara matches,” Murdoch replied in a voice dripping with scorn. “First Trystan, and now I must congratulate you on yours. She is stronger than she looks.”
Ian would have liked to have heard Chantal’s translation of Murdoch’s tone. Would she hear truth? Perhaps it had been a mistake to leave her behind, but she was exhausted and needed fresh clothing, and he’d wanted a moment alone with his old friend.
Which told him right there that he was no longer capable of killing Murdoch. Something inside him had changed. Ian had spent the better part of his life knowing more than everyone around him, knowing he was right when others were wrong. But his had been a narrow world. And now it was much broader. He did not possess adequate experience or knowledge of this new world to act as judge and executioner.
He was treading in unfamiliar territory, and it was invigorating. He felt fully alive again.
“I can’t see past the blood and war that surround Chantal and her family to my own future,” Ian admitted.
“That is because the future isn’t yet determined. You are not wholly bonded without the altar.” Murdoch shrugged this off as obvious. “I, on the other hand, see nothing but blood for years to come. Whether I’m the cause or not may be up to you.”
Ian shook his head firmly. “No. Your future lies in your own hands. I can choose to subdue you and take you home. Or I can choose to let you go. What happens either way is decided by your own actions. The Oracle merely addled your powers more, didn’t she?”
Murdoch drained his mug and slammed it down on the wooden table. “Perhaps she did me a favor. I could not have restrained the waterspout without your aid. I no longer know what I can or cannot do, and everything has less strength here. Have you noticed that?”
“We draw our strength from Aelynn. Distance would impair it, yes. That’s to be expected. In my case, it takes only the confusion of a million voices swirling in my head to diminish my concentration.”
“I was never as gifted that way,” Murdoch mused. “The weather here is more turbulent, so there is a different energy to draw on than Aelynn’s, but the future is still cloudy.”
“Return the chalice to Aelynn, and I believe you will find a different welcome,” Ian suggested, the words coming from a place inside him that hadn’t existed when he’d left home. Perhaps from the heart that he hadn’t known until Chantal had opened it.
Murdoch looked startled. “I doubt that. Dylys would fry the hairs off my head, should she ever see me again.”
“She has passed her leadership on to me and Lissandra. We share her duties as well as that of Council Leader between us. The land is failing. Your return with the sacred chalice could make you a hero.”
Murdoch shook his head. “No, it is too late for that. I can no longer pretend our world is the only one that matters. You have no need of me there, but they do here.”
“They need you to burn villages with Greek fire and help rebels to imprison kings?” Ian asked in disbelief. “I think you have wreaked enough havoc and should have learned your lesson by now.”
“I would not have used the fire near Trystan’s village had I realized I could no longer control it. And the king’s death has already been written in the stars. He chose his own fate by selfishly ignoring reality rather than enacting the necessary changes to help his subjects. How he dies is not my choice. I didn’t even intend to kill you. I directed the musket ball to injure in order to force you to heal yourself rather than follow me. I am trying to relearn what I can or can’t do without causing harm to others, but it is not easy. I didn’t think I could still call on wind and water. Thank you for that. It is difficult to practice without my old friends.”
Murdoch’s sorrow was buried beneath his usual bravado, but Ian felt it — again, in an unexercised muscle he must call his heart. He’d forgotten until now what it meant to have friends, knowing Murdoch spoke only the truth. They had been brothers, closer to each other than any men on the island, but Ian had never acknowledged Murdoch as anything but a challenge.
“I knew you meant only to wound, just as I could not kill you. But you would have done better not to alienate Trystan,” Ian said without sentimentality. Neither of them was accustomed to expressing his feelings, but Ian could grant the gift of understanding.
“Your Crossbreed will teach you what Trystan’s wife has taught him,” Murdoch warned. “That their people are as important as ours. The Council will not accept her as leader.”
“That’s an obstacle I will face when I reach it. For now, I need to remove her family from these shores and bring Chantal and her father home with me. The chalice must wait a while longer. I give you a head start in pursuing it.” Ian prayed he was making the right choice in choosing Chantal over the chalice. Only time would tell.
Murdoch’s eyes lit with fires of hope and challenge. “You will let me go after it?”
“Didn’t I just tell you so?” Ian asked dryly. “I thought that was what this conversation was about.”
Murdoch pounded him on the back in delight. Ian choked on his drink.
“There must be a stray strain of compassion in your breeding,” Murdoch crowed. “No Olympus would ever be so broad-minded.”
“No Olympus has ever left the island,” Ian reminded him. “Experience is good for us.”
“Then set Lissy to packing at once.” Murdoch leapt to his feet and started for the door.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Ian called after him, hurrying to follow. “I didn’t just release you so you can return to playing war. I need your help.”
“Of course you do. It’s nice to hear you admit it for a change.” Cheerfully, Murdoch set out in the direction of the dock.
That was the problem with LeDroit. Give him an inch, and he took the whole rope. Ian grabbed him by the back of the fancy frock coat he’d acquired somewhere in the past hour and hauled him into the air. Ian was still the stronger man — when Murdoch was caught off guard.
The ground beneath their feet trembled. His nemesis still had stronger earth powers, Ian acknowledged, setting Murdoch down before his anger caused an earthquake that might swallow the town. The land settled again, leaving bystanders glancing quizzically around them, possibly recalling myths of giants who made the earth tremble with their rage.
The two men squared off, glaring at each other.
“What is the price of my freedom, then?” Murdoch demanded.
“I am coming to understand that friendship requires sacrifices.” Ian stalked toward the water. “Chantal would see me sail away before she would leave her friends or family.”
“Then she is an ignorant fool to give up what you can offer her. I do not see the benefit of this sacrifice for friendship.”
“Then consider it payment,” Ian responded dismissively. “I care not how you label it. I intend to summon Trystan and his ships.”
“Trystan would kill me on sight.” Murdoch turned a corner, and they reached the end of the road, where a barren strip of shale and sand stretched to the water’s edge.
“Which is why you will be gone from here before he arrives. The chalice heads for England. I will hire the next ship out to transport you and Pauline after it. The horses will provide your entry into that world, so take care with them. I expect you to see Pauline and her family safely settled so I may escort Chantal there later to visit. With luck, Pauline’s brother will seek her out, and you can retrieve the chalice.”
Murdoch raised a derisive eyebrow. “And why should you trust me to do anything more than take the chalice for my own purposes?”
Ian snorted. “I don’t. Your ambition precedes you. But try thinking for a change. If you leave Pauline in distress and Chantal discovers it, she will have the power of the entire island — including Lissandra — to come after you with a vengeance. Women are not
so lenient as I.”
Murdoch’s expressive lips pulled into a wicked grin. “I could debate many of those assertions, but I need only point out that Chantal has agreed to none of this, and in fact, isn’t likely to. You may not See your future clearly, but I See it without the filter of your denial. She or Dylys will kill each other before they will live together.”
“All mothers have difficulty giving up their sons,” Ian said without alarm, rather than give Murdoch the pleasure of seeing that he might be right. “Chantal is a peaceful, reasonable creature.”
“You say that after those war cries she screeched today? Don’t be too certain. Have you discerned her mark yet? She does not have our changeable eyes, so if she possesses Aelynn gifts, she must be a creature created of the gods. Which one does she belong to? I wager it’s not the God of Peace.”
Ian set his lips grimly. “That is not your concern. Are we agreed that you will linger a while longer, or must we fight this out?”
Murdoch held back a smirk and waved his hand at the ocean. “Be my guest. Show me how you will fetch Trystan. Has the bonehead learned to hear voices in the wind?”
Ian sat on a boulder and tugged off his boots. He had no intention of explaining to Murdoch or anyone else what he was about to do. Diving beneath the waves with the intention of asking a passing dolphin to relay a message to Trystan’s wife, Mariel, who could talk with the fishes, to send him a ship hardly seemed the act of a rational man. Nor was it likely to help him maintain the dignity of his position. And yet if by concentrating his pyschic gifts he could communicate with the stallion, why not also with the creatures of the sea? Murdoch would no doubt laugh at him, but let him. Bigotry came in all flavors.
Walking into the channel until he was chest deep, Ian plunged under the surf and began to swim.
* * *
Chantal woke to the darkness in a large bed. Still groggy, she lay still, seeking the sound that had woken her while reorienting herself to her unfamiliar surroundings.
The bedside candle flamed to life without the spark of a flint. Startled, she blinked, then inhaled sharply.
In drenched breeches and linen, Ian stood beside her. He’d released his thick, curly hair and made some attempt to dry it so it didn’t drip on her, but a rivulet of water accented one sharp cheekbone. The rest of his face remained in shadow.
“I feared you had left already,” she murmured, reaching for him. After what he’d told her about her father’s origins, she feared many things, but she still trusted Ian’s honesty. If he said his home could heal her father, she believed him.
He leaned over and kissed her, threading his fingers through her hair. His kiss was sweet and hot and blazed with desire, but she sensed that he held back. She tried wrapping her fingers in his wet linen, but he merely seared her cheek with his lips and let her tug his shirt over his head, leaving her holding a damp rag. The candle gleamed on the wet drops on his chest hair and wide shoulders.
“Your family’s carriage will soon arrive,” he announced. “They will need our attention when they do. With luck, we can sail on the morning tide.”
“They’re not here yet,” she said seductively, sitting up but not pulling the sheet over her nakedness. She’d never in her life been so brazen, but she no longer felt uncomfortable acting so with Ian. Her nipples pearled boldly under his approving glance.
“I always come to you in stinking disarray.” He lit another candle with the first, and the light emphasized the breadth of his bronzed shoulders and chest.
“Have you heard me complain?” she asked in amusement, enjoying the intimacy of the quiet conversation almost as well as his kisses. “You are more human in dishabille.”
He wrapped a leather tie around his hair, his gaze never straying from her nakedness. “You are a goddess risen from the sea for the sole purpose of providing me pleasure,” he said with a straight face, although his eyes sparkled with delight.
She chuckled and pulled her knees up to her breasts, punishing him for not taking advantage of what she offered. “How much time do we have? And why am I asking you that as if you’ll have an answer?”
He grinned, then turned to wash in the tepid water in a bowl on the dresser. “I feel like a groom on his wedding night, on the brink of a wondrous new adventure. I think I need the formal vows to push me from my lonely perch into the communal world that you prefer.”
Stunned, Chantal could not immediately reply. She sifted through all his words, seeking the sense of them, but heard only his excitement and happiness, and those could be because he would soon be going home. “Vows?” she finally repeated.
Drying himself with a linen towel, he straightened and faced her again. His joyful smile struck her with the force of an arrow through her heart. She thought she might grovel at his feet to see that smile again and again.
“Marriage vows. I’m taking you home to meet my family. When your father recovers his health, he will be there to formalize the legal ceremony. Do I dare ask you now for your consent, or should I wait to show you how much I can offer?”
Chantal tried not to gape, but she thought her chin might have fallen to her chest. “Marry? Men do not marry their lovers. You’re supposed to sail away, never to be seen again.”
He laughed, tossed aside the towel, and reached for his breeches buttons. He brimmed with the pride of male possession as he approached the bed. “Men marry their mates — women who match them in strength and wit. You are mine.”
It wasn’t just the thrill of his words but the intense satisfaction with which he said them that won Chantal’s heart. Without further question, she lifted her arms to accept him into her bed.
And into her life, forever, if such a thing were possible.
No longer shy, she let him explore her as he would, and they kissed and tasted of each other’s flesh until Ian tossed her over to begin on her back.
Chantal quivered as his hands cupped her breasts, and he threw his powerful legs across hers, covering her from behind. She was moist and ready to accept him as he raised her to her knees and stroked her into opening for him.
He was pushing his thick sex into her when she felt his hesitation. She froze at the image rising between them of the strange brown discoloration marring the skin at the base of her spine, a spiral with a broken arrow through it, curving into the crease of her buttocks.
“Chaos,” he muttered with disbelief, and what she thought might be horror. “I should have known.”
She tried to pull away, but he pushed deep inside until she cried out with the enormity of his filling. Then he bit her shoulder until she shuddered and began to move with him. Their mutual release sang a song to the heavens, but the harmony had already been tarnished.
Twenty-nine
The group of voyagers huddled between crates and barrels on the pier was unusually silent as the morning tide rolled in, carrying with it two sleek sailing ships. The sun gleamed on the flapping white canvas as sailors scampered through the rigging, rolling up the larger sheets and adjusting the smaller to catch the wind.
“Sorry, but they were sailing together,” Ian murmured to a scowling Murdoch, who was lounging, arms crossed, against a barrel. “Waylan is less likely to rip your head off than Trystan. I’ll load Pauline and the children on his ship while you perform that fascinating invisible act and slip aboard behind them. He can do nothing to you once you’re at sea.”
“The Weathermaker must have blown the storms off the channel for them to have arrived so swiftly,” Murdoch growled.
Murdoch had been irascible all morning, Chantal noted, but his was a tormented soul, and she spared him no concern. Unreasonably, she blamed him for her family’s plight. Had Ian not come here in search of him and the damned chalice —
She would never have known true lovemaking. Or learned the thrill of releasing the strength inside herself. Or found someone who understood her so well. So maybe she’d forgive Murdoch, eventually. Especially if Ian trusted him enough to send him after the chalic
e so they could take her father home to get well.
She wished Ian had explained his comment about chaos last night. He’d been remarkably uncommunicative ever since.
Despite Ian’s surliness, she still felt light enough to fly, so great was the freedom she’d discovered in his company. All her life she’d obediently poured her volatile emotions into her music and let others act for her. Never had she considered acting independently — until Ian.
The same Ian who had been pacing about with a black cloud over his head, constructing their hiding places, ordering people about until they were stumbling over one another to comply. No one questioned his commands, while she stood here with a million questions on the tip of her tongue. Even Pauline had acquiesced to his high-handed demand that she travel with Murdoch to England, and Pauline did not even know the man! But Ian was telling Pauline what she wanted to hear — that Murdoch would take her to Pierre and safety — so she’d agreed.
Chantal wanted to scream her protests, but she submerged them in humming as always. Just because she felt free to act didn’t mean she was in a position to do so. The blue uniforms of the National Guard were all over town, hunting the “traitors” who had aided the king. Much of Ian’s pacing and Murdoch’s growling had to do with the tension of hiding everyone in plain sight, among boxes and barrels of cargo. How Ian had known the ships were coming was another of those questions she couldn’t ask. All she could do was keep her questions to herself and calm the children.
“This is no way to prove our innocence,” Chantal muttered as the tall ships sailed closer.
“The mob is not looking for justice,” her father replied wearily from where he sat propped out of the sun. “They are looking to lay blame. This day would have come sooner or later. D’Olympes do not hold power by being wrong.”
Her father’s pallor frightened her — another reason she waited here without questioning. Her father needed help, but the best physicians had departed Paris along with half the court. Last night, her father had finally admitted it was time he went home, although neither man would say where that was. If she truly meant to fly free, she’d tell them both to jump off a dock.
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