Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel) (10 page)

Without benches in the corner of the garden, Toren lowered them to sit on the ground, arranging Shaw to lean against him.

Bekah crouched down, the green pool of skirt fluffing around her and partially covering his legs. Someone had at least thought to provide her with clothing, though she had already sliced a split up the front of her skirt to expose knees. Practical to the core, she couldn’t be hampered fighting monsters or warriors by proper clothing. They should have just given the lass a warrior’s kilt.

The image amused him. She also wore two dirks stashed in her belt, likely taken off Oisin and Greagoir, which they were not likely to get back. Having their weapons taken by a slip of a lass was enough to dent any warrior’s pride, let alone tucking tail to ask for it back.

Following the curve of her pretty knees to the soft hide boots, Shaw frowned. “Yer feet.”

“Have been healed.” Charity strode, more like waddled, toward them with that same goblet he had yet to take a sip from. “The wounds in her shoulder and hip too. Good thing as they were on the verge of infection. I’ve been quite busy while you perfected your Sleeping Beauty routine.”

Shaw squinted up at her, unable to decipher a half of what she said. Too weary to make the attempt, he took the offered water she handed down to him, even as she pressed a hand to her back, trying to relieve the pressure, and looked around for a place to sit that wasn’t so far down it would be impossible for her to get back up.

“Charity.” Toren’s tone housed a gentle quality Shaw had never heard from his brother. “Go to our chamber and lie down. Ye’ve been on your feet all evening.”

“But I want to know what’s going on.”

“I will tell you everything.”

“There’s no way I can sleep now.” A yawn drew out the last word.

“I willna have yer health at risk. Ye’ve already done too much.” Caving beneath the narrowing of her eyes, Toren nudged Shaw to lean against Bekah and got up, strode out of the garden and returned several moments later, carrying a high-backed chair with several embroidered pillows in its lap, which he plunked down and ordered, “Sit.”

And without waiting for her to do so, he swept her from her feet and planted her into its seat.

Charity’s lips pressed together in suppressed humor to which Toren rolled his eyes skyward and crossed his arms over his chest.

Shaw drank the last of the water and set the goblet down, feeling much better as the moon restored what had been taken earlier in the day to save the stolen babes who now resided within Aldreth’s barren womb.

What the moon replenished would not be enough, not with how his magic was bound to the witch. He could not remain here much longer. Pressing his palms on the soft dirt, he started to shift up. “I need to get back to Aldreth.”

“No way.” Bekah pressed on his shoulder at the same time Toren leaped forward also to keep him there.

“Nay, yer time with the witch is at an end.”

Charity watched from her chair, saying nothing, a knowing sadness in her eyes.

“You’re not strong enough yet,” Bekah chided.

“I willna get my strength back without the witch.”

“He’s right,” Charity spoke up. “I felt it inside him. Their magic is intertwined in such a way that she feeds off his, while returning back to him…” A small line puckered the skin above her nose. “What magic streams back to him from her, what once was fully his is diluted and tainted with…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what it is.”

Madness
, Shaw left the curse unspoken.

“He needs it though, his essence has become accustomed to it—like a drug—without it…”

“He will die.” Toren’s featured turned flat. “Without the witch my brother will die. Is that what ye are telling me?”

“Can he be weaned off it? Even better, cold turkey?” Bekah asked, worried pitching her voice higher.

“Turkeys?” Toren frowned, then waved it off. “There has to be another way. Shaw is not going back to that.”

Shaw jerked his head at the fierceness in Toren’s statement. Toren knew better than anybody what Aldreth was capable of. “There’s naught to be done for it.”

Toren knelt on one knee in front of him. “There must be.”

His hand rested on his shoulder, their age-old conveyance of affection and Shaw nearly crumbled with the solid weight of it. “Because of the lass, we know where to find Col. We can bring our youngest home and bring back this vampire to awaken Edeen. Mayhap find another dragon in our time to raise her from her slumber. Together, with the four of us together, we will have enough magic between us, blood magic, to break this bond ye have with the witch. Tell me that will work?” He looked over his shoulder to Charity.

“I—“ She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Can you?” Shaw leaned forward. “Without the clan, is yer magic strong enough to sustain a time rift?”

Toren looked away, confirming the answer as Shaw went on. “And what of the monsters of the future that I am somehow the father of?” He turned to Bekah. “Did ye tell them of that?”

Bekah nodded.

“She did,” Toren confirmed.

Shame burned like acid across his vocal cords. “There’s more ye do not know.”

Chapter Thirteen

Toren and Bekah shared a worried look, as well they should. The lump in Shaw’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Aldreth is losing her grip on her sanity. She has been for years. I can feel it. What’s more, I can sift it away.”

“And absorb it into yourself.” Charity tried to shift forward in her seat, but gave up and pressed arms around her belly instead. “That’s the twisted violent strands of essence I felt. Sweet goddess, Shaw.”

“I have to remain with her, hold her madness back for as long as I am able. With all the dark magic within her…”

“She’s a nuclear reactor ready to melt down.” Bekah shook her head. “My coming here may have changed everything. If the witch goes off, there may not be enough humans in the future for me to save. The purging of the Sifts or entire generations of people never being born. Hell of a pendulum.”

Toren stood and began pacing, then stopped suddenly at Charity’s side. “Can you unravel their magic?”

“No, I told you before. It’s too entwined.”

“Within Shaw. What about within Aldreth? Can it be severed from her end?”

“I—“ Charity’s lip twisted. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility. If I could get close enough to touch her.”

“No.” Three voices rose as one.

“No,” Bekah repeated. “Your baby.” Her eyes dropped and Shaw narrowed his at her quick reaction.

“So we leave Col in Seattle, Edeen lost in slumber, and Shaw a virtual prisoner to the witch and sickening by the hour when we have been searching these three years for a chance to get them all back. You’re saying we do nothing when our first opportunity presents itself? I don’t think so.” Charity kicked her heel against the leg of the chair.

“We’ll find another way without you and our child getting near the witch.”

That took the defiance out of her eyes and Charity nodded, rubbing an unconscious hand along the top of her stomach. “You’re right. Of course you’re right, but Edeen and Col…”

“Can’t you…” Bekah pushed her errant hair out of her face and looked Shaw straight in the eyes. “Can’t you open a time rift? Alex—our scientists said, we thought, that was an ability of a Moon Sifter. That’s why the Sifts can do it, to a limited extent. We thought…”

“To what extent?” Shaw grasped onto her hand. “To what extent?”

Bekah shrugged. “A hundred years. No more than that.”

Shaw met Toren’s gaze, a trickling of an idea forming.

“Magic,” they said at the same time, and Toren’s grin became that of a hunter, dark and anticipating blood.

~~~

Near dawn, hooves upon soil rustled the quiet air. Shaw pulled his horse to a halt and dismounted, handing the reins to his brother astride his own stallion. “Keep Bekah safe. She’s adrift in our time.” He hadn’t liked separating from her. She had told him to watch his arse with a sly roll of those brown eyes and a slide of her fingers into his hand.

“She’s a wildcat who does as she pleases.” Toren sighed. “I’ll watch after the lass.” He swung down off his own horse and stood shoulder to shoulder with Shaw, staring at the witch’s dark castle through the trees. “I do not like you going in there without me.”

Glancing sideways at him, Shaw sighed. “I do not like you hunting these new beasts without me.”

The sky lightened to a bruised pink over the castle.

Toren dug the tip of his boot into the dewy soil, dark hair swinging along the sides of his face as he looked down. “’Tis a good plan. I’ll light a signal pyre upon Crunfathy Hill once we’ve attained one of the beasts.” He lifted his face. “Ye’ll be able to get away?”

Shaw half-smiled at that. “The witch’s leash is not that tight. I’ll come.”

Toren’s warm palm slipped onto Shaw’s shoulder. “Aye. And we’ll bring our young scamps back to us. We will be a family again.”

Nodding, Shaw grinned fully, and turned back toward the castle, dreading to return there now that he had his brother back, but it couldn’t be helped. He squared his shoulders.

“Wait,” Toren called.

Shaw glanced back and suddenly found himself pulled into a crushing hug and all the fears and shame of the past years bled away.

“Be careful.” Palm cupping the back of Shaw’s head, Toren rasped near his ear. “I willnae lose ye again.”

Shaw squeezed Toren’s arms, grasping his brother like a log in a storm-swollen river, and nodded tightly against his neck, too overcome for speech.

“Good. ‘Tis good.” Toren patted his shoulder and set him back, Shaw immediately mourning the separation.

“Watch for the flames,” Toren reminded as though it was the most important thing in the world. It was.

Shaw nodded once more and, turning toward the castle, walked away from his brother.

~~~

He felt a disturbance upon the air the moment he stepped over the castle’s threshold. A cloying weighted darkness cast by the spread of a vulture’s wings. Thick like the misty air that rises around gravestones. No one was about, no mercenary guards, no cooks clanging in the kitchens preparing the midday meal. He had told them to stay away, hadn’t he? The torches set in the walls were not lit.

Shaw ran to Aldreth’s chambers, following the pathway of oily slick nightmare tendrils that connected him to the witch. Something was wrong. Insanity brushed along his senses like the ruffling of a flock of ravens taking to flight.

The floor suddenly rumbled beneath his boots. The tapestries on the stone walls whipped upward, caught in an unseen wind. He trudged through the disturbance.

He found Aldreth on her large bed, crouched over, palms flat on the mattress, dark hair hanging wild over her face, waves of magic sparking around her, sketching her in the only light in the encompassing darkness.

“Aldreth,” he whispered, dread choking his voice.

Her head snapped up, glittering eyes glared between strands of hair. “Where were you? I needed you here!” She screeched and a flare of lightning shot out at him viper-quick and bright, taking him to his knees.

“I lost her,” she wailed. “I lost my child and ‘tis yer fault. You should have been here. I needed you. Where were you?”

Bands of her rage crushed him to the floor, the dark unstable magic pulsing so tight his ribs creaked.

“Aldreth,” he rasped. His was no match for her magic, never had been. She was the most powerful witch the world had ever known and when she had made her oaths with demons, her natural talent was enhanced tenfold.
 

Yet with power came insanity… Too much darkness, her mind cobwebbed in shadows.

All Shaw could do was pull the dark web from her, bleed the insanity out of her soul and help her find a small partial stream of light, albeit moonlight. He took from her and he gave, praying ‘twas enough to guide her back to herself…at least enough to think rationally and not release her magic upon the innocents of the world in a fit of madness.

“Aldreth.” His body shook beneath the crushing strain, his back bowed under the weight of her unstable mind bleeding into him. “Let me help you now.”