“Lass, ye were better off to no’ ken about any of it. Ye were so young…”
“But I have a right to know that my father is an evil…monster! All of these years, I thought he was dead.”
“He was dead to you, lass, as he should remain.”
Dead to me…yes. “I need to be alone”, she choked out. Allia turned and headed for the stairs to her chamber. She did not look back, but she could feel her uncle’s heavy stare as he watched her go.
A moment later, she was closing the door to her room and collapsing onto the bed. Only this morning, she had woken up in Eian’s arms, turning her head to look into his deep brown eyes and see his lazy smile, his tousled hair falling over his face. She had felt safe, cared for… whole. He had pulled her closer and made love to her as if she were the most precious thing on earth, and she had wondered how she could have ever doubted him. Now… everything was broken. She turned and sobbed into her pillow, heart wrenching gasps that seemed to go on forever. She knew that eventually she would take action… some sort of action, when she felt stronger… but for now all she could do was fall apart.
***
Eian sank down into the plain wooden chair and accepted the cup of whiskey, turning it in his hand and mentally readying himself for what was to come. His feelings for Allia, real or not, were so strong, already so much a part of him, he wondered if it would physically hurt to have them torn away. He shook himself and looked up at Alisdair, who pulled another chair over to sit near him with his own cup of whiskey in hand.
“I canna imagine ye’d come all this way for naught, lad”, he said almost casually, and in a way that made Eian quite certain the wizard already knew exactly why he had come. And yet he was still going to make him say it.
Eian took a deep breath that tasted of the salt breeze, stared into the golden liquid in his cup, and cleared his throat. “I seem to have gotten into a bit of trouble, and I need yer help.” Och, but those words stung his pride! He had barely forced them past his lips, but then, he was dying inside, so what did it matter?
The expression on Alisdair’s lined but still ruggedly handsome face didn’t change. Aye, he knew, the bastard. His uncle lifted his cup and took a casual sip.
“And Bren couldna help ye?”
“I… I was already on the western coast, at Lochain. It was just as easy to come here.” True, more or less. If you didn’t mind crossing the most rugged and forbidding wilderness in Scotland. In truth, it had more than suited his mood.
Alisdair smirked, obviously seeing straight through Eian’s carefully chosen words. “So what is this trouble that is so great it brings ye all the way to the northern reaches of Scotia?
Eian took another deep breath, and boldly met the other man’s eyes, striving to hold on to his last few shreds of dignity, but failing miserably. He let the breath go. “Someone has placed a spell on me, and I need help to remove it.” He would have done it himself, for God’s sake, if it weren’t nearly impossible to remove a spell from your own body or mind. Och, this asking for help because of his own foolishness was akin to torture. He waited while Alisdair narrowed his eyes and seemed to look him over. Eian squeezed his shut, preparing for the worst. He only hoped whatever kind of spell it was, it could be removed easily enough.
When he opened his eyes a moment later, his great uncle’s lips were quirked up in what looked like amusement. Eian frowned at him. This was not funny, damn it! He was suffering…
“Eian lad, what sort of spell do ye think has been placed on ye?”
Oh, here we go… the ultimate humiliation, because he wasn’t in enough agony already. He looked back down into his cup, then threw back the rest of the whiskey, swallowing the burning liquid in one gulp before he answered with a sigh of defeat. “A love spell”, he muttered.
When nothing but silence answered him, Eian looked up. He could have sworn Alisdair was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. If he didn’t need the wizard’s help so badly, and if Alisdair’s potent magic couldn’t take him out with a twitch of his little finger, Eian might have been tempted to punch him just then. He leaned forward menacingly in his chair, anger twisting his face into a scowl.
Alisdair held up his hands. “Och lad, calm yerself, there are no spells on ye.”
Eian sat up straighter. “There is”, he insisted. “It made me fall for the daughter of Mored MacReeve. I couldn’t bloody stay away from her! By the time I figured out it was all part of a plot against our family it was too late… damn it Alisdair, this is serious, ye need to help me!”
“There are no spells”, the wizard insisted gently. “And a dark spell like the kind you speak of, I would have sensed the instant I saw ye. The feelings ye have are entirely yer own, Eian.”
“No! There has to be a spell. I could never fall in love with Mored’s daughter, I would never betray my family like that!”
“Ye have betrayed no one. The lass is innocent, untainted by the darkness. That is why she was hidden all those years ago. She kens nothing about who her father is, only that her mother was wed against her will to a cruel man, and died for it in the end. If they have even told her that much. She has been waiting for ye, all this time. Just as ye have been waiting for her.”
Eian felt his hands begin to shake, and he gripped the cup tighter. Alisdair picked up the jug on the floor, held the cup steady with one hand, and poured out some more whiskey. “Drink.”
“She truly kens nothing? She is innocent? Are ye certain?” Eian felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. If what Alisdair was saying was true… did it change anything? Did it changeeverything?
“Aye. It is the ancient prophecy of our family finally come to pass, Eian. And ye are a part of it. Three brothers, three soul mates, three sons. And then the darkness will be pushed aside forever. In the future, no one will even believe there was once such a thing as dark sorcerers who wielded the power of nature for evil. For them, it will be no more than a fable. The stuff of bedtime stories and myth. And the Good shall continue to work unseen, as it always has.”
“Soul mate? Truly?” It came out as no more than a whisper from his choked throat.
“Aye. And son. Both waiting for ye to return to them.”
Eian’s eyes flew open and he stared at his uncle, unable to breathe. He made a choking noise, and Alisdair helpfully pounded him on the back.
“Are ye all right lad?” he asked through a wry smile. “Did ye no’ ken yer to be a father, then?”
