corners of his eyes tightened as he thumbed away a tear from her cheek. “What’s this, my lady?”
Her throat burned as if she’d gulped down a flagon of raw alcohol. “What has been set into motion cannot be stopped.”
But what if she was wrong? What if her vision was flawed? What if she’d been led false? Or...what if the bargain she’d struck this morn did, indeed, change this man’s free will? Could she save him?
She gripped her husband’s forearms, fingernails digging into sun-kissed skin pulled taut over defined muscle. “You must cancel the meeting, Lach. Please.”
“It...and I...will be fine, mo chroí.”
“You call me your heart and ask me to have faith, but what of you? Have you no faith in my gift of seeing? Of knowing? I am certain this will not go well, Lachlan.” She gripped the back of his neck and pulled him down until their foreheads touched. “Would you declare me naught but a foolish wife and incompetent witch in this matter?” she breathed.
“Neither is true, and I would take to task any man, woman or child brazen—and ignorant—enough to speak such nonsense.” His gaze bored into hers. “You must trust me in this, Iz. Daghda himself has ordained that this meeting is both just and necessary. By the gods’ own laws, this is the appropriate venue for the parties to issue their grievance. Yet he cannot preside over a hearing involving his own kin. They asked for my time and opinions, and I’m of the belief that this is right and fair. The Arcanum is, and always has been, the gods’ sword arm to justly wield.”
Isibéal shook her head slowly. “Neither you nor the Arcanum should ever be ordered to strike out in revenge, particularly on the gods’ behalf.”
Lachlan stilled his caress. “I have not been called to fight but, instead, to listen. To mediate. The All Father would no more lead me blindly into harm’s way than he would manipulate my service to render it unjust. I’ve served him more than a mortal lifetime, and he has seen the Druids through the worst of Ireland’s troubles.”
“So far,” she interjected.
“So far,” he conceded. “But if he has done so thus far, what grounds do I have to deem him unwilling or unable to continue on this path he’s forged?”
“You cannot believe... I never meant... It’s only that—”
He kissed her quickly, shushing her sputtering objections. “You love me just as I love you, and that makes life a wee bit harrowing at times, yeah?” Then he turned away and started for the Elder’s Library. “Rest easy, wife. I will see this handled and return to you.”
An idea struck her. “Promise me, Lachlan. Please.”
He spun and walked backward. “I give you my word that I will see this handled and return to you, Lady Isibéal Cannavan.”
With a nod, she turned and took a couple of steps forward before glancing back and finding that her husband had already passed through the library door.
Perfect.
She reached up to smooth her furrowed brow even as anxiety, weighted with irrefutable knowledge, settled over her. Lachlan was not meant to meddle in the gods’ arguments, be they petty or just. And while he might feel obligated to participate in this hearing, she held no such compulsion. Her first duty, now and always, was to look out for her husband and see him safely returned to her. It would have been so even had her heart’s mate been a shepherd and not the Assassin.
She would do what needed to be done to ensure that she did not lose Lachlan in this, or any, lifetime.
Bowing her head, Isibéal threw open her ties to the elements and the magicks they heralded. Threads of color whipped around her with dizzying speed, colors only she could see. The magicks were as bright as they were ethereal, raw power drawn into her hands and shaped to her will alone. Few witches had come before with more power than she wielded even now, decades before the zenith of her power was forecast to arrive.
Lachlan’s parting words were still so new that the memory of them would be strong enough to cast and weave around, and she would do both, and more, if it meant tying his promise to her intent.
With few movements and naught but whispered words, Isibéal created a sphere that raced across the deepening shadows of time that grew between his words and the present. The sphere reached back and retrieved the promise Lachlan had made her, captured the words and then sealed them inside the crystalline ball. Threads of color wound around the exterior at ever-increasing speeds until the motion was a blur. Colors fused in a bright flash of light that made her eyes water. Magick receded with very little in the way of a dramatic exit. Shimmering inside the orb was the essence of the words Lachlan had gifted her with.
Isibéal cradled the sphere between her cupped palms, one above the globe and one below, the strength of her magick suspending it. Dipping her chin, she spoke over those harvested words—words that represented her future, her hope—and infused her voice with both her will and power. “Protect these words, heartfelt promise man to wife, keep the promise alive for me, that we might again share a life. His spirit shall not cross to its final resting place, but will remain in limbo, affected by neither time nor space. My soul shall serve as sacrifice, to bind us where we fall, only love’s inherent power will be enough to break the thrall. Hear me now and mark my plea, for wait I shall, across years or centuries.”
The bespelled orb flared bright. A flash of heat passed into her hands and made her gasp, but she managed to hold on to it until the heat dissipated. Then, with a subtle glance around the stairwell, she tucked the living spell into the depths of her basket and bade it reduce in size until it was no larger than a small stone from the streambed.
Peace warred with fear at what she’d done. It was unnatural to bind a single soul, let alone two, to this plane when their physical bodies died. Their souls could go on indefinitely, though whether madness would take their minds had yet to be seen. To be freed would have to be an act of love. Nothing else would suffice to bring the two souls back together. That didn’t bother her, though. Their relationship was, and always had been, ripe with love and heavily decorated with lust. If two souls were ever to find their way back to each other and reunite, their souls would.
Gathering her basket of naturals, she resumed her trek up the broad staircase that would take her to the third-floor infirmary only to pause at the first landing, her hand on a newel. She could not let him go. Not without knowing him one last time.
There was no shame in her request, no remorse or hesitation when she said, “Join me, Lachlan. Steal that wee bit of time we’ve tripped over, time alone to...” She looked down demurely only to glance up at him through lowered lashes. “There will be plenty of time to see to the intricacies of mediating under Thranewyn’s Law after I’ve had my way with you.”
She started up the staircase again, swaying her hips back and forth suggestively.
Booted footsteps closed the distance between them and sounded as if they took the stairs two at a time. Hard hands wrapped around her upper arms and pulled her back against an even harder chest. “The deepest prisons of the Shadow Realm couldn’t keep me away.”
“Never in a thousand lifetimes will such keep me away from you, husband. Never.”
He followed her up the stairs then, to her room, where he loved her as passionately as she loved him, and with almost as much manic fervor.
Almost.
