Incarnate: The Moray Druids #3 (Highland Historical) (7 page)

Love. 

It was love that saved the souls of the mated Berserkers who now cherished and protected his kinswomen.  Malcolm craved such love.  The love of a woman willing to sacrifice her eternal soul for his sake.  The rare emotion that filled in the cracks of one’s being and fortified the weaknesses with a power greater than any other. 

Hatred boiled in the absence of that love, filling him with a dark power that surged dangerously just beneath the surface. 

“Keep Nemain busy,” he instructed Morgana.  “Her fire is useless against your water.  Draw from the Loch and drown her if need be.”

“What are you going to do?” Morgana asked. 

“Whatever is necessary.”

The sky darkened as they stopped at the bottom of the stone steps to Dun Moray.  The spires of his home now seemed sinister against the backdrop of the roiling clouds, occasionally illuminated with flashes of lightning. 

Energy crackled in the very air between them.  The ground was alive with it, and it sparked from the Crone’s silver eyes as he approached. 

“I’ve never understood you, King Malcolm,” Badb spoke down at him from the top of the stairs, where she and the vicious girl/child, Nemain, blocked the entrance to the keep.  “For a man of such power, you certainly lack vision.”

“I’m envisioning ye in yer grave,” Malcolm growled. 

Badb’s cackle sounded like the crunch of gravel beneath a boot.  “To say such things to your family,” she tisked. 

“You’re no kin of ours,” Morgana said, her fingers twitching as she drew power into her hands and connected with the waters of the loch. 

“I am a de Moray.”  Badb lifted the Grimoire, the wind flipping the pages of the ancient tome until it fell open.  “There are four de Moray’s behind one gate.  The
Prophecy of Four
has foretold that we will be the ones to open the Seven Seals and bring about the Apocalypse.”

“Ye know I’d never do that,” Malcolm vowed.  “I’d die before I succumbed to yer evil.”

Badb’s eyes flared, and she stepped forward, brandishing the book at him as she descended the stairs with the languor of a victor.  “Evil?” she purred.  “You men are always so short-sighted.  You think there is only good, and only evil.  You plant your flag on one side or the other and you fight to the death in service to the light or to the dark.”

“I will
always
choose the light.”  He said this without hesitation, and still the crone laughed at him.

“It is easy for evil to take purchase in the soul of a good man.”  Badb stopped three steps above him, bringing them all but face to face.  “Bliss can be found in a sin, and bitterness often follows a good deed, is this not so?”

Victorious cries from the wall heralded a triumph over the Army of Souls.  Smoke curled into the sky, mixing with the dark clouds and reflecting Kenna’s flames as though they licked skyward from the bowels of the Underworld.

“Your minions are defeated,” Malcolm informed his enemies. 

Badb shrugged.  “What need have I of them when I have the two of you?  Once I help our master rise from the deep and seize what is left after the Apocalypse, the Army of the Damned will be my minions, and I will rule them with unimaginable power.”

“Ye’re delusional,” Malcolm spat.

“I’m a visionary,” she corrected.  “And I’m willing to share that power with you, King Malcolm.  I’ll give you a piece of my paradise when this is all over.  And also, grant you what you desire most in this world, if you and your sister do what I want.”

With a wave of her gnarled finger and a whispered curse, a portal opened up on the steps right in front of them, a window to the Void.  There, naked and curled in on herself, was Vían, shivering in a hole of desolation and anguish, whispering his name as though it were a prayer to the gods.

Morgana’s gasp seemed far away as Malcolm lunged for the portal, calling out to the woman on the ground. 

Vían’s dark head lifted, sightless amethyst eyes searching blindly for his voice.

“Malcolm?” she choked as desperate tears streaked the grime on her face.  Struggling to her feet, she put out her arms as if to reach for him, though it was obvious that she couldn’t see in her pitch-black prison.  “Malcolm, are you here?  I can hear you.”

Badb clenched her fist and the portal disappeared. 

“She’ll think you came for her,” Nemain giggled.  “How cruel.”

Morgana lifted both of her hands, making an intricate sign with her fingers and commanded a pillar of water to rise from the loch and douse the small fire witch.  “Silence, you vicious harpy, or I’ll forget that I’ve taken a vow never to take a life.”

“Let her go,” Malcolm commanded, the ground beneath them trembling with the force of his rage. 

“You know my price,” Badb countered.  “Cast with us, and open the First Seal.  Help me unleash the Horsemen into this world and wipe out all the useless tribes of people who will only become like a scourge to this earth whom you love so much.”

“We are not a scourge of this earth, we are her children, and I am her protector.”  They knew this, but Malcolm wanted them to remember that he had the power of the Goddess behind him.

Badb slammed the book shut, pulling it close into her robes.  “Nemain has seen the future of this world.  If we don’t end it now, people will multiply until they spread over every continent and every land.  They will build machines that belch poison into the sky and taint the rivers with their rubbish.  They’ll use everything the earth and the seas have to give and still demand more.  You are not saving this world for anyone who matters.  You can prevent all that.  Join me now.”

“Don’t you dare!”  Kenna threatened as she, Bael, and Niall drew up behind them leading none other than the Four Horsemen in their wake like giant, mounted sentinels.

They looked both mortal and inhuman, mounted on horses unlike any Malcolm had seen on this earth, their colors as vivid as the book prophesied, and their potency just as terrifying. 

“I’ll not believe your lies.”  Malcolm addressed the Crone.  “Now hand over the book or I’ll crush you to claim it.”

“I’m not lying!” she screeched.  “Ask her!”

Kenna jumped as Badb thrust a finger in her direction. 

“Ask your seer if what I say is not the truth.”

Malcolm turned to Kenna, whose eyes were filled with pain.  “She’s not lying… I’ve seen this in the flames, as well.”

The image of Vían’s despair flashed in his mind’s eye.  Could he carve out a life for them in this new world of darkness and subjugation Badb wanted to cultivate?  Would it be any worse than the picture she’d just painted of earth’s own future?

“You would be dooming poor Vían forever, and for what?” Badb pressed.  “For a species bent on destroying themselves.  They can’t escape the inevitable, King Malcolm.  Someday, somehow, the prophecy must be fulfilled.  Why not now, when we can seize the outcome and turn it to our favor?”

Shame burned beneath the temptation, and Malcolm turned to glare up at the Horsemen, searching for answers in their inscrutable eyes.  “You want this?” he asked them.  “You want me to cast with them?  To unleash you to wreak the bloody swath of your destiny on this earth?”

The pale horse stepped away from the line, and Death turned his dark head to survey the gathering Druids and Berserkers, poised on the brink of the End, ready to fight the final battle and finally put to rest the argument of destiny versus free will. 

His voice evoked brimstone as he spoke.  “If the Apocalypse begins this day, we will fulfill our final duties.  And then, what is left for immortals such as us?  What purpose will we have but to become agents of chaos and devastation?  We will be what we are meant to be, and whatever is left after the End will be an unyielding temptation for the four of us…  Think on that, Druid King, before you make your decision.”

Death’s answer chilled Malcolm to the very core of his essence.  Badb’s paradise could easily be turned into an unimaginable hell were these Horsemen to challenge her, or each other, for it. 

Malcolm reeled as he cast his gaze about, to his family, to his enemies, to the smoke covering the sky, and to the faces of his people, who poked out from behind the village walls, awaiting his word to seal their fates. 

A gentle hand touched his arm, and he looked down at Kenna as though she might be a stranger, willing his pounding heart to slow.  “Dear Malcolm,” she said quietly, her voice a warm flicker like a candle in the gathering darkness.  “I have seen the shadows and suffering in the days to come, as the Wyrd Sisters predicted, but there is a reason I have not succumbed to despair, as you are about to do.”

Despair didn’t seem like a strong enough word for the bleak void inside of him. 

“I’ve seen other things, as well,” Kenna continued.  “Sparks of transcendence from within the devastation.  Marvels of ingenuity.  I’ve heard poetry that would make your heart sing, and music that would cause the wounded to dance.  There are those whose love will inspire entire generations toward change and hope.  There is a limitless potential within us all, and how can we, in this very moment, take that potential away from those who would realize it?”

“Don’t be a fool!” Badb scoffed, the wind blustering through the gathering with an angry hiss.  “Humanity will always be ruled by fear like the sheep they are.  They will be controlled with rhetoric and lies, and ultimately, their stupidity will be their downfall.  Why prolong the inevitable?”

“The future is never certain,” Kenna insisted.  “But we owe the world a chance for redemption.”

Malcolm stared down at his cousin with new eyes.  She was right,
damn her
.  He was wrong to be tempted by a future at the cost of humanity.  How could he have even contemplated it?

Because the part of his heart he usually saved to encompass the entire world had been stolen by a raven-haired beauty, and then broken by their star-crossed fate. 

“We’ll not cast.”  Malcolm addressed the Wyrd sisters with unyielding certainty. 

“Don’t be so certain.”  In a confusing flurry of robes, Badb hurled her broomstick on a powerful gust of wind.  It impaled Kenna with such force, she was knocked from her feet and propelled backward before crashing to the stones. 

Niall was at her side in a moment, his golden hair brushing her face as he gasped her name. 

Bael ran for the Crone, but Nemain stopped him with an explosion of her fire, the strength of it knocking him to the ground, as well. 

Reflexively, Malcolm lifted a flagstone from the earth and hurled it at Badb.  She didn’t counter in enough time to completely avoid it and her legs became crushed beneath its staggering weight, pinning her to the earth.  The Grimoire went flying, sliding in a flesh-colored heap toward Nemain. 

Badb tried to lift the stone with her powerful gusts of wind, but Malcolm used his magic to keep it in place, locking them in a battle of elements.

Nemain lashed out with her hands and a wall of fire crawled across the courtyard, effectively cutting Kenna, Niall and Bael away from the Four Horsemen and the four Druids. 

Malcolm advanced on Badb, his hands out, intensifying the pressure of the stone crushing her legs. 

Instead of shrinking in fear, Badb sneered triumphantly up at him, blood beginning to stain a few of her teeth that had been broken in the fall.  “That makes three of us casting at once,” she cackled.  “Now Morgana must heal your cousin, or she’ll die.”

“Malcolm?” Morgana inched toward the fire.  “I can’t just do nothing.  Let me heal her.”

“You’re running out of time, Druid King,” Badb taunted.  “How much are you willing to lose to save the world?”

The void in Malcolm’s heart suddenly became a cavern, and all the loss, rage, and helpless fury rushed to fill it until his heart did slow, and his breathing stabilized as the answer to everything became startlingly clear.  “Nothing,” he answered coolly.  “I’m done with sacrificing what is mine for the greater good.”

It was a reckless risk, but he seized it.  Whirling to face the Horsemen, Malcolm addressed Death once again.  “This Druid has taken tens of thousands of souls from you, including her own, and locked them in the Void.”

Death narrowed dark, soulless eyes at Badb.  “So she has.”

“I doona think that ye want us to break the Seals.”  It was a stab in the dark, but something in the eyes of the Horsemen, in the way their steeds pawed the ground in impatience verified what he’d begun to suspect. 

“We will unleash the might of the Underworld on this plane, whether we will it or not.  Make no mistake of that.”  Death gestured toward the book, lying innocuously on the stones.  “The prophecy demands it.”

“Until then, it is yer duty to escort the souls to the Other World.”

His statement was met with expectant silence.

“I could offer her to ye.”  Malcolm gestured to the Crone.  “Ye could take her and the souls in her possession to do with as ye will.”

“You can’t!” Badb hissed.  “Not in time to save your fire witch.”

“Heal her!” Niall demanded of Morgana.  “Now!”

“Wait,” Malcolm ordered.  “Doona cast.”

“Malcolm, Kenna is dying!”  Her blood was now running into the grooves between the stones, creating gruesome rivers in his courtyard.

“I am your King,” Malcolm commanded.  “You will obey me for once.”

The eyes of the man called Death were shrewd and unnerving as they narrowed on Malcolm.

“And what is your price for this trade?” Death inquired.

“One soul,” Malcolm answered.

“The Fire Druid?”

“Nay.”  His throat tightened as he spoke her name.  “Vían.”

“Malcolm!”  Morgana cried, tears running down her cheeks.  “Malcolm don’t do this!”

“I’ll kill you
and
your woman if you let her die,” Niall threatened through the flames.  “Your magic is
nothing
against my wrath.”

Badb screeched, her powers flaring as she tried desperately to escape his hold.  “I am immortal!  I serve a master greater and more powerful than any of you!  I’ll return and my vengeance will turn the green Highlands into nothing but blood and ashes!”

Malcolm ignored them all, gazes locked with the man who eventually held all the souls in the world in his grasp at one time or another. 

“I don’t make deals,” Death said evenly.

“This isn’t a deal,” Malcolm replied.  “It’s a threat.  One that I don’t make lightly.  Give her to me, or I cast with them and force yer hand.”

The time it took for him to draw his next breath felt like an eternity.  Through the wall of flame, he could see Kenna twitching, her eyes beginning to flutter closed.  His heart bled just as much as her body did, but he knew what would happen to her soul if she were lost. 

She’d be taken to the Other World to wait until she was reunited with her mate. 

Vían would be locked in a prison that not even Death could breach to set her free.

He couldn’t let that happen. 

A silent look passed between the horsemen, and then Death nodded.  “Your descendants will pay the price, Druid King,” he predicted, nudging his horse forward and up the stairs of Dun Moray. 

Even Malcolm stepped out of his way as the harbinger of the Apocalypse swooped down and scooped up a spitting, cursing Crone before disappearing in a swirl of dark mist. 

Bael used the distraction to leap through the flames, singing his dark hair, and beheading Nemain with a speed almost undetectable by the human eye. 

Somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed.

And then Vían stood in the center of the courtyard, naked and trembling, her face wet with the evidence of her grief, and her beautiful eyes wide with disbelieving astonishment.

Malcolm was only dimly aware of the fire disappearing.  Of Morgana rushing for Kenna.  Of the three remaining Horsemen turning and disappearing into the shadows. 

He could see nothing but her eyes.  Those lovely irises such an unnatural shade of blue, they seemed purple.  The color of Scottish heather in bloom.  The color of Pictish royalty. 

The color painted on his heart.

“Malcolm?”

His name on her lips was the most beautiful melody he’d ever heard.  It was better than rustling leaves, waving grasses, or shifting stones.

Her legs gave with a sob as she collapsed to her knees. 

Malcolm flew down the steps, and seized her.  Reminding himself to be gentle as he pulled her back to her feet and into his arms.  The last time his hands had been on her, he’d been punishing, but never again. 

“You came for me,” she whispered against his neck.  “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

Dreams never felt like this.

“I’d have crawled into hell to come for ye,” he said against her hair.  He left out the part where he’d nearly brought it to this world for her.  She didn’t need that weight on her shoulders.

“I like your Druid wars!” Ingmar interrupted, leading a band of battle-weary, but generally good-spirited Vikings into the courtyard.  How they’d gotten over his walls, Malcolm could only guess. 

The Viking general sent a leer in Vían’s direction.  “They always seem to end with explosions and naked women.  What could be better?”

“Avert yer eyes, or I’ll pluck them out,” Malcolm growled harshly, ripping off his robes and spreading them around Vían’s perfect skin. 

With a few guffaws, the Vikings complied. 

“Malcolm,” Kenna croaked, pushing herself up on weak elbows. 

Her blood still stained the stones, but through the blemished hole in her dress, new, healthy skin appeared.  Morgana had been able to heal her, and Malcolm had never doubted that she would, even for a moment. 

Shame settled in his gut, though not regret.  “Kenna, I—”

“I forgive you,” she interrupted. 

“I don’t!”  Niall stood, his enormous shoulders taut and ready for a fight.  “How dare you allow my mate to come to harm.  I’m going to rip your limbs off with my bare—”

“Look at them, my love.”  Kenna admonished.  Struggling to push herself up for a second before her mate leaned down and lifted her.  “Would you not have done the same for me in such an instance?”

Niall’s hard blue eyes softened down at his mate. “I’d slay every last soul alive if you asked me to.”

Kenna rested her head on his shoulder.  “Then how can you be angry?”

Niall’s brows drew together, but he was silent. 

Bael took Morgana into his arms, as well, sharing a silent and desperate embrace with his mate.  Keeping a hand locked with his, she went to the Grimoire and retrieved it, unsurprised that it was completely intact.

“You heard what the Horseman said.”  She ran fingers across the pages.  “It is your descendants who will be the prophesied Four.  The de Morays who will… who will break the Seals.”

Malcolm nodded.  “I’ll do everything I can to make certain that they are ready when the time comes, to defeat the Horsemen in need be.”

“Is such a thing possible?” Vían murmured.

Malcolm blinked down at her, his heart too full for him to form any words for an answer.

She looked like the goddess, herself, swathed in his robes of green and gold, her ebony curls flowing over his colors. 

He knew he looked like nothing more than an average man left in only his kilt and tunic. Stripped of all artifice, pomp, and duty, he could be only a man.  A man who devoted his everything to her.  A man who could give her what he’d given no other living soul.  Could do what he’d done for none other.

Slowly, he bent his knees, lowering himself until they rested on the cold stones and he was kneeling at her feet. 

A King, and yet her loyal subject.

“Though I rule this land, I know it will not be thus forever.”  He took her trembling hand, his blood quickening at the adoration shining down at him from her eyes.  That indefinable spark passing between them as it had in the very beginning.  “Our ways will die, but our line never will.  Do ye ken how I know that?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head, as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. 

“Because my worship of ye is the most sacred magic there is, and if they are raised as a product of that love, then they will have every chance to write their own destiny.”

“As we have.”  Vían smiled.

“No,
mo ghaol
, my love.”  He rose and gathered her close.  “Ye were always my destiny.”

The de Moray’s story doesn’t stop here…  Take a sneak peak at:

WHICH WITCH IS WHICH? 

The Witches of Port Townsend:  Book One

Available now