Sleep was obsolete within his mirror, as were all physical needs. He would stand guard until she awoke. He’d made her as safe as he could for now. It was not nearly as safe as he could and would make her, using any and all means at his disposal, no matter the cost.
It was the truth that they had much to do on the coming day. On the morrow, they would return to Inverness and gather supplies. On the morrow he would walk the perimeter of their retreat and bury wardstones at eight points and chant spells at sixty-four.
On the morrow he would find something to tattoo himself with, for he would need more protection runes on his body to keep him safe from the backlash of the black arts he must call upon to lay the traps necessary to ensure her safety from Lucan and any of Lucan’s minions. On the morrow he would transmute the soil, in the fashion those most ancient of burial grounds had once been alchemized, brutally forcing the earth to change, calling it alive, making it answerable to him and only him.
If there were anything dead in the soil he’d chosen, things could get . . . unpleasant, but he would shield her. If he had to tattoo himself from head to toe, shave his hair, and dye-brand his scalp, the palms of his hands, the soles of his feet, and his tongue, he would shield her.
One day you’ll have tattooed your entire body. Tears had shimmered in his mother’s eyes when she’d spotted the fresh crimson tattoos on his neck, so fresh his own blood was still beading, mingled inseparably with the dye. Then how will you safeguard your soul? Cian, you must stop. Send him away.
He’d laughed at her. I’ve scarce yielded a tenth of my body, Mother. And Lucan may be a learned man, but he hasn’t enough power to be dangerous.
You’re wrong. And he’s making you dangerous.
You know naught of what you speak.
But she’d known. From that first blustery winter’s eve the dark Welsh stranger had appeared at their gates petitioning shelter, claiming to have lost his way in the storm, she’d known.
Turn him away, Cian, she’d begged. He comes to our step with darkness at his back in more ways than one. His mother had often been sought for her touch of prescience.
We’ll but feed and shelter him for an eve, he’d said to please her. There’d been a time when pleasing those he loved had pleased him most. His sisters and mother especially. The eight of them had been a cluster of bright, feminine butterflies, swooping through his days, brilliantly coloring his existence, making him impatient for a mate of his own.
But then he’d discovered a fellow Druid in the man across his table that eve; a thing he’d not encountered before, and he’d been too curious to turn him away. His da had died before his birth, he’d had no brothers, and he’d never heard of another like himself in all of Albania.
One thing had led to another. Ego and arrogance had played no small part.
I can work this spell, can you?
Aye, can you work this one?
Aye. Ken you how to summon the elements?
Aye, ken you Voice? Have you heard of the Unseelie Hallows?
Nay, though I know of the Seelie Hallows: the spear, stone, sword, and cauldron.
Ah, so you’ve heard not of the Scrying Glass. . . .
It was what Lucan had called it then, the Dark Glass. The Welsh Druid had begun laying his trap that very eve, baiting it brilliantly. Can you imagine foretelling the winds of political change? Or knowing which contender for king with which to ally your clan? Or when a loved one might suffer a tragedy? ’Tis said the glass reveals the future in exacting detail, unlike anything our spells could ever hope to achieve.
Mayhap, Cian’s blood had quickened at the thought, it could even show the coming of a Keltar’s life mate.
The mere opening of a door that night, of not heeding a mother’s words—how life drew its complex design from the simplest of choices, the smallest of moments!
All those he once loved had been dead for more than a thousand years.
Was Lucan out there, counting the hours to Samhain—or the Welshman’s counterpart known as Hollantide, a night of ghostly visitation, divination games, and bonfire burning—as was he? Though he spoke aloud of days, Cian knew to the minute how long he had.
“A little over sixteen days, Trevayne,” he growled into the chill Highland night, “and you will answer for all you took from me.”
In three hundred eighty-four hours and forty-three minutes, to be precise, vengeance would finally be his.
His gaze dark, he glanced down at Jessica.
He’d never thought it would be such a double-edged sword.
17
Cian MacKeltar was a machine.
And Jessi didn’t like it one bit.