Chapter 34

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

W hen Carys woke, she was in a stone chamber with no windows and only a few candles lit. There was a fire burning in a corner fireplace, and a dark figure hunched over it.

She wasn't bound, but she was sitting in a chair and her legs felt heavy, as if weights had been tied around her feet. "Where am I?"

The dark figure in the corner moved, but it didn't speak.

There was a scuttling along the wall beside her, a clicking sound somewhere behind, and Carys turned her head to see what was there, but nothing permeated the relentless darkness of the cave. There was a faint blue light coming from somewhere, but nothing in her line of sight was clear. It was as if a filter had been cast over her eyes.

"Where did you bring me?" Her vision wasn't the only thing that was foggy. Her limbs were heavy, and her reflexes were dull. Her own voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance.

"Did you… drug me?"

"No." It was nearly a whisper. "This will help you."

Carys blinked and saw a sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room. On it was a candlestick, an open book, and a basket .

Aisling's basket.

"Aisling?" Carys looked up and saw that the blue lights were wisps caught along the low ceiling of the cave, dancing and flying around the room, blinking in no particular pattern.

Souls. Little souls of the lost. Wild twins lost to the fae, consumed to feed their magic. Carys felt tears come to her eyes.

"If you're going to kill me, just do it." She'd be with her mother. Her father. Maybe with the sister she'd never known.

Would Lachlan and Duncan know what had happened to her, or would she just disappear? Laura and Kiersten would go crazy, but who else would care? She had no family. No job. No students. The college would hire someone to fill her position. They'd forget about her eventually.

The heavy weight of despair made her head slump to the side.

"I told you." The whisper came again. "This will help you."

The shadow moved, and Carys closed her eyes, willing whatever was going to happen to happen softly.

Please. At least give me that.

Let death be soft.

"Carys?"

She opened her eyes, and Aisling was in front of her. Carys's vision cleared a little. Aisling's face was still pale and her lips blood red, but the chaotic emotions she'd displayed earlier were gone, replaced by grim determination.

Carys forced her lips to move. "Where are we?"

"In the fae fort. Regan left to reinforce the wards so Cadell can't find you."

"I'm in the fae fort?"

Aisling walked back to feed the fire more wood, and the light grew brighter.

Carys looked around the room, and pieces of her shattered consciousness slowly put her surroundings and situation together.

She was being held in some kind of workroom or kitchen. There were cauldrons of various sizes hanging on a wall. There were shelves holding dusty glass jars, so dirty that Carys couldn't see what they contained. The fireplace was the only part of the room that seemed well maintained.

"Regan works here sometimes when she wants to hide." Aisling knelt down and stirred something bubbling over the fire. "She won't work magic within the castle walls, and the unicorns don't watch this place. Only a few local fae even visit here, but they don't come inside. They say it's contaminated by human magic. Can you believe that?" She glanced over her shoulder. "They teach us, but they hate us too. Even us."

Aisling walked toward the table and snapped her fingers in the air. The old sconces on the wall began to glow with a cool white light. The wisps still swirled overhead, dancing on the earthen ceiling like fireflies. As the room grew brighter, Carys could see more.

The chamber had clearly been abandoned long ago. Mushrooms grew from cracks in the mortar, and moss was slowly overtaking the floor. Despite all that, there was a thick veil of magic that lay heavy in the air, making it hard to think.

"Cadell can't feel me here, can he?"

"Cadell will be able to see the fort from the air" —Aisling's voice was rote as she looked at the large grimoire open on the table— "but if he approaches, it will appear to move. You're hidden from him now. Dragons are visual creatures, and they don't use magic the way we do."

"The way you and your aunt do, you mean." Carys fought for her anger, shaking off the despair that threatened to creep up her throat and choke her.

"The spell Regan cast was only short-term." Aisling turned back to the cauldron that was simmering over the fire. "The wards won't hide you for long, so she went back to strengthen them. She'll have to find a sacrifice, but she's an excellent hunter."

"What kind of sacrifice?"

Aisling's eyes drifted upward to the glowing blue lights hanging above them. "The same kind the fae used to make this fort. "

"No." Regan was going to sacrifice more souls to keep her. "Don't let her, Aisling. Let me out before she kills?—"

"You think I'm in control of this now?" Aisling shot Carys a look over her shoulder. "I tried to protect you, just like I tried to protect Seren."

"You killed Seren." Carys forced the words out. "Didn't you?"

"Regan trapped me too." Aisling walked back to the table, ignoring Carys's question. "I don't know what you want me to do about it."

Carys's eyes landed on a small black book next to the grimoire.

Seren's journal.

She kept her voice soft. "Why did you kill her, Aisling?"

The woman's face was blank. It was as if the life had drained from her, though she was still moving. "The fever killed her. It wasn't me." Aisling glanced at Carys before her eyes returned to the book. "Seren came to me for a potion, and I gave her one. I was the only one she trusted. She wouldn't even take potions from the unicorns."

"She trusted you." Carys swallowed with difficulty. She felt like there was a mass of stones in her mouth, blocking her tongue from making a sound. "And you killed her."

"It wasn't like that!" Aisling slammed her hand on the table. "You don't understand anything. You've been here a few weeks and you think you know anything? I loved Seren!"

"But you loved Lachlan more?"

Aisling curled her lip. "Lachlan should have been mine. If Seren had stayed away with her dragon, he would have grown to love me. I needed him to love me. The whole reason they kept me in this court was so I could be his queen."

"I read her journal." Carys blinked and looked back at the black leather book sitting on the table by the large open volume and the candle. "She loved you too. She wanted to give you a life away from here. She knew?—"

"She knew I loved her husband, and she wanted me gone." Aisling's cold facade cracked. Just a little. "At least she didn't pity me like you. Like Duncan. Like all of them ! I hate it. They think I don't see it? I do."

"She was your best friend."

Aisling's blue eyes turned frosty. "Friendship? What is friendship? If she loved me, she would have left when she saw him falling in love with her. They never should have been together. It was bad for everyone, Carys."

"She was in love."

"She was selfish," Aisling spat out. "She only thought about herself. Not Lachlan. Not the Queens' Pact. Selfish."

Carys blinked back tears. It was obvious that Aisling had rationalized her betrayal. "And you weren't? It wasn't selfish to kill your best friend?"

"I needed to take some action." She walked back to the fireplace and the cauldron. "Regan sent a raven from the Anglian court. She said that with Seren sick, I could do something about my situation. She said I was being… pathetic." Aisling's face went blank again. "Pathetic."

"Seren didn't think you were pathetic."

"Lachlan did." Aisling's lip curled. "I heard the pity in his voice."

Duncan had called it. There was nothing worse than pity.

The mental fog was clearing as the light grew brighter. "You poisoned her, didn't you?"

"It wasn't poison! The fever was bad." Aisling frowned. "It really was bad. I looked in Regan's old grimoire for something to help and… I found it."

"Found what?"

"It was only a spell. One spell I added to the potion recipe. I wasn't trying to kill Seren." Aisling walked over and stared at the waterlogged journal. "I wasn't trying to kill her. I wasn't. I just wanted to kill the love between them."

Carys was no magic user, but she could easily see how a spell to kill the love between two people could quickly morph into a lethal curse. "Kill their love?"

Aisling looked up, her eyes distant. "Don't you see? If their love died, Lachlan would see me . That was all I needed. For him to not love her . Then there would be room in his heart for me."

"Love doesn't work that way."

"It does for Lachlan!" Aisling's laugh was manic. "Don't you think? Seren died, so he went to the Brightlands to find you." She wandered over to the table and flipped through the leather-bound grimoire, a bitter smile marring her beautiful face.

"Lose one Seren; find another," Carys whispered.

"Even the foreigner can see it." Aisling's voice dropped to a low growl. "Easy as anything for a prince with passage through the gate."

Despite the fog that permeated Carys's mind, the words still stung.

"So what happened?" Carys forced out the words. "Did you make the potion wrong? You didn't kill their love; you killed the woman."

"Oh, I made it correctly." She flipped a page and ran her finger down the book, her eyes glittering in anger. "Despite Lachlan's disregard and my family's blindness, I am a brilliant mage. The potion I made was perfect ." Aisling looked up, and for the first time, there were tears in the corners of her eyes. "It was perfect."

Carys tried to play on Aisling's humanity. "But the potion recipe was Regan's, not yours. And Regan's idea of killing love was different than yours." She twisted her arms against her bindings. "Let me go, Aisling. I don't blame you. It was Regan who killed Seren, not you."

Aisling's expression fell away, and her face went blank again. "That's not… exactly true."

"What do you mean?"

Aisling's eyes were wide, staring at Seren's journal. "I could have made an antidote. When I saw what happened, I could have reversed the curse."

"What?" Carys's heart plummeted. "Then why did you let her die?"

"Everyone would have known." Aisling looked up. "They would have known my potion had made her sicker."

"So all you wanted was to save yourself?" Carys couldn't hide the disgust in her voice.

"I couldn't let him know." Aisling's voice was a soft whisper. "How would Lachlan ever love me if he knew? If I cured Seren, my life would have been over." She shook her head. "I have nowhere to go." She looked at Carys, and it was like a light switched on. "I have nothing if I don't have Lachlan."

Carys knew that Aisling was correct. If she'd been caught poisoning the heir of Cymru and the wife of the Alban prince, her life would have been forfeit.

The queen of éire would have disavowed her own granddaughter to avoid a war, blaming Aisling for individual malice.

The one ally Aisling had was the person she'd killed.

"You don't have to kill me." Carys was starting to feel desperate. If Aisling could kill her best friend, killing Carys to hide her crime would be nothing. "I'll go back to the Brightlands. No one needs to know. Maybe Cadell…"

Aisling walked over and stood in front of Carys, looking at her with dead eyes. "Your dragon will kill me the moment he discovers what happened, and no power in the Shadowlands will stop him."

Carys was going to die because Aisling was one hundred percent correct.

"Please, Aisling." She shook her head. "Let me go. I'll tell Cadell that it was Regan. He'll believe me. I can stop him from hurting you. We can fly you away?—"

Aisling put a hand over Carys's mouth. "I'm not going to kill you." Her voice was eerily calm. "That would cause far too many questions. But you need to forget." She lifted her hand away and smiled. "If you forget, then I can think up a story. I can fix all this, but you need to forget."

"What?" Carys blinked. "Forget… what?"

Aisling walked over and lifted the journal. "Forget this. Forget Seren. Forget the Shadowlands. Forget Lachlan and Duncan. If you forget all of it, no one has to know."

"What are you talking about?" Carys leaned forward, her eyes going wide. "I'm not going to forget everything just like that. And even if I did forget everything, how do you think you can get me home? "

"Regan can take you through a fae gate." Aisling's laugh was high and desperate. "She's crossed the gates before. She said so."

"You think I'm going to just wake up in the middle of a Scottish forest and not have any questions?"

Aisling's eyes were bright, nearly feverish, as she danced from the book to the cauldron and back again. "That won't be my problem, Carys. That will be yours."

"Aisling—"

"Regan won't kill you!" Aisling took a sprig of something from her basket. "Don't you see? If you don't remember, she won't have to kill you. It's the only way to keep you alive."

The woman was losing it. None of this made any sense. "What about Cadell?"

"If you're on the other side, the dragon will leave." Aisling threw an herb into the cauldron and furiously stirred. "He'll have to; the horde will call him back if his nêrys is gone."

"What about Lachlan? Are you going to make Lachlan forget me too?"

Aisling's eyes darkened at the mention of Lachlan's name. "Lachlan can chew on stones." She twisted her flushed lips. "I don't care about him anymore."

I don't believe you.

"Okay, what about Duncan? He's the most stubborn man I've ever met in my life. You think he's going to just let all this go? You don't—" She stopped short of telling Aisling about Duncan's dragon-steel sword. "He's dangerous, Aisling."

"I don't doubt it. And I don't doubt that he's in love with you—I see how he looks at you—but I don't care." She let out a slightly manic laugh. "They all just… love you. I don't know why. I'm more beautiful than you are. I was more beautiful than Seren too."

"You are!" It was true. Aisling was a stunningly beautiful woman.

"I'm quiet and reserved and… accomplished. I listen to their stories and their stupid, stupid jokes." Her cheeks grew flushed. "I did everything I was supposed to, and it didn't matter. He still loved her more. "

"Aisling, you're a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman." Except when you're trying to kill me. "You deserve a life away from here. You deserve more than what your family has in mind for you. Just let me go. Help me get out, and I will help you."

"You're lying." Aisling walked back to the table, looked at the book, and took another herb from the basket. "But I can do this. I can make you forget."

"I don't want to forget." Carys blinked away tears. "I don't want to forget any of this."

Not even the fear.

The fog in Carys's mind was starting to clear. She didn't know if Cadell was breaking through the wards Regan had cast or if someone was working another kind of magic, but she felt the dense blanket of magic around her thinning.

"You and I, Aisling." She struggled, her limbs warming and growing stronger. "We can figure something out. Maybe you can come to the Brightlands with me."

"No." Aisling shook her head and ran to check the cauldron. "I'm running away, so it doesn't matter. I don't care."

"I don't believe that." Carys could see the woman's madness but also her pain. She cared. She cared very much. "What do you think Seren would want you to do? Ruin both our lives because you made a mistake? Because you loved Lachlan?"

"Seren!" Aisling spun and held up a shaking finger, pointing at Carys. Her eyes were wide and her lips flushed. "Don't talk to me about Seren. She was my best friend, and you never even knew her."

"What would she want you to do?" Carys pressed Aisling again, sensing a weakness. "Would Seren want you to do this to her sister?" Carys knew that Aisling was desperate, but she was clinging to a plan that was swiftly crumbling under her fingers. No matter how lovesick, guilty, and panicked Aisling was, she was also intelligent. She had to know that none of this was going to work.

"You're not her sister." Aisling shook her head and turned back to the cauldron. "I was her sister, and she took the man I loved. "

"I can help you," Carys whispered. "I can help you get away. You could start a new life somewhere very far away."

"I don't believe you." Aisling turned and sneered. "You'll tell Lachlan ."

"I won't."

"I don't believe you!" she screamed and swept the basket from the table. "Why are you distracting me?"

Because if Aisling managed to finish whatever potion she was working on, Carys might be fighting for her life without remembering who was a friend and who was an enemy. She'd be lost in her own mind.

A distant sound like stone grinding along rock rumbled through the earth around them.

Aisling froze. "Regan is back."