Elphame's Choice (27 page)

“Lochlan.” It came out as little more than a whisper.

She frowned and chastised herself—as if he could hear that.

“Lochlan!” Elphame called his name. Her skin prickled with the power that suddenly surrounded her. The wind took the echo of the sound and blew it up through the piney boughs of the trees where it hovered, repeating
Lochlan…Lochlan…Lochlan
…over and over until it gently dissipated, like sun-kissed fog.

“Magic.” Her lips formed the word, but no sound emerged. It hadn’t been her imagination or the bump on her head; Lochlan’s name was magic.

Elphame knew he was there before she could see him. She felt him. Like she felt the pulse of the castle through its stone, she could sense his presence through her blood.

“Lochlan.” She repeated his name, delighted again at the magic it created as it flew on the wind and wrapped around her.

“I am here, my heart.”

HE STEPPED FROM
the shadows, wings folded neatly against his back. His skin and hair seemed to draw down the silver light of the rising moon, highlighting the ridges and planes of his body, silhouetting the velvet darkness of his wings. He moved to her with the soundless, gliding stride that was unique to his father’s race. Elphame did not step back from him, but he was careful to halt just barely within an arm’s length of her.

“I felt that you were near, but I would not let myself believe it.”

“Then you heard me call your name?”

“Yes, it came to me on the night wind and I followed the sound of it to you.”

Elphame felt flushed and nervous. She wished she had something to do with her hands.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” she blurted.

“It would be my honor.” Lochlan held out his hand.

She hesitated. In the moonlight his hand looked ghostly and unreal.

“We have touched before, Elphame.”

She looked from his hand to his eyes. Then, slowly, she laced her fingers through his. His skin was warm, and where their wrists brushed against one another she could feel the steady beat of his pulse.

“The cliffside is just through those trees.” He pointed over her shoulder. “If we walk there the light will be better. It will be easier for you to see.”

Elphame nodded numbly. Now that he was there, she felt completely unsure of herself. She couldn’t even seem to make her legs move—she just stood, hand clasped with his, silently staring at him.

The white glint of his feral smile matched the teasing light in his eyes. “Or would you rather that we ran?”

His words broke the spell of awkwardness. Her lips twisted. “Not at night and not through this forest.” Hand in hand, they began walking together. “I have definitely learned my lesson. Another fall and Cuchulainn would never let me out of his sight, which would be almost as inconvenient for him right now as it would be for me.”

Lochlan picked up the thread of conversation. “I would imagine Cuchulainn is very busy with the rebuilding of the castle. It would be difficult for him if he felt that he needed to keep a constant watch over you.”

“Not to mention he’s in love.”

Lochlan’s eyes widened momentarily in surprise. When he spoke his thumb traced lazy circles on her hand. “I do understand how love can complicate things.”

“Do you?” She felt childishly giddy.

They stepped from the forest. The moon played on the sleeping sea, turning it shades of silver and white. MacCallan
Castle stood in the distance, a dark chaperone, partially obscured by the tree line.

Lochlan turned to face her. “Yes, I do.”

She was trapped in the intensity of his gaze. His eyes were filled with mystery and the seductive allure of the unknown. Suddenly, she was afraid that if she loved him she would be lost to herself, forever changed, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to relinquish herself to any man—especially one who was so different from anything she had ever imagined. Elphame pulled her hand from his. With Lochlan following her, she walked restlessly to one of the many boulders that dotted the cliffside. She sat on it, trying to order her thoughts.

“Tell me.” Instead of looking at him she stared out at the moonlit sea. “Explain to me how it is possible that you exist.”

Lochlan knew what he said to her would set the course of their relationship. He kept his gaze on her strong, familiar profile and sent a silent prayer for aid to Epona.

“The question of my existence is a complex one. In truth, I do not know exactly why I exist. You know as much as I about the events that led to the Great War. More than one hundred years ago something cataclysmic happened within the Fomorian race. Their females began dying. I’ve often thought it must have been Epona’s will that a race so demonic die out, but then if it was her will, why did she allow the war to take place at all?”

Without looking at him, Elphame answered with words that echoed those she had heard her mother speak many times. “Epona allows her people to make their own choices—she does not want us to be slaves, she wants strong, free-thinking subjects. With that freedom comes the possibility of mistakes—mistakes that sometimes lead to evil. If the warriors at Guardian Castle had not become lax about their duties, the Fomorians could not have entered Partholon and begun stealing women.”

“But they did. My mother explained it as the way they set about repopulating their dying race.” He shook his head and breathed out a sharp, frustrated breath. “You would think that mixing with human blood would weaken the demons, but it didn’t. The race thrived, so much so that soon they were ready to invade Partholon.” He paused, reordering his thoughts.

“Until my mother’s time, no human woman had survived the birth of a child fathered by a Fomorian,” he continued, choosing his words carefully. “She was young and strong, but she always insisted that her strength had little to do with it. She said that she survived because I am more human than Fomorian.” He paused and drew a breath. “My mother was a part of what was, at first, just another of the large groups of women who had been captured, raped and impregnated by the Fomorians. They were being held captive until it was time for their demonic fetuses to be birthed. A human woman’s impregnation by a Fomorian meant a death sentence for her; during the birthing process her body was always fatally torn.” His voice took on a faraway tone as he repeated the story his mother had told him countless times. “The Fomorians saw human women as expendable, only a temporary encumbrance, a necessary means to attain their goal of the repopulation of their species. The hybrid females were especially prized in the hopes of rebuilding the race, but all the children were necessary.

“As Partholon united and the tide of war turned against them, the Fomorians attempted to escape into the Tier Mountains. Some did. They divided the women amongst them, planning to elude the army of Partholon while still keeping their means of procreation. But the Goddess had other plans. The demons grew ill with the same plague that had decimated the core of their army. Heavy with child, my mother led the women of her group in revolt. Then she and her sisters in arms
searched within the mountain passes for the others, destroying the Fomorians as they weakened. She should have returned to Partholon and her home then, so that, surrounded by the comfort of their families, she and the other impregnated women could await their inevitable end. That was what she and the women intended. But then the unexpected happened. She survived my birth.”

Elphame was unable to look away from him any longer. She turned her face to his. Lochlan’s expression was fixed and tight with emotion.

“And then another mother lived through the birth of her mutant child, and another and another.”

His words made her heart ache. “You are not a mutant.”

“I am part-demon, part-human. What else does that make me?”

She answered his question with one of her own. “I am part-centaur, part-human. Does that make me a mutant?”

“It makes you a miracle.”

She held his gaze. “Exactly.”

He continued recounting the story of his life with the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Almost half of the women survived. My mother had no explanation for it except to say that Epona’s hand was at work.” His eyebrow cocked. “That was always my mother’s explanation for any question she could not answer. But whatever the reason, there was suddenly a group of young women who had winged infants at their breasts.” Lochlan’s expression softened. “And they loved their children with a fierce protectiveness. They knew they couldn’t return to Partholon with their babies, and leaving them was an option they refused to consider. So they made their way through the mountains and into the Wastelands beyond. Life was hard there, and our mothers longed for Partholon, but we survived, even thrived. And our mothers taught us to be civilized. To be human.”

“Over a century ago…” Her words were a sigh. Even with him standing there beside her, winged, living and breathing, it was hard to accept.

“I admit it is a long time.” He made an offhanded gesture, as if he didn’t know what to make of his own longevity. “None of our mothers had much knowledge about the Fomorian race, but it was apparent early in our lives that we matured quickly and that our bodies were extraordinarily resilient. Aging appears to be just another thing our dark blood protects us against.”

Elphame thought about what she had read in her mother’s extensive library. “Fomorians had an aversion to daylight, but I’ve seen you in the light of day. It doesn’t seem to harm you.”

“It does not harm me, but I am stronger at night. My vision is better, my sense of hearing and smell are more acute.”

Spreading his fingers, he held his arms away from his body. Elphame thought that he looked like the winged spirit of a shaman making ready to evoke the magic of a goddess.

“The night sky calls to me.”

“Can you fly?”

He smiled, dropping his hands to his sides. “I do not think of it as flying; I think of it as riding the wind. Perhaps some day I will show you.”

To glide through the air wrapped in his arms…the thought left her breathless.

“This doesn’t seem real. You don’t seem real,” she said.

Lochlan moved closer to her. He lifted a thick strand of hair that hung over her shoulder and let it fall like water through his fingers.

“One night I had a dream. If I live an eternity, I will never forget it. In my dream I watched the birth of a child. She was born of a human female and a centaur male. When the centaur lifted her and proclaimed her a goddess, I knew that that
wondrous child would somehow irrevocably alter my future. You have always been real to me, Elphame. It is the rest of my life that was only a dream. You are my destiny.”

Elphame let out a long breath. “I don’t know what to do about you.”

“Can you not simply do as my mother did? Just allow yourself to love me?”

Everything within her—heart, soul and the blood that filled her veins—cried,
Yes! Yes she could!
But logic and years of enmity cautioned her to be reasonable.

“I cannot. I’m not just a young maiden. I have been named The MacCallan. My people swore an oath of loyalty to me. My first responsibility is no longer to myself, it is to my clan.”

Lochlan’s face broke into a joyous smile. “Ask me my mother’s name.”

“What is your mother’s name?” she asked, surprised by the sudden question.

“She was called Morrigan, named by a doting father after the legendary Phantom Queen. She was living at the ancestral castle of her clan, where her eldest brother presided as Chieftain. She had just completed her education at the Temple of the Muse, and she was enjoying her sojourn by the sea while she awaited the date of her wedding—a wedding which never took place…”

“—Because MacCallan Castle was attacked and she was taken prisoner. Her brother was The MacCallan,” Elphame finished for him, feeling a supernatural prickle along her skin.

With a rustle of wings, Lochlan dropped to his knees before her. He pulled his short sword from the scabbard strapped to his side and placed it at her feet.

“The blood of the Clan MacCallan runs thick in my veins. I invoke the right of that blood and I do hereby give you my oath and I swear fealty to you from this moment forth, even unto my death and, if Epona grants it, beyond.”

Elphame stared down at him. The moon had climbed the sky and it sat over her shoulder, haloing Lochlan in its cool light. He was watching her with eyes that gleamed the bright reflection of what she suddenly accepted as her future.

He Felt right. She couldn’t explain it rationally, but she had changed since she’d met him.

The old spirit had been right. She had found her peace at Lochlan’s side. Elphame slid from her rocky perch so that she, too, was on her knees facing Lochlan. First, she took up his sword and offered it back to him.

“Keep this. You may need it to defend your Chieftain.”

“Then you accept me?”

Reverently, she touched the side of his face. “I accept you, Lochlan, into the Clan MacCallan—as is your birthright.”

The tension drained out of Lochlan’s shoulders and he bowed his head.

“Thank you, Epona,” he whispered.

When he spoke the Goddess’s name, Elphame experienced a rush of preternatural foreknowledge. In a blinding flash she saw him on his knees, as he was then, but in the vision that was overlaid upon the fabric of reality, Lochlan was in chains, covered with blood…imprisoned…dying….

Her mind screamed, rejecting the vision. She would not let him be destroyed. The vision made her decision for her and she knew what she must do. If she accepted him, if she allowed herself to love him, it would alter his future—the death spell would be shattered. As his mother’s love had conquered the darkness in his blood, her love would defeat a world’s misplaced hatred.

“You say I am your destiny,” she said.

It wasn’t a question, but he nodded his head and spoke with a surety that closed the breach of time and blood.

“I love you, Elphame.”

“Then handfast with me.”

Lochlan’s sharp intake of breath was the only outward sign of his shock. Handfasting was a marriage sworn to last exactly one year. At the end of one year, the couple could decide to continue the marriage, or, if either did not desire to remain together, the marriage was dissolved with no blame assigned to either party. But it was a binding contract—sealed by two people—witnessed by Epona. It was a sacred bond that could not be broken for the space of that year.