The Falconer (Elizabeth May) (29 page)

‘What are you going to do, Aileana?’

‘About what?’

I lean out through the open window. Rain drops feather-light against my face. The cold air blows against me and the soft rain turns to wee pieces of ice that adhere to my hair.

‘The
baobhan sìth
.’

I wince. ‘For the first time in a year, I don’t even want to think about her.’

‘But—’

‘Enjoy this with me,’ I say. ‘Help me forget about last night.’

His wings tickle my cheek as he tangles himself in my hair. ‘Just one thing,’ he whispers. ‘Don’t ever let her break you.’

If he were my size, I would have hugged him. Instead, I lift a hand and stroke the silky softness of his wings. His tiny cheek presses against mine.

Together, we sit and watch the rain fall.

Chapter 28

P
ast midnight, I am about to leave the house for a hunt when I sense the subtle tang of Kiaran’s power emanating from the hallway. Blast! I hope he isn’t visible for the servants to see him strolling about. I don’t need another problem to add to my ever-growing list.

‘I know you’re there, MacKay, and you can go right back out the way you came in.’

The doorknob twists and catches on the lock. Kiaran swears softly. ‘Open the door, Kam.’

Derrick dives from the windowsill, a red halo of light surrounding him. ‘Oh, good. He’s finally here. I believe I vowed to tear out his innards.’

‘I swear, I am going to kill that damn pixie,’ I hear Kiaran mutter. ‘Kam. Let me in or I’ll remove the door from its hinges. Your choice.’

I bite back my automatic reply:
You wouldn’t dare
. Because he absolutely would, and I prefer to leave my door just where it is. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I unlatch the lock.

Kiaran stands in the hallway, soaked through from the downpour, hands braced on either side of the doorframe. His dark hair clings to his pale cheeks and his shirt is nearly transparent from the rain, revealing his smooth chest rising and falling with his quick, ragged breaths.

I’m surprised to hear his breathing. Usually he is so silent, every part of him still. ‘What do you want?’ I ask bluntly. I have no energy for politeness.

Kiaran glances behind me. ‘Are you going to invite me in, or shall I continue to drip all over your hallway carpet?’

I step aside to let him pass, and close the door behind him, then lean my back against it. ‘Make this brief. I’m terribly inclined to shoot you again, and this time I’ll aim for something vital.’

Derrick lands on my shoulder. ‘Again?’ He sounds indignant. ‘How did I miss that?’

‘You were out,’ I say.

‘Damn,’ he mumbles. ‘I should have loved to see it.’

Kiaran runs a hand through his wet hair. Water drips from his clothes into a puddle around his feet.

I have a hard time meeting his gaze after everything that happened last night. The only compliments I’ve ever received from Kiaran were for my battle scars, for how efficiently I can drive a blade through my enemy. Now he’s seen how broken my mother’s death has really left me, and when it mattered, he took away the thing I wanted most. His vow meant nothing, and worse: he made his own promise to Sorcha, and stopped me from killing her when I had the chance. That won’t be easy for me to forgive.

Kiaran draws his shoulders back. He’s so tall, he towers over me. ‘I’m not here to apologise.’

‘Wonderful. Thank you for confirming what I had already assumed,’ I say. ‘There are two exits out of this room. Choose one.’

Derrick chuckles. ‘I’d say this is a rather glorious comeuppance.’

Kiaran’s glare is scorching. ‘Stay out of this.’

‘No,’ Derrick says.

‘Careful, pixie,’ he says. ‘You forget what I am.’

Derrick swoops over to Kiaran and hovers in front of him. His halo is so bright now that none of his features are distinguishable. ‘I’ve never forgotten. That’s why I’ll never trust you with her.’

Kiaran growls something in his language, and Derrick hisses a response with equal venom. I only comprehend a few errant words. The language is just similar enough to
Gàidhlig
to sound familiar, but not anything like I’ve heard it spoken.

Finally, Derrick snarls in English, ‘I’m not yours to command. I never was.’

‘
All right
,’ I say, reaching for the pixie, but he’s far too quick. I manage to insert myself between him and Kiaran. ‘Derrick, could you go into the dressing room and give us a moment?’

He snorts. ‘I think not.’

‘Derrick,’ I say, more firmly.

‘Fine,’ he retorts. ‘But I still want his innards.’

He snaps another unintelligible word at Kiaran before barrelling into the dressing room in a stream of light. The door slams shut behind him.

Kiaran stares at the dressing room door. ‘That pixie must care a great deal for you,’ he says. ‘I’ve never seen one cohabit with a human.’

He has quite an amazing talent for changing the subject. ‘What happened between you two?’

‘Nothing pleasant.’

‘I already assumed that. You didn’t answer my question.’

‘I rarely do.’ When I only glare at him, he says, ‘Say whatever you’re thinking. Get it out.’

I’m so tired of Kiaran’s games, his vague answers. I’m tired of being manipulated. ‘Your vow meant nothing – you let the
baobhan sìth
live.’

‘Necessity, Kam. That was the first lesson I ever taught you.’

‘Don’t treat me like I’m naïve.’ I rake him with my eyes. ‘You speak of necessity to absolve yourself of any responsibility for your actions. Like failing to mention the part you’ve played in keeping my ancestors powerless. That you
knew
Sorcha. In fact, you appeared to be downright familiar with one another. Who is she to you? Old friend?’ I step closer. ‘Old
lover
, MacKay?’

Kiaran dips his head, his nose nearly touching mine. ‘That’s none of your damned business.’

I don’t yield. I don’t retreat from him or let him intimidate me. I meet his gaze directly and ask, ‘What vow did you make to her?’ When he doesn’t respond, I speak more forcefully. ‘Tell me.
Now
.’

How could he say a true vow to her and not me? His word was the one common ground we had. The one thing I could depend on him never to betray, at the risk of his own life. And in the end his vow was just another faery half-lie.

Kiaran’s jaw tics and I wonder if he’ll tell me anything, even another lie. ‘My life is intertwined with hers,’ he says. ‘If Sorcha dies, so do I.’

My breath is squeezed from my lungs, leaving an awful ache in my chest. I turn away from him. My vision blurs and I’m horrified to realise that my eyes are filled with tears. It’s been so long. I’d forgotten how much they burn.

‘Why would you do that?’ I ask. My voice is surprisingly calm.

‘I warned you about the consequences of trying to prevent a Seer’s vision from coming to pass,’ he says quietly. ‘This is but one of mine.’

Don’t cry
, I tell myself as he grasps my shoulders and turns me to face him.
Don’t cry
. Too late. His body goes still, eyes searching mine. ‘Tears, Kam?’ he breathes. ‘Whatever for?’

I don’t acknowledge his words. I can’t. ‘You knew Sorcha is the one I’ve been searching for all this time.’

‘Aye, I did.’

An awful thought crosses my mind, one that immediately dries my eyes. My fingers curl into fists. ‘So did you let my mother die?’

He looks away from me then. ‘By the time I tracked Sorcha to Edinburgh, she had already found your mother.’ His fingers tighten on my shoulders, a seemingly involuntary motion. ‘I had just enough time to tell her the truth about who she was. I advised her to leave the city, but she wouldn’t abandon you. So I gave her the thistle and she put it on you that night. She wanted me to save
you
.’

I can barely remember my mother’s words when she wove the thistle into my hair. I was so excited, only half-listening. She described how it matched my eyes. She warned me never to take it off, in a sudden sombre tone that might have unnerved me if I’d bothered to pay any attention at all.

I pull out of his grasp. ‘Save me? Is that what you think you did,
Kadamach
?’

Kiaran’s face hardens. ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why not? That’s your name, isn’t it?’

He surprises me by resting a hand flat on my cheek. His fingers are warm, inviting. The connection between us is so intense that I might have been tempted to lean into that touch, but his gaze stops me. His eyes burn bright, uncanny and overwhelming.

‘Shall I tell you about the one who answered to that name?’

His lilting accent is back. This is a voice born to compel, born to command. It is beautiful and ugly, terrifying and comforting, a million dichotomies I can only begin to describe. It’s meant to remind me that beneath skin and bone he is a powerful, inhuman creature who could kill me with little difficulty. I almost forgot again.

I can’t speak or move, can’t look away. His fingertips trace along my collarbone, but his touch is cold now, growing ever more frigid. The hair raises along my arms.

‘Kadamach lived for destruction,’ Kiaran says. ‘He would have ripped the soul from your body and devoured it. And that would have brought him rapture.’ A flicker of fear ignites inside me as his lips brush my cheek. ‘Names hold power, Kam,’ he says. ‘Don’t use that one unless you’d like to see first-hand what it was once capable of.’

I don’t step away, despite how much I want to. ‘But you still cared for someone,’ I say. ‘A Falconer, like Sorcha said. Even Kadamach was capable of love.’

Kiaran flinches, a slight motion, barely noticeable, but it tells me how acutely he still feels the pain of her death. ‘Don’t make the mistake of believing you know that part of my past. If you think it humanises me, you’re a sentimental fool.’ He straightens and steps away from me, the trail of his cold touch still burning across my skin. ‘It’s time we found the seal.’

Before I can answer, he opens my bedchamber door and disappears down the hall.

Chapter 29

W
hen I round the front of my house, I’m surprised to see my ornithopter parked in the middle of Charlotte Square again. ‘You brought it back from Dalkeith,’ I say to Kiaran. ‘How on earth did you figure out how to fly it?

‘I watched you yesterday.’ Kiaran reaches into the front seat and pulls out my lightning pistol and holster. ‘I thought you might want this.’

Gratefully, I take it from him and secure the holster around my hips before seating myself at the helm. ‘So let me see if I have this right. We’re looking for a two-thousand-year-old seal that’s completely hidden from faeries—’

‘
Sìthichean
.’

‘Faeries. We have no idea what it looks like, how big it is, or even where it is—’

‘It’s in what is now the Queen’s Park,’ he interrupts again. ‘The last battle took place there and it’s directly above the prison.’

‘So we have the general location, which happens to be approximately three miles in circumference? Brilliant. That’s just brilliant.’

I start the machine. The massive wings deploy and flap, and we’re soon airborne. I breathe in the rainy air and turn the ornithopter towards the south end of the city.

‘You should be able to sense the device once we’re close enough,’ Kiaran says. ‘When they activated it, the Falconers charged it with their power to ward off any
sìthichean
who happen upon it.’

‘How can I be certain what to look for?’

Kiaran stares into the darkness beyond the ornithopter. ‘You’ll know when you find it.’

I sigh in frustration and gaze out over the city. Below, candlelight flickers in the tenements of Old Town and gas lamps cast deep shadows along the streets. Thin fog rolls along the ground and between buildings, coating the roads in ghostly white. The closer we get to Holyroodhouse and the Queen’s Park, the more the light dims until there is only darkness below.

The faint outline of the rocky peak of Salisbury Crags comes into view. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I focus on the steep hills across the valley. Arthur’s Seat looms highest, its peak framed by clouds and mist. I steer the helm towards the dark meadow directly below it.

Rain beats against the machine’s wings as we swoop down and land on the grass. The park is quiet but for the sound of the downpour, no birds or animals rustling in the trees.

My leather boots sink into the soft meadow grass when I climb from the ornithopter. ‘Now what?’

Kiaran doesn’t spare me a glance. ‘We walk. You detect.’

He strides away across the dark grass. I dart after him and stub my toe against a rock. ‘Could you please slow down for the girl with the useless human night vision?’

Kiaran stops. ‘Apologies,’ he says, though he doesn’t sound at all as if he means it.

I feel his heavy gaze on me despite the darkness, and I still find it difficult to look at him, more so now than ever. He saw my tears. In a single moment I was forced to give up on vengeance, on ever killing Sorcha, or risk losing him. I never realised how much I had begun to care for Kiaran that it would hurt so badly.

I wonder what awful fate he tried to prevent by making that vow to Sorcha. What would be worth connecting his life to hers for eternity?

‘What would you have risked to kill Sorcha?’ he says before I can speak. ‘And answer me honestly, Kam. Would you have given up your life?’

I glance at him in surprise. ‘Of course not,’ I say.

The lie rolls off my tongue with such ease. I’ve become so good at deception that there are moments when I almost believe my lies myself. A lie is best told with a single grain of truth, a factual hook on which to hang the falsehood. That’s what makes them so easy to maintain.

‘I saw your resolve,’ he says quietly. ‘I watched you decide that little else mattered to you except vengeance. And do you know what I thought?’

‘What?’ I whisper, almost afraid of what he’ll say.

‘I made you the same as me.’

I look away, towards the slope that leads up to the crags. Rain drops onto my face and I don’t bother to wipe it away. My chest is so tight, my heart heavy. I had stupidly, inexplicably hoped he would tell me that I was strong, or magnificent. That he’d show the same pride in me that I saw the day before yesterday in the drawing room when I held the knife to his throat.