“But your fear of losing your mind might have been a useful tool had not Arion upset my plans.” He sighed. “Do you now know why I danced with you in the mortal palace? Why you were subject to the petty spite of your fellow humans?” The smile left his face. “I had intended that your fears and your isolation from your fellow mortals should bring you closer to Arion. But you grew too close.” He cast Arion a contemptuous glance. “Arion came to his senses too late. You, however, may never again come to yours.”
Mariah took a step back. “You’re speaking in riddles,” she said.
“I despair of your intelligence, Mariah. Do you not realize that I have the power to condemn you to real madness?”
She tried to stop her shaking and failed. “I will make a very poor queen if you choose that course,” she said. “But I’ve already agreed to stay with you if you set Arion free.”
He hesitated, weighing her worth to him. “I am pleased, Mariah,” he said. “Your spirit is admirable, in its way.”
“Then you accept.”
“Yes. Oddly enough, I believe you will keep your word.”
He snapped his fingers again, and the chains binding Arion dissolved. “You are free to go, beast,” he said. “See if the others of your kind will accept you as leader now.” He prodded at Arion with the toe of his bejewelled boot. “Let me never see you again.”
Arion lay where he was, unmoving, barely breathing. Ash had been restored to his true form, but he’d lost everything else: his pride, his hopes of defeating Cairbre, his honor.
She approached him slowly and crouched beside him. The urge to touch that once-satiny coat was powerful. She kept her hands folded over her knees.
“I forgive you,” she said. “Get up, Ash. Go away, where Cairbre can never find you.”
If she hadn’t been certain that Arion was incapable of such emotions, Mariah might have suspected that she saw a tear in the huge black eye. He tucked his forelegs under his chest and heaved himself to his feet. His powerful legs trembled. His head hung low, and he looked neither at her nor Cairbre.
“You are forgiven,” Cairbre said, mockery in his voice. “Go.”
Muzzle nearly brushing the grass, Arion walked away, his cloven hooves making no sound. Mariah’s heart closed. From now on, she would allow herself to feel nothing. She would go about her life here as if it were a dream—and pray she never caught another glimpse of Arion as long as she lived.
She met Cairbre’s gaze. “I am ready,” she said.
He paused as if hearing some distant sound too faint for Mariah to hear. “We must return to the city,” he said. He took Mariah’s arm. “Quickly…”
A white blur filled her vision. Cairbre fell with a startled expression as Arion shouldered him aside and stopped before Mariah.
Up, his eyes said. Cairbre was climbing to his feet, his shrieking sprites like a hive of angry bees darting around him.
In one desperate leap Mariah flung herself onto Arion’s back. She clung to his mane as he plunged toward the invisible Gate, then jumped into the mist.
They flew. The passage seemed to take an eternity, but to Mariah it was an eternity of glory. Riding Arion was like riding Pegasus, like soaring high above the clouds where no earthly fear could touch them.
Then his forehooves struck solid ground. Mariah nearly took a tumble but righted herself just as Arion came to a stop on the other side of the Gate.
Where Nola was waiting. Or a person who might have been Nola. She was not tall, nor was she particularly beautiful, but she was striking in a way few women could hope to be. Her red hair tumbled about her shoulders. She no longer wore a maid’s clothing but a simple green gown without corset or bustle, simply belted by a sash around her small waist.
“You must not remain here,” she said, as if she had anticipated everything that would happen from the moment they left Donbridge. “While you were in Tir-na-Nog, Donnington was able to escape. And while you were passing back through the Gate, Cairbre warned him that you were returning to earth.”
A few minutes in the Blessed Land may pass as hours in this world, Ash had told her. It was already well into the morning here on earth. Cairbre had called upon his former ally…but why? He must have realized that he could no longer trust Donnington, who had claimed to want Mariah for himself.
“How do you know all this?” Mariah demanded, instinctively reaching for Ash and feeling Arion’s smooth coat under her fingertips.
“I still have a few tricks left,” Nola said with a wry smile. “Did you think that Cairbre would simply let you go? He and Donnington may be adversaries, but the earl is certainly no threat to Cairbre. As long as Cairbre has some use for the human…” She turned to Arion. She didn’t speak, but he heard whatever she intended to say. He scraped his hoof violently through the dirt, leaving a deep furrow, and made a low sound more like a growl than anything an earthly horse could have managed.
“Yes,” Nola said. She addressed Mariah again. “Arion has taken a great risk by returning you to earth. Nothing, no pleading from you, will win him mercy now, and you also are in great peril. If you go immediately, you may still escape Donnington. He may no longer want you as his wife, but he has ample reason for taking you before you can get away. Go directly to the station and board the first train bound for London.”
“And what of Ash? Why hasn’t he become human again?”
“Cairbre must have bespelled Arion to keep his original shape while he is on earth.”
“For what purpose?”
“What happens now is Arion’s to face alone.”
“Whatever he may have done, I won’t—”
“Mariah!”
Sinjin’s horse pulled up in a veil of dust. He dismounted, glanced at the beast standing beside Mariah, and froze.
“She told me about him,” he said hoarsely, indicating Nola, “but I couldn’t believe it.”
Mariah stepped in front of Arion. “Why are you here, Sinjin?”
He glanced at Nola. “Mother and I tried to hold Donnington, but he had help in escaping us.” His face tightened in rage, quickly suppressed. “He’s got his guns and dogs with him. Mariah, you have to leave.”
Mariah was sick to death of being told what she must do. “What of Ash?” she repeated. “Where is he to go? If Donnington and his dogs find him…” Suddenly she understood. “Cairbre always intended to betray Arion, didn’t he? He never planned to let Arion return to his own life.” Her voice began to shake. “Donnington isn’t just after me. He intends to kill Ash.”
“It was part of the bargain with Donnington,” Nola said. “Cairbre promised the earl that once his goals were achieved, Donnington would be permitted to hunt the rarest game of all.”
“How can he hope to kill a creature from Tir-na-Nog?” Mariah demanded, bolstering her courage. “Aren’t they supposed to be immortal?”
“Yes, but—”
“Ash outran the prince’s horses, even as a man. How could Donnington possibly catch him?”
“There is but one foolproof way to catch a unicorn…with a virgin. Cairbre demanded that you be brought to him in a state of purity so that he could be certain that any offspring you bore him would be his own. He also told Donnington that only a virgin would be capable of weakening Arion enough so that he could be taken in a hunt.”
But I’m not a virgin anymore, Mariah thought. Ash made sure of that.
“So,” she said calmly, “I was to betray Ash as he betrayed me.”
“You are a danger to him if you remain,” Nola said.
Arion shook his head wildly from side to side, flecks of foam flying from his lips. He turned his horn on Mariah and came within an inch of touching her chest with the razor tip.
“You can’t frighten me, Ash,” she said. “None of you can. I’ll go back to Cairbre. There must be a way—”
“There is too much bad blood between Cairbre and Arion,” Nola said. “And you have broken your agreement with him.”
“This woman,
” Sinjin said, glancing at Nola, “told me that Cairbre has the means to drive you mad. Not just to appear so to the world, but truly insane.”
“That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.” Mariah edged her way toward the Gate. “Protect him. Don’t let Donnington—”
The baying of hounds interrupted her pleas. She turned to Arion.
“Run, Ash,” she begged him. “Run.”
He reared, his hooves scraping the air inches from her face. A moment later a naked man stood in his place, his breath sawing in his throat. He swayed, and Mariah moved to catch him.
He shook her off and stared first at Nola and then Sinjin, his face expressionless. “Leave us,” he said.
His voice was that of a king expecting instant obedience. Sinjin lingered, scowling, but after a few moments he joined Nola and led his horse away from the Gate.
Ash stared after them until they had gone far enough that they could no longer hear his words.
“They told you to go,” he said. “And so do I.”
ASH KNEW EXACTLY HOW he must sound. His voice was flat, emotionless, conceding nothing to their former relationship—the relationship that had been a falsehood from the very beginning.
But any cruelty he might inflict on Mariah was a small price to pay for her survival. He was already lost. He had no notion of how he had been able to change his form again; likely he would never have the chance to learn. All he could do was use the chance to save her.
“There is no reason for you to interfere,” he said, not waiting for Mariah’s response. “It is as Cairbre told you. I used you to regain what had been stolen from me.”
She heard him well enough, but she only stared…stared into his eyes as if she sensed his lie, as if he would return to the man he had pretended to be and embrace her with protestations of love.
But he had never claimed to love her. And he never would.
“It was all a deception,” he said in the wake of her silence. “The arrangement that you would find me in the folly, the feigned madness, the winning of your trust.”
She kept her gaze locked on his, though her eyes had filled with very human tears. “You’re lying, Ash,” she said.
“I do not lie. I—”
“When you first tried to explain,” she said, “you told me that the madness was real, that it came from your change and the imprisonment. That part was true, wasn’t it?”
“I—”
“Donnington was to lock you away for me to discover—so that I would sympathize with you, wish to help you. But it didn’t turn out quite as you had planned. Whatever he intended, I didn’t find you until he had been gone nearly two months. You couldn’t bear the captivity.”
“You are wrong.”
“I have seen madness all my life. That was no deception. And whatever he promised you, Cairbre never planned to let you return to Tir-na-Nog. He intended for Donnington to kill you.”
Ash bared his teeth. “Cairbre is a fool,” he said. “Donnington shall never catch me. Why do you think I took your virginity? So that Cairbre could not use it against me.”
All emotion drained from Mariah’s face. “Even if you evade Donnington, Cairbre will remain your deadly enemy.”
“Not forever. I am still a king.”
“A king without a kingdom.”
“You will never comprehend what I am. You are human. Mortal. Did you believe I could ever come to care for you?”
She stared at the earth he had torn with his hooves. “If delivering me to Cairbre was all you ever intended,” she said calmly, “why didn’t you try to bring me to the Gate sooner? I was already in your thrall long ago.”
“I had to be sure of you. I—”
“Why did you try to make me stay behind? Why did you protect me?”
“I did not protect you.”
“You defied Cairbre and brought me home.”
He began to feel himself losing any advantage he might have won. “I do recognize that you have done me some service, for which I felt an obligation. There are now no more debts between us.”
He heard the pounding of her heart, smelled her distress. After a long while she lifted her eyes to his.
“Where will you go?” she asked him.
“I will buy time by allowing Donnington to chase me. Then I will go back to Tir-na-Nog.”
“To fight Cairbre?”
“Cairbre made one miscalculation. In changing me again, he restored enough of my power that I can open the Gate without assistance. I will have my revenge.”
“On Donnington, too?”
“I will stop him.”
“You mean you’ll kill him.”
He arched his neck as if to display the horn so proudly borne by his other self. “I can heal. I can also kill.”
She clasped her hands in supplication. “Don’t take his life, Arion. He, too, is ill with his own kind of madness.”
“You care for him still.”
“No. Not for a very long time.”
“Then do not presume to interfere.”
She was silent for a long while. “Thank you, Arion,” she said. “You have made things very clear. You have shown me that there has never been anything between us. I certainly have no desire to rob you of your heart’s desire.”
“Then go.”
She tilted her head, hearing the sharper cry of the hounds. “Run, Arion. Find your revenge.”
He forced his thick human legs to carry him away from her and found Nola, who waited alone under a willow tree.
“You have done well, Arion,” she said wearily. “She believes you.”
Arion concealed his self-contempt. “If you care for Mariah, help her. Don’t let her travel alone. Do what you can to keep her hidden from Cairbre. I will see that Donnington no longer interferes.”
“I cannot keep her safe forever,” Nola said, her face as drawn as an old woman’s. “I tried, you see. After I became Mariah’s maid, I went to Tir-na-Nog and attempted to reason with Oberon on your behalf. But Cairbre had already gained too much influence. I was cast out again, and now I am too weak. My magic is failing.”
He stared across the parkland that stretched away from the Gate. “You say you have lost your magic, but I have regained mine. I can return to Tir-na-Nog. When I have dealt with Donnington, I will find those who will fight Cairbre.”
He turned away, but Nola caught his arm. “You say you have power now,” she said. “Do you know why, Arion?”
Arion could not bear the question. “Farewell, Nola.”
“My name,” she said, “is Nuala. And, Ash…Donnington is a greater threat than you realize. He carries iron bullets.”
Arion strode away without answering, paused before the Gate and changed again. The scent of the approaching hunters was acrid in his nostrils. He glanced at Mariah, tossed his head and began to run.
All the glory, all the joy he had once taken in this simplest of actions was gone. He was tormented by thoughts of Mariah, of what would happen to her if he failed.
He must defeat Donnington. And then, if he survived, he must find a way, against all odds, to bring Cairbre down.
But even if he succeeded, he would never see Mariah again.
SINJIN WATCHED THE creature flee, so lost in anger that he had little room left in his heart for astonishment.
A unicorn. Nola—Nuala—had not deceived him with her seemingly mad talk of other worlds and legendary creatures. This was what Ash had always been—not a lunatic, not a long-lost cousin, not a man of rank who deserved a place at the prince’s side.
He was not even human. And now he was running from the man who intended to hunt him to the death—the Earl of Donnington, who would have remained safely confined if it hadn’t been for Lady Westlake. Pamela, who had come to Donbridge with heartfelt reassurances that she cared nothing for Giles. Who had finally admitted that she’d lied about Ash’s advances and had begged Sinjin’s forgiveness. Who had sworn that she would never give herself to another man again.
And then she’d set Donnington free.
Sinjin had not struck her; he had never yet hit a woman. He hadn’t even cursed her. He’d simply tried to stop Donnington. And turned his back on Pamela one too many times.
Nola—this new Nola, who called herself Nuala—had revived him from unconsciousness. The simple maid who had earlier rushed to tell him of trouble at Donbridge had revealed herself to be something else entirely.
Sinjin stared at the ginger-haired woman who stood gazing the way Ash had gone. What in heaven’s name was she? She’d turned from chambermaid to goddess in an instant.
No. Not a goddess. A witch. That was what she’d claimed to be. A witch who had compelled his attention and explained, in words that made a terrible kind of sense, the truth behind Giles’s erratic and inexplicable behavior.
Tir-na-Nog. The world of the Fair Folk, who called themselves Fane. A place shaped by magic and inhabited by unicorns who could change into men. Ash was one of these creatures, and as a man he had fallen in love with Mariah, who, abandoned and sold by Giles to a Fane lord, had come to love him.
“I am here to help both Arion, whom you know as Ash, and Mariah,” she’d said, when he had asked why he should trust her. She’d claimed she had been watching everything that had been happening between them since Mariah had found Ash in the folly…watching and trying to give aid whenever she could. “Mariah and Ash are destined to be together,” she’d said.
And that, she obviously thought, was sufficient reason to make Sinjin obey her hasty commands. She’d never told him why she had felt compelled to bring two strangers together—what she had done to ensure it, why she’d posed as a maid, or what benefit she received from such an apparently selfless act. And above all, she had never explained why she, having gone so far to insinuate herself into the lives of the Wares, had chosen to reveal herself only now, when matters had become so desperate.
Sinjin didn’t trust her. He couldn’t, not when she had revealed so little of herself or her motives. But he’d done as she’d asked. He hadn’t tried to stop Donnington again. He’d ridden directly to the Gate. And now he was waiting…waiting to be told what to do, as if he were a child.
Lord of Legends Page 32
