Spell of the Highlander

Page 99

Protection runes. They hold the repercussions of meddling with black magycks at bay, Chloe had said.
She was so absorbed in watching him that she didn’t hear the door to the bedchamber open and someone slip in until Gwen said softly, “He’s transmuting the soil, Jessi. He saw you up here and sent me to find you. He asked me to ask you not to watch.”
“Why?” Jessi said tonelessly.
Gwen drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s Dark Magyck, Jessi. It has some ghastly side effects, but even Drustan agreed that it was necessary, and believe me, if Drustan agrees to any kind of Dark Magyck or alchemy being used on Keltar land, there’s a really good reason for it.”
A faint, bitter smile curved Jessi’s lips. There was so much love and pride in Gwen’s voice for her husband. She knew she would have felt the same about Cian in time—if she’d been given the time. But he’d never had any intention of giving her more than a few weeks from the very first.
“It will neutralize Lucan’s powers if he comes here,” Gwen told her, “and Cian is convinced he will.”
“If the bastard comes here, can we kill him?” Jessi said fiercely. “If the wards have neutralized him?”
“No. The glass keeps him immortal, just like Cian, Jessi. He can’t be killed. The wards will only inhibit his use of sorcery on Keltar land. He won’t be able to work spells and he won’t be able to enter the castle proper. Cian is doing the most intense warding around the perimeter of the castle walls. It’s why he wants you not to watch. Apparently, if anything is dead within the castle grounds, his wards will raise it until he, well . . . er . . . inters it again with a ritual burial somewhere else.”
“Let me guess. Without his protection runes, those reanimated dead things might turn on him?”
“He didn’t say. But that’s kind of what I guessed too. And in Scottish soil, God-only-knows-where people and things are buried. This country’s had quite the turbulent past.”
Jessi shivered and fell silent again. Sorcerers, spells, and now dead-things-walking. She shook her head. How strange and terrible her life had become.
In the past forty-eight hours, she’d soared to the greatest heights she’d ever known, only to plummet into the deepest abyss. She’d been blissfully, idiotically thinking she’d found her soul mate, only to discover that said soul mate was not only going to die in two weeks’ time, but she was going to be forced to occupy a front-row seat to the spectacle.
Dageus and Drustan had confined her to the castle. She was not allowed to leave unless and until they said otherwise. They believed that if she left, Lucan would either try to use her to get to Cian (frankly, she wasn’t sure he’d care—why care about her body when he’d not cared about her heart?) or kill her outright if he got his hands on her. She bought into the killing-her-outright part, which meant she had to stay put if she wanted to survive.
Which meant she had to watch her Highlander die.
“Dageus and Drustan are trying to find another way, Jessi,” Gwen said softly. “Some alternative to get Cian out of the glass and defeat Lucan.”
“If Cian knows of no way, then do you really think they’ll be able to find one? Nothing against your husband and his brother, but Cian is the only one here that seems to know anything about sorcery.”
“You can’t give up hope, Jessi.”
“Why not? Cian did,” she said bitterly. “He’s ready to die.”
Gwen sucked in a breath. “It’s the only way he knows to stop Lucan, Jessi. At least right now it is. Let my husband and Dageus work on it. You’d be amazed at what the two of them can accomplish. But don’t hate Cian for this. Oh, he was wrong not to tell you—you’ll get no argument from me there. I’d be devastated too. And furious. And hurt. And devastated and furious and hurt all over again. But I think you need to ponder why he didn’t tell you. And think about this, too: you’re twenty-something years old, right?”
Jessi nodded. Below her, Cian was entering a small copse of rowan trees, moving with sleekly muscled, animal grace through gossamer milky-white tendrils of fog. “Twenty-four.”
“Well, he’s lived, let’s see—forty-seven-point-one-six times that long—almost fifty times as long as you have, trapped inside a looking glass. Living not even a mere reflection of a life. For more than a thousand years he’s been by himself, imprisoned, powerless. He told us a bit last night, after supper, while you were sleeping. He has no physical needs in there. He has had nothing with which to pass the time. Lucan never gave him any word of his clan once he’d incarcerated him. He’d believed, for the past millennium, that Lucan had wiped out his entire family, that the Keltar line had been destroyed. It’s why he never thought of looking for any descendants; why it didn’t occur to him that Dageus might be a Keltar when they met. The only companion he had in that mirror with him was his bitter regret and his determination to kill Lucan one day. The opportunity finally presented itself. Is it really a wonder to you that he might be willing to die to take down his enemy, rather than continue living in such a hellish fashion? It’s a wonder to me that the man didn’t go insane centuries ago.”