The Dark Highlander

Page 53

“ ’Tis even more magnificent than I’d imagined when we worked on the plans,” Drustan said. “I can’t thank you enough, Dageus. Not for this. Not for anything.” How did one thank a brother for sacrificing his soul for one’s own happiness? My life for yours, his brother had chosen. Thanks weren’t possible.
Dageus shrugged. “You drew the sketches.”
Ah, so he will pretend I meant only the castle and evade deeper issues, Drustan thought. “You built it. Gwen loves it too. And we’ve nigh finished having electricity and plumbing installed.”
There was so much they needed to talk about, and naught of it would be easy to address. After a moment’s hesitation, Drustan decided to confront it directly, for he suspected Dageus would talk circles around it.
Crossing to the liquor cabinet, Drustan splashed Macallan into two glasses, and handed one to Dageus. Thirty-five-year-old single-malt scotch, only the finest for his brother’s return. “So, how bad is it?” he asked matter-of-factly.
Dageus flinched, a small, hastily contained reaction, but there. Then he tossed back the drink in one swallow and handed him the glass for a refill. Drustan complied, waiting.
His brother sipped more slowly at the second one. “Worse now that I’m back on Scottish soil,” he said finally.
“When did your eyes change?” It wasn’t only his eyes that had changed, Dageus moved differently. His most minute gestures were carefully executed, as if he could contain what was in him only by constant vigilance.
A tiny muscle leapt in Dageus’s jaw. “How dark are they?”
“They’re not gold anymore. A strange color, nigh like your drink.”
“They change when it starts to get bad. When I’ve used too much magic.”
“What are you using magic for?” Drustan asked carefully.
Dageus tossed back the rest of his drink, rose, and went to stand before the fire. “I was using it to obtain the texts I needed to see if there was a way to … get rid of them.”
“What is it like?”
Dageus rubbed his jaw, exhaling. “ ’Tis as if I have a beast inside me, Drustan. ’Tis pure power and I find myself using it without even thinking. When did you know?” he asked, with a faint, bitter smile.
Cold eyes, Drustan thought. They hadn’t always been cold. Once they’d been warm, sunny-gold, and full of easy laughter. “I’ve known since the first, brother.”
A long silence. Then Dageus snorted and shook his head.
“You should have let me die, Dageus,” Drustan said softly. “Damn you for not letting me die.”
Thank you for not letting me die, he added silently, torn by emotion. It was a terrible mixture of grief and guilt and gratefulness. If not for his brother’s sacrifice, he would never have seen his wife again. Gwen would have raised their babies in the twenty-first century, alone. The day he’d read Silvan’s letter, and discovered the price his twin had paid to ensure his future, he’d nearly gone crazy, hating him for giving up his own life, loving him for doing it.
“Nay,” Dageus said. “I should have watched over you more carefully and kept the fire from happening.”
“ ’Twas not your fault—”
“Och, aye, it was. Do you know where I was that eve? I was down in the lowlands in the bed of a lass whose name I can’t even recall—” He broke off abruptly. “How did you know? Did Da warn you?”
“Aye. He left a letter for us explaining what had happened, advising that you’d disappeared. Our descendant, Christopher, and his wife, Maggie—whom you’ll meet anon—gave it to me shortly after I’d awakened. You called not long after that.”
“Yet you pretended to accept my lies. Why?”
Drustan shrugged. “Christopher went to Manhattan twice and watched you. You were doing naught I felt needed to be stopped.”
His reasons for not going to America to retrieve his brother were complicated. Not only had he been loath to leave Gwen’s side while she was pregnant, he’d been wary of forcing a confrontation. After talking with him on the phone, he’d known that Dageus was indeed dark, but was holding on somehow. He’d suspected that were Dageus a tenth as powerful as Silvan believed, trying to force Dageus to return would have accomplished naught. Had it come to force, one of them would have died. Now that Dageus was there in the room with him, Drustan knew ’twould have been himself who’d died. The power in Dageus was immense, and he wondered how he’d withstood it this long.