Beyond the Highland Myst(560)

He told her that he'd used magic to rob her of vision and hearing so she wouldn't be forced to watch him change and die. A mere moment after he drove the knife into his heart, a man and a woman—of sorts—had appeared. The Tuatha Dé Danaan themselves.

"The Tuatha Dé came? You actually met them?" Chloe nearly shouted.

"Aye." Dageus smiled at the expression of insatiable curiosity on her face. He suspected he'd be forced to repeat this portion of his story dozens of times over the next fortnight, so she could be certain she hadn't missed a single detail. "They did something to the fallen sect members that made them disappear. I've no idea where they went. My chains fell away and the next thing I knew, they'd taken me somewhere… else. I was dimly aware that I was lying on a beach near an ocean in a place that was… unlike any other place I've ever been. The colors around me were so brilliant—"

"What about them?" Chloe exclaimed impatiently. "What were the Tuatha Dé like?"

"Not human, for a certainty. I suspect they truly doona look like us at all, though they choose to appear in a similar fashion. They are much as the legends describe them: tall, willowy, mesmerizing to behold. Verily, they are difficult to look at directly. Had I not been bleeding and so weak, like as not, their appearance would have fashed me far more than it did. They were immensely powerful. I could feel it in the air around them. I'd thought the ancient Druids possessed of great power, but they were mere dust motes compared to the Tuatha Dé."

"And? What happened?"

"They healed me." Dageus then explained what they'd done and why.

The woman had identified herself as the queen of the Tuatha Dé. She'd said that, though he'd broken his oath and used the stones for personal motive, he'd absolved himself by being willing to take his own life to prevent the Prophecy from being fulfilled. She'd said that by his actions, he'd proved himself worthy of the Keltar name, and hence was being given a second chance.

Dageus smiled wryly. "You should have seen me, Chloe-lass, lying there, believing that I was dying and never going to see you again, then realizing not only was she going to free me, but she planned to heal me and return me to you." He paused, pondering what else had transpired, but he couldn't think of a way to explain it because it hadn't made full sense to him.

He suspected it never would. There'd been a thick tension between the queen and the other Tuatha Dé, whom she'd called Adam. As he'd lain there, the queen had instructed Adam to heal him, but Adam had protested that Dageus was too near death. Adam had argued that it would cost him too much to save the mortal's life.

The queen replied that such was the price she was claiming due for the formal plea Adam had lodged—whatever that had meant.

The male Tuatha Dé had not been pleased. Verily, for such an otherworldly being, he'd seemed mortally horrified by her decree.

"What? What aren't you telling me?" Chloe said impatiently, cupping his face with her hands.

"Och,'tis naught, lass. I was just thinking there were undercurrents betwixt the two Tuatha Dé that I didn't fathom. At any rate, Adam healed me and the queen lifted the souls of the Draghar from my body and destroyed them."

Chloe sighed happily. "Is that when she closed the stones?"

"Aye. She said she'd reconsidered and decided the power to move through time was not one man should yet possess."

"So why did it take you so long to get back here?"

"Chloe-love, for me, but a few hours have passed since that moment in the catacombs. Only when you told me that it's been nearly a month, did I understand what the queen meant when she said that time didn't pass the same way in our realms."

"So that part of the legend is true too!" Chloe exclaimed. "The ancient tales claim that a single year in the Tuatha Dé's realm is roughly a century in the mortal world."

"Aye. Theirs is a different dimension." He paused, staring down at her with a troubled gaze. He took in the sight of her swollen eyes, her reddened nose. "Och, lass, you've been grieving me for a long time," he said sadly. "I wouldn't have had such a thing happen. What did you do?"

"I waited with Gwen and Drustan and—oh! We have to call them!" She tried to squirm from his lap for the phone, but he tightened his arms around her, refusing to let her go.

"Anon, love. I'm so sorry you suffered. If I'd known—"

"If you'd known, what? If this is what had to happen so I could have you back, I don't have a single regret. It's okay. You're here now, and that's all that matters. I couldn't ask for anything more."