“And just how pissy would your uncles have gotten if he’d tried?” It was instinct to defend him.
“He still should have. He knew more about protection runes than we did. His knowledge is older than ours, which is bloody inconceivable to me.”
“What happened that night in the stones, Christian?” Neither he nor Barrons had ever told me.
He rubbed his face with a hand, skin rasping over blue-black stubble. “I suppose it doesn’t matter who knows now. I thought to hide my shame, but it looks as if I’ve ended up wearing it.”
He began to walk a slow circle around the black coffin, ice crunching beneath his boots. It was a well-worn path. He’d been here awhile.
I tried to focus on him, but my gaze kept sliding unwillingly to the tomb. The ice was thick, but if I stared, I could see a shape through the frosted sides. The lid was thinner than the rest of the coffin.
Was that the blurred outline of a face through the smoky ice?
I yanked my gaze to Christian’s too-white face. “And?”
“We tried to summon the ancient god of the Draghar, a sect of dark sorcerers. They’d worshipped it long before the Fae came to town. It was our only hope to counter Darroc’s magic. We succeeded in raising it. I felt it come alive. The great stones that weighted it deep beneath the earth fell away.” He paused, letting the echo of his chiming bounce off the walls in ever-diminishing decibels until the icy mountains fell silent. “It came for me. Straight for me. Gunning for my soul. Ever play chicken, Mac?”
I shook my head.
“I lost. It’s a wonder it didn’t decimate Barrons. I felt it blast past me and into him. Then it was just … gone.”
“So how was that responsible for what’s happening to you?”
“It touched me.” He looked repulsed. “It … I don’t want to talk about it. Then you gave me the blood of dark Fae, and that, coupled with the three years I’ve been in here—”
“Three years?” The words exploded from me in a cacophony of such dissonance that I was surprised the chiming didn’t start an avalanche. “You’ve been in the Unseelie prison for three years?”
“No, I’ve been in this place for only a few weeks. But I’ve been in the Silvers for three years by my count.”
“But less than a month has passed on the outside since I saw you last!”
“So it’s passing faster for me in here,” he murmured.
“Which is exactly the opposite of what usually happens. Usually a few hours in here are days out there.”
He shrugged. Muscle and tattoos rippled. “Things don’t seem to be working right where I’m concerned. I’ve become a wee bit unpredictable.” His smile was tight. His eyes were full black again.
It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize, but I was more pragmatic than I used to be and I was getting tired of being blamed for things. “When I found you in that desert, you were dying. Would you rather I’d buried you in the Silvers?”
The corners of his mouth twisted. “Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it? I’m glad I’m alive. And you’ve no idea what that does to me. I used to be part of a clan that protected against the Fae, upheld the Compact, and kept the truce between us and them. Now I’m turning into one of the bloody buggers. I used to think the Keltar were the good guys. Now I don’t believe there are good guys.”
“There’d better be good guys. I need five of them to perform the ritual.” My gaze slid to the coffin again. I shook myself and looked away. Assuming I got out of here with my sanity and life.
“See for yourself and decide. I’ll fit in with them now just fine. Uncle Dageus once opened himself up to thirteen of the most evil Druids that ever existed and still can’t exorcise parts of them.”
So Dageus was the “inhabited or possessed” that the prophecy had mentioned!
“And Uncle Cian was trapped in a Silver for nearly a thousand years, as if he wasn’t enough of a barbarian to begin with. He thinks all power is good and would do anything he had to in order to keep himself and his wife alive and happy. Then there’s Da, who’ll be useless to you. He took one look at the two of them when they showed up and swore off Druid arts forever.”
“That’s unacceptable,” I said flatly. “I need all five of you.”
“Good luck with that.”
We looked at each other in silence. He smiled thinly after a moment. “I knew someone would come. I just didn’t expect it to be you. I thought my uncles would find this place so I’d better stick close. I couldn’t find the bloody way out, anyway.”
“What have you been eating?”
“Same as we’re breathing. It’s part of hell. No food, no breath. But hunger, ah, the hunger never goes away. Your stomach gnaws at itself constantly. You just don’t die from it. And sex. Och, Christ, the need!” The look he raked over me chilled. It wasn’t nearly as bottomless as a prince’s, but it wasn’t human, either. “You lust in this place, but you can’t jack off. Nothing comes of it but greater lust. I lost a few days to a bad spot there, nearly lost my fucking mind. If you and I had sex—”
“Thanks but no,” I said swiftly. My life was already too complicated, and if it hadn’t been, this wasn’t the place I’d choose to complicate it more.
“I suspect it wouldn’t work anyway,” he finished drily. “Am I that revolting, lass?”
“Just a little … scary.”
He looked away.
“Still sexy as hell, though,” I added.
He looked back, flashed me a smile.
“There’s the Christian I know,” I tried to tease. “You’re still in there.”
“Once I get out of the Silvers, I’m hoping it won’t be like this. I won’t be like this.”
That would make two of us who hoped things would go back to normal, in a hurry, once we left this place behind.
I glanced at the sepulchre. I was going to have to open it sometime. Face it and get it over with. Was it the king? Did he terrify me? Why? What could possibly be in there that would make me scream?
He followed my gaze. “So now you know why I’m sitting here. Why are you here? How did you find this place?”
“I’ve been dreaming about it every night since I was a child, as if I was programmed to come here.”