Darach (4 page)

He waited as he allowed his own Fire to seep out of every single one of his tortured nerves and muscles. They had left him in magik bonds so flimsy a Cariad babe could have released himself. But he needed to rest, to allow his tortured body to begin to heal.

The skin began to be restored to health first. His Fire worked to heal the shell and senses, and at the same time, spread to repair his core. Images spun in front of him in viridian, scarlet, silver, and blinding white; they made him nauseous and dizzy. When his vision finally cleared, his first thought was that there wasn't anything to see anyway. Apparently, light wasn't needed by the dead. He had been left in the inky dark. His fingers scrabbled at the earth he could reach then he laid his palms flat to the ground and willed himself into a meditative state, allowing the red of his Fire to work.

Sparks skimmed over cells, encouraging connections. He could imagine them in his head. Painfully, finally, each bone snapped, slid, and clicked back into place, every muscle knitted with delicate accuracy until, with a shuddering breath, he came fully awake.

Ceithin pressed himself up on his elbows, dizziness forcing his eyes closed as his Fire retreated. He catalogued as much as he could of what had happened. Whatever they had thrown at him had been enough to drive his Fire into hiding, however much he sensed it wanted to strike out and kill, particularly at the end when they had pronounced him dead.

He questioned his sanity in this whole thing again. How he had ever thought it was a wise idea to attempt to break into the archives, he would never know. His father had warned him it was unlikely there would be any trace of Trystyn after so long. He'd said it was dangerous for Ceithin to expose himself to anyone who was non-Cariad, never mind the whole Council. Why hadn't he just listened? His brother was gone. Trystyn was dead or gone to the Otherworld. Ceithin couldn't feel his brother's Fire because he'd been murdered by the Council, and he should just begin to accept this. Familiar grief clawed inside him, an ache, a stabbing loneliness.

Residual wards circled him, and a random lattice of energy pulsed and hummed and twisted sound in his head. It would be a good few hours before he was fully healed, and he threw up his own wards so as to stay hidden in the dark, presenting the image of a dead man to anyone who cared to look. He slept—the best way to heal—relaxing and drifting on crimson seas that enveloped him and carried him along the flow to healing.

He was finally closer to having the wherewithal to make sense of all of this. Guardian had somehow betrayed him and sent him to a fate even he couldn't imagine in his worst nightmares. Guardian had been Ceithin's only hope of finding out where Trystyn was. Ceithin's dreams traveled beyond his anger at betrayal, and his Fire balanced him until he slept shallowly, half aware of his surroundings.

When he woke, someone had entered the space with him. The presence was unsettling. A man. He was certainly not one of the three who had been there before, and his Fire was stronger than the empty things he had seen in the courtyard. This was another, a youngling, with Fire so juvenile it tumbled and spat inside him with little sense or direction. Recognition snapped inside him, this was the one he was told would try to find the Cariad. Kian had told him there would be another who would attempt to follow his steps and might find Ceithin, some name starting with a D. Derrin, Darrin, a spiky name, the letters hard and sharp, and eyes filled with blue Fire.

Halting, hesitation in every word, the youngling was attempting magik. Ceithin raised his eyebrows in surprise. The words of enchantment to manipulate Fire slipped into Ceithin's incomplete sleeping dreams. They were snapped, stuttered words—not smooth with practiced magik but harsh and shocking in their simplicity. Suddenly his dreams turned to blue. The crimson inside him tried to hold tight, but slowly it transformed to orange, then through the entire spectrum until it finally transformed to a sapphire so bright it hurt. The iciness of the blue cooled his own Fire and he started to wake.

"Cariad?" Definitely a new voice, not one of those who had been with Sulien. This was the young voice of Kian's friend, resonant with false bravado. "Cariad?"

"Nguh," was the most coherent response he could form. He pushed himself back up on his elbows, blinking into the dark. He tried to move more, but a new ward had been cast inexpertly around him to keep him still.

"Don't push," the voice said, and the glow of blue, apparently as young as the sapphire in his dreams, haloed a young man, clearly only at his Fire birthday. He was blond, beautiful, and his eyes were the same stunning, unreal blue as the Fire he had so recently received and was currently struggling to control. "You can't move," the voice added hurriedly.

Ceithin relaxed, giving the impression the magik cast actually held him still. He was intrigued by this strange development in his incarceration. How was it that Kian's friend had chanced his luck by coming to the Council prison? How had he managed to break through? Had the Council decided on a new strategy to try and break him, using this boy as some kind of trick?

"What is this?" He waited for the younger man to move closer, watching him crouch low. Ceithin observed blue on the young man's shaking fingertips and determination on generous lips.

"I'll ask the questions," his visitor countered without hesitation. "Are you a Cariad?"

"Who are you?" Ceithin's throat, still not fully recovered from its injuries, tightened.

The stranger ignored the question and snapped his finger so his Fire flared stronger, brighter. He edged closer, leaning in with what Ceithin assumed was the young man's most threatening expression. "Tell me about the Cariad."

"The Cariad?" Ceithin coughed dramatically to hide his visceral reaction to the direct question. Not many of the New World, especially one so young, spoke of the Cariad with such issue or demand. "It's a story, a fairytale to scare small kids."

"No." The stranger's voice was strong and determined. "The Cariad aren't a story. And you're going to help me to find them, because… you know."

"I don't understand." Ceithin didn't know whether to admire the youngling or laugh at his avid determination to question him. Had he really thought this through? He clearly feared the Cariad, yet, at the same time, demanded their location so he could… do what? Try to steal something from the Cariad themselves? He tried to remember what Kian had said, something about how his friend would be utterly determined to follow him.

"I know you're of the Cariad. It's why the Council has you here."

Ceithin tested his bonds with an exaggerated huff of exertion. No sense in letting the other know that his puny, infant Fire had no power to hold any Cariad.

"
There
are
no Cariad
.
"
Ceithin
could be equally as stubborn. He cast a glance
to
either side of his visitor and judged
the possibility of
escape
from
the dim
,
murky
,
unl
it
part
of the stone prison he was held in. There was no need for bars and locks
in any
Council
jail. Each space for a soul was simply carved from the ancient mineral rock the
City
stood upon. The
members of the
Council
were
,
in th
e City
,
all-
powerful and
had the strongest of wards
,
bonding
any prisoner
to the stone and stopping
them
from leaving.
G
ranite
reinforced by warding
was impenetrable
by
all
,
apart from the three in the Council
.
Well,
that
'
s
what they thought
,
anyway.
Council
members
couldn
'
t
know
,
but
there was
no
kind of
ward
strong enough to keep
Ceithin
, or indeed any Cariad,
if
they
wanted to leave.

If he hadn't been taken by surprise, betrayed, he wouldn't even be here. He'd have done what he came for and been back in the Valley with his family before anyone really missed him. In the convoluted history of his tribe, there existed no record of any Council Mage imprisoning a Cariad, and it was his shame he had been trapped. Damn Guardian and his lies and half truths.

"
There
are
Cariad.
"
Annwn
,
this youngling
—
Darach
,
he suddenly remembered
—
was a stubborn idiot.
"
Kian wrote—
"

So this
was
the
youngling Kian
had warned him of
?
Still
,
he was startled
by the use of the name, aware of what its use meant to his
own
future
.
Ceithin
decided
that
enough was enough.
There
was
no
time to indulge questions
or be cautiously diplomatic
. H
e needed to be away from here, and with a growing dread
,
he realized another fact.
T
here was nothing
Ceithin
could do
but bring the
stranger
along
with him
;
he had promised Kian he would look out for this Darach
.
Damn it to
Annwn
.

In one surge of movement, Ceithin snapped the fragile blue Fire trying to hold him in place and had the younger man pinned to the floor in bonds of crimson. His visitor opened his mouth. Ceithin silenced any potential shout for help with a casual flick of his wrist and a spell to silence him. Carefully, he eased to kneel next to his new prisoner. He only had one question for the newborn. A rhetorical question given the frightened boy was spelled into silence, but a good one to get out into the damp cold air.

"What are you doing here, you idiot?" He rolled to his feet and looked down at the figure prone on the floor, and sudden uncertainty tugged at him. "Darach ab Owen." The harshness of the syllables scratched at his throat when he spoke them, and he sensed immediate shock from his prisoner. He leaned closer. "The one who wants to follow. Kian told me, warned me you would try to find the Cariad."

Darach shook his head, and his eyes widened in the dim light of crimson.

"I'll let you loose. Are you going to scream? If I lift the hold, don't make a sound, all right?" He waited until Darach nodded, then breath by breath, he snagged the bands of his Fire hovering around Darach's face.

"You… How… Kian—" Darach wasn't making any kind of sense, but at least he didn't shout and lose them the safety the half-dark provided.

"He said you would look for him, and you would need me," Ceithin stated simply.

Blue sparked around Darach's face, an unearthly glow shimmering and snapping on his skin, and confusion carved into his features. "But you're a Car—"

"How the hell did you make it in here?" Surely, there was Guardian to pass by? The Council wards?

"It was easy," Darach boasted, pride in his voice. "I do have magik."

Magik? This youngling thought he had magik? That was laughable. However, the fact he got past the wards and Guardian meant only one thing. He was allowed through. Which meant this was either some kind of Council trap or this youngling was in as much danger as he.

"We need to get out of here." He didn't want any more of the nightmare-story-from-my-childhood-Cariad shit, not from Darach with whom he needed to work to escape.

He had made a promise to Kian. A simple one. He promised he would watch out for Darach if he came to him, and he would remove him from harm's way simply because Kian had begged him, his gaze so damn serious. The Cariad did not break their promises.

But how in
Annwn
had Darach got by
Guardian, past the library,
and
across the
Council
wards
?
Doubt and suspicion
prickled his thoughts
as he turned over possibilities in his head
.
Darach
was
like a
child
, a newborn,
with his Fire
. Nothing
the youngling
possessed in him
would have protected him or made
it
easy for him to
penetrate
any kind of
magik
, let alone
magik
placed by the
Council
or Guardian
.
It
must be
some kind of set-up,
which only
reminded
Ceithin
of
his need to
leave
.
W
hether Darach
was an innocent part of an anti-Cariad trap or the instigator
was a thought he had to push to one side.
He had no time to consider dela
y
s, or double deals, or any kind of what
-
ifs and maybes.