“You do, I know. But are you ready, I wonder?” She turned a slow circle. “Here, I suppose, is the place for it. I’ll tell you a story, Calin Farrell. A story of great love, great betrayal. One of passion and greed, of power and lust. One of magic, gained and lost.”
“I don’t want a story. I want answers.”
“It’s the same they are. One and the other.” She turned back to him, and her voice flowed musically. “Once, long ago, this castle guarded the coast, and its secrets. It rose silver and shining above the sea. Its walls were thick, its fires burned bright. Servants raced up and down the stairways, into chambers. The rushes were clean and sweet on the floor. Magic sang in the air.”
She walked toward curving steps, lifted her hem and began to climb. Too curious to argue, Cal followed her.
He could see where the floors had been, the lintels and stone bracings. Carved into the walls were small openings. Too shallow for chambers, he imagined. Storage, perhaps. He saw, too, that some of the stones were blackened, as if from a great fire. Laying a hand on one, he swore he could still feel heat.
“Those who lived here,” she continued, “practiced their art and harmed none. When someone from the village came here with ails or worries, help was offered. Babies were born here,” she said as she stepped through a doorway and into the sun again. “The old died.”
She walked across a wide parapet to a stone rail that stood over the lashing sea.
“Years passed in just this way, season to season, birth to death. It came to be that some who lived here went out into the land. To make new places. Over the hills, into the forests, up into the mountains, where the faeries have always lived.”
The view left him thunderstruck, awed, thrilled. But he turned to her, cocked a brow. “Faeries.”
She smiled, turned and leaned back against the rail.
“One remained. A woman who knew her fate was here, in this place. She gathered her herbs, cast her spells, spun her wool. And waited. One day he came, riding over the hills on a fine black horse. The man she’d waited for. He was a warrior, brave and strong and true of heart. Standing here, just here, she saw the sun glint off his armor. She prepared for him, lighting the candles and torches to show him the way until the castle burned bright as a flame. He was wounded.”
Gently she traced a fingertip on Cal’s thigh. He forced himself not to step back, not to think about the hallucination he’d had while driving through the hills toward this place.
“The battle he had fought was fierce. He was weary in body and heart and in mind. She gave him food and ease and the warmth of her fire. And her love. He took the love she gave, offered back his own. They were all to each other from that moment. His name was Caelan, Caelan of Farrell, and hers Bryna. Their hearts were linked.”
He stepped back now, dipping his hands into his pockets. “You expect me to buy that?”
“What I offer is free. And there’s more of the story yet.” The frustration at having him pull back flickered over her face. “Will you hear it, or not?”
“Fine.” He moved a shoulder. “Go ahead.”
She turned, clamped her hands on the stone balustrade, let the thunder of the sea pound in her head. She stared down at that endless war of water and rock that fought at the base of the cliff.
“They loved each other, and pledged one to the other. But he was a warrior, and there were more battles to fight. Whenever he would leave her, she watched in the fire she made, saw him wheel his horse through smoke and death, lift his sword for freedom. And always he came back to her, riding over the hills on a fine black horse. She wove him a cloak out of dark gray wool, to match his eyes. And a charm she put on it, for protection in battle.”
“So you’re saying she was a witch?”
“A witch she was, yes, with the power and art that came down through the blood. And the vow she’d taken to her heart, as close as she’d taken the man she loved, to harm none. Her powers she used only to help and to heal. But not all with power are true. There was one who had chosen a different path. One who used his power for gain and found joy in wielding it like a bloody sword.”
She shuddered once, violently, then continued. “This man, Alasdair, lusted for her—for her body, her heart, her soul. For her power as well—for she was strong, was Bryna the Wise. He came into her dreams, creeping like a thief, trying to steal from her what belonged to another. Trying to take what she refused to give. He came into her home, but she would not have him. He was fair of face, his hair gold and his eyes black as the path he’d chosen. He thought to seduce her, but she spurned him.”