The Falconer (Elizabeth May) (34 page)

Carefully, I fold the woollen shawl and place it back inside my wooden trunk. Though I’m tempted to take it with me, I’m still not worthy enough to wear it.

As I make my way downstairs, I try to ignore every detail of the house I grew up in, the house that contains so many reminders of my mother and father. But I can’t. I pass the paintings of Scottish shorelines my mother hung in the hallways because she missed the sea. The scent of pipe smoke and whisky still lingers near Father’s study as I walk by. I can’t remain here, no matter how much I want to.

I close the front door for the last time and head for the centre of Charlotte Square. Derrick and Kiaran are waiting next to the ornithopter and the locomotive, glaring at each other. Apparently they’ve agreed on some kind of grudging truce.

I tilt my head to the sky. The clouds are thick, dark, except the ones that surround the moon. My senses are so enhanced that I can see every crater and mare that darkens its surface. The rust colour presaging the eclipse has begun to envelop its white glow. Soon, it will be consumed. A blood moon.

As I near the ornithopter, Kiaran scans me quickly, head to toe, and almost smiles. I know that look. He likes what he sees.

‘Aileana!’

Gavin runs across Charlotte Square. He comes to a halt in front of me, clad in gentlemen’s finery, with fitted trousers, waistcoat and a perfectly tied neck-cloth. I wince at the reminder – he’s dressed for the ball at the Assembly Rooms, to which he’s supposed to be escorting me. Our engagement will be formally announced to our peers tonight.

Gavin blinks at my armour. He’s certainly not as appreciative of it as Kiaran. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘Armour.’

‘Looks heavy.’

I smile and clear my throat. ‘Catherine – is she—’

‘She’s fine,’ he reassures me. ‘In a bit of a shock, but she managed to convince Mother to leave town with her. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Catherine is a very skilled actress if the occasion calls for it.’

‘Oh, I am. Why didn’t you go with them?’

‘I’m here to help,’ he says. ‘I’m at your disposal.’

Derrick lands on my shoulder. ‘Oh, so
now
you’re interested in helping?’ he says. ‘What was that business you were spouting yesterday about being useless before you ran off like a miserable coward?’

Gavin glares at him. ‘Don’t bother with the bloody lecture, pixie.’

‘Gavin,’ I say, ‘you should leave Edinburgh. Any Seers in the city will be at greater risk than everyone else.’

He reaches out and clamps a hand around my vambrace.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I know I can’t fight for you.’ My eyebrows rise at the way he words it. He must notice because he quickly amends, ‘I can’t fight
them
, I mean. But you can’t expect me to go to that blasted ball alone and twiddle my thumbs all night.’

One more goodbye. The last one. But somehow, I can’t bring myself to say the words again, not when I stare into his eyes. They plead with me, brimming with the same determination I saw the night he chose to leave the ball and stand by me.

My voice is shaky when I speak. ‘All right.’

‘
Kam
,’ Kiaran says sharply.

I can practically hear his reasoning in his tone. If the faeries sense Gavin, they’ll be drawn to him. They will kill him.

‘Watch the battle from somewhere safe,’ I tell Gavin. ‘If this doesn’t work out, I need you to try and save as many people as possible. Get them out of the city, if you can.’

‘How?’

‘Take my ornithopter. You can spread the word faster and cover more ground that way.’ I step back from him. ‘Kiaran and I will take the locomotive.’ I reach to my shoulder and stroke Derrick’s wings once. ‘Derrick, you’ll go with him.’

‘
What?
’ His wings flutter. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

‘Aye, you are,’ I say. ‘Stay with Gavin.’ I swallow, so the next words don’t come out choked. ‘Protect each other.’

Protect each other, because I won’t be here to do it myself.

Derrick flies to Gavin’s shoulder and perches there, but he’s far from happy about it. ‘Fine. But this is against my better judgement.’

Before I get inside the locomotive, Gavin squeezes my wrist. I meet his eyes and am shocked by the fear I find there. ‘Aileana,’ he begins, but he doesn’t continue.

I know what he means to tell me. When Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy, I imagine she felt similarly: ineffectual, terrified and desperate to prevent her vision from becoming reality.

‘You’ve seen the whole vision now, haven’t you?’ I say. ‘Everything that Kiaran saw.’

Gavin nods. Before I can say anything, he pulls me into a hard embrace, crushing me against him. ‘I couldn’t see it clearly before, what makes it happen. Last night I did.’

I bury my face into his shoulder, remembering Kiaran’s words.
Every conscious decision you make would only help the vision come to pass
. ‘Don’t tell me.’

‘I won’t,’ he whispers. He holds me so tightly, I can feel the shape of him through my armour. ‘You can change it,’ he tells me. ‘If anyone can, it’s you.’

When I speak, my voice almost breaks. ‘I wish I had never brought you into this. If anything happens to you—’

Gavin gathers me even closer. ‘Don’t.’ He presses his cheek against mine. ‘Don’t think, for one moment, that any of this is your fault.’ He pulls back, eyes searching mine. ‘I made my choice that night in my study. I’d make the same choice again.’

Tears mist my vision and I fight to keep them from falling. ‘I still maintain that was a foolish decision.’

He smiles slightly. ‘Yet infinitely preferable to another damn dance, don’t you think?’

I return his smile. ‘Infinitely.’

‘Kam.’ Kiaran says my name quietly from inside the locomotive, as if he doesn’t want to interrupt but knows he must. If we don’t leave now, we won’t make it to the Queen’s Park in time.

‘Gavin, promise me you won’t do anything stupid.’

‘Only if you promise me you won’t die.’

I can’t reassure him that I’ll see him again, that I’ll survive this battle. I can’t tell him that I wish he had come home sooner so we could have spent more than a few days together. I can’t tell him that I regret the two years we were apart, because now they feel like seven hundred and thirty days’ worth of wasted opportunities. I can’t make promises to him that I’m unable to keep.

‘Stay safe,’ I tell him.

‘And you.’

I step into the locomotive and settle next to Kiaran, then flip the switches to start the engine. It comes to life with a mechanical whir and steam rises from the stack at the front.

I shove the lever forward and we drive out of Charlotte Square.

The Queen’s Park is very different seen through the filter of Kiaran’s power. My senses are enhanced, my vision and hearing more acute. Every blade of grass is a thousand times sharper, and I can clearly see every branch on every tree, right down to the smallest twig. And the colours . . . It’s a different spectrum from the one I’m used to, more beautiful and vivid. This is what it must be like for someone to use their eyes for the first time. I’m not certain what to focus on: the colours, or the grass, or the trees, or each individual falling raindrop. It’s utterly overwhelming.

I glance at the clouds as I drive, and the moon shines through them again, almost completely red now except for the tiniest sliver of white at the bottom.

I stop the vehicle in the meadow, near where the fae will pour from the mound. I examine the cliff face below Arthur’s Seat, the calm trees resting against the rock. The park is quiet, everything still. Not even a breeze to stir the branches.

Now we wait.

I look at Kiaran and find him watching me, those strange and lovely eyes more vivid than ever. I see him the way I did when we were in the
Sìth-bhrùth
, uncanny and magnificent. ‘You’re stoic as always, MacKay.’

‘I’ve had years of practice,’ he says.

‘What should we do about your sister?’ I ask him. ‘Should we get her out first?’

He shakes his head. ‘She’ll know to leave before the seal is reactivated. Focus on the battle, not her.’

I laugh once, low and forced. ‘Be honest with me – do you think we’ll win?’

Please say we’ll be fine
, I think to him.
Please
.

A flash of emotion crosses his features, something incomprehensible to me, as if he can read my thoughts. ‘I don’t know.’

Sometimes I wish faeries could lie as easily as humans do. Maybe then Kiaran might feel compelled to reassure me, just this once. I want him to tell me that we’ll be victorious. I want him to tell me that I’ll activate the device and find some way to save him from imprisonment with the others. I want him to tell me that I won’t lose him the way I lost my mother.

I reach over and clasp Kiaran’s hand. His soft intake of breath makes me pause, but after a moment, I thread my fingers through his, and he lets me.

When you lose someone, it’s so easy to forget they’re gone at first. There were so many moments when I would think to tell my mother something, or expect her at the same precise time each morning for tea. Those flashes are so fleeting, so joyous, that when reality surfaces, the grief becomes fresh all over again.

I can’t go through that with Kiaran. I almost lost myself in grief the first time.

‘I’m scared,’ I whisper.

Kiaran looks at me, so still and quiet. I brace myself for his words, unsure of what he’ll say. Terrified by what he’ll say.

He doesn’t speak. Instead, he grasps me by the collar of my coat and presses his lips to mine. Kiaran kisses me deeply, with an urgency I never thought him capable of. He kisses me like he knows he’s going to die. He kisses me like the world is going to end.

I cling to his shoulders and tug at his jacket, bringing us closer. I want nothing more than to hold him and bury myself in his arms and forget everything. I want time to stop.

He pulls back and rests his forehead against mine. ‘I’m scared, too.’

I never thought I’d hear those words. Not from him. I look up at the moon again and it’s nearly consumed. ‘Leave,’ I tell him, suddenly more frightened than ever. I have to try one last time to convince him. ‘You still have time. Save yourself—’

Kiaran’s kiss is fierce, his breathing ragged. ‘Have I ever told you the vow a
sìthiche
makes when he pledges himself to another?’ He slides his fingers down my neck and his lips are so soft against mine that I barely feel them. ‘
Aoram dhuit
,’ he breathes. ‘I will worship thee.’

I come undone. I pull him hard against me, and bury my face into his neck. My tears are scorching hot against his skin. I press my lips to the wild pulse at the base of his throat. ‘I’ll save you,’ I tell him. ‘I will. I promise.’

Before he can answer, a piercing screech of scraping metal echoes around the park.

The ground beneath the locomotive shakes and I grab the helm to steady myself. Mist rises from the earth, soft and ethereal at first, then thicker, faster.

I look up at the moon. It’s engulfed in red.

Kiaran grips my hand. ‘Close your eyes.’

‘What?’

I can’t see him through the rising mist. It’s thickened too quickly.

He shoves me against the seat and covers my eyes with his hand. Light filters through his fingers, through my closed eyelids. It’s so bright, it actually burns. A dense, oppressive heat thick enough to suffocate me if I let it.

Then . . . power. Similar to Kiaran’s, only magnified a thousand times. My mouth is inundated with sweetness and mud and dirt and crushed flower petals. I try to swallow it down, suppress it, but it keeps coming. It’s crushing me, a flood strong enough to rip me to pieces. It’s choking me, drowning me, and I can’t breathe through it.

‘Kadamach,’ a powerful male voice says. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’

Chapter 36

‘
L
onnrach,’ Kiaran says.

He takes his hand from my eyes and I blink against the bright mist. Swallowing the power is difficult. My senses are overwhelmed: the stark taste in my mouth, the scent of rain and something sweetly floral.

The dense mist clears to reveal a tall figure astride a steaming, muscled horse. A
metal
horse. Silver alloy with gold veins, the opposite of my armour, and beaten so thin that its organs are visible beneath. Shining metal bones and muscles of varying thickness glint in the moonlight. Everything is metal except for its heart – which is a real, fleshy organ that beats and pumps liquid gold through the horse’s veins. Steam blasts out of its nose and swirls around Lonnrach’s legs.

There are more riders behind him, dozens of them, and other faeries on foot, standing silently in the tall grass. No wonder their power is overwhelming – I’ve never encountered more than two fae together at the same time. All of them wear battle armour like mine. Beside them are a dozen
cù sìth
and redcaps, and looming on the rocks above us are
sluagh
. Their thin, semitransparent wings are tucked in as they watch us, eyes glittering, but they’re poised for flight.

My very first thought is to run. Run until I faint.

‘So this must be the Falconer I’ve heard so much about,’ Lonnrach says. He speaks gently, his words carried by the breeze.

I slowly raise my eyes to his. They’re the most vivid blue I have ever seen. They stand out against his pale skin and salt-white hair. He is beautiful, magnificent. Power rolls off him like steam from his horse. I can’t look away – and I don’t want to.

‘Come to me,’ Lonnrach says.

His voice is soft but commanding. Compelling. I feel him in my mind, the same way I felt Sorcha’s touch back at the loch. Only his power doesn’t try to break me. It entices me. It steals through my veins and takes me over until the tension and fight leave my body and I can resist him no longer.

Too late I remember Kiaran’s warning when he gave me the armour, that it wouldn’t protect me against faery influence.
Damnation
. I buck against it, but Lonnrach’s presence is too soothing, too strong.

I step out of the locomotive, but Kiaran’s hand tightens around my wrist. ‘I don’t think so.’