She put her hand over Marg’s. “I missed here, even in that short time, but I got to see why Keegan is taoiseach, why and how the laws work, how the Capital and that community work.”
She told them of stepping outside, for the air, for Bollocks, and Shana’s attack.
“I know her parents a bit.” Finola spoke carefully. “Not well, of course, but I know them from visits to my son, grandsons, their ladies, and their littles. I’ve watched the girl Shana was, the woman she is. And the darkness in her—I thought, well, it’s just from some spoiling. But it’s far more than that.”
“I can see her using— It’s Loren, you say?” Morena shook her head. “I don’t know him, as her circle was never mine when I spent time there. I know Kiara, of course, as everyone does. I mean to say I can see her using someone as she used them. I can even see her breaking a First Law by trying the love potion. But I would never have seen her ready to take a life. I think my dislike of her blinded me to the worst of her.”
“How bad did you burn her?”
Breen shook her head at Aisling. “I’m not sure—she ran. But the way she screamed …”
“Good, and I’m not sorry to say it. I hope it burned to the bone. The boy she struck and left, they brought him out of sleep, but they’re still not altogether sure he’ll be all right again.”
“Only evil can do that to another.” Finola poured more wine. “And whatever she believes she’ll have with Odran, in the end, more than her hand will burn.”
Then she smiled. “But our Breen’s back with us, and we’ve yet to hear her version of sealing the portal.”
“Punched Keegan good,” Aisling added.
“It was a fine punch, delivered with feeling.” Morena bit into another lemon biscuit. “And earned, I agree, though I have to give Keegan a bit of the slack, as it was an urgent matter, and moving quickly could have made the difference.”
“Which he explained to me after. If he’d told me all that before, I’d have …figured out something.”
“Men.” Morena cupped her chin in her hand. “So often a pain in the arse. Too often so bloody sure they know the best of things, so we have to take the time and trouble to show them they don’t.”
She cut her gaze to Marg. “You wouldn’t have another bottle of that bubbly wine, would you, darling?”
“I would. Let’s open it.”
Shana had the girl—she wouldn’t bother with the name—help her dress. It felt good, it felt right, to have someone wait on her, do her bidding without any need to placate and pretend.
She didn’t trust the girl with her hair, so she did it herself, leaving it long and loose, tucked up just a little over the ears to show off the jewels.
She chose a necklace, circles of diamonds close around her throat with a fat sapphire, another teardrop, she felt went well with the earrings.
She wanted to go out, to see more, but when she’d stepped onto her terrace, she’d seen dogs—demon dogs—stalking the rocky island below, the jagged cliffs across the water.
So she waited, and waiting, grew bored. After boredom came irritation. She started for the door—she’d stay inside, surely the dogs weren’t allowed to roam at will inside—when the knock came.
She squared her shoulders. “Come.”
Not the girl this time, but two males. Sidhe, she sensed, with hard eyes in hard faces.
“Come with us.”
She didn’t like the tone. “Where?”
“Odran sends for you. You will not keep him waiting.”
She angled her head, inclined it, and walked to them.
In the corridor they flanked her, but she didn’t mind. The black glass walls intrigued her, and she admired the way the torch- and candlelight played off them.
So much more impressive than the dull stone of the castle in the Capital.
She followed them down wide stairs that turned from black to gold as she stepped on them. Delighted, she tried to look everywhere.
Jewels sparkled in the black glass; grand windows let in the sun and the roar of the sea.
Statues of satyrs and centaurs and sirens stood on pedestals. She gasped when a gargoyle hissed from its perch, and scrambled away.
They descended to a great entrance hall, where the mosaic floor depicted Odran—she’d seen likenesses in books—in black robes with a globe—no, she realized, a world—held in each hand.
And under his feet, the littered, bloodied bodies of those he’d conquered.
It frightened and thrilled her all at once.
Two others stood in black breastplates by closed doors. Elves, like her, they held spears with keen points.
The doors opened as she approached, and her escort stopped just inside.
A throne room, she thought, and as grand as any could imagine, with those black glass walls glinting with crystals and gems, the floor gleaming gold. Light streamed in to sparkle on the throne, gold like the floors, and the one who sat upon it.
His hair, gold as well, spilled over his shoulders and framed a face so handsome it all but stole her breath. His eyes, smoke gray, watched her approach.
Beneath her skirts her knees trembled.
But his lips curved, and he beckoned.
He wore black, pants fitted to his long legs, a tunic belted with jewels that caught the light.
He sat at his ease and waited.
Yseult stood at his side. She wore deep green flowing skirts, with a snug bodice threaded with gold.
A beauty, Shana thought, but old. And past time to be replaced.
She would not stand at Odran’s side when it was done, but sit in a throne beside his.
Shana looked him in the eye, smiled in return. And lowered into a deep curtsy.
“My lord Odran.”
“Shana of Talamh,” Yseult announced. “Brought to you, my king, my liege, my all, as promised.”
No, Shana thought, she would not begin this way. She remained in the curtsy, but lifted her head.
“Come to you, my lord, by my choice. With gratitude to Yseult for her help.”
“And why do you come?”
His voice was music, and her heart danced. “To serve you how I can, and by serving you take my vengeance on all who betrayed me.”
“So you come for your own purpose?”
“I am your guest or your prisoner, as you will. I have hope that my purpose and yours, my lord, are one.”
He gestured, languidly. “And what is my purpose?”
“To take Talamh, or destroy it. And rule the worlds beyond it.”
“You are of Talamh, are you not?”
“No longer.”
“You have family in Talamh.”
“What are they to me now? Nothing.” And indeed, she felt nothing for them. Odran’s eyes mesmerized. “I am with you.”
“And what do you bring to me?” Long fingers tapped, tapped, tapped on the wide arms of the throne. “Have you no tribute for a god?”
“I bring you all I am. All I know. And all the power of my hate for what is behind me.”
He gestured, and a woman hurried to him with a goblet. He drank lazily as she bowed and hurried away.
“Hate can cool in time.”
“Mine will not cool.” She held out her scarred hand. “She did this to me, your granddaughter, the one you seek to have. She marked me, and my hate burns as my flesh burned. I wish what you wish, for you to drain her of power. All that I have I give for that purpose.”
He gestured for her to stand.
“We will see. We will see if you bring more than beauty and a dark heart. Those are easily come by. We will see if you prove useful, and if you do, you’ll have what you seek. If not?” He smiled and drank again. “You’ll find the judgment here is not so soft as in Talamh.”
“I will be useful. In any way you wish, in all ways you demand.”
“We will see. I’ll send for you. Go and wait until I do.”