A Little Magic(88)

“You love me.” Her breath came out on a sob as she flung herself against him. “I knew it. Oh, I’m so angry with you. I’m so in love with you.”

His arms ached to grip, to hold. He made himself push her away, hold her at arm’s length. “Listen to me, Kayleen. Clear the stars out of your eyes and be sensible. I’ve no right to love you. Be quiet!” he snapped when she started to speak. “You remember what I told you about this place, about me. Do you feel my hands on you, Kayleen?”

“Yes. They’re trembling.”

“After midnight, one breath after, you won’t feel them, or anything else. No touch, no contact. You’ll pick a flower, but you won’t feel the stem or the petals. Its perfume will be lost to you. Can you feel your own heart beat? Beating inside you? You won’t. It’s worse than death to be and yet not be. Day by day into the decades with nothing of substance. Nothing but what’s in your mind. And, a ghra, you haven’t even the magic to amuse yourself into some sanity. You’ll be lost, little more than a ghost.”

“I know.” Like the dream, she thought. A mist within the mist.

“There’s more. There can be no children. During the dreaming nothing can grow in you. Nothing can change in or of you. You will have no family, no comfort. No choice. This is my banishment. It will not be yours.”

Though her nerves began to dance, her gaze stayed steady. “I’ll have my boon.”

He swore, threw up his hands. “Woman, you try me to the bone. All right, then. What will you?”

“To stay.”

“No.”

“You took a vow.”

“And so I break it. What more can be done to me?”

“I’ll stay anyway. You can’t stop me.”

But he could. There was one way to save her in the time left him. One final way. “You defeat me.” He drew her close, rocked her against him. “You’ve a head like a rock. I love you, Kayleen. I loved you in dreams, when dreams were all there was for me. I love you now. It killed me to hurt you.”

“I want to be with you, no matter how short the time or how long. We’ll dream together until we can live together again.”

He took her mouth. A deep kiss, a drugging one that spun in her head, blurred her vision. Joy settled sweetly in her heart.

When she sighed, he stepped back from her. “Five hundred years,” he said quietly. “And only once have I loved. Only you.”

“Flynn.” She started to move toward him, but the air between them had hardened into a shield. “What is this?” She lifted her fisted hands to it, pushed. “What have you done?”

“There’s a choice, and it’s mine to make. I will not damn you to my prison, Kayleen. No power can sway me.”

“I won’t go.” She pounded a fist on the shield.

“I know it, and understand it as well. I should have before. I would never leave you, either. Manim astheee hu.” My soul, he said in the language of his birth, is within you. “You brought me a gift, Kayleen. Love freely given.”

The wind began to kick. From somewhere a sound boomed, slow and dull, like a clock striking the hour.

“I give you a gift in return. Life to be lived. I have a choice, one offered me long ago. A hundred years times five.”

“What are you…No!” She flung herself at the shield, beat against it. “No, you can’t. You’ll die. You’re five hundred years old. You can’t live without your powers.”

“It’s my right. My choice.”

“Don’t do this.” How many strikes of the clock had there been? “I’ll go. I swear it.”

“There’s no time now. My powers,” he said, lifting his arms. “My blood, my life. For hers.” Lightning spewed from the sky, struck like a comet between them. “For foolishness, for pride, for arrogance I abjure my gifts, my skills, my birthright. And for love I cast them away.”

His eyes met Kayleen’s through the wind and light as the clock struck. “For love, I offer them freely. Let her forget, for there is no need for her to suffer.”

He fisted his hands, crossed his arms over his chest. Braced as the world went mad around him. “Now.”

And the clock struck twelve.

The world went still. Overhead the skies broke clear so the stars poured free. The trees stood as if carved out of the dark. The only sound was of Kayleen’s weeping.

“Do I dream?” Flynn whispered. Cautious, he held out a hand, opened and closed his fist. Felt the movement of his own fingers.

The air began to stir, a soft, sweet breeze. An owl called.