Reunion (52 page)

And that was unfortunate, because she and Isleen were Empress Twins. Like Renkavana and his brother they were psychically linked. When one died, the other would soon follow.

Partition for Teagan wasn't going to be something to celebrate.

It would condemn her to death.

"Do you hear that?" Darragh asked as he turned from the window. It was raining outside now - not a gently pleasant rain, but a savage storm that lashed at the windows and streaked the night with lightning. It was more than an hour since Marie-Claire had left them here. Their meal - a remarkably good filet mignon - had been silently delivered and devoured ages ago. Now they were just waiting. Darragh couldn't decide what they were waiting for.

Ren didn't even look up from staring at the knife in the glass case on the mantel. He seemed fascinated by it. He'd been studying the etchings on the blade for the past fifteen minutes like they held the meaning of life. "Hear what?"

"I thought I heard voices."

"Maybe this place is haunted."

"There's no such thing as ghosts."

"Really?" Rónán asked, glancing over his shoulder. "And yet there are all manner of other supernatural creatures. You'd think ghosts would be as real as Faeries."

Darragh smiled. Despite being stranded in this realm, despite being on the run and a prisoner of the
Matrarchaí
, it was good to be reunited with his brother. "The purists among the
Tuatha Dé Danann
claim there is nothing
super-
natural about the
sídhe
at all. They claim the Faerie are the only truly
natural
creatures. Humans, with their base appetites, greed, and voracious need to change the world about them, are the ones that don't belong in the natural world."

"Spoken like a true
Tuatha Dé Danann
," Rónán said. "What do you suppose is keeping Marie-Claire?"

"Who knows? Did you try the windows?"

Rónán nodded. "They're locked. So is the door."

"We could break a window. We're on the ground floor here and those dining chairs look pretty solid."

"They're alarmed." Then he added with a thin smile, "The windows, I mean. Not the chairs."

"We might make it to the road before they catch us," he said. "I'm game if you are."

"And what will we do when we get to the road? Flag down a passing car and tell them we were kidnapped by a bunch of evil women from another reality, who made us dress in tuxedos and forced us to eat filet mignon?"

Darragh smiled. "It's true. Even if it does sound ridiculous."

"It doesn't matter anyway. Even if we get away from here, even if we found someone who believed such a ludicrous story, your face... and mine, by definition, have been plastered over every news channel in Europe for days by now." He turned from the mantel to look at Darragh. "We step foot outside this place, we're done for. Much as it pains me to admit it, the
Matrarchaí
are our best chance of getting out of this realm. They have access to stone circles located in the Enchanted Sphere, they are -"

"Whoa! Back up a bit," Darragh said, wondering if he'd heard right. "The enchanted
what
?"

"The Enchanted Sphere," Rónán explained. "What little magic is left in this realm settles in a band that circles the planet around the height of a hundred-storey building. You can open a rift from there and come and go as you please, although for some reason, they work better in large cities. Something about the life-force a large concentration of people gives off."

Darragh was stunned. He'd never heard of such a thing. "How is it our rift runners know nothing of this Enchanted Sphere?"

"I'm guessing it's because the few who do venture into magic-less realms don't hang about long enough to go visiting ultra high-rise buildings so they can discover it for themselves."

The implications of such a discovery were astounding. Thousands of years of rift-running and no-one Darragh had ever spoken to had mentioned such a thing. It explained so much.

It explained how the
Matrarchaí
had been able to grow so large and so powerful without the
sídhe
knowing anything about them until it was too late. "My God ... That's how they did it. It's how they've stayed under the radar for so long. We never heard of the
Matrarchaí
- except as a fairly benign sisterhood of midwives - because they did their plotting out of the reach of the
sídhe
. Why are you smiling like that?"

"You said they'd stayed under the 'radar'. Last time I saw you, you didn't even know what radar was."

"I've learned a lot since I was stranded here," Darragh told him, deciding they might as well have this long overdue discussion. "Much of it I will spend the rest of my life trying to
unlearn
."

"I am sorry," Rónán said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I really am. If I'd known ..."

"It's okay, Rónán. I understand."

Rónán shook his head. "I'm not sure you do. Not entirely."

"Explain it to me then."

His brother seemed extraordinarily uncomfortable with the topic of Darragh being stranded in this realm. Every time Darragh broached the subject, Rónán found a way to steer the conversation away from it. Darragh believed Rónán had his reasons. He was prepared to be sympathetic to them. He didn't even blame his twin, confident he would have come for him as soon as he was able. But knowing
why
was important too. He'd put the past decade behind him happily, if he understood Rónán's motives.

But Rónán was still hedging. "I'd rather wait until we can share the
Comhroinn
. Telling you why might not be enough. You need to understand it, too."

"Don't you trust me to understand?"

Rónán hesitated and then shrugged. "I'm not sure. I used to think you'd be fine with it. Then I discovered you were in prison here for the past ten years - and Portlaoise at that - and my grand idea didn't seem such so brilliant any longer."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of what's brilliant and what isn't?"

Rónán looked at him, perhaps debating how much of his reasoning to tell his brother, and then he took a deep breath and said, "How often have you had The Nightmare since you got stuck here?"

The question took Darragh by surprise. He wasn't expecting Rónán's explanation to have anything to do with his nightmares.

"Once or twice," he said. "Not for years though. Not until recently."

"That's because I found a way to stop them."

"So it was a true dream, then?" Darragh didn't need to ask that. Not really. He knew the taste, the feel of a dream that was prophecy, rather than wishful thinking.

Rónán nodded. "The children are yours. The babies. They get younger every time I see them."

"Then we're safe," he reminded his brother. "Is that why you left me in prison? So I would be denied a female who might bear my children?"

"I didn't know you were in prison. And that's the problem. You'd planted your seed before you left our realm."

Darragh frowned. "Who ...
Brydie
?"

Brydie ... Brydie ...
Darragh thought he heard someone calling her name. Rónán nodded.

Well ... that explains a few things.
"That's how you knew her name when I couldn't recall it."

"Yes."

Brydie was our mama. Mama tried to hurt us ... mama tried to hurt her babies.

Darragh shook his head to clear the imaginary voices from it and focused on Rónán. His reasons seemed rather far-fetched, given the timing. "But her children must be half-grown by now. If the babies are getting younger in your dreams, she can't be their mother."

Rónán's expression was bleak. "Brydie was trapped by a
djinni
in a jewel given to her by Marcroy. I found the jewel and I kept it."

Darragh let that sink in for a moment, trying to imagine what it must have been like for Brydie to be trapped like that for a decade or more. "Do you still have it?"

"Yes ... and no. I left it with someone before I came here. I was afraid stepping into this realm would break the enchantment, like it did with Trása when Marcroy turned her into a bird."

Papa can protect us ... come to us, papa ... we love you ...

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Darragh was certain he was hearing things. He pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, trying to take in what Rónán was telling him. "So all this time ..."

"Brydie has been pregnant with your children. The children in the dream."

Come, papa ... we need you ....
The lights flickered again. That storm was really getting savage out there.

"And Trása? Have you seen her?"

Rónán took a moment to answer, which was odd. "She's been in the ninja reality with me."

There was something in the way Rónán phrased his explanation, something about the way he said "with me" that caused Darragh a momentary surge of jealousy. Although his youthful romance with Trása had ended when they were both still too young and innocent for it to be anything more than a few meaningful looks and stolen kisses, he knew without having to think about it that Trása was now a woman, and if she had spent the last decade with his brother they could only be enemies or lovers. There was no chance of anything in between.

Rónán wasn't speaking of her like she was an enemy.

But the admission made Darragh uneasy. It was the first time he'd caught his brother in a lie. When he'd suggested earlier that Brydie might look like an old woman, be married to a border lord and have half-dozen children by now, Rónán had answered "probably", when he'd known of her fate all along.

Before Darragh could call him out on the lie, however, the lights dimmed again and then flickered back on. He glanced up at the crystal chandelier, waiting to see if the power would cut out completely, but then the light steadied and returned to normal.

Papa ... papa ...

"Must be the storm," Rónán remarked.

"I suppose." It wasn't what he wanted to say, but the banal reply gave him time to gather his thoughts and push away the absurd voices in his head so he could decide how he should react to this new information. First Rónán had lied about Brydie, and now he'd all but admitted he and Trása were together. A part of Darragh felt betrayed, and more than a little suspicious. Were Rónán's motives for abandoning him in this realm so noble, after all, or had he committed an act of unconscionable cowardice? Did Rónán really want to defy destiny, or had he decided it would be easier to leave his brother to rot so he could have Trása for himself, while holding onto Brydie in her enchanted jewel and ensuring his brother's children could never rise up and force him to face his responsibilities?

Darragh dismissed the thought as absurd, almost as soon as it occurred to him. Whatever had gone on this past decade, the dreams
had
stopped, which meant Rónán had stalled the events leading to that awful, watershed moment for the better part of a decade.

Given they both had the ability to see the future, given the nature and the intensity of their nightmare, given their knowledge of what was to come, Darragh was fairly certain that if their roles were reversed he'd do exactly the same thing.

They were twins, after all, and despite their diverse upbringings more alike than not in so many, many things.

"How is she?"

"Trása?"

"Of course."

Rónán's face softened for a moment, which told Darragh more than any words might about his brother's feelings for her. "She's become the de-facto Queen of the Faerie. The lesser
Youkai
are nuts about her."

Darragh smiled. "She'd like that."

"She never let up demanding I come rescue you," Rónán added. "I ended up having to tell her about the dreams to shut her up."

"I wondered if she was still angry with me for not insisting she be allowed to stay in
Sí an Bhrú
when her father sent her away."

"I think that's long forgiven and forgotten," Rónán assured him.

"Where is she now?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest," he said. "She was in the ninja realm when I left. But Marcroy has got the jewel back that Abbán used to open the rift. I don't know if that means he's been to the ninja realm already, or he's planning to go. Either way, I'd like to get back there before Marcroy finds Trása again and decides to punish her more severely than the last time."

Don't leave, papa, not now ...

"Did you break Marcroy's curse?"

Rónán shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I didn't want her going back to our realm. It was the only way I could ensure she didn't."

Ever the pragmatist, my brother.
Darragh had a feeling that of the two of them, Rónán was the one better equipped to do what needed to be done. He seemed easier with making the hard decisions than Darragh would have been. He was certain he would not have been able to resist Trása's demands for as long as Rónán had managed. Perhaps that's why the dream, when they were younger, affected them both equally, but as they'd grown, as circumstances had shaped them, Destiny had made a choice and it became clear who would wield the blade and who would stand by and watch. Darragh couldn't help but be relieved that fate had apparently chosen his brother. "Does she love you?"

Rónán smiled. "Sometimes."

The lights flickered again.
Papa, please come. We love you.

Darragh put his hands over his ears. "Are you
sure
you don't hear anyone calling?"

"Positive. Are you okay?"

Before Darragh could answer, before he could say he was hearing his daughters calling, his daughters who weren't even born yet, a
Leipreachán
dressed like a portly ninja popped into existence on the table in front of him and threw himself at Darragh, wailing, "Renkavana! I be so glad ye are still alive. Lady Trása be comin' with Lord Pete and Lord Logan, and Lady Nika and -" The
Leipreachán
stopped abruptly as he looked up discovered Rónán standing behind him. He stared for a second or two at Darragh, realized he had the wrong man, squawked with fright and then threw himself at Rónán and began his litany of woes all over again, "Renkavana! I be so glad ye are still alive. Lady Trása be comin' with Lord Pete and Lord Logan -"