Resistance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 3 Page 3

I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the luxury of time. Aoife was marching on Ce’deira. I couldn’t let her get there first. I needed to see the King and beg his aid. I sat up. ‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘I will return to you as soon as I may.’

  ‘Wait.’ The voice was sweet and unfamiliar. My eyes locked with Eliann as she stood in the doorway. She held a bowl in her hands. ‘You’re leaving?’

  I nodded. ‘I have to go to the King.’

  ‘Will he receive you well?’

  I grimaced. God, I hoped so. ‘Maybe.’

  Eliann nodded, like she’d considered this herself. ‘Then before you go, I have a gift for you.’

  ‘A gift. You have a great task to do, Bach Chwaer. You said to Bridget that you can’t complete your tasks while you are behind the bars of a cage. That is true. And Bridget and I owe you our lives and our happiness. Therefore, receive this great gift.’

  She held out the bowl. I looked inside. There was some kind of silvery fluid inside that I didn’t recognise. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Freedom. You must drink.’

  ‘Ummm…’

  ‘You must drink. There are cages in your future, Bach Chwaer, I know it. Those who seek to cage you will not rest until you are again in their power. Do you think I heard no talk, the whole time I was a captive? Drink this, and you will never be imprisoned against your will.’

  She explained how it worked, to my wonder, and that of Sparrow and Rhiannon, now sitting on the edge of the bed and watching. I took the bowl from her and drained it in one draught.

  There was powerful magic in that bowl. I’d never known the like of it. Images flooded my mind. Techniques. Skills. Power. Eliann was right. There was no cage that could hold me now.

  I thanked her gravely. I bade a swift farewell to my sisters and went to the door of the caravan. It was still night, dawn barely beginning to stain the sky. I changed myself into a bird again, and flew back east, towards Ce’Branna.

  #

  It was still dark, but a castle is not unguarded simply because it is dark. There was an outcry as soon as I was spotted. They caught me immediately. They had a net and it brought me to earth. They weren’t allowing any spies in their palace, no matter how innocuous their shape. They surrounded me.

  I won’t lie. I was frightened, threshing beneath the heavy net. Any one of these soldiers yelling in a ring around me could kill me. And if I turned back into a woman, I was even more afraid of what they might do.

  Then there was a new voice shouting. My eyes, sharper than any human eyes, saw the figure leaping down the stairs from the battlements.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘Don’t hurt her!’ And my little heart leaped, too, because I knew that voice and I knew that figure.

  The soldiers silenced as he reached them. He snatched the net from the captain. ‘I’m taking her to the King for questioning!’ he stated. None of them dared question him and they went back to their posts.

  He carried me inside. The halls were quiet at this time of the morning and we were alone. His hands trembled as he gently removed the net and placed me on the ground.

  ‘I know it’s you,’ he said, his eyes shining and triumphant. ‘Emer, change back, quickly.’

  I couldn’t hold him in suspense. This was Andras, the man who had treated me honourably when others had not. The man who had stayed with me in the long nights when I couldn’t sleep, just sitting nearby so I knew I wasn’t alone. And this was the man who had looked at me so intently when I left Ce’Branna that I still trembled. I changed back to my own form, my tongue ready with some quip or a joke, but it turned out he had other uses for it.

  I wasn’t ready, but I was willing when his mouth met mine, sudden and passionate. He devoured me and I urged him on with my hands buried in his crisp, black hair and my body pressed tight against him.

  The last time I’d seen him was in the future, when he was twenty years older. He was a broken man, then, a man who had lost everything he’d ever loved ‒ and one of those things was me. I’d lost everything, too, and as I lost myself in his kiss, I found more than he could ever know.

  Because there was every kind of promise in that kiss. He was offering me everything: love, trust, a future, passion, oh, my God, passion. I’d shared a few kisses with Caradoc and with Ronan, but this was something else. My heart pounded like it was trying to press itself against his heart where it pounded the same tattoo against my breast.

  He abandoned my mouth to taste my throat and I didn’t realise he’d backed me against the wall until my head lolled back and struck the stone.

  His hands were there at once, lacing behind my skull. His breath was hot against my face. ‘Can’t have that happen again, can we, Emer?’

  And then my head against the wall wasn’t a problem because his caging hands kept my face pressed against his as he ravished my mouth.

  ‘Come to my room,’ he whispered, his tongue doing something to my ear that made me moan. He pulled away sharply and for a moment I was afraid I’d done something wrong. His expression disabused me of that notion immediately.

  He was completely lost in me. His eyes shone over-bright and his breath came fast and heavy in the solid chest that still pressed me tight against the wall. His gaze roamed hot over my face, snagging on my lips for the longest moment, then darting back to my eyes.

  ‘We should go to your room, not mine,’ he stated.

  ‘Why?’ Why was an easy word. You can breathe it into the face of your lover and it doesn’t take as much effort as, ‘Who cares?’

  ‘Because,’ and he swooped to lift me in his arms, high against his chest. I squealed and clung to him. His eyes caught mine again and they were bright with the mischief he only showed to people he loved. ‘You’ve got a bigger bed.’

  He stood there a moment, arms as hard as iron behind my back and my knees, chest heaving against me as I draped myself over him and buried my face in his neck until he groaned.

  ‘Talk to me, Emer,’ he gasped. ‘Tell me you really want this.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll take you into the kitchen and feed you breakfast and pretend I don’t want to spread you out on the table. One word will do, Emer. Tell me what you want.’

  I was tempted to reply, ‘Breakfast,’ as a joke, but I knew he would take me seriously and this moment would be lost forever. Instead, I shifted in his arms so my hands could caress his lean cheeks. Very quietly, very seriously, I said, ‘The word is “yes,” Andras.’

  That earned me a kiss that had my toes curling even where I lay in his arms. That man knew what to do with his mouth and I couldn’t wait to find out what else he could do with it.

  He strode through the castle, still holding me like I weighed nothing at all, and started up the grand staircase to the upper levels where my chambers had been located, taking the stairs two at a time.

  A feminine voice interrupted us. ‘Andras! Is that Emer?’

  He checked for a moment, but recovered his poise and said, ‘Nope.’

  I giggled silently and hid my face against him.

  ‘Andras, it is, I know it is! Is she hurt? Andras, don’t hide it from me, I need to know if she’s hurt!’

  He stopped. I lifted my face to look at Aine, the woman who would become the Dark Queen and my mother, but today was still so close to my own age we could be taken for twins.

  ‘Emer, what’s happened?’ Aine’s face was full of concern and compassion, but her gentle hand on my arm wasn’t the gentle hand I wanted right now.

  I didn’t know what to say. Every word that ran through my head was far too obscene to share with Aine. Aine might have been old enough to have a child of her own, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t heard words like these before.

  Andras answered when I hesitated. ‘She twisted her ankle, that’s all, Aine. I’m taking her to her room.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing. Here, I’ll come with you. Her room is this way. I’ll get the door for you, Andras.’
<
br />   So, he carried me to my room and placed me on the bed. Very gently, but there was no passion in his touch. There was no passion in his face, either. He was the same as he had been the first night we met, polite, but remote. Professional.

  ‘Aine will look after you, Emer. Rest well. I look forward to seeing your miraculous recovery later today.’

  He didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘Andras-’ I began, but he’d already turned away and slammed the door behind him.

  Aine sat on the other side of the bed, near its foot. She reached out, expecting me to offer her my ankle.

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing the same clothes I’d worn when I’d fled Ce’Branna, but they’d been through a lot and one of the few things they hadn’t been through was a wash. I had blood and soot and dirt all over me. It was a wonder Andras hadn’t wrinkled his nose at the sight and probably smell of my dirty clothes ‒ except Andras wasn’t the type of person to wrinkle his nose.

  I sighed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my ankle, Aine.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’ Her gaze was steady and I realised that something important had shifted inside Aine since I’d seen her last. When we parted, she was a naïve princess ‒ kind and compassionate, but naïve. Now, she was already becoming the woman who would take the throne as the Dark Queen. ‘Maybe because the last time I saw you was in the Library at Cairnagorn, going through the Portal. I think I deserve answers.’ Her lip twisted and the bitterness on her face hit me hard. ‘I also think those answers are more important than any hanky-panky you were planning with Andras.’

  I slid my legs off the bed. ‘You’re right. Call everyone together – your father, Gwydion, Andras. I need to talk to all of you. But first,’ I lowered my head to my collar, sniffed and regretted it. ‘I really need a bath.’

  Her expression inscrutable, Aine got off the bed. ‘I’ll arrange for servants to come and prepare your bath. It looks like it’s been a long six months.’

  A long six months. So that was how long I’d been gone – or how long since I gone through the Portal. Things had been so busy I wasn’t even sure how long it had been for me.

  I thought over it all as I lay in my bath. And what a luxury it was. There was only a brief period of my life when I'd been able to bathe by actually immersing myself in water. For most of my life, I'd been lucky to have a bucket of water when Sparrow was done with it.

  I let myself relax into the water. Since I'd last been in Ce'Branna, I’d fought Darragh, returned to my own time, been caught by Maldwyn, escaped, caught by Aoife’s guard and nearly been burned at the stake. I’d been captured by Aoife and then thrown onto a garbage heap, been beaten to a pulp time and time again, escaped again, met Aine as she waged war against the Meistri and watched her die. Watched Gwydion die when Maldwyn slit his throat. Lost my baby son to the Portal. Lost Lynnevet to the same Portal. And if my tears were masked by the bathwater, so what?

  I got out of the bath and dressed in the clean clothes the servants had thoughtfully laid out for me. I brushed my hair and tied it back with a ribbon. When I looked in the mirror, I looked… like Aoife, to tell the truth. As we were both Umbra’s heirs, we looked identical. I didn’t have my mother’s softness, but I had all the sharp, bitter angles to my face that marked the difference between her and her sister.

  I knew my way around and the guards outside my door quickly formed an honour guard when I informed them that I wanted to see the King. I made my way to the tower where the Dark King had his private library and his sparse living quarters.

  As I had the first time I’d come, I ignored the imposing stairs that lined the walls of the tower and instead used my magic to rise up the centre, propelled by the winds that are a side-effect of all magic use. My guards had to sprint up the stairs to keep pace with me. I felt a bit sorry for them, so I rose a little slower than I had before.

  When I knocked on the door, it opened nearly immediately. Inside was Andras, Aine, her brother Gwydion and her father, the Dark King. My erstwhile lover, my mother, my uncle and my grandfather. Waiting for me.

  Taking a deep breath, I joined them.

  A small part of me had hoped for a joyful reunion. I loved these people as much as anyone in the world. I only left them because Sparrow, whom I also loved, needed me so desperately.

  I needed their affection, I realised, as much as I needed to save Sparrow. I needed each and every one of them to give me a hug: Aine in tears, Gwydion with his easy affection, the King in a gruff, grandfatherly attempt to give me all I needed without encroaching on the boundaries I never failed to set. And Andras? I needed Andras to wrench me from their clinging arms and back me up against a wall again.

  But they didn’t. They just waited.

  Heart hurting, I closed the door behind me. I clapsed my hands in front of me to stop them trembling. The King noticed, but his face was shuttered and stern.

  ‘Tell me why I should not call my guards and have you thrown into prison,’ he said.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Prison?’ I gasped.

  He nodded. ‘You have shown yourself to be a liar and a thief.’

  His words hit me so hard I felt my chest cave in a little.

  He went on. ‘I may have indulged my daughter in her determination to assist the Thousand Counties in their danger from the former Master Librarian terrorising Rheged in the form of a dragon, but that was for their sake, not yours.’ His lips compressed, his moustache pressing towards his beard. ‘I don’t even know your real name.’

  I met his gaze, even if I was hurting and hurting badly. I didn’t let it show. I’d been hurt worse.

  ‘The last time I saw you, Your Majesty, even I didn’t know my real name.’

  He blinked. Andras stalked to the window and looked out of it.

  ‘This may be a long story, Your Majesty, but let me say at the outset that my purpose has never been to hurt any of you. My only desire has ever been to look after my family. At first, that was just my sister. We had no father or mother. We were raised by a series of Guardians. Every year we would be given to a different Guardian. And every time we changed Guardians, we were given new names. So, at various times, my name has been Emer, Emerald, Dierdre, Meriel, or one of many others. I have had seventeen names. One name ‒ Emer ‒ was used twice.’

  ‘Eighteen years old,’ Andras muttered, his back still to me. Gwydion moved over to Andras and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I thought you were nineteen,’ Aine said. ‘Like me.’

  I nodded. ‘I am nineteen. I’ve been Emer three times, come to think of it, not two. As I learned…’ I thought back, to try and figure out how long it had been and let out a disbelieving huff of laughter, ‘as I learned the day before yesterday, I was named Emer by my mother, Aine.’

  She just nodded, so I rephrased it. ‘I’ve come here from the future. I will be born in three years’ time. My father will be a prince from the Southern Isles. I don’t know his name. You, Aine, are my mother. In three years’ time, you will have twin baby girls, just as your mother did.’

  The Dark King flinched and I wondered why. Aine gaped. ‘But I’m not even engaged!’ she cried.

  ‘It will be a political marriage. The last time I saw you, you were the Dark Queen, old enough to be my mother, leading the Camiri armies into the Thousand Counties. You described your husband. I don’t know if you even remembered his name. By then, you’d spent more than twenty years of your life engaged in warfare.’

  Aine took a few steps closer, scrutinising my features. I let her. Eventually, she shook her head. ‘It’s impossible to tell. All Umbra’s heirs look alike. You might be my daughter. You might be my sister.’ She gave a little self-conscious laugh. ‘You could even be my mother, for all I know.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, for all you know. But I do know, Aine, and I’m telling you, I’m your daughter. I spent my whole life without a family, without a home, without even a name. My sister calls me Hawk and I cal
l her Sparrow. They’re the only names we’ve ever been able to carry on years after year.’

  ‘Why “Hawk”?’ Andras asked, still not even looking at me.

  I swallowed hard. ‘Because I’m a vicious creature.’

  ‘Or, because you’re strong,’ Gwydion interjected. I wondered if he’d heard how much bitterness I felt when I’d replied. Andras had once described Gwydion as the best of us. He wasn’t wrong. If there was a way to be kind, or thoughtful of others, Gwydion would find it.

  ‘Sparrow was my only family. Later… There was one other.’ I couldn't bring myself to tell them that our Guardian had abused me when we were fourteen and I’d had a baby. Those weren't words for today. ‘But I lost him.’ Lost. Maldwyn took him from me and told me if I ever stepped out of line, he’d kill my son. Lost.

  ‘I came through the Portal to come to this time. I was clothed in a featherskin by Master Darragh, the Librarian. You knew me when I was in the feather skin, Aine. Back then, my only thought was to return to my own time to save my sister. I managed to return to her, to save her from the White Queen. But my-’ I bit off the words. I hadn’t wanted to speak them, but here they were. I closed my eyes and went on speaking.

  ‘But my son was sent through the Portal.’ I saw Andras flinch. ‘And I looked around at the world, wrecked by war and poverty, and twenty years of devastation, and I couldn’t turn my back on it. The Empress named me her Bach Chwaer, her heir. And my magic is powerful.’

  I kept my eyes fixed on Andras’s rigid back. ‘Someone once told me that my power gave me a responsibility to use it for the good of others. So, I returned. And I’m here now to set the record straight, to stop the White Queen from taking the throne. I’ve been separated from my Sparrow. And I don’t even know what happened to my son.’ Despite myself, my voice broke. Finally, Andras turned to look at me, his face inscrutable, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘Why did you not tell us this before?’ The king asked. His voice was still stern. I hadn't won him over yet.

  I looked from one to another. ‘How could I? I had to get back to my sister. I couldn’t allow anything to stop that. She needed me. I am a Hawk and she is only a Sparrow. You all had your own agendas. None of you would have cared that a Sparrow was going to suffer, if it got in your way.’