Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
The salon Sabre leads us to is all ebony-paneled walls surrounding a black brick fireplace.
A few dim shardlights barely hold back the shadows and as my eyes adjust, I see a table set for three.
Much more intimate than I was expecting, given the courtly dinners in Tír na Lune.
Those were spectacles, a jockeying for power, a stage upon which the sycophants performed for Duke áine.
House Cernunnos is far from that. No more than a single valet and a handful of housemaids appeared on our walk to the salon. And we certainly didn’t spy any courtiers nor even anyone who looked like a family member.
His words from the presentation ceremony tiptoe through my brain: Every soul enters the Afterlands alone, lady.
Does the duke live here by himself? Less witnesses, perhaps, for when he slits our throats.
As we take our seats, Sabre siphons a beam from the shardlight, then jerks his wrist and meals appear on our plates.
Unidentifiable beige meat and a medley of bland root vegetables smothered in creamy gravy.
I dip my fork into the sauce, then poke my tongue at it.
The duke shoots me an affronted scowl that shouts, it’s not poisoned.
I take a tentative bite and not only do I not choke, but the food is surprisingly flavorful for all its lack of appearance. So is the wine.
Or perhaps my taste buds are desperate; I haven’t fed them anything since an apple and oat bar before we entered the luxbridge in Tír na Lune.
I dig into the meal, ravenous, but the silence in the room is deafening. Every chew and swallow is amplified. Not to mention Vesper’s satisfied growls as she digs into the plate of raw meat Sabre conjured for her. He’s generous for a murderer; I’ll give him that.
While we eat, I study him. He’s more severe than handsome, but not entirely unattractive.
Thick, dark brows frame a pronounced nose that sits above pleasantly full lips.
His eyes appear black, but every so often a flicker of shardlight catches spots of amber or chestnut.
His hair is a pile of black waves that can’t decide which way to lay, and two enormous white horns sweep back from his forehead to curl beneath his ears.
For a man who looks so bestial, he is a neat eater.
He cuts dainty bites, never switching his utensils—a skill I’ve yet to master—chewing slowly and methodically.
After he’s polished off his dinner, he wipes his face, places his refolded napkin onto his plate, and patiently waits for the rest of the table to catch up.
Officially, he’s courting me—or plotting my death, hard to tell—but his attention keeps snagging on Aowen. He glances away each time she shifts, as if he doesn’t want to get caught staring.
Once we’ve finished dinner, he refills our wine glasses, then sits back and rubs his jaw with elegantly-sculpted fingers. He still says nothing, and I cannot tell if it’s because he has nothing to say or if he’s trying to lure us into a false sense of safety before feeding us to his undead pet.
I might be wary, but Aowen is not. “Why did you make that bargain with my brother?”
Sabre shows no evidence that her question has thrown him. “I did not request you, Lady Macán, if that’s what you’re implying. Your brother offered. I accepted. Always good to have a back-up plan.”
“A back-up wife, you mean.” Her bitter laugh sounds more like a bark. “You haven’t welcomed a candidate in Tír na Dubh since the one you killed.”
I search his face for a reaction—clenched teeth, a wince, an eyelid flutter. There’s nothing. He’s carved from the same marble as his great-grandfather outside. If the man truly is a killer, he’s showing no sign of guilt.
“Why now?” Aowen demands. “Desmond would have made you this bargain at any time had you hinted it’s what you wanted.”
“As I already explained, I did not request you. And in any case, the Wild Hunt was not possible before now.” He assesses me, and unease knots my stomach. “It may yet be impossible still.”
Aowen frowns. “Why?”
Sabre swirls his wine glass. I doubt he expected an interrogation on night one of our two-month courtship. But clearly, Aowen is not what he expected either. He doesn’t look entirely displeased. “What I am about to tell you needs to be kept in the utmost confidence.”
Aowen side-eyes him as she asks, “And why should we promise that, Your Grace?”
He takes a slow sip, peering at her over the rim. “Because I’ve asked you to. I am not trying to trick you or do you harm—”
“No, just trying to marry me against my will.”
“Fate has determined no course for us yet. It could be Miss Fitzroy I marry.”
I imagine myself living in this gloomy, drafty house. Married to this man. Sharing a bed with him. It does not paint a tempting picture.
Sabre leans forward, fully engaged—perhaps Desmond knew exactly what he was doing offering up his sister—and continues, “But there’s a rather important obstacle that must be cleared before any marriage can take place.
” He settles into his chair, his features hardening once more.
“I do not know the location of my piece of the Bannrhorn.”
Aowen’s fingers tighten ever so slightly on the stem of her wine glass. “Right. Because Charlotte has to find it. Give her your clue and we’ll start searching.”
Color rises above Sabre’s stubble, from anger or shame, I cannot tell. “That is not what I meant. House Cernunnos’s Bannrhorn fragment is no longer in Tír na Dubh. It’s not in the Otherworld at all.”
“Well, where is it?”
“The human realm.”
Sabre’s confession shocks her into silence for a few long moments before he flicks a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “At least, I believe that’s where it is.”
Aowen leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, her crimson nails tap tap tapping against her muslin riding dress. “Explain.”
Sabre swipes up his wine and drains the glass. “You are rather demanding for a woman without a noble title.”
“Oh, Sabre,” Aowen snorts, “you have no idea.” I could be imagining things, but I swear the hairs on the back of his neck lift when she says his name.
“You’d better hope this gets resolved and you win Charlotte during the Hunt.
Reuniting the kingdom would be a far easier task than serving as my husband. ”
Sabre covers his mouth with a large hand, but not before I see the small smile forming there.
He composes himself before he continues, “Despite the rumors you’ve heard in Tír na Lune and Tír na Strelle, I did not murder the first candidate.
She … I never would have … We were in love.
The months she spent here were the happiest of my life. ”
Aowen’s hands tighten on her arms, her face a mix of surprise and skepticism. As for me, I am wondering why Sabre is being so forthcoming. And so soon into our stay.
He continues on, as if reading from a script he’s spent weeks preparing.
“Despite our affection for each other, I could not give her the one thing she wanted more than anything in the world: children. And I loved her too much to demand such a sacrifice.” The flames dance in his shining eyes. “So I let her go.”
Aowen’s face softens, but does not completely lose its edge. “Let her go? Where? And how? Once the ring binds itself to the quarry, the only way to remove it is a claiming or a rejection. One offers life and the other, certain death.”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” Sabre whispers.
“If the rejection occurs while the quarry is in the Otherworld, then yes. Without the protection of the ring and the novillum seed it implants, her human body cannot withstand the time differential. But if the quarry returns to the human realm and the ring falls off there, the only consequence is a complete loss of the memories she made while wearing it.”
Cold heat prickles my limbs. There’s been a way out all this time? Aowen looks gobsmacked. She didn’t know either.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Sadness creeps over Sabre’s face. “I spent a small fortune to consult a seer in Farlock’s Edge.
The woman gave my love a reading of her future which confirmed it was possible.
At the stroke of midnight on Mabon that year, when the doors between our two worlds connect, she stepped through.
It only happens on the equinoxes, when light and dark are fully balanced in at least one realm.
And the only way through them is that ring. ” He gestures to my hand.
“She had a little trick up her sleeve, though. One I did not foresee. We’d been storing the fragment in the reliquary since she’d found it during her third week here.
We never told anyone because, well, we wanted all the time together we could get.
But the day before she left, it was there. And the day after, it was not.”
“Why didn’t you invite any of the other quarries to visit you in Season then?” I ask. “You could have sent them back to the human realm to search for the fragment.”
Sabre circles his fingertips on his forehead.
“When she walked through that door, any interest I had in the future died. I was angry. Heartbroken and lovesick. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone.
I let my territory suffer for my moods. The last thing I wanted to do was court another human woman.
And Torvil kept rejecting them at the presentation ceremonies, so I just … ”
He clears his throat. “My apologies, Miss Fitzroy. I do not want to give you the impression that I think so little of human life. Each rejection took a piece of my soul. But even if I had accepted them, sent them across the realms, how would they have found my love? And even if they had, why would she give them the fragment? If she even remembered she’d stolen it in the first place. ”
“So what’s the difference this time?” Aowen asks.
He nods toward me. “She is. She’s made it farther than any quarry since the first. And she’s the only one who may actually have a chance to find it.”
“Why?” Aowen’s frustration spills over. “Why would Charlotte have a better chance than any of the other quarries?”
“Because the woman I loved, the one I let go, the one who took my Bannrhorn fragment? Her name was Margaret Bowles.”
My ears begin ringing, and my chest tightens.
“And as I have recently learned, she married a man named Edward Fitzroy and had two lovely children.”
Tears stain my lashes, and my throat constricts to the point I can barely breathe.
“She passed away last year, left her cottage and a small inheritance to her granddaughter.
“Charlotte.”