Heir of Danger (16 page)

Aidan.

His brother. A curl of auburn hair fell across a forehead blue-white in death. Sightless eyes staring toward a sky wheeling with crows.

Brendan slammed his hand against the side of the wagon, pain shooting up his arm. Shattering the vision into a million dancing shards of light.

Not a vision of past battles. But a prophecy of what lay in store for the
Other
should he fail.

Roseingrave, Máelodor, Elisabeth be damned!

He wouldn’t fail.

“It’s not as grand as you’re probably used to, but it’s home.” Helena ushered them into her tidy comfortable parlor with an imperious wave of her hand before sinking into a chair, exhaustion clear in the tight lines beside her mouth.

After days on the road, Elisabeth’s bones rattled and road dust lay in gritty layers upon her skin and in her hair. She couldn’t wait to peel herself out of her gown and scrub every particle of her body until it squeaked.

Rogan sauntered into the room as if long familiar with its comforts. Despite the circumstances, Elisabeth had grown to like the enigmatic harper. Over hours of conversation, he’d proven to be a man of many talents and many faces. Cunning and resourceful. Always quick when spirits flagged to play a tune upon his harp and jolly them along with a song or two.

Brendan entered last. Thinner, paler, his molten amber eyes overlarge in his gaunt face. Elisabeth could almost see the wheels turning as he took in the
Amhas-draoi
’s lair from
the lack of fripperies or feminine dainties to the shelves of books, a vase of fresh flowers upon a piano.

“No chains. No whips. No torture devices of any kind. You’re safe enough for now, Douglas,” Helena said, motioning him toward a chair by the fire.

Suddenly the marks of his illness were erased in a breathtaking smile. “I’d say that hellish trip was torture enough for one lifetime, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh no, not nearly enough,” Helena replied maliciously.

They’d arrived in Dublin during a downpour, the soot-stained buildings and wet streets beneath a smear of charcoal sky a welcome sight. From outside, the tidy Duke Street town house with its bright green front door, marble steps, and gleaming black railing could have been any well-to-do merchant’s home. Carriages and hackneys clattered up and down the street. Next door a costermonger stood upon the area steps speaking with a housekeeper. Two smartly dressed women hurried down the pavement, a loaded footman bringing up the rear. Life went on around them as usual.

Yet, within, the signs of
Other
were palpable. Almost as if the
Fey
-born could not completely hide what they were. Or, in Helena’s case, took pride in that heritage. A book left open upon a table written in some sort of cryptic rune. An odd figurine upon the mantel, carved so that from any angle it took on a different aspect, the very atmosphere charged by the unseen.

A compact version of the same faery-steeped radiance Elisabeth had experienced upon every visit to Belfoyle. And, as at Belfoyle, she experienced the same combination of excited fluttering and cold dread in the pit of her stomach.

“Drink?” Rogan offered.

Brendan shook his head. “None for me.”

Rogan shrugged. Took it for himself.

“Have a seat, Douglas. We’re all friends here,” Helena said.

“Are we?” He crossed to the fire, his gait careful, body bearing the stiffness of the recent invalid.

He’d shed his sling yesterday, claiming it was deuced uncomfortable. Shrugged off Elisabeth’s warnings he was taking things too quickly with one of his infuriating smiles and a sarcastic comment that made her fists itch. She’d not experienced such violent urges since her tomboy childhood. Come to think of it, Brendan had been the usual reason for them then as well.

He warmed his hands for a moment before turning his attention back to the group. “I think it’s long past time we stopped ignoring the elephant in the room, don’t you, Miss Roseingrave?”

Wariness darkened her eyes.

“Am I prisoner or guest? I like to know where I stand.”

“One would think it was obvious after all we’ve done to see you arrive in Dublin safely.”

“One thinks all sorts of things, but I like to know.”

The tension thickened. Even Rogan paused in the act of pouring another whiskey to watch the game of one-upmanship.

Roseingrave eyed Brendan as one might a recalcitrant child. “Máelodor’s searching for you. And he’s made sure the price on your head is exceedingly tempting. On your own, how long will you last with so many on your trail?”

“Long enough, I hope.”

“And Miss Fitzgerald?”

Elisabeth stiffened, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room suddenly focus upon her.

“I’ll protect her,” Brendan answered. “She’s no reason to fear.”

“As you did in Loughrea? She may want more assurances than that. After all, it’s her life we’re talking about. Elisabeth? What say you?”

This was their chance to escape. What she’d urged Brendan to do days ago. And now? She’d run through the options in her head, counting debts and credits as she might balance a tally sheet. Her conclusion always the same. “I say we stay,” she pronounced.

Brendan’s face darkened, his body stiff.

Elisabeth plowed ahead, before she changed her mind. “You said yourself, like it or not, while your shoulder is poorly, we’re safest in Helena’s company.”

“Safety might be going a bit far,” the
Amhas-draoi
answered with a cold angry light in her eyes.

“If you wanted Brendan dead, you’d have done it already,” Elisabeth replied smoothly. “We’ve nothing to lose and all to gain by remaining here as long as you’ll have us.”

“And if I choose to rid the world of Douglas perfidy once and for all?”

Elisabeth allowed herself a sly smile. “You’d have a hard time explaining away a dead body. Servants talk, Helena. Murdering one’s guests just isn’t done.”

The three of them stared at her as if she’d grown horns, when all she’d done was point out the obvious. Digging her hands into her skirts, she pressed her lips firmly together and faced them all down. It didn’t take a gift for
Other
magic to grasp the core of their current situation. Merely reasonable intelligence and plain common sense. And she was tired of being treated like the thick-skulled
Duinedon
among a bevy of
Fey
-born.

Brendan recovered first. Laughter sparking his luminous gaze, he eyed her as if seeing her for the first time. “I believe I have the answer to my question.”

“Answers? Who looks for answers here?”

This new voice shattered the tension like a fist through glass. An old bent woman appeared in the doorway, her parchment fine face seamed with a million tiny lines, her hands bony and gnarled as they held the door handle. “Kilronan’s heir has returned.” She lifted her head as if spying something beyond the horizon, invisible to the rest of them. “The last battle has truly begun.”

Brendan waited for Elisabeth to be escorted to a bedchamber by Roseingrave’s grandmother before rounding on his hostess. Tired of being jerked like a puppet on a string. Tired of being at her mercy. Tired period. The
Amhas-draoi
’s enigmatic comments and sidelong, searching looks grated on already shredded nerves. “What do you want from me?”

Roseingrave answered with a thin smile. “It’s been a most trying few days. Time enough for explanations once you’ve had a good night’s rest.”

“If you’re waiting on that, we may never get to the crux. And I don’t know about you, but I grow short of witty banter.”

“So abrupt. So curt. Where’s your gentleman’s polish? That boyish appeal that so captivates an audience?”

“You’ve mistaken me for my brother. Aidan’s the charmer. I’m the manipulative, sarcastic recluse. Ask Lissa. She’ll tell you.”

“Lord Kilronan charming? You
have
been away a long time, haven’t you?”

What was that cryptic comment about? Had something happened to Aidan? He’d always been the happy-go-lucky rogue with the lively wit and the clever tongue. Brendan had envied his brother’s carefree attitude. Friends flocked to him. Women swooned over him. Had Father’s death wrought such devastating change?

All the years away, he’d ached for his lost family. It had been hardest to cut away those connections. His brother’s confidence, his sister’s faith. In his memory they remained unchanged. But reality was far different. Father’s death and the destruction of their family had caught them all in its wake. None of them had been left unscathed.

“You didn’t pull me clear of Máelodor’s killers, dig a bullet out of me, and invite me into your home out of the goodness of your heart. What’s in it for you?”

Rogan and Roseingrave exchanged meaningful glances, the mage-chasing harper giving a slight shrug. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask, Helena.”

Her frown deepened as she made a slow turn about the room, hands clasped behind her back. She faced Brendan once more, decision cut into the delicate lines of her face. “The Sh’vad Tual—where have you hidden it?”

“Someplace secure.”

Her gaze hardened. “Do you realize what will happen if Máelodor opens Arthur’s tomb? If he summons the last king as a
Domnuathi
? Do you truly understand the scope of such an act of villainy?”

“Easy, Helena,” Rogan said, a hand upon her shoulder. “We’re all tired and short-tempered. Perhaps we put this off until tomorrow.”

She jerked away. “You think a nice rest and suddenly Douglas will have a change of heart? He didn’t give a damn
then. Nothing’s changed. He’s as self-serving and calculating as ever.”

“You’re not very skilled at this whole persuading thing, are you?” Brendan commented.

She swung back to him with a snarl. “You think this fight will be a simple case of
Other
versus
Duinedon
? Hardly. It will be
Other
versus
Other
. Just like the dark times when the Nine set brother on brother. I refuse to let that happen again.”

Brendan leaned forward, anger stirring deep in his gut. “Mayhap instead of hounding me all those years, the
Amhas-draoi
should have spent their time hunting the real menace.”

“We were told Máelodor had been executed. That you were the only one of the Nine left alive.”

“Gervase St. John had you all fooled, didn’t he?” One of the many reasons sleep eluded Brendan. The traitorous
Amhas-draoi
warrior had known ways of destruction that left no visible mark, killing slowly from the inside out. A mangled hand had been the least of it.

Roseingrave flinched, a line appearing between her brows, her scarlet lips thinning. “St. John paid for his betrayal with his life.”

“If one of you can be turned, so can others. Scathach is the only one I trust. She’s the only one who can give me my life back.”

Helena faced him with a scoffing laugh and a toss of her head. “That’s your plan? Stone or no stone, she’ll kill you.”

Brendan’s jaw tightened. “A chance I’ll take.”

“The last chance you’ll take. St. John was a well-placed member of the
Amhas-draoi
. It hasn’t been easy to overturn
his influence or persuade the brotherhood of Máelodor’s survival. Not without proof. Most are still convinced you’re the mastermind behind this recent threat. You’ve been marked for death as the last living member of the Nine.”

“So what makes you believe when your brethren don’t?”

She slanted him a whip-thin smile. “I’ve seen him. A brief glimpse, but I know he’s out there. Unfortunately, he’s managed to hide himself away like a spider in his lair. No leads. No way to track him.”

“Magic.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s using forbidden magic to shield himself. He must be. That kind of power can only be generated through the dark energy wrought by
Unseelie
spells.”

“That makes sense.” She steepled her fingers against her lips, regarding him steadily. “So if we can’t find him, perhaps we let him find us.”

He arched a cynical brow. “And by ‘us,’ you mean me.”

“He’s determined to capture you as a way to gain the stone. Thus, we dangle you as bait and see if he bites.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“But it will work.”

“It very well might, but it’s my ass you’re dangling.”

“How secure is your ass now? Scathach and the
Amhas-draoi
will never let you live. To them, you’re a conscienceless murderer with the blood of hundreds on your hands.”

“I didn’t . . . it wasn’t like that.”

But what had he told Elisabeth? A sin of omission was still a sin. He might not have struck the killing blows, but his handprints lay all over the daggers that had. His ideas fed the ambitions of the group. His arrogance blinded him to the mounting evil going on under his own nose. It had
taken Freddie’s death to finally make him see. And by then it had been too late.

“You want your life back? Help me find and capture Máelodor,” Helena argued. “Force him to stand for his crimes. The
Amhas-draoi
will finally realize who’s behind this new source of trouble. They’ll have to listen to me—and you.”