Absently he raised a hand to his jaw. When he felt the dark growth, he laughed in disbelief. “Hell’s Bells! I knew it was itching—but I was a bit distracted, love. How does it look?”
Now it was her turn to laugh at his vanity, though the sound hurt her throat, still raw from screaming when she’d fallen into the void.
“Beard or no beard, ye blaze like a diamond,” she murmured. He was the Son of Lucifer, after all, entitled to his share of narcissism. The whiskers gave him a disreputable air, enhancing the roguish effect of his black fighting leathers.
Her fingers brushed his lips. He caught her hand, turned his face into her palm and closed his eyes.
A surge of tenderness brought tears to her eyes.
Gentle Mother, what have we done? I love him like my own soul. He’s so lost, and so alone. And he’s mortal now, apparently. What could that mean for us?
She struggled to focus her thoughts on the crisis at hand. “How—how long have I been sleeping? More to the point, where are we?”
“You’ve been out for hours, Linnet. The passage through the mirror must have drained you.”
Gently he helped her sit. “As for where we are, I’ve been rather hoping you could tell me.”
She glanced around to find herself sprawled across the broad stone steps of a vast portico. Fluted pillars marched away on either side, holding aloft a crumbling roof through which chinks of daylight streamed. Before them, the stairs descended to a wide avenue, flagstones cracked and coated with moss, framed by rows of sentinel figures—stone lions, wearing stone crowns on their weathered brows.
“The City of Lions,” she murmured, recalling Morrigan’s words. “Lost Lyonesse.”
Slowly she climbed to her feet and crossed the portico on unsteady legs. The ruins of a great city spread before her, delicate spires and balustrades poised in heartbreaking perfection above a flat blue sea. Verdant curtains of twining vines draped walls and turrets. Thick carpets of emerald lichen mottled the flagstones.
Except for the tangle of greenery slowly swallowing the bones of the ancient city, nowhere did she glimpse any sign of life. No flicker of movement, no echo of voices, no clop of hooves, not even the cry of a bird pierced the profound stillness of this sleeping city. The air was heavy, the silence unnatural.
More unnerving still was the fact that, despite the noon brightness of squares and towers and avenues, no sun burned in the azure skies.
They were somewhere in Faerie then—or somewhen. Lyonesse had sunken into the sea ages ago.
Biting her lip, she turned to Zamiel. Recklessly he perched on a crumbling balcony, a solitary figure etched against the alabaster city, hair streaming like black flames behind him. Mortal or no, he was still so beautiful the sight of him hurt her eyes.
“Mortal now, are ye?” she asked. He gave a distracted nod, as though there were more important matters to occupy him. “Were ye planning to tell me, then, how that state of affairs came about?”
At her acerbic tone, the corner of his mouth turned up. “I renounced my divinity and gave up my immortality when I made love to a mortal woman. That would be you, incidentally, in the event you’d any doubt.”
Aghast, she stared. “What do ye mean? Ye gave up—ye—did ye know that would happen? If they never told ye...”
“They told me, Linnet.” Still gazing over the sleeping city, he raised a hand to still the indignant words bubbling to her lips. He’d thrust his gauntlets through his belt, and a heavy silver ring flashed like a star on his slender hand. “That apparition in the Roman bath—you saw her, didn’t you?”
She hesitated, recalling the slim blond gallant in doublet and boots who’d flickered into view. “I saw...someone.”
“Then you’ve seen your first Archangel,” he said wryly. “That was Gabriele, Angel of Mercy, my only friend in the heavenly host. And she prefers to be called female—the only one of us who does.”
He paused. “Though I suppose if you’ve seen Uriel, Rhiannon’s lord, you’ve seen two Archangels. He’s the Angel of Vengeance. You remember that now, don’t you?”
“Aye,” she said softly. “My memory’s returned, just as my mother promised it would. Not that it means I’ll forgive her, for any of it. She betrayed her marriage vows, abandoned me and Colin to Edward Norwood’s rough mercy, left me to grow up alone and grieving her. She’s a bairn in a woman’s body, aye? Selfish and heedless and wild.
“And it’s clear to me now she’s Morrigan’s creature, through and through. Our arrival at Tintagel came as no surprise.”
“Don’t hate her for it, love.” Eyes brimming with compassion, he jumped lightly down from his perch and seized her hands. “The power of forgiveness is a potent thing. It restores you to grace. Forgive her, and let her go.”
She gazed at him, her vision blurred with tears. “Can ye forgive me? ’twas my headlong rush to take a lover that cost ye everything. Sweet Jesus, I condemned ye to a mortal life. If ye hate me for it, I’d hardly blame ye.”
“Hate you?” His violet eyes widened. Suddenly, irrepressibly, he began to laugh. “Lady Linnet Norwood, Countess of Glencross, daughter of kings. Can you possibly be in any doubt about my feelings for you?”
Crossly she tried to pull free, but his grip tightened. “Aye, and ye can stop laughing. I’ve cost ye—stop laughing, I said!”
“Linnet, my dearest love.” Lips curved in a rueful smile, he drew her toward him. “You didn’t condemn me. You saved me. For the first time in my endless existence, I’m not alone. I love you more than life, sweetheart.”
For an endless moment, she could only stare at him, wondering if this was some new mischief or madcap whim he’d seized at her expense. But that did him gross disservice. He’d protected and comforted her since the day they met, pursued her through time and space, indulged her every desire, and made tender, breathtaking, passionate love to her.
He’d given up his immortality and the solace of Heaven for her sake. Why else would he have done it, unless he loved her?
Now she only wondered why it had taken her so long to see it.
Slowly she shook her head, sorting through a lifetime of guilt and inadequacy. Always she’d thought herself unappealing. Too tall, too plain, too meek and anxious to be interesting. But that was Jasper’s legacy, the voice of his hatred, which she’d allowed to control her for too long.
Zamiel thought her beautiful, inside and out. And who knew? Perhaps she was.
Faced with her silence, he’d stopped laughing. Now he was watching her anxiously, gripping her hands against his chest, as though still afraid she might flee him.
He cleared his throat. “Ah, I believe it’s conventional to say something in return at such a moment. Your options are to slap my face and berate me for my presumption, withdraw stiffly behind a shield of propriety, or...ah...to confide that you reciprocate my ardor. I confess I’d vastly prefer the latter, but if you can’t—”
“Zamiel.” Smiling, she slid free from his desperate grip, but only so she could twine her arms around his neck. “Ye maddening, mischievous, incorrigible imp. I’ve loved ye since the day we met.”
His face transformed, as though a bonfire blazed within him. “You do?”
“Aye.” She leaned toward him. “I do.”
He pulled her into his arms and stole her breath with a kiss. As her mouth opened beneath his, an intoxicating exhilaration bubbled through her. They were both laughing, almost crying, and a kiss under those conditions should have been disastrous.
Somehow it was the best one she’d ever had.
“Death in love with Life!” he exulted amid veritable showers of kisses, raining down on her mouth and cheeks and nose. “How can this be possible?”
Still laughing, she returned his kisses with an onslaught of her own, savoring the unfamiliar rasp of his whiskers against her cheeks, the unguarded delight of his laughter, the mischief that danced in his eyes.
“All things are possible.” She twined her fingers in his lus
h mane and held him for a moment’s respite from the storm of kisses. “Ye’ve made me believe that now.”
For an endless moment, she gazed into his eyes. Purple as twilight, the color of royalty. God be thanked, he was nothing like the dull and proper laird she’d thought she wanted. Landless and penniless, madcap, mischievous, irreverent and cavalier enough to scandalize the whole court. Except for the arts of war where he naturally excelled, he’d have to learn every skill he needed to be Earl of Glencross.
She cared not a whit for any of it. She wanted him and only him. She would teach him to be mortal.
Still, she supposed they ought not to begin planning the wedding just yet. A more immediate challenge loomed before them.
As though reading her mind, he brushed her brow with a gentle kiss and released her.
“If all things are possible,” he said lightly, “how do we return to your realm? I see no magickal mirror standing conveniently at the ready.”
Linnet searched the silent city spread below them. “There has to be a way. Morrigan went to a great bit of trouble to get me here, aye? It would have been easier just to kill me, if that was her aim, without all this foutering about. No doubt she wants me to come out again. But how?”
Unbidden, an image of the Grail floated into her mind. It shimmered before her like a hallucination. An overwhelming sense of solace and blessing poured like a wellspring from its misty depths.
When she’d fallen into the mirror, that shining image had drawn her through the darkness. In essence, she’d followed the Grail to Lyonesse.
Below her, the broad avenue of lions led through the city, arrow-straight, directly to their staircase. A niggling suspicion tickled her mind. Slowly she turned to look behind her, and gasped. Behind the portico soared a vast white temple with a domed roof. Ropes of ivy twined over sealed doors and windows—save for the tall double doors. Carved of creamy jade, they stood ajar.
Linnet laughed softly. The invitation could hardly have been more blatant. Either Morrigan had some power to influence this world from afar...or someone else was already here.
Either way, they clearly didn’t want her wasting time exploring the crumbling bones of the dead city.
Zamiel followed her gaze.
“Ask and ye shall be given,” he murmured, one brow arching. “I suppose we’re going in?”
“It’s that or spend days roaming these ruins, searching for another way. But we’ve no food and no water.” She swallowed past her dry throat. Best not to think about water. “And we’ve been here hours already. Time flows differently behind the Veil. We don’t know how long has passed in our world, aye? I’d rather not dawdle about.”
“Ah, yes. Mortal time.” Thoughtfully he rocked on his heels. “I’ll have to get used to that. Any idea what she wants you to do while you’re here?”
She hesitated. “Mad though it may sound, I think it’s something to do with the Grail—though she calls it the Cup of Truth and says it’s sacred to her Goddess.”
“The Grail?” His eyes widened, a child-like wonder spreading across his face. He laughed. “I love holy relics. Mortals make such a tremendous fuss over them.”
She eyed him. “And the angels don’t? Or...God?”
How odd she felt, questioning him about Heaven and the divine. She wondered if he would gradually forget what he’d lost, if his friend the Angel of Mercy would draw a merciful veil over his memory as his mortal life passed. She couldn’t make up her mind whether to hope for that.
“For Jehovah, the Grail’s still a novelty.” He shrugged. “Fifteen hundred years, give or take a few, is the blink of an eye for us—I mean for them, the heavenly host. It’s the devotion inspired by these relics, the sacred energy of prayer invested in them, that gives them their power.”
Her mind spun, as always when he spoke so casually about matters beyond human comprehension. The only way to manage this swirling vertigo, she was learning, was not to dwell upon it.
Besides, they could explore theology another time. They’d have a lifetime of nights wrapped in furs before the fire to whisper of divine mysteries.
Or so she hoped.
“However God might feel about the Cup,” she said pragmatically, “Morrigan seems to want it. And that makes me disinclined to bring it to her, even if I can touch it without being smote by a fiery sword or some such.”
“But if we’re looking for a way out, that temple is clearly the place to start.” Matter-of-fact, he loosened his rapier in its sheath. She spared a moment of regret for his exquisite dagger, lost somewhere in the cave with Morrigan. More, she regretted that they must shadow this bright and peaceful interlude with the menace of violence.
“Right then. Are you ready?” He extended a hand. The silver seal gleamed on his finger. A five-pointed star, inscribed with Hebrew symbols, blazed around a goat’s serpentine head.
Any classical scholar would know it as the symbol of Leviathan, great dragon of the Abyss.
Also known as Lucifer.
“Do I want to know where ye picked that up?” Warily she twined her fingers with his. If Zamiel—with his hyperawareness of human contact—was unconcerned by the notion of touching it, she trusted she’d naught to fear.
“I doubt it,” he murmured. “Mortal or divine or somewhere in between, I have the feeling our lives are going to be teeming with angels and devils, love. We might as well get used to it.”
Together they crossed the portico to the tall jade doors, their hushed footfalls amplified in the suffocating stillness that hung over the doomed city. As they approached, the sliver of darkness between the parted doors lightened. Tendrils of pearly mist slid between the panels and twined around their feet.
Linnet gazed into the pulsing silver glow that spilled from the narrow opening and lifted her chin. If Truth lay behind those doors, she no longer feared it.
Side by side, they pushed the heavy doors wide.
She’d expected a vast cathedral, empty and echoing beneath the massive dome. Yet the chamber before them was snug, octagonal, its faceted walls pierced by tall lancet windows—a structure that bore no semblance to the building they’d entered.
Her hand tightened around Zamiel’s. He returned the pressure with a squeeze.
Magick, her Faerie blood whispered. Her skin tingled with awareness.
The chamber reminded her of a church Baptistery, the holy structure that guarded the Baptismal font. Three steps led down to a sunken well, where clear water bubbled from a hidden spring. Mist swirled through the open windows, lustrous with creamy light, and curled along the floor.
Above the well, glittering chains held a silver dome suspended above a cloud of swirling fog.
Linnet’s heart pounded in the cavern of her chest, slow and heavy, like the tolling of a great bell. Her entire body was alive and prickling, her hair lifting from her scalp and floating around her, stirred by the sacred energy that lived in this place.
Without conscious volition, she drifted down the steps. Zamiel kept pace, silent as a ghost...or an angel. The whisper of their breath mingled with the musical chime of water.
Before the well, they hesitated, leaning on tiptoe to peer warily into its depths. Slowly, the swirling fog parted. For a moment, the waters were cloudy, impenetrable. Then, beneath the surface, flared a pure and radiant light.
Beneath the water floated the Cup of Truth, the very image she’d seen illustrated in her childhood Faerie tales, gleaming in the Faerie Glasse, beckoning her through a lifetime of dreams.
A small sob escaped her lips, breaking the heavy silence, echoing in whispers around the octagonal chamber. Releasing Zamiel, she sank to her knees and crossed herself with a shaking hand. Whatever it was, there was something in the pool, an ancient Presence that breathed softly and knew her.
Zamiel dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
Barely daring to speak, she whispered, “Is it the Grail?”
“I don’t know,” he breathed. “But Jehovah is present here, mo
re present to me now than for millennia. He wanted me to come here, Linnet, to find this place. He brushed Morrigan aside like a leaf and hurled me after you.”
The light spilling from the chalice was growing brighter, burning her eyes—hot and molten as angel fire. She grimaced and squeezed her eyes closed.
“Ah, it burns me! I’m unclean. ’tis a High Holy, this relic, and I’m soiled by sin. I can’t even look at it, much less touch it.”
Her mouth tightened in a grim smile. “All that scheming, and she’s failed.”
His hand clasped her shoulder, steadying her, reminding her she no longer had to face down these trials alone. “You’re not soiled, dear heart. There’s no creature under Heaven as honest and pure and brave as you.”
“But I can’t drink from it!” she cried, despairing.
“You’re not meant to drink from it.” His voice deepened. “I am.”
“What?” She swung toward him, eyes flying wide.
When she turned away from the sacred Cup, the blinding brilliance had softened. But the light lingered in Zamiel’s face as though a lamp burned behind his eyes. His violet orbs had lightened to lavender, the gentle prelude to angel fire.
“No mortal can touch the divine and live.” His voice was vibrant with conviction. “I may be mortal, but I’m Lucifer’s son. Not born of woman’s womb, but crafted from an angel’s essence, an angel’s arrogance.
“I can touch it, Linnet. I’m meant to touch it.”
“Can ye touch it and live?” she asked fiercely.
When he hesitated, she flung her arms around him. “Then ye’ll not touch it at all.”
“It’s the Cup of Truth.” So tender his voice as he folded her in his arms and tucked her head beneath his chin. The dark sweetness of tobacco filled her head. “Who needs it more than I? My entire existence, I’ve questioned everything, challenged everything.
“I dared Jehovah to show me the truth and put me in my place. Don’t you see? This is His answer.”
“Don’t ask me to speculate on what God in Heaven wants with ye!” Blind with tears, she flung back her head and challenged him. “Yer war with Heaven is over. Lucifer’s battles aren’t yers any longer.”
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 30
