Spell of the Highlander

Page 16

If not willingly, then by means of every Dark Art he knew.
And he knew a lot of them.
Had practiced most of them. And excelled at all of them.
Lucan wasn’t the only one who’d wanted the Dark Glass.
4
CASTLE KELTAR—SCOTLAND
“You’ll ne’er believe this, Drustan,” Dageus MacKeltar said, glancing up as his twin brother, elder by three minutes, strolled into the library at Castle Keltar.
“I doona think much would surprise me after all we’ve seen, brother, but try me,” Drustan said dryly. He crossed to a handsome mahogany serving bar, artfully crafted into a section of bookshelves, and poured himself a tumbler of Macallan, fine, aged, single-malt scotch.
Dageus flipped through a few more pages of the scuffed leather tome he held, then placed it aside and stretched out his legs, folding his hands behind his head. Beyond tall velvet-draped windows, violet smudged a cobalt sky and he paused a moment, savoring the beauty of yet another Highland gloaming. Then, “You know how we’ve ever thought Cian MacKeltar naught more than a myth?”
“Aye,” Drustan replied, moving to join him near the fire. “The legendary and terrible Cian: the only Keltar ancestor to ever willingly cross over to the Dark Arts—”
“Not quite true, brother. So did I,” Dageus corrected softly.
Drustan stiffened. “Nay, you acted out of love; ’twas a vastly different thing. This Cian—who, like as not, is pure fable crafted to reinforce our adherence to our oaths—did so out of unquenchable lust for power.”
“Mayhap. Mayhap not.” Cynicism shaped the edges of Dageus’s smile. “I would place no wagers on what our progeny might say of me a thousand years hence.” He gestured to the tome. “‘Tis one of Cian MacKeltar’s journals.”
Drustan stopped, halfway down into a chair, tumbler nearly to his lips. Silvery eyes, glittering with fascination, met his twin’s golden gaze. He lowered his glass, sank slowly into the chair. “Indeed?”
“Aye, though a great many pages have been torn out, the notations were made by one Cian MacKeltar, who lived in the mid–ninth century.”
“Is that the journal you said Da found in the hidden underground chamber library, last you went through the stones with Chloe to the sixteenth century?”
The hidden underground library was the long, narrow chamber hewn of stone that stretched deep beneath the castle, wherein the vast majority of Keltar lore and relics, including the gold Compact struck between Tuatha Dé Danaan and Man, were housed. It had been sealed up, the entrance concealed behind a hearth, more than a millennium ago.
Over time, the existence of the chamber had been completely forgotten. Vague tales that once the Keltar had possessed much more in the way of lore existed, but few believed and fewer still had searched for it, and those to no avail. It wasn’t until the castle housekeeper, Nell—who’d later wed their da, Silvan, and become their next-mother—had inadvertently triggered the opening mechanism while dusting one day, that it had been found again. Still, she’d said naught about it, believing Silvan knew, and would be upset if she had knowledge of his clan’s private doings. She would likely never have mentioned it to Silvan had Dageus not been in such desperate straits.
Their da had briefly opened that chamber in the sixteenth century, but had resealed it in hopes of not altering events that had already transpired between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. Drustan had recently agreed to make it again accessible for future generations. Since reopening it, Dageus had been translating the most ancient of the scrolls therein, recopying the fragile documents, and learning much more about their ancient benefactors in the process. And now, about one of their ancient ancestors.
“Nay. That journal was but a record of recent events: handfastings, births, deaths. This journal deals with his studies into the Druid arts, much of it in cipher. ’Twas hidden beneath a cracked flagstone o’er which Chloe tripped. She suspects there may be more concealed about the chamber.”
Dageus’s wife, Chloe, an avid historian, had set her heart on systematically cataloging the contents of the underground repository and, as Dageus couldn’t bear to be parted from her for any length of time, he’d resigned himself to spending a great deal of time (meaning, probably until the very moment his lovely, pregnant wife was about to deliver) in the dusty, subterranean compartment, hence the scribing task he’d assigned himself.
He smiled. Better a dank chamber with his cherished Chloe than the sunniest Highland vista without her. Och, he amended fiercely, better Hell with Chloe than Heaven without her. Such was the depth of his love for the woman whom he’d taken captive in his darkest hour, who’d pledged her heart to him despite his actions, despite the evil within him.