Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

E li sat beside Rosa's bed, watching over her as she slept. It had taken him most of the night to stitch her wounds and clean them from the poisons the Seelie delighted in using. They had barely reached the house before she had started hallucinating and screaming for Balthasar.

Merlin had left her in Eli's care and had gone to see to the other wounded. Eli could feel the ragged pain coming from him, and being around Rosa, who had no way of controlling her grief, only made it harder.

Eli was also using Rosa's current fragile state to avoid his own personal drama. When Eirianwen had been shoved through the crowd, he'd known her from her walk and the shape of her body even before the queen had pulled off the hood. Alive . It took every ounce of his self-control to lock down his power. He wanted to rush to hold her, to rip the queen apart limb from limb. He had seen her fall and die the day the queen had captured him.

Where had she been all this time? She had even refused to look at him. Zalan had managed to get her back to the mansion and into a private room.

Eli knew he couldn't avoid her, but his mind wouldn't stop racing. They had won the battle but not the war, and now he had lost Balthasar and Nimue.

When she woke, Rosa was going to be furious. He stroked her forehead and let his magic draw her into a deep rest before getting to his feet. He set a guard outside her door and headed back to his chambers. He stank of Seelie blood, sweat, and the ozone of burned magic.

Merlin intercepted him outside his chamber. "How is she?"

"She will heal."

"That's not what I meant." He folded his arms, hugging himself. "I tried, athair . You know I can't die. I knew the queen couldn't do anything to me. Now she has Nimue." His powerful magician son looked like a lost boy again, and Eli pulled him into an embrace.

"It will be all right, Merlin. Once Rosa is healed enough, we'll find a way into the Aos Si to get them back," Eli promised. "I failed Rosa last time. I won't do it again."

"I hope so because we'll go with or without your blessing," Merlin replied, letting him go and stepping back from him.

"I know you will, but I need to return to the Aos Si." Eli swallowed the lump in his throat. "She's eating my people, Merlin. I can't be king in that land again, but I can make sure they escape her filthy claws."

"You need to kill her. Stop all this diplomacy and do the job. Only you can." Merlin headed back down the hallway. "Go and see that woman, Father. Don't waste time being afraid of her."

"You don't know her," Eli muttered.

Despite his exhaustion, Eli washed and dressed carefully before drinking two straight whiskeys and going to find his ex-fiancé.

He ignored the curious stares of the Gwaed Gam as he stood for a full ten minutes looking at her door. He had just built up enough courage to knock when it opened.

Eirianwen was wrapped tightly in a black dressing gown and looking every bit as angry as she had at the lake. Remembering his manners, he bowed low to her.

"My lady, I wished to see if you had everything you required," he said smoothly.

"I'm still waiting for an explanation," she replied, her brows drawn close together.

"May I come in? I believe some things are better not said in a hallway."

Her grey eyes narrowed, and she finally stood aside and let him enter. The fireplace was burning hot, and every light was on.

She's spent too much time in the darkness . Eli pushed the thought from his mind.

"How are you alive?" he asked, wanting to touch her to see if she was real. "I saw you die. You were pierced by arrows and…"

"And you left me in the dirt." Her voice was cold.

"I was captured! I could not even bury my father." Eli took a breath to try and steady himself. He hadn't felt this emotionally undone in centuries. "How did you come to be a prisoner?"

"I heard her men were capturing our people, so a group of the rebels and I led an attack on the raiding parties." Eirianwen's lips pursed. "We were outnumbered. The queen was leading the hunt, and she saw me. After three thousand years dodging her and her spies, she finally saw I wasn't as dead as she had desired."

"If I had known, I never would have left the Aos Si without you."

"You only left the Unseelie to be ruled and tormented by her."

"I am not the king! I fled the Aos Si to protect my brothers. After you had died, they were my only priority."

"You still could've stayed, and the Unseelie would've protected you…"

"I didn't want to stay in a world that reminded me of you!" Eli shouted and a vase exploded beside him. "I'd lost everything. I wanted to start anew, and now this world is mine to protect from the likes of Aeronwen."

"So, you abandon your people and your world and simply make another one. The queen told me of the human wife you took. She must've been something special."

Eli sighed through his nose. "She was. Much has happened to us that we have cause to regret, but I can't keep arguing about the past. The queen took my son and a woman I see as my daughter-in-law. I've been wounded enough for one day. Stay here as long as you wish. You are safe under my roof."

"Thank you, Seren Du," her voice had lost all of its sting, reminding him of gentler times.

He opened the bedroom door. "For what it is worth, it does me good to see you again."

It had been three days since Balthasar was taken, and Rosa barely had the will to get out of her bed. Thanks to Eli and her Unseelie blood, her wounds were healed over, but her muscles still ached as they mended. Eli had reassured her they were planning Balthasar's rescue, and she should focus on healing.

Planning . All the Seren Du brothers seemed to do was plan things. She had accused Eli of as much only hours beforehand.

"Every minute he's there, she will torture him, and you just want to sit here and do nothing!" she had shouted.

"Balthasar is more equipped to deal with the likes of the Aos Si than any of us. I know you don't want to hear this, Rosa, but this is what Balthasar used to live for. He used to love being a double agent and would frequently get himself caught by an enemy, allow them to interrogate, torture, and turn him, and then when they became complacent, he would slaughter them all," Eli replied. "This is an old game to him, so calm yourself and let me organize this, so we all don't end up on the queen's execution stage."

Rosa rolled over and cuddled Balthasar's pillow closer to her. She could smell his aftershave, but the warmth had gone. He had gone through this hell only months ago when she was taken, and she kept telling herself she could endure it. She kept dreaming of the look on his face as he realized the queen had him. It was fear, but not for himself. He knew what she was about to go through. When she wasn't dreaming of Balthasar, she was dreaming of Arthur's tomb with its ghostly trees.

There was a rattle at her door, and a tall figure stepped through it. Rosa wasn't afraid. She was ready to fight something.

"Get your ass out of that bed, Rhosyn," Merlin commanded. "Dress warm. We have things to do tonight."

"We are going to get them?" she asked, climbing out of bed, and dug in her wardrobe.

"Yes, we will leave here tomorrow with Eli and Eirianwen," he said, turning his back as she stripped out of her pajamas. "There's something I need to do before we can go, and I can't do it alone."

Rosa didn't question him as she pulled on her Doc Martens and winter leather jacket.

Outside her room, two Gam soldiers were slumped against the wall. Merlin gave her an innocent smile.

"I take it Eli isn't sanctioning this little expedition?" Rosa questioned as they ducked into the servant's passages.

"Eli has been guarding you like an aggressive wolf mother, and it's not what you need right now. It's not what I need either. I can't control what's going to happen in the Aos Si, but I'm going to be prepared the only way I know how."

They avoided the Gwaed Gam with alarming ease, and Rosa realized Merlin was making them drop minutes before they arrived. As they neared the lake, Rosa felt panic threaten to overwhelm her.

Merlin took her hand. "I know, Rosa, I know." She felt his pain echoing hers and kept walking.

"I wish I could keep my composure as well as you."

"Composure! Hardly. I can't be manic right now because it won't help them or us. I've had many lifetimes to get used to the pain of loss. We will get them back, Rosa, but we must be smart. It's not only their lives that are at stake."

Power spiked the night air as Merlin opened the back door and they stepped through into a still Glastonbury.

"We are going drinking?" Rosa looked about confused.

"I wish. We aren't even going into town. Step back please, Rosa." She backed away as he knelt in the laneway and placed his hand on the grass.

" Mae'n ddrwg 'da fi ," he apologized, and the ground shuddered in protest. "Please, I will return it, but I need it back, only for a short time."

Rosa gripped her knees as nausea threatened to knock her down. She could feel energy running through the earth under her feet, pulling towards Merlin as if he was a magnet. He groaned in pain when it reached him, breaking through the ground with a blinding haze of light. Rosa crumpled to the ground, holding her streaming eyes until the light faded and there was only them and the cold, wet night.

"Merlin?" she whimpered as she scrambled over the ground to where he lay. " Merlin ! Wake up! Answer me, you sonnova bitch, or I'm going to smack you so hard…"

"Please don't hit me," he groaned, and his hawk eyes opened. They were glowing brightly, and as Merlin shuddered, the magic settled, and he was himself again.

"What the hell just happened? Are you okay?" Rosa hugged him, just to be sure. He felt…different. Whole.

"I took my magic back. I can't go into the Aos Si without being fully prepared," he replied, and they got back to their feet. He laughed bright and bitter. "Lord above, I forgot what this even felt like."

A low hum was coming off him as he straightened, flicking his hands irritably. Rosa had thought he was powerful before, enough that could match even Eli when tested, but now he was something else entirely. She felt as if she were looking at a stranger.

"Close your mouth before something flies into it, Wylt," he said, and she grinned. He was still a dick, which meant he was still her cousin.

"Are you sure we can't get a drink before we head back?" she asked. Merlin took her hand once more.

"This is not our final destination," he said and pulled her through the doorway once more.

They arrived in a thunderstorm on a rocky shoreline. Rosa gripped Merlin's hand, afraid that in the force of the wind and rain she'd lose him. He walked to the cliff face and rested a hand on it.

A seam of light danced along the dark stone and with a shuddering, cracking sound, it moved away to reveal a cave mouth. He pulled her inside even though every fiber of her being was screaming that it was a bad idea. The door shut behind them, sealing them in darkness.

"Where are we?" Rosa shivered, her magic bringing a flame to her hand.

"Ynys Enlli," he answered, shaking the water from his hair.

"We…we are on Bardsey Island?" Rosa stammered, and then the penny dropped. Arthur . "You buried him here?"

"I did, but not where anyone could find him. The cave on the other side is a convenient rumor," Merlin answered.

"Damn, I came here on a uni expedition. I meditated in that damn cave." Rosa flushed.

"Did you receive anything?"

"Only a damp ass."

Merlin's barking laugh echoed through the cave, and it hummed with resonance. "Come on, Rhosyn, let's see if your vision was real."