“Amie, I’ve tried to tell ye at least a hundred times what really happened that night. At first I wanted nothing to do with you. They told me you were the cause of all my sorrow, don’t ye see, love?”
She captured the thick liquid and pulled away when it smeared gold. “Blood?” It burned hot and cold at once on her fingertips. When she looked at him again he had already recoiled. Shoulders hunched, he hung his head and rubbed his hands over his face.
“You know that dress I gave you belonged to my wife. She was murdered almost an age ago now by your father. When she died the last of our hope died with her.”
“She was carrying your baby,” Amie gasped, clutched her chest and touched the beginnings of her scar with his blood.
“We were trapped here by a curse crafted by Nimue after this and willingly we came,” he said, staring past her. His face fell and revealed his brokenness. “Where else could we run to? Certainly not your world where he had taught them to fear us. I grew bitter, watching how the Sidhe and the wights played war with the humans and Exiled. They sought me out, knowing my hatred of your family, told me where you were and all but gave me the order.”
“I don’t understand…” Amie began to shake her head in denial. Already she knew his words before they fell from his lips. How long had she known? Since they first met and the scar on her chest burned a white-hot fire?
From his belt Dearg slowly pulled a long jagged-edged dagger captured in bone at the hilt. “This was the blade I chose when the Exiled contacted me. It was her blade. Slaine told me I was sick with madness and I could nay see how I was playing into their hands. But I knew if you came back to claim your birthright they would kill the last of us to protect you or we would be prisoners forever unless your father’s bloodline ended. I told myself Caoimhe and my son would be avenged.”
“It was you!” She stepped closer to him when she should have run away screaming.
“Amie, you need to hear the truth! I didn’t care when first you came, but ’twas before I knew you! I have been sleeping the better part of a thousand years until you fell into my shed.”
Sobs escaped her chest rather than words, her hands rose in defense and her emotions fell forth in violent jabs of energy. Each attempt she made, every outpouring of her anger and sorrow, he simply absorbed. She could see from the crease of his brow as he took the full brunt of her power, the agony in his expression, how much he loved her.
Eventually she sank onto the hard cool floor in a heap of skirts, pushing the loose tendrils of her curls aside. “This is so messed up,” she said and laughed.
Crossing his legs beneath him, Dearg sat close in front of her, fingers twitching from an effort to keep them still. Amie at last understood his hesitation with her, the conflict she had so often seen in his eyes.
He’s still punishing himself.
“You could have killed me instantly,” she said.
“I’ve killed enemies without a thought countless times, but when ye looked at me I knew I was wrong.” He followed every brush of her hand as it wiped away her tears.
When she saw this Amie shut her eyes and sighed. “You’re the first person in this place to be completely honest with me. That’s what makes you different from them.” She smiled and his lips parted he was so baffled.
“You are so…”
“Mental?” Amie laughed.
“Human,” he admitted. After another shake of his head he lifted his chin, posture rigid as he listened to the stones around them. “Come, they have reached the stables. I need to get you to Xcalibure.”
…
He waited for her outside the other cave entrance. Water had broken through the clouds in a torrent of rain that would last the rest of the night. Steam rose off his skin in thick waves, but the luster of his golden eyes never wavered. She stood beneath the protection of the rock over cropping, glancing at the lights through the trees behind him.
“These caves were our first home, but there is more to them than I showed you,” he told her.
Amie nodded, and took the first tentative steps in the rain with him. “I know.” The sleet bounced off of her tiara and weighed down her hair and skirts.
“I can nay come with you, Amie, but should our plans fail, you only need enter the caves and speak my true name to find me. Remember, the truest name holds the greatest power. I’ll come to fetch you hopefully when the threat has been squashed.”
She took another step, saying, “And is Dearg your true name?”
Swallowing thickly he nodded. “Aye, but in my true form, I was known by another.” He scowled in afterthought, saying, “It was because they learned my name they were able to enslave the remnant of my kind.”
Amie surprised herself when the answer fell from her lips, a name stolen from an ancient text. “Grrathgar…”
Smoke billowed through his nose at her words. A new gleam filled his eyes, reshaping the pupils into reptilian slits. He leaned towards her but held himself back. When Amie took the last step separating them and grabbed his hand, he clenched his strong jaw. Even she felt his pain and it echoed her own familiar ache. Only now she had accepted him, grown used to it, even come to crave it.
His voice cracked with his words, sounding much more dragon than man. “Amie, why do you hurt yourself so?”
She held on to him, even when the pain intensified like a fresh burn. “Why does it hurt so much to touch you sometimes?”
“Your Seelie soul fights me because of what I did to you.” His golden blood pooled and fell in streams down his face. “Amie, what are ye doing?”
“Forgiving you,” she said as she slowly she pushed her sodden dress down, revealing her corset and most of her cleavage.
The knife’s trail nearly split her chest in two halves and Dearg flinched when he saw but couldn’t look away. Her source shone brightest here, making her pale skin seem transparent over a violet glow. With her fingers locked around his wrist, she brought his hand to the jagged tissue until he covered it. Both of them breathed heavily out and in again as a flash of light lit the trees around them and dissipated.
We’re stronger together than apart.
Pulling his head down to meet her, she first brushed his tears away with her lips and then kissed him.
Chapter 44
Point of No Return
Dameri was waiting for her in the forest with a heavy lantern held in her tiny hand. “Come!” she urged in her whimsical voice. Amie still glowed from the fire Dearg had breathed into her chest before their parting, wondering at the invasively cold downpour.
“Hurry,” Dameri urged, grasping for her fingers. The rain, which had turned into sleet, was now coming down in chunks of ice pelting their heads and scraping their cheeks. Amie watched Dameri’s fingers turn bloody while hers quickly healed. Absently she realized they had the same shaped hands.
“Your guardians have been beside themselves, Jessamiene. You and the Freargde were gone too long.”
Before Amie could recall who her guardians were, they had arrived. Xcalibure’s orchard was plunged in a foreboding light and she sensed the darkness that had come over Wenderdowne wasn’t going to stop there until it had claimed everything. The back door was shining like a lighthouse beacon ahead. Already she felt warmer for approaching it and saw the anxious diminutive Elise waiting behind a column. From the curtains above the first floor a figure watched in ghostly white undergarments.
Amie realized Dameri had been speaking to her and only then clued in to her mystic message.
“…but you have a power the Sidhe alone do not, Jessie.”
Amie blinked and in that brief darkness knew she remembered that name, the special name only her real parents had used.
The second they entered, the doors and windows barred shut behind them. Unlike last time, the vines and roots and hanging flowers had withered to reveal some of the house’s original charm.
Amie fought the urge to reach out through her father’s ring to check on Wenderdowne’s defenses.
Nothing could be done until Ben gave her the signal. She could only pray the enemy hadn’t discovered Dearg’s caves and the others had found safety.
Dameri led her to a well-lit guest room. Together they managed to pry Amie loose of her sopping wet ballgown.
“Such a pity. I had hoped to salvage this,” Dameri said as she carried the stained pile outside the door. She froze when she noticed Amie’s shell-shocked stare. With another sigh she returned to her side and wiped the tearstains from beneath Amie’s eyes. “You poor dear…what troubles have befallen you. Should I have been strong enough, I would have done a better job in my quest to protect you.” A bold fire brewed in the set of her brow, the determination in her narrow chin.
For the first time, she saw herself in her mother’s face. “But you did once, didn’t you?” Amie asked. Dameri gasped, released her hold to clutch her hands together. Amie’s voice broke as she continued, “I remembered. Drustan tried to erase my memories, but I remembered.”
At her words, the ageless human princess sank against the bedpost, clutching the dark wood. For the first time Amie saw the pressing of time on her face, the first real tell of her eight hundred years.
“So you know enough…but not everything?” More emotions crossed Dameri’s features in so short a time, than Amie had seen reflected in any being of her new acquaintance. Complex emotion was another human trait according to Emrys. Only humans had the capacity for so much feeling, he claimed.
“I know you’re my real mother,” she said. “I know Henry’s my father, but besides that I don’t remember much of anything else.”
Dameri hung her head, her chest hitched on mention of her father’s name. “I cannot tell you everything. Only he has the right to tell you the whole truth of how it came to pass.” Unshed tears gleamed in her eyes, a soft smile ghosted her lips as she whispered, “But yes, you are mine.”
Amie held her breath without knowing the reason why. Maybe it was because she had been through too much, had seen so much in so short a time.
“I was born to Arthur Hawkeye Pendragon and his Queen Gwynydd a thousand years ago,” her mother began.
“You said you were eight hundred,” Amie blurted.
“You were not paying attention. Now please do not interrupt.”
“Sorry.”
Dameri’s smile tilted slightly higher in one corner. “I was born a princess, but to a very violent kingdom. War came to us when Myrddin the Tuatha came to our court. He was the last of his kind, and he wanted us to be safe, warned us of a hidden magical kingdom that would destroy everything we had worked to build. My father trusted him implicitly because he had been his tutor and protector from a young age. One might say the Merlin is the reason Arthur became King.” Her dark brows came together in a frown.
“How did you meet my father?”
Dameri’s eyes flickered to hers, stricken, and gathering her courage, she continued. “The dragons woke from their sleep soon after. We learned later Merlin had been part of their waking. It seems the Tuatha and Freargde have been ageless enemies, long before our people or the Seelie came to these shores. We also learned Merlin was not as free as he wanted us to believe. He was already a wight by that time, a dark spirit bound to Wenderdowne. He was willing to commit the vilest of sins to free himself from the curse.”
Amie remembered a passage in the family chronicle from Feather’s library. “But you weren’t expecting the golem.”
“No, we were not. So driven we were to rid the earth of dragons we drove the last of the ancient race from their true purpose. The Freargde were made to protect us all, Jessamiene. They were guardians of the source, the ancient flame. They kept the golem, gremlins and other sorts from destroying us all. By destroying them we only invited the darkness that still inflicts the human world. Merlin did not understand his own foolish actions. All he could see was the means for his release. By the time my father realized this, my mother had already been captured.”
“Drustan offered you protection.”
Dameri nodded eagerly. “We were given Xcalibure, as my father was already made old by losing my mother. Eventually the Merlin was put back in his place. The Freargde were cursed to eternal sleep, their king to serve Wenderdowne, and the human world forgot the truth of it all. Drustan bound the Borderlands so tightly, none of the Exiled could return without his permission. Few humans have been invited in ever since.”
“And where does Henry come into this?” Amie nearly pleaded, knowing she might not survive the task she had yet to face.
Dameri shut her eyes, binding herself with her arms around her chest to ward away the pain. “They both fell in love with me. I could not choose betwixt them, dividing them forever when they were so much stronger together. I was not meant to rule at Drustan’s side. I was not his equal. And then after you were born, I never knew how to tell him.” Tears spilled over her cheeks, though her voice wavered, she never ceased her telling.
“My father?” Amie whispered, desperate for a straight answer.
Dameri’s smile was brilliant if not weakened. “Do not judge him so harshly, Jessie, for he never meant to deceive you. He didn’t even know you were his at first. I am ashamed to say I loved them both. In spite of everything it was Drustan my heart longed for most. I was promised to Iudicael, but did not feel the rush and power of Drustan’s passion when we touched. We despised ourselves for betraying him, but I knew whose you were from the beginning.”
Amie stood, choking on a sob at this unpleasant revelation, and Dameri rushed to her side, gathered her tall daughter into her arms.
Sick idiot probably thought of me as partly his.
“You are so much like Drustan, it is uncanny at times, dearest.”
“Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t any of you tell me? And why did you send me away in the first place?” Amie clung to her unable to push her away.
“Drustan thought you were his. I could not tell him the truth. You had his eyes, so he believed, and when the golem came, I knew it was because of you. You aren’t like the other Seelie. You are human, bound to the earth, to everything that nourishes it. Should we fail, they will use you to control and conquer the rest of the Vale. Before they came the last time, I told Iudicael the truth in secret. Even though he was furious at our betrayal he agreed it was best to send you away. I allowed Drustan to take you the night he left. He believed they were after him at the time because he was the heir.”
Amie said nothing. What was there left to say, after all? She was jaded with the rush of too much, with revelations beyond her comprehension. And she was Seelie enough that to half of her changeable nature, it all made perfect sense.
Dameri stood, paced with her hair hanging like a curtain around her sweet heart-shaped face. Twisting her fingers, she turned to Amie at last. Hesitating, she placed a smooth metal object in her hand. “This belonged to my mother. It holds no enchantments, only a brief lifetime of happiness with my father.” She removed her hands and Amie held the necklace to the light. It was a simple crest, a symbol she had seen in the pillars of Xcalibure, a single large pearl encircled with twisting silver wire. It was beautiful.
“Does he…know about me?” She thought of Arthur and his long white beard and fine clothes, the strength of his arm in spite of his age.
Dameri paused beside her bed, opened the covers and waited for her to climb inside. “You lived with us for fifty years, Jessie, of course he knows you.” Dimming the lantern she paused in the shadow of the doorway, saying, “And do try to rest. Tomorrow will not be any easier for you, I fear.”
…
Sleep. Yeah, right.
An hour later Amie was still wide awake, reeling from the unfolding of so many secrets. This was exactly why she had avoided relationships and anything surplus three close friendships over the last ten years. People invited drama and this fairy tale society Amie had been indoctrinated into was quickly turning into a cultish nightmare.
Who would have thought magical people would be twic
e as complicated as humans?
“Amie? You awake?” a voice hissed from the end of her bed. “Wait, it’s me!”
Amie sighed and lowered her nixy-charged hands. “Faye, I’ve had enough big revelations tonight, okay?”
“Shh!” Faye cautioned with a finger to her lips. “They won’t like it if they know I’m in here. There are things you don’t know yet and they want to keep it that way.”
Amie released a gust of air that was half laugh and half despair. “Like you could possibly tell me anything more upsetting?”
Compassion filled Faye’s glowing golden eyes. “Want to talk about it?”
Amie gave a noncommittal shrug but was secretly relieved when Faye sank onto the mattress by her feet. Crossing her legs, Faye leaned forward on her elbows and clasped her hands expectantly.
Amie looked her over and frowned. “You sure you don’t need the rest? Looks like you could use it more than me. You look like you wrestled a gator.”
Faye’s smile looked strange on her bruised face. “Oh, I’ve had worse before. You should have seen some of the weirdoes they’ve sent after you in the past.”
Amie stared at the duvet beneath her hands, fingered the fine embroidery. Again she wondered how she could have been so oblivious while her guardians were constantly saving her arse. “So, did you know Emrys was the one who killed my parents? Or that Dameri’s my mom, Uncle Henry’s my father and apparently I was born sometime in the nineteen twenties?” She left Dearg’s secret out of the proverbial pile of crap. Somehow that felt more personal and most people could never understand her forgiveness.
Faye exclaimed, “O-M-G! That’s crazy!”
“Still want to try and shock me? Come on and give it your best shot.”
Faye’s mouth slid into an easy grin and already Amie felt leagues better for telling someone.
“First, I need to tell you the big news.” Some of the light faded from her luminous eyes, and the skin around her lips tightened as she prepared to tell what Amie feared the worst.
Silver Hollow Page 35
