“We’ll talk about it if there’s time.” Once again he picked up the ball. “You’re a demon dog for certain,” he said, and threw the ball. “You’ll come to Talamh later today. You’ll want to write first, have the quiet awhile, but you’ll come.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you there if I’m able. Marco should be back before dusk. Earlier by far if he flies with Brian.”
“I think dusk.”
“The last time this is,” Keegan told Bollocks as he again picked up the ball. “So make it good.”
He feinted a throw so Bollocks dashed toward the water, then back again. Feinted again and sent the dog into leaping, dancing, barking delight.
Watching them made Breen wonder what Keegan had been like as a boy, just a boy, before he’d lifted the sword from the lake. Before he’d shouldered the responsibility for worlds.
“I have to go,” he told her. “I need to speak to Harken before I fly east, and see that all’s well at the falls. I’m …explaining things.”
It took effort, but she suppressed the smile and nodded. “I can see that.”
“All right then.” He put an arm around her waist, tugged her to him. “Kiss me, would you, as it took powerful restraint not to wake you when you lay soft and warm beside me at dawn.”
“I might not have minded.”
“Now she says it. I’ll keep that in mind the next time. Now kiss me, Breen, for the ride east will be cold.”
She put an arm around his neck, tangled her fingers in his hair. And took her time about it. Testing her power, she brushed her lips lightly on his, watched his eyes as he watched hers.
Then changed the angle, brushed again.
Smiled.
“You leave me wanting,” he told her.
“I could.” And that, she thought, was a power she hadn’t known she had. “But …” She gave his bottom lip a little tug with her teeth. “I won’t. Kiss me back, Keegan,” she whispered, and took his mouth.
What he felt poured into her, the mad heat of need. It left her staggered, aching, thrilled.
“It wouldn’t have taken much persuasion.”
“Gods spare me.” He dropped his brow to hers a moment, then straightened, stepped back. Handed her the mug. “I have to go.”
Cróga landed on the beach behind him.
He turned, mounted, gave her one last look. Then was gone.
She wrote a blog, then tested her skills with magicks, creating images for it from memory. The hillsides, the bridges over the river, and Bollocks leaping into the water, Marco on horseback.
Satisfied, she wrote an email to Sally and Derrick before she treated herself to a Coke and settled in to work.
The words didn’t always roll, but it felt good, really good, to be back at her desk, back at her laptop, back in the quiet.
And tomorrow, she promised herself, back into her preferred routine.
She wrote into the afternoon, then pushed herself away. Time for a real shower, she decided, and clothes that weren’t pajamas.
Time for Talamh.
As Breen and the dog walked into the woods, Shana stirred awake.
She remembered, vaguely, bathing …being bathed?
Warm, scented water.
It seemed like a dream, and what did it matter when everything felt so soft and lovely?
She found herself in a bed that cradled her like clouds, with sheets of white satin against her skin. On the ceiling, painted gods and faeries, elves and strange beasts danced and fornicated while clovenhoofed demons played pan flutes and sly-eyed creatures feasted on the breasts of laughing Fey.
It was all so gay!
The room with its white silk draperies, its gilt furnishings was easily twice the size of the one she’d left behind. And so much more opulent, with its marble floors and crystal lamps.
She’d dreamed of creating a room just like this when she’d taken her rightful place in the chambers of the taoiseach.
She slipped out of the bed with its towering gold posts and swirled the thin white silk that draped her. The fire, of wood, not peasant peat, simmered in a housing of more white marble with a mantel drenched in fresh flowers.
She drew back the drapes, lifted her face to the stream of the sun, her gaze to the view of a thundering sea.
No tiny balcony here where she could barely stand, but a wide terrace with flowered vines tangled around the railings. She started to step out, but the wind blew fierce so she shut the glass door again.
It pleased her to see her favored scents and creams and paints arranged in pretty bottles on a dressing table with soft gold-backed brushes for her hair, jeweled combs, a gold-framed mirror that reflected her beauty, a chair in the palest of pink velvet where she could sit and admire herself.
Opening the first door of the four-door wardrobe she found gowns, jeweled bodices, flowing skirts, rich fabrics. Squealing with delight, she opened more to find riding clothes, shawls, scarves, furs, an entire section of shoes and boots.
Lush, alluring underpinnings, nightwear, robes of silks and satins.
In velvet-lined drawers she found jewels, the ornate, the elegant, the stunning.
This, so much this, was worth every terrible moment of her flight from Talamh. Damn them all!
To amuse herself, she plucked sapphire stars with a teardrop of diamonds and put them on her ears, slid rings that caught her fancy on her fingers.
As she turned her hands to admire, she saw the scars, the shape of a knife hilt, scored into her right palm. It no longer burned her skin, but it burned, hot and strong, in her heart.
Payment. One day there would be payment.
But today, she wanted only delights, and found more when she wandered into a generous sitting room. She’d barely begun to explore when a knock sounded—almost a scratching—on the door.
Shana lifted her chin, said, “Come.”
The girl had straw-colored hair pulled tight into a knot at the base of her neck. She wore a shapeless gray dress, kept her eyes downcast as she carried in a tray.
“To break your fast, mistress.”
Shana gestured to the table near the sitting room’s terrace doors. The girl scurried over, began to set out the teapot, the cup, pastries, a domed plate.
“Should I pour your tea, mistress?”
“Of course.”
“I am Beryl, and will serve you as long as it pleases you.”
“Where is Yseult?”
“I cannot say, mistress.”
“I wish to meet with Odran.”
“I am told Odran, our lord, our master, will send for you.”
“When?”
“I cannot say, mistress.”
“So far, your service isn’t pleasing.”
The girl glanced up, just an instant, but Shana saw raw fear. That did please her.
“Go tidy the bed and lay out the blue velvet with the jeweled cuffs and hem, the blue kid boots with gold heels, and the proper under-garments. Then go away. Come back in one hour.”
Satisfied, Shana sat at the table, removed the dome to find a pretty omelet and a rasher of bacon.
She thought how painful her hunger had been in Talamh, how she’d lowered herself to eat carrots and turnips yanked out of the dirt.
She ate slowly, savoring each bite, and with each bite imagined her glorious revenge.
When Breen climbed over the wall to the road in Talamh, Morena, Amish on her arm, hailed her from the farm.
“At last!”
“Late start. I’m going down to Nan’s.”
“We’ll meet you there then. I’ll get Aisling. My own nan’s already there.”
With the hawk still on her arm, Morena spread her wings and flew toward the cottage.
Amused, Breen continued on. She’d missed this—only a few days, but she’d missed this walk down the road, past the farm and the sheep. Had missed seeing Harken out in the field with the horses as he was now. She’d missed the quiet low of cattle, the smell of green grass and peat smoke on a brisk fall breeze.