Chapter 14 #2
“No, Cuchulainn, you must finish the draft. Trust me. It will make everything else so much easier.” Her grip on him was strong, but her voice sweet as she cajoled. He had no choice but to swallow the entire cup of vile liquid.
Then she plumped a pillow and put it under his head before she began cleaning his shoulder.
Cuchulainn’s mind cleared enough that it caught up with his body.
He remembered the wall. Amage had been wounded.
She and Tabiti had gotten away—or he hoped they had—and then there had been the net, the arrow that had sliced the top of his shoulder, and the men who had held him down and clubbed him unconscious.
Cuchulainn’s stomach churned, and he had to close his eyes, grit his teeth, and swallowing the saliva that flooded his mouth over and over to keep from puking.
When the wave of nausea eased, he opened his eyes and blinked several times.
His vision wouldn’t clear. He still saw two or three of everything and what he saw was blurred, but he could tell he was in a room within a stone building.
The fort’s keep. It had to be. It was the only stone building at Dùn Dòbhrain.
A wan light came from a hearthfire across the room.
He was lying on a bed pallet, uncovered and completely naked.
He tried to sit, to move, but his arms and legs were spread wide and tied so tightly to the frame of the pallet that the thick ropes dug into the flesh of his wrists and ankles.
“Easy, easy, don’t fight and you’ll be much more comfortable,” said the honeyed voice.
He turned his head to the right, gritting his teeth against the pain it caused to move, and looked up at the woman tending his wound.
She was tiny, delicate, with blue eyes so striking they appeared jewel-like.
Her skin was smooth and the white of fresh milk.
She wore a low-cut gown that displayed plump breasts just above embroidered black dragons.
“Aife.” It was like speaking through sand, but he ground out her name.
She smiled. “Hello, Cuchulainn. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
He pulled on the ropes holding his wrists. “Release me!”
She took a small wooden pot from beside the bed and smeared a thick glob of salve into the arrow wound before she answered him. “I cannot do that. At least not at this moment, I cannot. I need something from you first. Something very important.”
“Then release me. I do not cooperate with my captors.”
She stood and laughed, flipping back the silken length of her hair. Aife smiled at him. “Really? How often have you been taken captive?”
He said nothing. His answer was never until now, which she obviously knew.
When he didn’t respond, she shrugged and changed the subject. “It’s so interesting to me that the mighty Hero of Ulster came all the way to Dunscáith to train with my sister. You’re already a great warrior. Why would you demean yourself like that?”
“There is nothing demeaning about training with the Queen of Shadow. She is exemplary in all ways,” said Cuchulainn.
Her cold blue eyes narrowed. “Really? And why is that, Ulster’s hero?
Could it be . . .” She paused and tapped her prettily rounded chin as if in thought.
Then she smiled and continued, her sweet voice taking on a sharp edge.
“I know! It’s because of an accident of birth.
My sister’s talents and yours, Hero of Ulster, are but a mistake of parentage.
Both of you were born of divine blood. You didn’t work and push, strive and struggle for your abilities.
You were gifted them.” She laughed. The sound held no lightness—no joy.
“And in your case, you’re not even fully human when you use those gifts.
You become an uncontrollable monster, do you not? ”
Again, Cuchulainn didn’t answer. He continued to blink rapidly in an attempt to clear his vision. It did not clear. He saw three Aifes, and all three appeared almost ghostly. He could see through them; they flickered and wavered like candle flame.
As if he’d agreed with Aife, she nodded. “Yes, I heard about your berserker. He’s unstoppable. I warned my warriors, which is why you are here and they are not on their way to the Underworld after being torn apart by your gift from Lugh.”
“What do you want?” Cuchulainn asked. His head felt odd. It no longer hurt, but it was like he was being pulled down, submerged within a stifling reality that shifted strangely, drowning him in confusion.
“What do I want? So many things, but at the forefront is my desire to be Queen of Lethra and have my children rule after me for generations.”
Cuchulainn squinted, hoping that would help his queer vision.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. His thoughts were a strange tide, ebbing and flowing.
Aife kept changing. First there were three of her, then one, and then three again.
Her voice echoed in his mind as he struggled to make sense of what was happening to him.
Aife undressed as she continued to speak. “Which means I also want the death of Scáthach. She is the boulder that blocks the path to my crown.”
“Scáthach does not want your crown.” He thought he spoke normally, but his words were no more than a rough whisper.
She stepped out of her embroidered overdress and kicked it aside. Behind her the firelight silhouetted her body, turning the chemise see-through. She tossed back her hair and walked slowly toward the bed. Her voice was sweet and beguiling even though her words were neither.
“Whether she wants my crown or not, she stands in the way. Like the power her divine blood gifts her, my sister didn’t need to work for the Lethra crown.
No, it was given to her, as everything in her life has been given to her.
” She stopped at the foot of the bed pallet.
“That is not how my life has been. You see, son of Lugh, when power isn’t an accident of birth, you must learn how to create your own power and make your own destiny. ”
She traced her hands down her body, cupping her breasts through the sheer chemise and then following the curving path of her hips to caress her thighs and then up to the V between them as she continued.
“For instance, I could not come even close to besting you in a physical contest, yet here you are, utterly at my mercy. How did that happen?” She laughed, a seductive sound filled with desire, and her hands traveled up to caress her breasts again.
“Not through inherited power, but through years of study.” The wooden mug from which she’d forced him to drink sat on a table near the bed, and she picked it up and sniffed it.
Her delicate nose wrinkled, and she placed it back on the table.
“Yes, it took years of trial and error and concentrated effort for me to get here.”
Cuchulainn couldn’t force his gaze from her. His sight was blurred, and it seemed he could see her words in the air between them. They were the color of old blood, the same color that haloed her body.
“I don’t understand.” He barely got the words past the dryness in his throat.
“That’s a shame. I’ll give you a hint. Did you know I’m a great breeder of horses? Under my guiding hand, Lethra has become famous for the speed and stamina of the herd I have created.”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Horses? A breeding program? What had that to do with him? Before he could form words, Aife continued.
“This is really no different from what I did for Lethra’s horses.
I require divinity in my bloodline, and you will provide it.
Can you imagine the child that would be created by being born of a mixture of both?
Divine blood and the will to create his own power, to fashion his own destiny?
” She untied the laces on the front of her chemise and let the diaphanous material slide down her body.
“That child would grow up to be a real hero and a ruler who would sire hero after hero. He would uplift my name and hold Lethra’s crown uncontested.
Never will he have to flee his home. Never will he have to endure being passed over for someone who has not set foot in Lethra for decades, who should have no claim to the throne and who would not except for an accident of birth. ”
Instead of becoming clearer, Cuchulainn’s vision was increasingly changed.
Aife’s words hung around him like smoke.
Her naked body kept shifting as the firelight licked against her skin while she talked and talked and talked.
Her soft words swirled around him, beguiling as much as they confused.
The more she spoke, the more bewildered he became.
He hadn’t even seen her move, but she was suddenly standing beside the bed, so close she reached out easily and traced with one finger the rope that cut into his wrists.