“Don’t give me that selflessness crap. You lied to me for your own benefit. Not mine.”
“The tapestry of the Highland Veil must remain strong,” Keeva said. “Can ye imagine the chaos, the opportunity for evil, if the worlds crashed together, if one bled into another?”
“And the Weavers of Seven Cairns are the last left to guard the portals and protect the blessed weave,” Mairwen said. “We canna fail in our duty to the Veil, my lady?—”
“Divine One,” Magnus corrected. “Ye will address her as such.”
“That’s really not necessary.” Lyla squeezed his hand. She’d been meaning to speak with him about thatDivine Onetitle. “I understand your duty to the Highland Veil, Mairwen. Well…sort of. Magnus explained a lot of it to me. I still say you could have handled this better. Not lied to me. Found another way to convince me to come here. You basically kidnapped me and trapped me here for fourteen days, hoping I would make the choice you wanted me to make. Luckily, I did.” She slid her hand out of Magnus’s and fisted it in her lap, something she instinctively did whenever she dared to share her past. “Trust is a big issue with me. An enormous issue.” She swallowed hard, pulled in a deep breath, then blew it out. It was time she shared this, and then, she would never have to speak of it ever again. “I never knew my father because he never wanted anything to do with me. Then my mother dumped me on the doorstep of an older couple she said were my grandparents. It turned out they were a foster couple selected by her and social services.” She twitched an uncomfortable shrug. “They were kind, and I called themGrandmaandGrandpauntil they passed away, but I wasted years waiting for my mother to come back for me—not only because she said she would, but because they also assured me she would. She never did.” She popped her knuckles, the defense mechanism her therapist had never convinced her to give up. “Lying to me is the same thing as telling me I’m stupid. I have a very large problem with that, and, as you can probably imagine, I am not inclined to believe things easily or to forgive whenever I discover I’ve been lied to.”
She thumped her knuckles against her chest, rubbing them up and down her breastbone. “But this place talked to my heart.” She focused a hard glare on Keeva. “You won my trust in Cincinnati”—she shook her head—“but never again.” Thenshe turned back to Mairwen. “That goes for you, as well. The only reason I believed what Magnus said about you helping the people I left behind is because I saw proof of that in the Scale of Rurik.”
Mairwen nodded, then offered a conciliatory smile. “I understand yer feelings,Divine One.” She arched a brow at Magnus, then continued, “And rest assured that yer foundation has been fully restored and will see to their continued care. We have also identified ways to expand that care into opportunities for additional deserving families. A verra trustworthy watcher has been chosen to ensure its continued success and growth.”
Lyla didn’t miss how Mairwen kept the focus of the conversation on the positivity of the foundation rather than the negativity of her and Keeva’s deception. She wished she hadn’t sent away her coffee. “What is a watcher?”
“In this case,” Keeva said, “a gnome able to shapeshift into the form of a human to blend in.” She gave a knowing nod. “Gnomes love money. Henry will not fail ye.” Bobbing her head faster, she excitedly scooted to the edge of her chair. “And he hates a cheat worse than anything. He’ll take fine care of yer people and make ye proud.”
“Will Rurik’s scale let me look in on them from time to time?” Lyla asked Magnus.
With a caring squeeze of her hand, he nodded. “Aye, my love. I feel sure it will.”
“We brought ye more musical instruments,” Mairwen said, sounding like an adult trying to bribe a fussy toddler with a new toy. “Ye will need them.”
“To bring down Kcirred?” Lyla wondered what other instruments the pair of Weavers had brought and why they believed she should think that particularly beneficial. The guitar, flute, and violin had served her well enough so far. “Whatare you not saying?” She sensed a hesitancy among them, an unmistakable leeriness.
“The goddess swore Kcirred had no powerful allies,” Mairwen said, “but we feel that opinion is flawed.”
“Then who are his allies?” Magnus wrapped an arm around Lyla and pulled her closer, shielding her.
“We believeDubh a’Ghiuthaishas risen from the abyss.” Mairwen squinted as though bracing herself.
“Nothing rises from the abyss.” Magnus jumped up, strode to the windows, and scowled at the landscape, sweeping a hard gaze back and forth. He cast a glance back at them. “The beast of the charred forests was imprisoned there long ago. She canna have risen.”
“Who is thisshe?” Lyla asked, not even attempting to say the difficult-to-pronounce name.
“An ancient, bloodthirsty Norwegian princess from yer plane of existence,” Magnus said. “A witch transformed her into a great white bird to fly over every Scotland of every realm and set fire to their woods to bring down their magic and the strength of their peoples. As she flew through the inferno, the thick pine smoke from the burning trees stained her feathers the blackest black. ’Tis why she was namedDubh a’Ghiuthais,meaning ‘of the black firs’. The vile beast was indestructible to anyone who it saw first. Only a warrior who spied the evil creature before it noticed them had any hope of bringing it down. The legends say yer time’s Saint Gilbert, the Bishop of Caithness, felled it with a magical arrow, and that they buried the vile being beneath the Beast’s Stone, but the Thirteenth Realm’s mighty Draig traveled to yer reality to battle the wicked princess since her behavior slandered the honor of the dragons. He captured her and cast her into the abyss.”
That she-devil sounded hideous. Lyla hugged her knees to her chest. “Why do you believe she’s escaped the abyss?” she asked Mairwen.
“Our watchers standing guard on this side of the Seven Cairns portal believe they saw the shadows of her hideous form through the mists of the poison walls surrounding Thornpitch.” After a glance at the windows, Mairwen’s expression turned pained. “It would explain the power of Kcirred's curse that gripped the land before ye arrived. When the witch transformed the princess, ’tis said that she and the princess became one, not only turning into the mighty beast but evolving into an invincible sorceress.”
“But my music will bring her down along with Kcirred—right?” Lyla looked from Mairwen to Keeva, then back at Mairwen when neither of them answered. “Well? Will it? It broke the curse.”
“We have no way of knowing for certain,” Mairwen said. “The goddesses have yet to answer my call so that I might consult them.”
Magnus turned from the windows with a snorting growl. “The goddesses are as bad as the Fae. They care for naught but themselves or their own interests.”
“Ye must not speak so!” Keeva waved her hands, shushing them all while casting a worried glance all around. “They will hear. They always hear.”
“And yet they remain silent,” Lyla said, becoming more agitated by the minute, “while moving us around like pawns on a chess board. I agree with Magnus. All they care about are their own self-interests.” She pointed at Mairwen and Keeva. “And you can’t claim to be any different. You claimed to want me to find my fated mate—but not to helpme—you did it to bolster the Highland Veil. No wonder so many resent you. It’s all well andgood to have a cause, but it’s not right to manipulate others to further that cause.”
“Ourcause,as ye so glibly put it, is for the protection of all,” Mairwen said, her brilliant blue eyes snapping. “We have sacrificed much. Dinna judge that which ye know so little about.”
“Mairwen lost her only son because she battled for the good of all, and when an immortal is destroyed, it is neither quick nor is it painless.” Keeva fisted her hands on the arms of the chair, thumping them as she spoke. “Evil took everything from her that she ever held dear, but she fights on because she knows she must.”
Mairwen lifted her hand. “Keeva! Enough.” She leveled a stern glare at her assistant. “All have made sacrifices. It serves no greater good to speak of mine.”
A wave of guilt washed across Lyla. Maybe shehadjudged the Weavers a little too harshly—but that still didn’t change the fact that they’d purposely deceived her to further their own agenda. Of course, in the process, they’d put her on the path of feeling more whole, more complete, and more contented than she’d ever thought possible. She’d never held out much hope for such a level of happiness, and now—she pulled in a deep breath and hugged herself—now she had something she hadn’t had in a very long while: hope. The deep breath left her in a heavy sigh.
