Born of Oak and Silver (The Caradoc Chronicles) (34 page)

I had involuntarily cowered down with every word he spoke, the roar of his voice impossible to stand against. “What did you expect me to do?” I shouted at him from where I stooped. I raised myself, directing my fury at him
. “They killed my family! My own wife was one of them, and I watched helplessly as she
killed
them!” Now my own anger had risen to match the strength of his voice. My chest rose and fell passionately.

He had closed the distance between us. We now stood at arms length. His face remained hidden
beneath the cloak, but my own was seething. “You could have told me. You could have warned me about Ayda,” I volleyed at him.

“It would not have saved them
.” His volume had lowered to the point that it was now tolerable. “If it was not by Ayda’s hand, then it would have been by Maurelle’s. Believe me, it is better that they died quickly in Ayda’s grasp. They would not have been so lucky had it been Maurelle who held them.”

I did not know how to respond.
I knew that he was right. He was always right. I remained silent, taking solace in my anger. Máedóc noticed.

“Anger is good,” he said. “It has the power to focus and motivate. But grief, grief has the opposite effect, causing us to dwindle until
we are naught but hollow beasts. Use your anger. Make that your anchor. There is still much work to be done, and only those who are secure will survive.”

“I have the S
word,” I responded weakly.

“I noticed. I commend you for having
found it so quickly after our last meeting. However, now you must use it,” he caught my involuntarily wince of pain, “upon the actual Fae,” he added for my benefit.

I nodded briefly
. “What do you want me to do?”

“W
hat you already know you must.”

I continued to nod in acceptance. My mind and heart had both been burnt at having just been asked to remember the only time I had
actually used the Sword. The image of Ayda and Bram’s bodies impaled by a gleaming flash of silver rampaged through my mind before I could stop it.

Mercifully
, Máedóc spoke, interrupting the reverie. “The High King and Queen of the Sidhe are preparing to enter our world. They are anxiously awaiting Maurelle’s return where she will present them with the Sword, evidencing that every threat to them has been removed from the Earth. If she does not return, they will postpone their visit until a time that they deem it safe . . . considering carefully if that moment will exist for them at all. They will not risk the possibility of any harm befalling themselves; they consider themselves to be too precious.” I understood.

It was then that he finally showed
me some companionability. His hand came to rest unexpectedly upon my shoulder. We stood face-to-face; we were the same height. I could just see his face under the shadow of his hood. “It will get easier, Daine.” His tone was unexpectedly soft and reflective. “The Curse of the Four Fathers, losing all that you love by the hand of the Sidhe, has always been extremely difficult to bear—even for the most stalwart of men. It was my burden to have the Curse fall to me as well. The loss will always burn, but it will get easier. That I promise you.” His hand fell away as he began to retreat, leaving me empty but with the faintest glimmer of hope flickering in my cold heart.

I awoke suddenly, my eyes staring at the corniced ceiling of my study. I still lay upon the couch. I sat uprigh
t, prodding at my leg tenderly through the makeshift wrapping I had used to bandage it. I felt only the minutest of bruising in the deepest recesses of the muscle. I unwrapped it, inspecting the skin, which showed not a single mark.

I stood
and picked up the Sword from my desk’s top. I hurried up the stairs, making my way directly into my room, where I procured a change of clothing, my daggers, soap, and my shaving razor.

I then left, not sparin
g a single glance for my memory-filled surroundings, nor for each of the empty bedrooms that I passed as I went down the hall. It was the last time that I would descend those stairs.

With the S
word in hand I left the house in search of a pond to bathe in. I had been idle long enough, and I was angry.

I headed for the stables, now clean
ly shaven, bathed, and wearing fresh clothes. My daggers were strapped to my waist and the Sword was held in a temporary scabbard across my back. I entered where our horses were kept, and found that every stall was empty. The horses had either kicked out or had jumped out when I had forgotten to feed them. For a majority of the time, I had forgotten to feed myself, so I didn’t feel too badly for neglecting the horses.

T
hey wouldn’t be far. We had acres of rolling, grassy pasture that they would have found irresistible. I picked up a bridle and saddle, and lugged them to the side of the split-rail fence that divided the property into fields. I set the saddle on the ground, taking the bridle with me as I slipped through the fence and walked down the rise to where I thought the horses might be.

Only one was there, my quarter horse. Upon seeing me his ears twitched affectionately, and despite having been out to pasture these past two weeks, he allowed me to approach him without
darting.

I lay my hand upon his neck and slipped
his bridle on. I lay my forehead against his muzzle, feeling relief at having found the only living creature that was left to me. Once saddled, I rode him to the gate. We passed by the stables, and then the silent mansion.

I burned them.

I did not look back or linger sadly as I felt the heat and heard the sounds of wood burning. In town, I set the old house that had been Ayda’s and mine aflame as well.

T
aking one of the long gravel roads that headed away from town, I entered the thick pine forests. I didn’t know how exactly I would find it, but I wouldn’t stop until I did.

I rummaged around in the heat and the lessening summer light. I knew that when we had stepped through the Silver and into
Mississippi, we had been near a temporary timber mill. That left me with a relatively small area in which the Silver could have been hidden. But it was still like looking for a needle in a haystack.

At length I found it, f
eeling entirely different than I had the first time I stood before a Silver. I faced no reservations about stepping through this time. The Silver closed behind me, and I was once again in the vaults. I was not alone.

A Fae guard stood with a
n upraised sword. A single torch burned on the wall behind him. I moved quickly, refusing to allow him the opportunity to catch me off guard. Drawing my sword, I arced it through the air, my arm smoothly continuing the motion over my other side and up again, creating a figure eight of slashing silver as I moved toward him.

He seemed to growl low in his throat
; his sword met mine with a metallic clang. I slid away, opening my mind to the Druid secrets inside. The memories for expert swordsmanship were instantly my own. I met every one of his attacks, my own blade slashing down, up, and inside as I forced him back and against the wall.

I was too fast, feinting
one way when I actually moved another. My sword sliced across his sword arm.

His
blade clattered loudly to the cobblestone floor. The wound was edged with what appeared to be liquid silver. His glittering blood slid down his arm. His eyes looked into mine, fierce and murderous, looking their last before I cleaved his neck. His head fell with a thunk upon the floor. The body stood a moment on its own before it fell to its knees and toppled over.

I took the torch from the wall, holding it in my left hand and my sword in my ri
ght as I left the room and bolted down the hallway.

I kept my eyes on a constant
lookout for any more Fae who might appear from the seemingly innumerable doorways that ran on either side of me, as well as for my target, the small scrap of the petticoat that Ayda had left upon the floor. When I was beginning to think that I had missed it, and was going to turn around and head back the way I had come, that was precisely when I saw it. A small, very dirty scrap of what had once been white lay upon the floor. I strode with purpose into the room.

W
ith great focus I extended my hand toward the wall where I knew the Silver lay. The blood-written runes I’d placed the first time I was here were still in place. I opened my mouth and spoke Sidhe. It felt wrong, as though a snake covered in noxious slime was uncoiling itself from inside my mouth and sliding leisurely across my tongue. I nearly choked. Somehow I said all that was needed to open the Silver.

The Silver
revealed itself on the wall, showing a quiet brook running through a wooded hillside. I could hear the birds singing sweetly overhead. I stepped through, feeling relief that I had been able to pass through the vaults so quickly. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but wonder just how much mortal time had passed this time.

I moved as one
who knows a place intimately, so well that they could meet their destination having gone both blind and deaf. I saw and heard all as I moved with haste, not feeling a need to run, but feeling an urging that required a brisk pace.

This place, this prison
, never seemed to change. It was as if the trees never grew taller, nor the plants any fuller. For that matter, I did not recognize any new growth. The path, though perhaps having remained unused these past who knew how many years, was still well-worn and remained as it always had been. It was an irrelevant observation, probably a game trail I theorized, as I moved on to crest the knoll and looked out of the trees.

Stretched out before me were the familiar
, rolling hills of brush and bracken, above all of which the slightest hint of Bram’s roof peeked.

I smiled warmly. For everything that I had been through, seen
, and lived, I appeared to be thirty-seven but in mortal years was forty-seven . . . or at least I had been before I had left Mississippi. Still, this place carried the saturating emotion of rightness. I had deceived myself—it was here that was my home, and always had been. It was a balm to my soul.

My purpose in coming here was to study w
hat was left of the Druid texts. I entered Bram’s house with every intention of leaving it promptly. However, I found as I walked through the house’s corridors, a shadow among shadows, my soul longed to stay. I yearned for it to permit my soul to endure. But if I somehow survived all this, there would be plenty of time for healing in the future. For now it was best to be brief.

I r
ummaged through the books in Bram’s study, unsure of where exactly to begin. It was then that I noticed a book already lay upon his desk when everything else was put away. I took a seat in the chair that had only ever been his, and opened the book’s leather cover. A sheet of paper lay inside, covered with Bram’s scrawling, slanted hand.

Daine -

I knew upon leaving here
that it would be my last great adventure. It is my dying hope that you will read this and learn from my mistakes—lest the past be repeated. I have always been proud to call you my son.

- Bramwyll
Áedán
Roithridh Muireach
Macardle

I swallowed heavily, and slowly turned the page to the first of the book. It was inscribed, “The Journal of Bramwyll A. R. M. Macardle”. Page after page of his journal did little else than detail his encounters with Maurelle. This was exactly what I had come here in hopes of finding.

Bram had known more about the Fae than he had ever let on.
He had loved Maurelle, that was undeniable, but he had also despised her. In loving her he had come to know her every fatal flaw; and simultaneously as her enemy, her every nuance. Hopefully, I would be able to use his knowledge as he’d intended and end her.

I closed the
leather back cover of his journal and knew what I needed to do if I was to have any chance at beating her. I stood up, pushing away from Bram’s desk, and went to my room. I had a knapsack stored away in the armoire, and I doubted Bram would have done anything with it in my absence. I found the bag exactly where I had last seen it, sitting on the dresser’s floor. I stooped to retrieve it, and made my way back to Bram’s study.

I
filled the pack with as many of the Druid texts as I could, concentrating on those that showed the signs of frequent use Bram had left upon their bindings. There was no way that I could take the entire library with me, but I hoped that somehow the books would endure. I picked up the journal from the desk, and used the last bit of available space to wedge the journal inside as well. I buckled my bag shut, and left Bram’s library. I shut the door behind me, and quickly crossed the house to the front foyer.

Outside,
I replaced the wards, leaving additional runes of my own to reinforce those left behind by Bram. Then, half heartedly, I left the house behind me, making my way directly for the Silver that lay beside the stream.

My third time through,
I did not meet any opposition in the Edinburgh vaults. However, the body of the Sidhe that I had killed hours before had been removed. I stepped through the Silver and into the woods of Kamarina. I was relieved to find that they still remained. A mill once again occupied the location of the one that had been there years before. My pack in place and the Sword in its scabbard upon my back, I crossed through the woods and made my way into town.