Lord of Shadows

by Alix Rickloff

  Sabrina clutched the book to her chest. “I’ve always been interested in the history of Wales.”

  “Since when?”

  “Oh ages and ages.” She waved vaguely, praying Jane didn’t push. The trouble with having a friend who’d known her so long.

  “If you say so. I’ll meet you by the door when you’re finished.”

  Bless Jane and her lack of curiosity. Sabrina beamed at her in grateful thanks.

  Finding an empty desk, she sat down. Opened to the table of contents and ran a finger down the page. Here was one mystery she could solve on her own.

  Topography.

  Flora and fauna.

  Population.

  No. No. And no.

  The list went on through early inhabitants. Religion. Folklore. Food.

  Finally toward the bottom. Powys. Dyfed. Gwent. Gwynedd.

  Kings.

  Lines of descent.

  She ran her finger down the list until she came to Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd. Son of Owain Gwynedd. Killed in 1170.

  She blinked. Read it again.

  Killed in 1170.

  At Pentraeth.

  Ambushed and murdered by his stepmother’s sons.

  Ambushed. Murdered.

  She slammed the book closed. Took a deep calming breath while terror scissored her insides and her mind refused to believe. Refused to think beyond the date. The name. An explanation.

  The library air grew damp and heavy with wood smoke and leaf mold. An acrid musty autumn smell. Her head swam, and she clutched the table for support. But the table was gone. The shelves naught more than ghostly outlines. The building fading to a foggy swirl of damp cloud.

  She staggered for balance and caught sight of her hands. Browned by the summer Welsh sun, clutching long woolen skirts. A belt of ornamented leather hung low from her waist. Keys dangling at her hip.

  As she hurried across the yard from the byre to the house, thoughts scurried like field mice through her head. The cows needed milking. The spinning was woefully behind. Astrid was down with fever. And Daigh was gone. He’d traveled to meet the prince despite her pleas that he remain with her. Instead he’d insisted. Had spoken of loyalty to his liege. His need to aid Hywel in securing a throne usurped by his conniving stepbrothers. And none of her warnings swayed him. Please, she begged the gods. Please bring him safe back to me.

  Her head throbbed with broken mirror images of herself, but the only thought that surfaced was Hywel. Killed in battle. Dead in a slaughter that left few alive to flee. Including Daigh.

  A hand came around her shoulder. Corded. Scarred. The tip of one finger missing. Closed the book on a sigh of fluttering pages. “A woman’s curiosity is a dangerous thing.”

  The lilting accent wrapped around her. Dragged her back into the present on a tunneling tidal surge of emotion.

  She spun in her seat, ribs pressed into her lungs. Breathing shallow and fast.

  He took the chair beside her without invitation. Gazed on her calmly, though she felt the bash of his emotions like a hammer against the inside of her skull. His body vibrated like a stretched bowstring, though his face remained carved in solemn resignation. “Now you know the truth.”

  She studied him covertly for the signs she’d missed. But nothing screamed dead man ahead. No hint of the tomb in his bronzed skin or thick dark hair. In the titan strength of his frame or his soldier’s agility.

  “Are you a ghost?” Her voice came out in less than a whisper.

  His eyes darkened from midnight to witching hour, and he shook his head slowly as if it pained him to move any muscle. “Nay. No spirit. But flesh and blood and bone. As human as any.”

  “But you were”—she tried opening the book, but he trapped it beneath his hands—“there. With Hywel.”

  “Aye. I died with him at Pentraeth.”

  I remember the blood. And the mud as I fell.

  “How?” Her head swam, and she thought she might be sick. She tried to breathe through the nausea. Managed a squeaking, “That would make you over six hundred years old.” She couldn’t stomach it. Turned away, but he caught her chin. Refused to let her hide her horror.

  “What have you seen?” His eyes laid bare his pain. His grief. The bones of his face lay stark beneath his skin. Lips pressed grimly together. In the hollow just beneath his jaw, his pulse beat a frantic tattoo.

  “I was there. I waited for you even though I knew what would happen. I knew you’d never return.” She dug her nails into her palms, letting the sting anchor her securely into the here and now. “Until now, I’ve only ever seen your past. But this time you weren’t there. You’d left, and I was alone. It was my past—my memory—too.” She gave a frustrated shake of her head. “Whatever is happening, it’s changing. Showing me memories that are clearly not mine to know. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not six hundred years old. I’m not a ghost or a spirit or . . . or . . . anything like that.”

  “You’re Other.”

  She shot him a your-point-being? glare.

  “You carry the blood of the Fey within you. Perhaps the answer lies there. Part of your gift.”

  “My gift is healing. A gift we’ve already established you don’t need.”

  “Not all healing is of the body.” His gaze drew her in. The yearning she’d glimpsed from the first moment she’d met him, charged with hopelessness.

  Without thinking, she reached out. Threaded her fingers with his. Squeezed her reassurance.

  He glanced at their linked hands but did not draw away. His grip was firm and warm and lightning charged.

  “What are you, Daigh?”

  A long silence followed, broken only by the murmur of patrons. The tinkle of the front door bell. A visitor’s rather loud insistence on the clerk finding her a copy of Fanny Hill that did not have pages seventy-three to eighty-four missing.

  Daigh smoothed the book’s leather cover with a broad, calloused hand, and she felt it like a caress against her own skin. Skimming her hips. Gliding across the tops of her breasts. Stroking her in all her most secret places until desire quickened to need. She squirmed, fantasizing and remembering and dreaming that hand on her. It was like being the worst sort of voyeur. Watching and experiencing simultaneously. And left her mouth dry and heart galloping.

  “Do you know of the Domnuathi?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak. A horrible heat spreading up from her center to color her face.

  “We’re men born from our unearthed bones. Soldiers of Domnu. Alive only by the grace of our creators and the blackest magics.” He paused. Gritted his teeth. “Monsters.”

  “So the life you remember is one that ended—”

  “Centuries ago. Aye.” His hand closed into a slow fist, the roped veins blue against the bronzed weathered skin. Violence deferred but always present.

  “How?” she asked in a thready whisper.

  “A master-mage named Máelodor.” The man he’d asked her about. The man hunting Brendan.

  Every time she thought she’d gained a hold on the increasing chaos, a new piece of information turned her topsy-turvy. She latched on to the one constant between them. “You said you remembered me. That I was the face in your dreams. Even that first night you said that. How? If the life and the faces you remember are those of—”

  He glared at the book as if his answers might be between the pages where his death read in four short lines. “I don’t know, Sabrina. I don’t understand. I’m as lost and confused and afraid as you. When I close my eyes I see you as clearly as if those moments between us happened yesterday. Why you see them too?” He shrugged. Drew a heavy, sorrowful breath. “Your brother Brendan knew Máelodor. Perhaps he would be able to answer our questions. Have you heard from him? Any word?”

  “No.”

  His gaze sucked her in like a whirling black hole. Empty of light or warmth or humanity, they were a glimpse of the eternity he’d been denied. But she recalled the gray-green eyes of her dream. Vibrant. Passionate. And was not af
raid.

  He gave a bark of humorless laughter. “At least now we know why I can’t be killed. I’m already dead.”

  The healer in her needed to ease his suffering. Needed to show him he was more than what Máelodor had created. Without thinking, she placed a hand upon his chest, the warmth of his body and the steady thump of his heart igniting a slow heat low in her belly. Then taking up his hand, she placed it over her heart, embarrassed at the runaway gallop drumming her insides.

  Their eyes met for a long, quivering moment. “Tell me, Daigh”—she offered a shaky smile—“where the difference lies.”

  “I won’t drag her into this. Not for Máelodor. Not for you.”

  Daigh stalked the narrow confines of Miss Roseingrave’s parlor. Ran his hand along a shelf. Snatched a glance at the flat, charcoal sky beyond the window. Pain dogged his every thought. A dragging weight, as though his brains were being pulled down into his spine. It had been this way since he’d risen at dawn. Muscles cramping. Nerves jittery as a drunkard’s. His vision splashed in grisly shades of violence. Whatever evil lived within him woke and woke hungry.

  Miss Roseingrave glared at him. “She’s a Douglas. She’s already involved whether she likes it or not.”

  “Sabrina will think I betrayed her.”

  “That’s not my problem. I’ve asked what questions I could of the people I trust. So far, there’s nothing connecting St. John to Máelodor other than the fact the Amhas-draoi was present at the execution.”

  “Keep digging.”

  “If I’m to risk my reputation in mad accusations, I need more. If Máelodor wasn’t executed, who covered it up? Where is he now? How was he able to summon a Domnuathi”—she curled her lip—“when all my sources tell me it can’t be done? Who besides St. John might be part of this conspiracy? How widespread is it?”

  “You’d do better to ask these questions of St. John. Forget Douglas.” The presence glided between the chambers of his mind like an intruder. Knowing his thoughts. Feeling his fear. Thriving on his pain. He flinched, sucking in a sharp breath.

  “Douglas was part of the failed Nine. The group formed and headed by his father, the last Earl of Kilronan. He’ll know.” Strolling across the parlor, Roseingrave wrenched open the door, almost pulling the figure huddled at the keyhole right off her feet. “Isn’t that right, Grand-mère?”

  The hobbled, bent old woman straightened. Tossed a golden-yellow scowl at her granddaughter before shuffling into the parlor, plopping onto a sofa with a huff. “What would I know about such things as that, ma minette? Fire-starters and rabble-rousers, the whole group of them. And so I told Henry Simpkins when he sought me out with his sly good looks and his snake-oil sweet talk. Calling himself Máelodor as if that might make him seem grander than he really was. I’m too old and ugly for such tricks to work on me. I sent him off with a flea in his ear.”

  Roseingrave’s eyes gleamed with tender amusement. The first glimpse of humanity in an otherwise armored exterior.

  “I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to,” Daigh said. “Sabrina’s hemmed in by chaperones. There’s no chance to speak with her privately.”

  “She goes out, doesn’t she? Then we go where she goes. Sir Lionel Halliwell is hosting a ball in a few days. You can corner her there.”

  “How do I get in?

  “With me.”

  “Why go to such lengths? Why not gain her confidence yourself?”

  “The Douglases don’t trust the Amhas-draoi. No doubt Lord Kilronan has filled Lady Sabrina’s head with his suspicions of our intentions. But you”—her lip curled in a cynical smile—“she trusts you. Flex a few muscles, and she’ll tell you anything.”

  “Can you blame her?” Grand-mère piped up, a girlish flush to her withered features.

  “Fine,” Daigh snapped. He was backed into a corner. To expose St. John he needed Roseingrave’s help. And once St. John was exposed, the rest would fall into place. The Amhas-draoi would realize where the true danger lay and Brendan Douglas’s innocence would be revealed. Sabrina would understand. “I’ll ask her what she knows, but Douglas goes free after. I want your word.”

  “I can’t agree to that. What would happen if Scathach and the brotherhood discovered I let him escape?”

  He bared his teeth in a rapier grimace. “That’s not my problem.”

  Frustration strengthened the beast sharpening its fangs on his bones. The room pitched beneath his feet, his vision blurring, a stabbing blaze of pain to the base of his brain like an axe to the neck. He bit back a moan, only the firm chill of the wall holding him upright against the whirlpool opening at his feet. The presence swelling to a crackling roar as it sought to drag him in. Drag him back.

  When he opened his eyes next, he stared up into the old woman’s shrewd, yellow gaze. She bent over him, a hand to his forehead. Another placed flat against his chest where his heart thundered.

  Behind her, Roseingrave watched. Her contempt clear in her posture and her expression. “I told you it would be impossible to hold out for long. He controls you body and soul.”

  “No!” he roared, fighting to rise. Restrained by the old woman. He must be weaker than he thought. He fell back with a curse.

  Her mouth wrinkled into a white-lipped frown. “Your creator’s mage energy is potent. Dangerous. He tries to win you back to his cause using all the dark magics at his disposal. It would take a more powerful man than you to resist.”

  He closed his eyes, suddenly battle-drained, limbs weighted, head spinning. “I feel him always. But today . . . something’s different. Almost as if he’s here beside me. In this room.”

  A prickly silence followed as if each of them strained to catch a glimpse or hear the stir of breath that would reveal Máelodor’s presence.

  Roseingrave’s grandmother broke the tension. “Fight him,” she commanded. “Show him you’re not afraid. He thrives on death? Choke him on life. Glut him until he’s crushed beneath a mountain of beauty and friendship and love and faith.”

  He searched his mind for some glimpse of a moment. Anything to drag himself away from the maw at his feet where Máelodor waited.

  Nothing.

  A screeching metal-on-metal buzz filled his head. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t breathe. “I can’t . . .”

  The old woman’s shriek reached him over the din. “Reach deeper.”

  He folded his attention inward and inward again. Fed the presence on the few broken, shattered memories left to him.

  Men’s faces ringing a table, cups raised in good cheer. An iron-gray stallion, neck arched, ears pricked as it nuzzled his hand.

  The presence devoured these images, leaving jagged blackened holes where Daigh’s past had been. But in return the pain eased. He could breathe again.

  But now he knew it for what it truly was—a temporary reprieve.

  There would be no freedom until he killed Máelodor.

  Or Máelodor killed him.

  Sorry for the delay. Expected to be in Dublin before you. Hope Aunt Delia hasn’t drive you around the bend yet. Cat and I will be there as soon as possible. There are things we all need to discuss that can’t be decided in a letter no matter how long.

  Aidan.

  Her brother. The king of understatement.

  Sabrina refolded the letter. Tucked it into her journal. Flopped back on her bed with a frustrated sigh.

  By “things” did he mean her speedy return to Glenlorgan? His out-of-the-blue marriage to a scandal-ridden young woman of no fortune and dubious morals? Brendan’s rumored return to Dublin? Máelodor? A tapestry? The list went on and on.

  Could he be any more enigmatic?

  She rolled over, her gaze landing on the volume of Welsh history she’d brought home with her from the library. It seemed to crouch on her desk. Waiting for her to pick it up. Turn to the bookmarked page. Read the sentences over and over as if somehow they might reshape themselves into a history that didn’t end with Daigh’s death centur
ies ago.

  They never did.

  If Daigh told the truth, the words she read and the moments he recalled were one and the same. Could it be? There was no reason for him to lie. And the few stolen memories of Daigh’s she’d fallen into certainly suggested it was so. The whole situation haunted her like a bad dream. And she’d been having a lot of those lately.

  At least Aidan’s letter had diverted her from the whirl of her thoughts. Kept her from thinking about her impulsive and reckless behavior at the lending library. Daigh’s hand upon her chest. His touch zinging excitement through her from the top of her head to the tips her toes. Her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest. And yet he’d simply watched her with that same steady, soul-scouring stare she could drown in forever. Said nothing. Given no hint of his thoughts.

  Apparently her brother’s letter hadn’t diverted her enough. She was right back where she started.

  She flopped back a second time, groaning. By the gods, could she have acted more outrageously? Had she taken complete leave of her senses? She should be grateful to Jane for taking that moment to drop an armload of books. A mood breaker for certain. And one Daigh had used to vanish as completely as if he’d wrapped himself in the invisibility of the feth-fiada.

  And really, she should be shocked. Appalled. Utterly and completely bowled over with disgust. He was walking dead. A man who until recently was naught but bones in a churchyard. An animated cadaver. One of the Domnuathi.

  She should not have butterflies the size of vultures banging around her insides. Or be prickly with anticipation for their next meeting. She fisted a hand against her forehead. What was wrong with her?

  Staring up into the bed curtains, the sounds of the household drifted up from below. Aunt Delia’s shrill commands to her dresser as she prepared for the Halliwells’ ball tonight. The soft shush of a maid in the corridor sweeping. The jangle of a bell pull. Steps on the stairs.

  It had taken days to grow used to rising without the aid of the convent’s tolling bells. Longer to stop looking over her shoulder for Sister Brigh’s scowling face. Even now, dozing for an extra fifteen minutes seemed almost decadent. And time not spent in work, study, or reflection felt utterly frivolous.