“Goddess! Thou art raving.” Her sweet voice sounded choked. “I pray thee, drink the potion.”
“Don’t waste your tears...on me.” For her sake, to still her weeping, he gulped a few mouthfuls of the scalding brew, sharp as acid on his tongue. Then the world went spinning away, and he sank back into darkness.
* * *
He kneeled with head bowed before his Father’s blinding light, his body schooled into lines of contrition. But his soul was a seething stew of resentment and outraged pride. He’d done his duty, nothing more, and done it well. No creature in Heaven could deny that much.
Yet the resonant Voice that made oceans rise and mountains quake rolled on, remorseless as the march of time, discounting one by one the honors he’d earned in an eternity of service.
“Prince of Lights, Regent of the Sun, Destroyer of Hosts, Flame of God...you who were Wrath of Jacob and Mine own Angel of Vengeance. I trusted your sense of justice and defended the hard fairness of your judgments even when all others doubted you. Yet in your pride you ignored all My warnings. Finally, your severity has shaken My faith.”
Sullen anger burned like embers in his belly and made his skin smoke. “I’m Your punisher, Father. I’m Heaven’s necessary evil—the corollary to Your endless capacity to forgive. Your grace leads them to love You, but my chastisements make mortal souls fear You.”
“You are proud and heedless, my Vengeance. Proud as Lucifer, my Son of the Morning, before his insurrection.” The bright Light dimmed. “For your own sake, Uriel, you must learn compassion.”
“I’ll try, Father.” Yet he brooded without remorse, a powerful sense of injustice chewing at him. For eternity, he’d served in unfaltering loyalty, despite the shower of reprimands and recriminations that rained down on his head...
The Light breathed and watched him; Heaven sighed around them.
“I love you, Uriel.” Now the murmured Voice throbbed low and rich. Uriel’s chest ached with his own love, despite the resentment that seemed always to simmer in his blood. “It is because I love you that I grant you this chance, this sole prospect for redemption.”
Now the Words rolled out like thunder, like the slow knell of doom, as the world slowly darkened around him.
“I consign you, Vengeance, to a mortal life—to birth from a mortal womb and life as a mortal man, with no knowledge or memory of your divine station. I grant you the same free will I give to all souls, the same power to learn, to temper your severe justice with mercy. Be taught this precious lesson, and you are restored to Me, first among Mine own archangels, beloved servant of the Presence once more.
“Fail to learn this lesson, and your soul will pass as mortals do, to whatever place the merits of your mortal life may warrant.”
Slow comprehension broke over him. He was exiled from Heaven, from the Light, cast down like faithless Lucifer from the beloved Presence. Consumed by grief and rage, Uriel flung back his head and howled.
But the firmament of Heaven was dissolving beneath him, the celestial wind shredding his mighty wings to useless tatters.
And then he was falling...
* * *
Rhiannon sponged the fever-sweat from Beltran’s furrowed brow, and wished she could sponge away the grooves of pain as easily. He was raving again, wild and thrashing, shouting despite all her desperate efforts to quiet him. Ravaged by poison and the corrosive fury that seemed to be eating him away from inside, her patient was slipping from her.
And she knew she could not bear it.
She couldn’t comprehend how Beltran Nemesto, Blade of God, had acquired such central importance to her existence. Perhaps when he’d saved her life, flinging himself so recklessly between her and the jaws of death. Perhaps when he’d made love to her—for it had been nearly that—on the forest floor.
Whenever it happened, however it happened, watching all his tireless strength and blazing courage and unwavering conviction rot away from inside was killing her.
If he died, it would save Morrigan the trouble of slaying her.
Sighing, Rhiannon unfolded her cramped limbs and rose. He’d sent the bucket flying in one of his thrashing fits. Now she must draw water before his fever peaked again. Gripping the bucket, she hurried through the little cubby she called home—the den beneath an ancient oak that was her secret sanctuary in the Faerie realm. She slipped through a round wooden door into the copper light of sunset.
A cruel wind knifed through her travel-stained gown, and she shivered. Only balmy breezes had ever caressed her skin in the Summer Lands, warmed by banners of honey-colored sunlight, pollen drifting like summer snow through the perfumed air. Now the leaves burned gold and crimson on the boughs and scudded on the autumn wind.
Nearby, hidden among the trees, a brook gurgled. Deliberately she turned her back and walked away from it, letting her thoughts skip from worry to worry, thinking of everything except her destination.
Although she’d never been adept at navigating the shifting terrain of Faerie, she was fortunate today. Soon the trees parted before her, and the brook trickled past.
Quickly Rhiannon drew water and lugged the heavy bucket back, glancing fearfully left and right through the shadowy forest. Every footfall she placed with care. Aye, she shared an affinity with the green growing things and gentle creatures that inhabited her wood; they’d known her since childhood. She prayed they would keep silent to protect her, that no whisper of her presence would reach Morrigan in Camelot. But she dared not count on it.
The coming of winter to the Summer Lands could mean only one thing. Her mother’s strength was failing, and her sister’s star was rising. Soon Morrigan must learn of her return. Here among the Fair Folk, where her power was nearly absolute, it would be child’s play for Morrigan to kill her.
Consumed with worry, she hastened through the round door and latched the portal behind her. She’d descended the curving wooden stair and
approached Beltran’s pallet when she realized her patient wasn’t alone.
On the stool sat a man, chin propped on fists, staring broodingly at Beltran as he tossed and mumbled with fever. In the brazier’s flickering light, the stranger’s skin shone pale as starlight against a doublet of blood-dark crimson. A gleaming mane of raven hair, glinting with indigo light, spilled over slender shoulders and poured halfway down his back.
As she stared in alarm, his head turned toward her. His violet eyes glowed and pulsed with divine fire.
“Don’t be alarmed,” the stranger said, a melodious tenor to set any bard weeping. “I’m a friend of his.”
Rhiannon dragged a few wits together and lowered her heavy bucket. “How—how did you enter here? You’re no Faerie, and the Summer Lands are well warded.”
In her confusion, she’d spoken Latin. He answered in kind, his mouth curving wryly. “Let’s just say I have connections.”
“Whatever connections you may have, sir, you shouldn’t be here! It isn’t safe for a mortal, particularly now.”
“Surely you don’t mistake me for one of those.” With inhuman grace, he flowed to his feet. For a heartbeat, gleaming jet-black wings flickered into view. When she blinked, the effect vanished.
Only once had she seen anything like—on the Blade of God who tossed restless in the bed. “You’re...like Beltran.”
“Well, not exactly.” He offered a fluid shrug. “Our friend here is bound to a mortal body. Thankfully, I’m not. Although if I keep on the way I’m headed, I may indeed find myself wrenched from celestial bliss and stuffed willy-nilly into a body by Someone in a fit of pique, just like our friend here.”
Swift recollections hurtled through her brain—the Presence who materialized during Beltran’s holy rages, the divine fire he’d hurled to save her, the wild ravings he’d shouted in his delirium.
“Tell me the truth.” Blindly she gripped the table. “Who is he?”
“He was Uriel, Flame of God—one of our leading archangels up there, one of the favored four who guard You-Know-Who. Until he fell.”
She stared into those violet orbs, glowing with heavenly light. “And...you?”
“I’m Zamiel.” He swept her a careless bow, flicking his gleaming mane aside with one gauntlet. “Angel in disgrace, at your service.”
A hundred questions jostled on her tongue, but Beltran convulsed and cried out in his sleep. Renewed fear gripped her chest. Brushing past the visitor, who obligingly stepped aside, she kneeled and laid her hand against Beltran’s sweating brow.
“Dear Lady, he’s burning up,” she whispered. “I’ve tried every remedy to bring down this fever.”
“He’s dying,” Zamiel said calmly.
“Dying!” she cried, in horror. “But he—he can’t die, not him. I won’t allow it!”
“That blade was poisoned, with a little magick from the bishop thrown in. No healing simples are going to cure that. Meaning no offense to your formidable talents.”
Rhiannon barely heard him, her entire being absorbed in the unconscious man before her. Her heart reeled with discovery. Her entire essence rose up to voice a great shout whose echoes rang through her soul.
She loved him.
She, Rhiannon le Fay—outcast and misfit, mocked and reviled, more than half an orphan—had found the one man whose presence made her feel safe. This revelation of his identity as an exiled angel of the Christian God did nothing to alter her heart. She loved him for the traits his divine origins could not blunt—his unyielding resolve, his coolheaded competence in the teeth of any crisis, his lion’s heart and his angel’s conscience. She craved the leaping heat his touch ignited in her blood.
Riveted by disbelief, seized with sudden euphoria, she laughed.
“That hardly strikes me as appropriate,” Zamiel murmured, one wicked brow arching.
“I swear to you, I won’t let him die.” Thoughts whirling, she pushed to her feet and paced the chamber. “Think! Did your God send you here to help him?”
“Him?” The angel’s lip curled in scorn. “Oh, hardly. He’s fretting madly over Uriel here—I mean Beltran—it is Beltran, right? But He can’t go changing the script in midact. If it were up to Him, our suffering friend could die in lingering agony and He wouldn’t lift a finger to intervene. Believe me.”
“Surely there’s something that can be done,” she urged. “If he was poisoned by the bishop’s magick, by Christian magick and Christian prayer, there must be some spell or invocation that can heal him.”
“Oh, there is.” Zamiel shrugged. “But it’s risky, Rhiannon—may I call you Rhiannon?”
“Risky to him?”
“Nothing worse can happen to him than what’s happening right now,” he pointed out. “He’s dying unconfessed with his sins unshriven, including a few to make any priest quail. He’s made decent progress toward his...rehabilitation, shall we say?...which I attribute to your wholesome influence. But I fear it’s not enough, in Christian parlance, to save his soul.”
Zamiel paused. “When I said the spell was risky, I meant it’s risky for you.”
Impatiently she brushed that aside. “All magick carries risks. My lord—Zamiel—”
“‘My lord’ will do nicely,” he murmured. “Though I’ve always felt ‘Angel of Death’ has a certain ring.”
She stifled a strong urge to grasp the Angel of Death by his doublet and shake him. “Whatever the risk, I’ll take it. Tell me what must be done.”
Thoughtfully he studied the restless Beltran. “He’s under the influence of powerful death magick—trust me to know. To reverse the spell, you must invoke the power of life. There’s a ritual whose outlines I can describe for you, but you must make haste. The ritual must be performed at moonrise. If you miss your moment, he won’t last the night.”
He paused, his violet gaze turning toward her, clearly measuring her resolve.
“As you surely know, or would know in time—which our friend is rather short of at the moment—the most powerful life-force in the world is the power of creation. Or in this case, the power of procreation.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He arched a brow. “To speak plainly, we’re talking about intercourse, but not just any tumble in the hay. If the witch who casts the healing spell were, say, a maiden? And if her maiden state were immeasurably precious to her? I’d say that should do the trick.”
Halfway through the explanation, Rhiannon had grasped where he was headed. She halted in her tracks and stared at him, torn between suspicion and denial. Then sudden anger seared through her.
Was he playing games with her? Was this a vile trick of some kind? Was this uncanny and beautiful young immortal some deception of Morrigan’s?
The dream she’d had in the mortal realm surfaced in her mind. Her sister clipped crimson roses with pruning shears, the blossoms red as virgin blood.
Red is for heartbreak, she’d whispered.
Lose your virginity to a mortal man...
Her sister could have been lying. But if the Goddess had shown her a vision, she would surely have told the truth.
Her first wild impulse was to cry that she wouldn’t do it. There must be another way. But she knew in her heart Zamiel’s words held the ring of truth.
Still, she’d survived a lifetime of trickery through constant suspicion. She was unwilling to accept this complete stranger and his dangerous advice o
n faith.
“Tell me this, my lord. If your God refuses to intervene, then why are you here? Are you and Beltran such intimate friends?”
“Intimate? Not as I’d define the term.” Again that wicked brow lifted. “He isn’t really my type, Rhiannon. But intervening in this little crisis that has the Fellow upstairs in such a delightful dither? Stirring the pot, as they say? How could I possibly resist?”
Chapter Sixteen
Rhiannon supposed she should thank the Goddess for the Angel of Death, odd as that notion sounded. But she decided to hold her gratitude in reserve until she saw whether this exotic ritual he’d described truly worked.
And whether she had the nerve to perform it.
Carefully she made her preparations, focusing on the moment to avoid dwelling upon what would come. If she’d harbored any other hope, any rare herb or treatment or prayer she’d thought could work...but she’d exhausted every remedy her healer’s knowledge and instinct could imagine.
Without this desperate sacrifice, Beltran would not survive the night.
He’d risked his own life and his immortal soul to save her. She loved him for it. And she would not allow him to pay the ultimate penalty for that sacrifice.
Instead, she chose to pay that penalty herself.
His wound had been severe, deep enough that she feared the knife had pierced a lung. But his flesh had closed and knitted like a miracle, healed with supernatural speed, the only remnant of that injury a fading pink scar across his muscled back.
Nay, it was the poison that was killing him—the bishop’s death magick, which Bonner had certainly meant for her.
Briefly she paused in her preparations to examine her patient, hoping against hope for some sign of improvement. Beltran had ceased tossing and mumbling, and lay still as a man already dead. His chiseled face was etched with lines of pain, his burnished hair dark with sweat. Golden stubble rasped against her fingers as she touched his hard jaw, felt his pulse flutter faint and fast.
Magick by Moonrise Page 23
