Remnants of Magic (41 page)

“Can you not trust me?” He pounded his hands to his chest with emphasis. “I am your Champion!”

How dare he even breathe those words? Champion of the Sidhe? After what he’d done? Only the most despicable, slimy excuse for a Seelie would have the balls to pull that card and think it was worth more than the parchment it was scribbled on. After what he’d done? After destroying the whole of the Mounds, and nearly every Sidhe within, he dared to invoke that privilege? And here? Under the Cloak of the Raven where no status mattered? But, of course, the Seelie make up their own rules, and twist everything to their own advantage. And Lugh, the worst of the lot, was no better than the foulest of Changelings. “You are not my Champion! Nor the Champion to any Sidhe alive! You carry your tattered mantle and tout your faded glory of a world crushed beneath the earth!” Driving the heels of his hands into Lugh’s shoulders, Donovan slammed him back a couple of feet. The blow didn’t violate the Cloak, but demanded answers. “What are you up to, Seelie? Answer me plain!”

The snarl that flashed across the Seelie’s face was animalistic in its fury. With a burst of speed, Lugh lunged. His arms wrapped around Donovan’s waist as his shoulder impacted him in the gut, driving him to the ground.

Donovan wedged a knee up between them. Planting a foot in Lugh’s gut, he kicked him off.

They both reclaimed their footing fast. The Seelie curled back his lips with fury and disgust. “How is it that you are not Fading? What foul magic is this? It is not fey!”

Donovan was getting to Lugh. He couldn’t even maintain his Seelie decorum. “The magic of this realm is not purely fey, but it is free. Free from Seelie control. Free from your tyranny.”

From the way Malcolm described Lugh’s magic, it sounded like he was desperate. Any flicker of magic he wasted brought him inevitably closer to his own death. Not having access to his magic put Lugh at Donovan’s mercy.

Of which, Donovan had none.

Knowing how the Seelie was likely to move, Donovan charged him.

Lugh leaped into the air, flipping backward to dodge the attack.

They’d fought each other for thousands of years. Donovan anticipated the acrobatics. Even as Lugh rotated in the air above him, Donovan hooked his arm around the Seelie’s leg. He twisted Lugh in mid-air and then slammed him down on the ground with all the force he could drive into his body.

Donovan leapt onto Lugh, pinning his shoulders to the ground as he straddled his chest. “Tell me now! What is the flute for?”

Like a wild thing, Lugh snapped his teeth at Donovan’s face, but couldn’t get close enough to bite him. Not with Donovan keeping him down. With fury deepening his voice Lugh yelled at him, “I fashioned it with Rhiannon! I mean to use our combined magic woven into the thing to find her! She is mine!
Now give me that bloody flute!
” He bucked his body, knocking Donovan off of him.

Donovan rolled up to his feet with his quick, fey agility. “You lie!” He stalked after Lugh. Whether he still served Manannan or he coveted the mysterious magic for his own purposes, Donovan wouldn’t allow the Seelie to dominate the Unseelie ever again. “I will stop you, whatever you are planning. I will hunt you down! I will kill you if I must, but I will stop you!”

Lugh snapped at him. “You shall not stop me!”

Even as Lugh stormed away from him, Donovan shouted, “This discussion is not over!”

The Seelie hadn’t gone more than three steps before the soil beneath him trembled, shifting to the consistency of quicksand. Even when he tried to jump away from it, the ground itself clutched at Lugh’s feet, dragging him down to his knees before clamping around his legs. In his struggle to pry himself free, Lugh’s hand pushed against the earth, and Donovan snared it just as quickly.

Dropping to a knee, Donovan clutched either side of Lugh’s head, forcing him to meet his eyes and his fury. One last time, he struggled to reason with him. “Don’t you see what Seelie arrogance has wrought? Death! The Unseelie are the future of the Sidhe. Submit!”

“No!” Conviction like madness burned in Lugh’s bloodshot eyes.

Donovan could see it in his face. Lugh meant to teleport, even though it would consume his last shreds of magic. That was how determined the Seelie were to win at all costs. Donovan clutched Lugh’s head tighter. “You fool!”

Lugh slammed his palm into Donovan’s breastbone, knocking him back. Breaking the skin contact.

And then Lugh vanished.

“You Seelie idiot!” Donovan shoved himself up from the ground.

Tiernan hung back a couple of paces, out of easy reach. “Next time, I vote we shock the shite out of him.”

“If he didn’t just kill himself with that stunt, teleporting away with so little magic left.”

“Right determined blighter, I’ll give him that. That Seelie’s a man on a mission.”

Donovan growled, “So am I.”

Chapter Twelve

No one needed to tell Donovan where the Seelie girl was, or what she was doing. Just as he’d felt the presence of Danu like an unseen Touch over his heart until the moment of her death, Donovan felt the young woman. Even at the late hour, Kaitlin hadn’t any interest in sleeping more than she already had in the last few months.

Silently, Donovan appeared at the doorway of the workout room. Before him, leaning against the rack of free weights, neither Kieran nor Bryce noticed him.

And it was easy to see what distracted them.

Kaitlin tumbled across the mat so quickly that she seemed to blur. At the end of her run she flung herself high into the air, twisting three full rotations in an extended position before landing only long enough to kick hard against the ground and punch forward into a second series of flips and aerials that ended with a flying splits before landing lightly on her graceful feet. Then, under her instructions, both Trip and Dawn began complex acrobatics of their own.

“The lassies should always wear leotards.” Kieran whispered, “Bless it, they are gorgeous creatures. So lithe. So flexible.”

“Nothing wrong with those legs. And the way the Spandex clings to their curves.” Bryce caressed his hands through the air, making an hourglass shape. “Mate, I could watch them all night.”

“Or you could join them.” Donovan’s deep voice sent both of the lads jumping.

After they recovered, Kieran cocked his thumb over his shoulder. “Us? Do that?”

“You’re fey. Learn to use that agility of yours for something other than bedroom antics.” Donovan smirked at the lads, knowing full well their reputations. Kieran especially seemed bent on notching his bedpost. He’d already sent at least two lesser fey lassies back to their tribes with future offspring that would enrich the magical bloodline of their race. Back in the Mounds, Kieran would have been chided for wasting his seed procreating with anyone other than a Sidhe, but Donovan lacked the energy or the interest to police their libidos. Especially now that he knew that it had been Danu, and not some twist of fate, that had once made Sidhe offspring so rare.

At Donovan’s joking, Kieran just grinned, even when Bryce snickered and jostled him with an elbow.

After a moment, Donovan turned serious. The bloodhound weighed on his mind. “Where’s Malcolm?”

Kieran shrugged. “Last I saw him he was going to the war room.”

“The war room?”

“He said he needed space. I don’t know.”

“Go on, then.” Donovan propelled the lads toward the mat. “But don’t just learn to jump about. Practice combat uses for that tumbling. And you better be able to impress me tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Kieran gave him a salute before rushing off.

For a bit, Donovan just watched the gymnastics practice, evaluating the young Sidhe. Like cubs they played at attack and defense, but already their potential shined. Bryce flung himself into the air with more agility than a wood elf, twisting as he performed an aerial and flung out a handful of fireballs at the same time. And even with his acrobatics, all four of the projectiles would have hit their targets, if not for the Sidhe tumbling out of the way. Impressive progress after only a few minutes of instruction.

They would need every bit of training they could handle if they were to face the wizard threat.

And then there was Lugh. He’d not hurt the earthborns, but he very well could have. The Seelie was up to something, and anyone who could conspire to murder Danu wouldn’t shy away from slaughtering upstart Unseelie youths.

Leaving them to practice, Donovan headed down the hall into the war room and paused as he stepped inside. The large conference table that normally centered under the main lights in the round room was shoved all the way to the side. In its place, Malcolm sat cross-legged on the thin carpet under the lights. Before him four objects floated in the air. The highest reaching eye level with Malcolm. Donovan asked, “You found more?”

“Yeah, just laying around with different ones like heirlooms. I followed the fibers right to them.” Malcolm didn’t glance back. Instead he stared intently at the space between the objects. The lad almost never stopped fidgeting, so much so that seeing him utterly still now was singularly odd. He reached up and twisted the flute, and it levitated slightly higher. “There, that’s got it.”

Donovan’s foot nudged the untouched tray of food sitting next to Malcolm. “You remembering to eat?” He’d have to get the lad another phone and set the reminder alarms again.

Without looking, Malcolm reached over and grabbed a sandwich. He munched absently, staring always at the magic with an unnatural awed fixation.

Donovan circled the collection in a wide arc, so as to not disturb the magic. This new preoccupation of Malcolm’s didn’t bode well for the boy’s stability. He’d cast off his mission in favor of claiming this magic, and not once voiced a regret over the loss of the target he’d been so intent on killing. But then again, Lugh wanted that flute with a powerful will, and if not for Malcolm, he’d have had his prize. “What do you see?”

“At first it’s like these hairs, reaching for each other. And then when they get close, the magic makes a piece of the puzzle. You gotta put them together just so, or it won’t work.” He reached into the space between the floating objects, his fingers stroking over something, and then his voice going soft. “These all fit together.”

Donovan tilted his head. Danu’s torc floated before Malcolm. The torc she’d worn in the mural that depicted the creation of the Mounds. He sidestepped the magic, crossing instead to the cluttered shelves. From the collection, he withdrew the picture he’d sketched from memory. Unrolling the paper, he glanced over the image of the creation. Danu stood in the center as around her floated an array of objects. Donovan lowered the picture, and before him he saw Malcolm, and an array of objects floating around him.

“There’s more of them. We have to find them.” Malcolm stared into the enchantment again with near hypnotic obsession. His voice softened once more, almost as if talking to himself. “It’s important.”

Under his breath, Donovan added, “More than you know.”

###

Thanks for reading the second half of Season One of The Sidhe!

If you’ve missed it, the first half of Season One is available in Scattered Magic.

The
Glossary and Name Pronunciation Guide
is after the sample chapter.

Season Two of The Sidhe begins with in…

Into Darkness

(Coming Spring 2013)

We depend on the support of our fans.

If you’ve enjoyed this story, please consider
leaving a review on Amazon
.

Want to know when new stories set in the world of The Sidhe are released?

Sign up for the mailing list!

See where Season One of The Sidhe began…

~Enjoy a sample chapter of~

In Whom You Trust

The first episode in
Scattered Magic

“Celebrating prematurely, aren’t you?” Lugh used his glass to indicate the party filling the grand ballroom of the Seelie Court. It was as spectacular an event as any other victory gala he’d ever partaken in, with the notable exception that this time victory had yet to be secured, and to Lugh’s mind, probably never would be.

“Have faith.” Manannan offered a handsome smile full of arrogance. The Seelie king cut a dashing figure in his brocade doublet of a color that matched his ocean blue eyes. To gaze upon him, one would have believed nothing could tarnish his confidence, not even the rather inconvenient truth.

“Faith? I know the Unseelie. They shall never submit, not to you or any other Seelie king. That is at the very heart of the Unseelie, to never surrender their wild ways.” Lugh scanned those in attendance. All Seelie, which rather proved his point. The brightly attired Sidhe danced the familiar waltzes in the center of the rotunda to the traditional songs. The conversation groupings milling around the fringes were in the usual pairings, so much so that Lugh could almost with certainty describe the topics of conversations without even guessing. He knew the ones discussing politics, or domestic trivialities, or the gossip about the latest romances. All of the trappings of civility and pleasantries that the Seelie did so enjoy, and would have sent an Unseelie’s skin crawling.

Manannan tilted his head back to finish his drink, and then said, “This time, they shall accept our invitation. Danu herself is presiding.”

That did capture Lugh’s attention. He searched the guileless, even expression on Manannan’s face. Perhaps a shade too controlled. Something lurked unsaid just beneath the surface. To be certain, the king owed him no explanation, but Lugh rather wished he would accept his council in the spirit with which he offered it. Though he did not wish to see Manannan fail, in this matter he saw no conceivable way he could succeed. Save one possibility which could never be. Although it should have gone without saying, Lugh reminded his king, “Danu would not compel the Unseelie to obey her. Not in a matter such as this.”