Spell of the Highlander

Page 119

Now he guided them all away from the fallen sorcerer and the three couples moved to stand near one of the hearths.
“I didn’t quite tell you the truth, lass,” he said. “The truth was, we could find no way to free him. Our only hope lay in trying to void the Unseelie Indenture. The Draghar believed that, much as a Seelie Compact can be voided by an evil deed, an Unseelie Compact could be voided by a selfless act. Not broken, breached, nor violated. Voided. Both parties released from the binding and returned to their normal state.”
“Believed?” Drustan exclaimed. “You told me they knew.”
“They believed it very strongly,” Dageus amended hastily, slipping an arm around his wife and drawing her close.
“Wait a minute,” Chloe protested, “wouldn’t the fact that Cian had been willing to die to stop Lucan from getting the Dark Book have counted as a selfless act?”
“Nay,” Dageus said. “A selfless act cannot be tainted by personal motive. Cian was driven for centuries by hunger for vengeance. ’Twas in his voice every time he spoke of Lucan, of dying in order to kill him.”
Cian nodded. “Aye, ’tis true. I didn’t want to die. I never wanted to die. I wanted Lucan dead, and there was only one way I could accomplish it. Though I wanted to keep him from getting the Dark Book, I hungered for revenge even more.”
“But he was ready to die for you, Jessica,” Dageus told her softly. “‘Twas what I was wagering on. That he would die for you selflessly. At the moment he threw that mirror, there was no thought of vengeance in his heart at all. There was only the desperate, pure self-sacrifice of unconditional love. And it voided the dark indenture.”
“You had no way of knowing ’twould work,” Cian growled.
“You’re right. I didn’t. But I was once in a like position, kinsman.” Dageus gazed down at Chloe. “I thought it safe to wager on your feelings for your mate.”
“You shaved it damn close. Mere seconds!”
Dageus arched a brow at Cian’s rebuke. “‘Twas our only hope.”
“You placed my woman in danger.”
“At least you have her,” Dageus pointed out. “Christ, doona be tripping all over yourself trying to thank me for saving you, kinsman.”
“You didn’t save him,” eternal-physicist-and-human-calculator-of-odds Gwen pointed out matter-of-factly. “Not really. You just set up the circumstances. He saved himself.”
“Bloody good thing I didn’t do this for thanks,” Dageus said dryly.
“Doona be looking to me for thanks. You put us all at risk,” said Drustan.
“I’ll thank you, Dageus,” Jessi said fervently. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll thank you a hundred times a day for the rest of your life if you want me to, and I’m sorry I hated you there for a minute when I’d thought you’d betrayed me.”
Dageus nodded. “You’re welcome, lass. Though you might have kept the hating me part to yourself.”
Chloe beamed up at her husband. “I’ll thank you too. I think you did a brilliant job of setting up circumstances, Dageus.”
He dropped a kiss on her nose. Chloe was his greatest fan, as he was hers, and would always be.
“Speaking of setting up circumstances,” Drustan said slowly, “I’ve had the oddest feeling since the two of you arrived at Castle Keltar. Verily, I’ve felt it a few times prior to your arrival too. Almost as if—nay, ’tis foolish.” He shook his head.
“What, brother?” Dageus asked.
Drustan rubbed his jaw, frowning. “‘Tis probably naught. But I’ve been suffering the strangest feeling that there’s more going on around Castle Keltar of late than meets the eye. Has no one else been feeling this?”
“I can’t speak for Castle Keltar, Drustan, but I think I know what you mean,” Jessi said. “I’ve felt it a few times lately too. There’s been this word on the tip of my tongue since this all began. I keep getting close to it, but it’s the darnedest thing—just when I think I have it, it melts away.”
Her brow furrowed and she was silent a long moment. Then “Aha! I think I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “Is this what you mean? Synchro—”
“—nicity,” Queen Aoibheal of the Tuatha Dé Danaan murmured, her iridescent eyes shimmering.
A collision of possibles so incalculably improbable that it would appear to imply divine intervention.
The corners of her lips lifted in a faint smile. She smoothed them. She’d been employing a mortal form so much of late that she was beginning to mimic their expressions.