Aowen’s fingers tighten ever so slightly on the stem of her wine glass. “Right. Because Charlotte has to find it. Give her your clue and we’ll start searching.”
Color rises above Sabre’s stubble, from anger or shame, I cannot tell. “That is not what I meant. House Cernunnos’s Bannrhorn fragment is no longer in Tír na Dubh. It’s not in the Otherworld at all.”
“Well, where is it?”
“The human realm.”
Sabre’s confession shocks her into silence for a few long moments before he flicks a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “At least, I believe that’s where it is.”
Aowen leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, her crimson nailstap tap tappingagainst her muslin riding dress. “Explain.”
Sabre swipes up his wine and drains the glass. “You are rather demanding for a woman without a noble title.”
“Oh, Sabre,” Aowen snorts, “you have no idea.” I could be imagining things, but I swear the hairs on the back of his neck lift when she says his name. “You’d better hope this gets resolved and you win Charlotte during the Hunt. Reuniting the kingdom would be a far easier task than serving as my husband.”
Sabre covers his mouth with a large hand, but not before I see the small smile forming there. He composes himself before he continues, “Despite the rumors you’ve heard in Tír na Lune and Tír na Strelle, I did not murder the first candidate. She … I never would have … We were in love. The months she spent here were the happiest of my life.”
Aowen’s hands tighten on her arms, her face a mix of surprise and skepticism. As for me, I am wondering why Sabre is being so forthcoming. And so soon into our stay.
He continues on, as if reading from a script he’s spent weeks preparing. “Despite our affection for each other, I could not give her the one thing she wanted more than anything in the world: children. And I loved her too much to demand such a sacrifice.” The flames dance in his shining eyes. “So I let her go.”
Aowen’s face softens, but does not completely lose its edge. “Let her go? Where? And how? Once the ring binds itself to the quarry, the only way to remove it is a claiming or a rejection. One offers life and the other, certain death.”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” Sabre whispers. “If the rejection occurs while the quarry is in the Otherworld, then yes. Without the protection of the ring and the novillum seed it implants, her human body cannot withstand the time differential. But if the quarry returns to the human realm and the ring falls off there, the only consequence is a complete loss of the memories she made while wearing it.”
Cold heat prickles my limbs. There’s been a way out all this time? Aowen looks gobsmacked. She didn’t know either.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Sadness creeps over Sabre’s face. “I spent a small fortune to consult a seer in Farlock’s Edge. The woman gave my love a reading of her future which confirmed it was possible. At the stroke of midnight on Mabon that year, when the doors between our two worlds connect, she stepped through. It only happenson the equinoxes, when light and dark are fully balanced in at least one realm. And the only way through them is that ring.” He gestures to my hand.
“She had a little trick up her sleeve, though. One I did not foresee. We’d been storing the fragment in the reliquary since she’d found it during her third week here. We never told anyone because, well, we wanted all the time together we could get. But the day before she left, it was there. And the day after, it was not.”
“Why didn’t you invite any of the other quarries to visit you in Season then?” I ask. “You could have sent them back to the human realm to search for the fragment.”
Sabre circles his fingertips on his forehead. “When she walked through that door, any interest I had in the future died. I was angry. Heartbroken and lovesick. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone. I let my territory suffer for my moods. The last thing I wanted to do was court another human woman. And Torvil kept rejecting them at the presentation ceremonies, so I just …”
He clears his throat. “My apologies, Miss Fitzroy. I do not want to give you the impression that I think so little of human life. Each rejection took a piece of my soul. But even if I had accepted them, sent them across the realms, how would they have found my love? And even if they had, why would she give them the fragment? If she even remembered she’d stolen it in the first place.”
“So what’s the difference this time?” Aowen asks.
He nods toward me. “She is. She’s made it farther than any quarry since the first. And she’s the only one who may actually have a chance to find it.”
“Why?” Aowen’s frustration spills over. “Why would Charlotte have a better chance than any of the other quarries?”
“Because the woman I loved, the one I let go, the one who took my Bannrhorn fragment? Her name was Margaret Bowles.”
My ears begin ringing, and my chest tightens.
“And as I have recently learned, she married a man named Edward Fitzroy and had two lovely children.”
Tears stain my lashes, and my throat constricts to the point I can barely breathe.
“She passed away last year, left her cottage and a small inheritance to her granddaughter.
“Charlotte.”
Chapter
