Sword of Darkness (22 page)

The next thing she knew, she was on a peaceful beach with a bright sun above her. Seren squinted against the glare as she looked out over the clearest, bluest ocean she’d ever seen. Gulls cawed over her head while the water lapped gently against snow white sand. Land jutted out to her right, forming a sheer cliff that rose up high toward the sun.

On top of the cliff was a golden castle glinting in the daylight. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing. There was a lush, green forest that separated her stretch of beach from the castle on the cliff.

“This is Avalon?” she asked Brea.

“Aye.”

“It looks like heaven.” Her voice was scant more than a whisper. How she wished Kerrigan were here to see it. It was so much prettier than Camelot.

This looked like the place where King Arthur would have held his court.

Brea smiled at her. “Not entirely. Nothing is ever perfect. But this is close and you will be very happy here.” He held his hand out to her. “Come, child.”

She followed him up the beach toward the castle. As they drew near the forest, an incredibly striking blond woman appeared before them. The woman wore a white gown that was trimmed with gold. The weave of the fabric was flawless. It reminded Seren of a perfect field of snow.

There was an air of unmistakable kindness to this newcomer. It bled from every part of her. Just being in her presence filled Seren with warmth.

“Brea,” she said in greeting. “I see you found our wayward steward.”

“Not exactly. Rather she found me.” He paused. “Aquila Penmerlin, meet Seren.”

The woman smiled sweetly. “Call me Merlin, Seren. Most people do.”

Before Seren could respond, the smile faded, to be replaced by a peculiar frown as Merlin looked back at Brea. She rubbed her arms as if something chilled her. “You have Caliburn?”

Seren’s heart stopped at her words. “Nay. Caliburn is with Kerrigan. Isn’t it?”

Brea looked a bit sheepish before he shook his head. The air around him glowed an instant before Kerrigan’s sword appeared in his hand.

Seren’s jaw went slack as she recognized the weapon.

The god handed it not to Merlin, but to Seren. “I have a feeling you’ll need this one day.”

She refused to take it. “How did you come by this?”

“Kerrigan gave it to me in exchange for my bringing you here. He wanted me to make sure that the sword went to your child.”

Pain tore through her as her premonition now made sense. “He’s not coming back.”

There was no sympathy in Brea’s eyes. “He would have had to come here in order to bring the loom to you, but I’m thinking it’s why he allowed Blaise to go with him. Instead of Kerrigan bringing you the loom, Blaise will.”

Seren grabbed his arm as her rage mounted at her own foolishness. Damn Kerrigan for this! “Take me to him. Now!”

Brea pried her hand from his arm. “I can’t. I promised Kerrigan that I would bring you here, and I have to stand by my word.”

She turned toward Merlin. “Can you send me to him?”

Unlike Brea, Merlin’s blue eyes were dark with sympathy. It was obvious the woman felt compassion for her. “I’m afraid I can’t, Seren. I’m sorry. I don’t know where he is. Kerrigan is too powerful for me to track.”

Seren closed her eyes as a wave of hopeless despair claimed her. And in that moment, she hated Kerrigan. How could he just abandon her like this? Abandon their child?

He hadn’t even tried to join her. He’d merely handed her off to the Celtic god and left her to her own end.

Stung by his actions, she took the sword in both of her hands. She could feel the hum of its power. Feel it cooing to her. But for once she was in control of it.

Because I have Kerrigan’s blood…

It had to be. There was no other reason that the sword was so calm to her now.

“I can’t believe he relinquished it,” Merlin said in a low, reverent tone to Brea.

“I can.” Seren knew a part of Kerrigan that no one else did. It was a part he never showed to the world.

It was the part of him that she loved. Nay, that wasn’t true. She loved all of him. Even that nasty, grousing part that growled.

And somehow, she was going to find him again…and then she was going to kill him.

Kerrigan drew a deep breath as they finished off the Adoni and dissolved the RV from the side of the road.

“The traveling had been a good thought,” Blaise said as he folded his arms over his chest.

Kerrigan felt his jaw tic from his anger. “While it lasted. Damn Morgen and her persistence.”
That bitch would never leave him in peace. Not while Seren held so much power within her.

“So how are you going to get Seren back?”

Kerrigan didn’t answer.

Blaise narrowed his violet eyes on him. “You are going to get her back…Right?”

He made sure to keep his features blank. “She’s better off in Avalon.”

“Yeah, but what about gaining control of the Table? You can’t do that without her.”

“What do I need with a table? I can’t even eat.”

Blaise looked even more confused. “What? Did the Adoni knock something loose in your head when they hit you? You know? World domination. Power. Wealth. Hello? Who are you and what have you done with my master?”

Before Kerrigan could answer, four more Adoni came through the portal.

“Oh, lay off, you bitch,” Kerrigan snarled as he caught the first Adoni with an elbow to his nose. He was getting really tired of this fight.

Another caught him about the stomach and threw him to the ground. Kerrigan grunted in pain as the weight of the beast damned near crushed him. He could feel his ribs starting to break. Bending his leg, he kicked the Adoni off and let out a relieved bellow once the weight was free of him.

Blaise was fighting another.

Kerrigan unsheathed his sword and engaged the Adoni. He caught one through the shoulder, but as he was pulling back, the other sliced his arm.

He turned with a hiss to drive his sword through his attacker, before he spun about to finish off the other.

Seeing the blood that coated him, the last two Adoni vanished instantly.

Blaise cocked his head. “Why did they…” His voice trailed off as he saw the bleeding wound on his arm. “I wasn’t imagining that earlier, was I? You
are
bleeding.”

Kerrigan let out a long, tired breath. There was no need to corroborate the obvious. “We need to get out of here before they return with more. I’m sure they’re reporting to Morgen even now that I was wounded.”

Blaise stared at him in disbelief. “Are you insane? Do you know what would happen to you if Morgen caught you now?”

“Believe me, I know.” It was the stuff of nightmares and children’s stories.

Blaise held his arm out to him. “We need to go get that loom before they find it.”

Nodding, Kerrigan did something he’d never done before. He reached out and took Blaise’s outstretched arm so that he could use his magic and return them to Seren’s time.

They flashed into an empty alleyway behind her weaver’s shop. Kerrigan took a moment to return his armor to a fashion more suited to this time period so as not to raise any suspicions. Likewise Blaise adjusted his clothing to a pair of brown breeches and a dark blue surcoat.

They didn’t speak as they made their way
around to the front of the store. Kerrigan paused as he saw a young boy rush past him, into the building to squeal at the women who were working, before he bounded up a wooden staircase to disappear.

Robert. He remembered Seren telling him about the boy who belonged to the store’s owners. And she had liked the lad a great deal.

Strange emotions curled through him as he opened the door and entered with Blaise one step behind him.

The store was rather small. There were four women off to his left who were working quietly on their looms. Even from this distance, he would see how worn their hands were…just like Seren’s. His gaze lingered beside an attractive brunette where there was an obvious vacant loom before the window.

Seren’s place. That was where she’d spent so many years, working for the owners of this shop. That was the window where she would watch people drift by outside as her entire life was spent slaving away for others.

But for Damé Fortune, she’d still be here now, just like her friends. There was even the half-finished cloth she must have been working on before he’d taken her.

“May I help you, my lord?”

He turned at the sound of an older woman’s voice to find the shopkeeper’s wife. “Mistress Maude?”

She looked surprised that he knew her name. “Aye, my lord? Do I know you?”

“Nay, goodwife. I’ve come here to collect an old loom that belongs to Seren of York.”

The old woman’s eyes flared angrily at the name. “There’s nothing here that belonged to that bit of rub—”

Her words were choked off as Kerrigan took her by the throat and squeezed tight. His rage took hold, but he made sure to keep his eyes dark and not let them flicker red. “Careful who you insult, old woman. Her name is Seren and you will not defame that name. Understand me?”

Gasping for air, she nodded her head.

Kerrigan released her.

“So much for my thinking you’d changed,” Blaise said under his breath in twentieth-century English so that the woman couldn’t understand him.

Kerrigan didn’t respond to Blaise while he glared at the woman who was rubbing her bruised throat. “I want Seren’s possessions and I want them now.”

Still coughing, the woman stumbled against the apprentice who was closest to her. When she spoke, her voice was thick and deep. “Get up, you lazy cur, and get His Lordship whatever he wants.”

The girl nodded before she quickly got up to do her mistress’s bidding.

Kerrigan followed up the stairs after her. She led him to an attic room that was at the far end of the shop.

He hesitated as he saw the meager furnishings that made up their dormitory. Each girl had been relegated to a small pallet with a thin, paltry mattress that sat on the floor. Each bed had one
small, flat pillow and one threadbare blanket. To the right of each pallet was a plain trunk. There was nothing warm here. Nothing welcoming. It was no better than the bleak atmosphere of Camelot.

Yet this was where his little mouse had dreamed of her modest merchant who would one day claim her…

Anger welled up inside him.

“Who are you, girl?”

She paused before one of the pallets to look up, then she caught herself before she met his gaze. Her eyes fell back to the floor. “Wendlyn, my lord.”

“Wendlyn,” he said, softening his voice as he recalled her from Seren’s memories. “You two are friends.”

She nodded as she opened the lid to the ark that was nearest the window. “All of Seren’s belongings are in here, my lord.”

Kerrigan had to duck to enter the room. He didn’t speak as he approached the trunk that held almost nothing. There was a modest cloak for the colder weather. A pair of patched hose, an old kirtle, and a ragged white chemise. He moved them aside to find a single pair of leather shoes that had a hole in the bottom of each sole.

Pain hit him hard as he realized that this was all his little mouse had in the world. And she’d been so proud of it. After all, she’d had potential…

His heart heavy, he gathered up each item until he found her small loom resting in the bottom, wrapped in a piece of brown cloth. It looked as worthless as the rest of her belongings. Yet it was
priceless to him. If not for this loom, he would never have known that Seren existed.

As he pulled it out, a small pendant fell free from the brown cloth it was wrapped in. Kerrigan frowned at the sight. He reached into the chest to find the heraldic dragon of Avalon. The symbol of Arthur. He knew instantly that it must have belonged to her mother.

“Why is this in here?”

The girl glanced at the pendant, then looked away. “We are peasants, my lord. The necklace belonged to Seren’s mother. Had Mistress Maude known about it, she would have taken it from her and sold it for her upkeep, so Seren kept it hidden. She would take it out sometimes at night and pray for her mother, then she would hide it away again.”

He could just imagine her doing that. His hand shaking from his raw emotions, he ran his fingers over the trunk’s lid and imagined Seren opening it up every day and carefully closing it. He felt connected to her.

But she was his past now…

Taking a deep breath, he gathered up everything and rose. As he started away, the girl’s voice stopped him.

“My lord?”

“Aye?” He looked back to find her staring at the floor, her brow knitted by worry.

“Might I ask after Seren? Is she…is she well?”

Her concern for his mouse warmed him. “Aye, Wendlyn. She’s hale and healthy, and in a much better place than this one.”

He saw the relief on her face. “Would you please
tell her that I asked after her, my lord? And let her know that I wish her well?”

“I will indeed.”

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head before he left the room and found Blaise waiting for him on the stairs.

“Are you all right?”

Kerrigan glared at him. “Do I not look all right?”

“Nay. You look strange.”

He grimaced as he brushed past the mandrake. It wasn’t until after they had left the building that Kerrigan stopped. He lifted the sleeve of her kirtle to his face so that he could inhale the scent of Seren mixed with the cedar of the box.

He missed her already.

Oh how he wished that things were different. That he was different. But wishing was good for naught. This was the way of it.

His resolve set, he handed the bundle off to Blaise. As he did so a small copper thimble fell free of the cloth. Kerrigan bent down to retrieve it.

How paltry it was. How worthless.

But it was Seren’s.

“You’re not planning to go to Avalon, are you?” Blaise asked.

“Nay,” he said as he clutched the tiny thimble in his hand. “We both know that the Lords of Avalon would never allow me to their shores. Not that I blame them. We’ve been at war far too long for them to welcome or tolerate me. I made my choice centuries ago. I’m man enough to live with it.”