Beyond the Highland Myst(775)
“Lass, you must promise me something,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “I’ve been thinking much on this. I doona want you there when the time comes.”
Jessi felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She’d deliberately refused to let herself think that far ahead, to let her mind linger over the details of the night it would actually happen. To the night she would stand before a mirror and watch her Highlander age more than a thousand years in a single moment.
And disintegrate into a pile of dust.
“We’ll spend what time I can be free together that day, then you will go elsewhere with the others. Promise me this,” he pushed. “Drustan has pledged to break the mirror once it’s done, so none can ever be taken captive again.”
“That’s not fair, Cian, you can’t—”
“I can, and am. ’Tis a dying man’s last request,” he said roughly. “I want you to remember me as a man, lass, as your man. Not as a prisoner of Dark Magycks. I doona want you to watch me die. Promise me you won’t, Jessica. Promise me and mean it.”
Jessi was no longer able to hold the tears at bay. Hot and wet, they scalded her cheeks.
As she stared at him through the tears, a lifetime of hopes and dreams, of wishes and desires, of love and family and children she would never get to have, flashed before her mind’s eye.
It was too much.
When she spoke again, her voice was low and fervent. “I promise you, Cian MacKeltar, that I will not watch you die.”
When he drew her into his arms to kiss her, she closed her eyes and counted her blessings for the privacy of a steel-plated mind.
For, though she’d pledged him the promise he’d sought, she’d not meant what he’d meant by it at all.
* * *
27
SAMHAIN
TWENTY-NINE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
“That’s it, Jessica. The wards are down. You ken what that means?”
Taking a slow, deep breath, Jessi nodded. “Yes,” she replied softly. “Lucan will be able to enter the castle now, but he won’t be able to use sorcery.”
“Doona make the mistake of thinking you’re safe from him, lass. He can still harm you in the way of any man. I want you to wear this.”
He fastened a sheath snugly to her forearm, then slipped a plain-handled dirk into it, tip to her elbow, handle at her wrist. “Don your sweater over it.”
She obeyed tensely.
“Do this.” He made a twisting motion with his hand. “Drop it down.”
She mimicked his movement, surprised by how well it worked, smoothly guiding the handle into her palm.
He helped her resheathe it. “He’s desperate, Jessica. ’Tis the only reason he’s agreed to this. Doona think he’s truly agreed to it. Expect deceit. Expect last-minute treachery. It will come.”
She glanced up at him sharply. There’d been a strange certainty in his voice when he’d said the last: It will come. As if he knew something she didn’t.
“But you said yesterday that you thought he would pass the tithe through the glass and go away,” she protested anxiously. “You said you thought he’d focus on finding the Dark Book before he would come back and try to take the mirror from the Keltar. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To buy a little more time. Right?”
He stared down at her a long, pensive moment. “I’m but advising you to be on constant guard, lass. Constant,” he repeated. “Watch yourself. Doona let your defenses down for even a second. You’ve no way of knowing what might happen from one moment to the next. Remember that. Be prepared for anything. Anything.”
“You’re starting to worry me. What do you think—”
“Hush, lass,” he cut her off. “I must go. Time is short and we doona wish him to see me. He believes you act alone. He must continue to believe that. But doona fear, I will be watching over you.”
Halfway down the corridor, he turned back. “Constant guard, lass,” he hissed.
Jessi swallowed. She tensed her wrist, feeling the weight of the blade. “Constant guard, Dageus,” she echoed. “I promise.”
Twenty minutes to midnight.
Jessi shivered as she hurried down the corridor. Five days ago, when she’d promised Cian that she wouldn’t watch him die, she’d possessed great determination but little hope.
Later that night, however, her circumstances had changed drastically.
After the mirror had reclaimed Cian, she’d left the Silver Chamber and hastened to the library to open communications with Lucan. She’d been sitting at the computer, her inbox open, about to click on one of his E-mails, when Dageus had stepped from behind the drapes, catching her in the act. He’d told her he’d been in the library a few nights ago, and knew she’d been receiving E-mails from Trevayne.