“I am seven hundred and seventy-seven,” he said, his eyes narrowing beneath his bushy white brows.
Harley paused with the spoon in mid-air. “That’s impossible. And stop reading my mind. You know how rude that is.”
Slumping deeper into his pillows, he wrinkled his nose at her. “Ye should know by now that nothing is impossible.” He weakly thumped his chest. “I be the master druid and am an excellent cheater of time.”
Harley set the bowl on the table beside the bed, sensing he had probably eaten all he could tolerate. She tossed her heavy braid behind one shoulder and eyed him, trying to gauge if he was telling the truth. “Why would anyone want to live that long? Didn’t it break your heart to watch everyone you loved pass on?”
His unkempt mustache twitched upward into a shaggy smile. “Thank goodness Aveline chose a woman with some sense to bring love into her brother’s life. Most think they want to live forever simply because they fear what’s on the other side.”
Harley leaned forward and took hold of Emrys’s hand. Why do I feel you already know what’s on the other side? Can you tell me what you’ve seen?”
With a wink, he brought a shaking finger to his lips. “Some knowledge can never be understood unless it is experienced firsthand. Why do ye think religion spawns such terrible wars? ’Tis because everything is so grossly misinterpreted.”
She gently squeezed his hand. “What I understand is that you need to get better. Ronan and I want you to perform our wedding rites.”
“If the goddess wills it, then it will be so. We must bide our time and see.” His voice weakened and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to stay awake. Tell Rachel to stop drugging my broth with herbs. I shall sleep when I damn…well…please.” And then he cut loose with a rattling snore and a wheezing sigh from deep within his chest.
Unable to keep from smiling, Harley tucked his hand under thecovers and pulled the blankets up to his chin. She truly hoped the old man would somehow conquer this ailment in time to bless the wedding ceremony.There was a priest from a nearby village who would gladly perform the wedding for the son of his laird, but it meant so much to Ronan to have the rites performed by the cantankerous old man he had known all his life—the one he loved like a grandfather.
She glanced around the room, grimacing at the contents of some of the jars on the shelves. A few of those bottles and crocks reminded her of the science lab she had avoided back at college. She wrinkled her nose and squinted at the scrawl of Latin on some of the labels.
As she pushed up from the stool and stretched, she glanced back at Emrys while wandering around the room.He might be weak, but she had no doubt he’d find the strength to scold her for snooping around his workroom and library.She meandered back to the farthest alcove and found herself in front of three of the largest mirrors she had ever seen. At least, she thought they were mirrors. The surfaces were as black as obsidian and polished smooth with a glossy shine. But it took her a few passes in front of them to realize that no reflection appeared inside the ancient frames. “Hmm…I’m not a vampire.” She tried to peep behind them, but there wasn’t enough space between them and the stone wall.
Each frame was different, intricately carved with eternal knots and symbols she didn’t recognize. She admired the design on the frame of the mirror farthest to the right, barely tracing her fingertips along the unusual pattern. As soon as she touched the ornately decorated frame, the black surface of the mirror sprang to life. She backed up a step as faces appeared, then forgot to be frightened and leaned in closer, trying to make out who the people in the image might be. She caught a hand to her throat when she finally recognized Aveline as one of the figures at the center of the scene.
“What is this?” She squinted at the vision as Aveline placed herself between what appeared to be a furious woman and a couple standing so far back that Harley couldn’t make out who they were. Ronan’s sister appeared to be trying toshield the pair from some sort of harm. Horror made her gulp and back up again as the angry woman changed into a dark, shrouded figure, pointing an accusing hand first at the couple and then at the weeping Aveline.
“Get away from the Mirrors!” Emrys coughed and sputtered as he floundered to push himself up in the bed.
Jumping back as though she’d been burnt, Harley whirled around and faced him. “Dammit, Emrys! Do not scare me like that.”
Wheezing for air as he made his way to a sitting position, he sagged back into the pillows and shook his head. “Ye have no training. The Mirrors of Time are not…not harmless toys.”
Harley shook her head and waved the accusation away. “I was just looking at them. I thought they were just old mirrors.”
Emrys rolled his eyes while still struggling to catch his breath. “Nothing in this room is quite as it seems.Ye would do well to bear that in mind.”
Harley pulled her stool closer to the bed while pointing at the mirror that had shown the eerie reflection. “Those images were moving. Was that the future I saw?”
With his chin jutted to a stubborn angle, he stared upward like a spoiled child, refusing to answer. “I barely survived training the MacKay sons and their headstrong sister. I will be damned if I take on the task of training the wives.”
“Emrys!” Harley thumped the feather ticking of his bed. “Tell me what’s going on. It looked like Aveline could be in trouble. If there’s a way for us to figure out when this happens, and what it is, then maybe we can stop it, or change something to alter the outcome to something good rather than bad.”She glared at the hard-headed old man, willing him to listen.
“I said no, and I meant it. What ye saw was a mere snippet of time, and those snippets are easily misread.” He shook an arthritic finger in her face, his tired blue eyes snapping with renewed vigor. “Tampering with events when ye dinna fully understand them, always makes things worse. Ye of all people should know that.”
She jumped up and paced back and forth beside the bed. “Well, Icould at least tell Ronan. He’s trained and powerful. Maybe he would know what we should do.”
Emrys cocked an eyebrow while pinning her with a sardonic glare. “So ye would endanger yer betrothed by enmeshing him in a vision ye dinna understand? Leave the Mirrors alone, girl. Do as I tell ye.”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. What if Emrys was right? She couldn’t bear the thought of endangering Ronan. And the harder she tried to focus the vision in her mind and decipher it, the more confused she became about what exactly she had seen.“Fine. I’ll leave it alone. But I can’t help but feel it was a warning. Something is about to go very wrong.”
Emrys dropped his chin to his chest while slowly shaking his head. When he looked up at her, he gusted a heavy sigh. “It more than likely was a warning since the Mirrors never respond to an untrained touch unless it is most dire. Once I am stronger, I swear to search them myself.” He scowled and shook a finger at her again. “What ye should do, lass, is pray I have enough time before that vision comes to pass.”
Harley stood at the bow,looking toward the horizon, smiling as the wind tugged at her long dark hair, making it flutter behind her like a dark angel’s wings. Ronan unabashedly stared at her, drinking her in, unable to get his fill of her wondrous presence in his world. Gulls cried out overhead while circling the masts, soaring ever higher as the rigging snapped its eagerness to head out to sea once more.
He came up behind her and hugged her back against his chest. With his chin propped on the silkiness of her head, he couldn’t remember when he had ever been so content, so complete—and yet, he wanted her again with the same fury he’d burned with earlier when they’d properly christened his grand feather bed in his quarters. Whenever he was with her he raged with the need to join with her and also felt more complete than he ever had before. Shewas the missing part of his heart. The other half of his soul. There was nothing in this world he couldn’t conquer with her at his side. He knew Aveline had ignored the rules of time, but he could not honestly say he was sorry for it. His sister had given him the greatest gift of all. She had presented him with the one he would love, as he had never loved another.
“Will we live here on the ship?” Harley asked, her voice dreamy. “Or will we live at the castle?” She leaned back against him, wriggling in his arms and making him strongly consider picking her up and carrying her back to their bed.
