C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

Lara put her forehead against his, lost for a moment in simply wanting to touch him. His skin was cool, almost cold, and she took his hands to warm them as she sat back on her heels. “There was never any chance I wouldn’t.”

“Unless you’d been lost to the Barrow-lands forever. How did you come back? How did you open the door?”

“Me! What about you? You disappeared in the middle of a war! How did that happen?”

“I’ve had months to wonder about that.” Dafydd shook his head. “The Barrow-lands will only permit someone of royal blood to cast that spell, and it certainly wasn’t me.”

“Well, it certainly doesn’t seem very likely that it was Emyr, and I’m sure it wasn’t Ioan.”

“Hafgan, perhaps. The Barrow-lands will heed Unseelie royal blood as well as Seelie.”

“No, it wasn’t Hafgan. Ioan’s been ruling in his name for centuries, maybe longer.”

“Ioan has what?” Dafydd gasped and Lara dropped her gaze to their entwined fingers, gathering herself before answering.

“Hafgan abdicated and Ioan took his name. For consistency, maybe. Your brother is king of the Unseelie, Dafydd.”

Astonishment kept Dafydd still, though his gaze went through Lara as if he saw something distant. “Not for consistency, but because Emyr would take abdication as a folly. He might have seized the opportunity to attack the Unseelie court, to push an old enemy out of sight when they were at their weakest. Hafgan can’t be dead, can he?” He refocused on Lara, leaving her with the alarming impression that she should have many answers she lacked.

“I don’t think so, but Ioan said it was so long ago that the Unseelie have all but forgotten someone else used to be king. How long would that take?”

“Too long for it to have any meaning, Lara, or even any number I might name for you. Oisín keeps some mark of the years, but our nature doesn’t incline us to. I don’t see how the Unseelie court could forget their king was once a different man. Our memories fade until even our own lives are nothing more than stories and legends, but Ioan’s Seelie coloring would forever remind them.”

“Ah.” Lara puffed her cheeks. “I wouldn’t have known he was Seelie if he hadn’t told me. He says the Unseelie used to be pale, too, but living underground for so long has changed them, so he chose to change, too. He’s dark-haired now.”

“They? He thinks of himself as one of them?”

“Didn’t Merrick think of himself as Seelie?”

“Not so much that he let our magic work subtle changes to his coloring. I didn’t even know that could be done.” Dafydd fixed his gaze on the black pond. “So my blood brother truly is of another people, while the brother of my heart lies dead and I am, perhaps, trapped in a world not my own. I suppose it could be worse,” he said eventually. “It could be raining.”

Lara shot a look toward the sky, then shouldered him. “Even I know better than to say things like that.”

Dafydd flashed a brief smile at the stars. “I’m a weatherman. It permits me a certain leeway. Am I forgiven my follies, then? I should have told you about Merrick,” he said more quietly. “I am sorry, Lara.”

“I know. And yes, you’re forgiven. A year in jail is more than enough penance. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“You didn’t cause it to happen. I spent a great deal of time worrying about you, Lara. It seems impossible it was only a day.”

Lara shook her head. “I know. I spent hours reading news archives on Kelly’s computer. It was like reading a past history of a world that never was. But it could have been much worse. You were gone from the Barrow-lands for ten days, and a century passed here. I could’ve been missing for a decade.”

“Some aspect of the spell I used to hold time in tandem must have clung to you. Either that or a truthseeker’s will can find its way through time as well as the space between worlds.”

“In that case I need to work on my timing.”

“Well,” Dafydd said in a wonderfully mollifying tone, “it was your first time.”

Lara laughed aloud. “Practice makes perfect, is that it?”

Dafydd took the question for invitation, brushing his mouth against hers and murmuring, “That’s the human expression, yes.”

“I’d just as soon not have to practice that, though. I can think of better things that might need perfecting.”

“Really. Like what?”

Lara sat back, trying to look serious. “Well, the cut of your shirt. It’s all right when the glamour is working, but right now it looks like you borrowed your big brother’s clothes. And—”

She shouted laughter as Dafydd tackled her, knocking her back into moss and soft earth. “My dress! You’re going to destroy it! I made this, Dafydd!”

“My deepest apologies.” The phrase was teasing, not sincere, and Lara pursed her lips uninvitingly as he tried for another kiss. “Ah, is a man not allowed to offer perhaps slightly insincere apologies to salve his lady’s heart?”

“Not with me. It grates on my skin.” Delight flooded Lara, though, turning her sour expression to another smile. “His lady?”

Dafydd looked discomfited. “It’s absurd, I know, Lara. We’ve spent barely a day in each other’s company—”

“And you still haven’t learned when you’re talking too much.” Lara touched her fingers to his lips. “Shh. We can give it some time before we start putting the absurd into words. Right now—”

“Right now nothing.” Kelly’s voice came out of the shadows, and after a moment she appeared to lean against a tree. “If I had a bowl of popcorn I’d probably just sit down and watch, but since I don’t, we should probably hit the road.”

Lara lifted her head to give Kelly a halfhearted glare. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“I woke up,” Kelly said apologetically. “One of those oh-my-God-I-slept-through-the-alarm jolting awake things. I figured we were better off with me driving with adrenaline in my system than half asleep, so I got up.”

Lara looked down at Dafydd, who had gone rabbit-still. Rather like she had, she thought, when Emyr had happened on them in the Barrow-lands glade. “Do you think it’s a sign?” she asked, more lightheartedly than usual. She’d been embarrassed when Emyr had caught them; now she was only amused. “Do you think someone is trying to tell us we shouldn’t have sex outdoors?”

“Yes,” Kelly said helpfully. “I am.”

“I meant in a grander scheme.” Lara sat up, hands on her hips. “This is the second time we’ve been interrupted like this. We were outside both times.” She started buttoning her dress, saw disappointment dart through Dafydd’s expression, and gave in to a laugh as she leaned down to kiss him again. Her world had been turned upside-down. She had lost months of time, had battled vicious monsters, had run instead of helping when a decent man was struck down, and still, somehow, she was happy. Dafydd ap Caerwyn offered her that: an unexpected delight in life, even when so many things were going wrong. She kissed him again, then got to her feet, shaking her skirt straight. “You’re the one who told me I should be more adventuresome, Kel. I’m just trying to follow through. I’ve never had sex in the woods.”

“Look at it this way. You’ll be incredibly grateful to me in a couple hours, when you’re not trying to discreetly scratch mosquito bites in seriously indiscreet places. Now come on. Get your skinny elf boy dressed and let’s go find his world.”

“Lara.” Kelly’s whisper broke through the fog of half-sleep that rendered Lara’s name almost meaningless to her. She wasn’t awake, but was just aware enough of the world around her that it impinged on her dreams. The road’s curves made her sway in the seat, and she knew it, but in her dream she was on the ocean, tossing and weaving in a small boat at the whim of waves. The slowly brightening sky was sunrise, but in the dream it came in bursts of light that promised a path out of the storm.