Page 86 of First Light
“I don’t care!” He choked on the words. “I was happy with you. I felt like I could breathe again. And then in the blink of an eye, my future was gone.Again.”
She saw the mix of grief and love in his eyes and she was tempted. So tempted. In the confusion and the magic and the chaos of this new world, being alone with Lachlan felt blessedly normal.
She halfway believed that she’d push the curtain to the side and step into her own cozy house in California with Lachlan beside her, teasing her about her crazy dream.
“I love you.” He pressed her hands to his chest. “Tell me you believe me, Carys. Tell me you know.”
“I want to believe you.” She pulled her hands away. “But do you understand why that’s hard? Every moment I’m here, I’m surrounded by her. Seren’s memory shadows everything I do, Lachlan, and the more I learn about her, the more I realize we were nothing alike.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” His face brightened, and he pressed her hands closer. “My feelings now are for you. Not Seren. I’ll always love her, but I want a life withyou.”
Carys was still trying to wrap her mind around the idea of Lachlanloving her—truly loving her—when he seemed to have been in love with Seren his entire life.
“I need time,” she whispered. “All of this is new and?—”
“You need to leave,” he whispered. “It’s not safe here. I’ll come and find you and we can run away. We can hide from them and start a life together. We don’t have to play their games.”
“And let Seren’s murder go unanswered?” She shook her head. “Lachlan, you’re dreaming if you think your father would ever let you go. Duncan was right: you have responsibilities here. Seren understood that. She knew?—”
“Seren knew I had no intention of taking the throne!”
Carys blinked. “What?”
“I gave that up the moment I married her,” Lachlan continued. “My father refuses to believe me, but there was no way I could have remained married to the queen of Cymru and stayed here on the throne. Dafydd hasoneheir. My father has three. For me to remain on the high chief’s throne would mean uniting two kingdoms, and that would completely alter the balance of power in Briton. I was always going to give up the throne to Rory, Nora, or one of the clan chiefs. Always.”
Carys’s mind was whirling, not only because of Lachlan’s passionate proclamations of love but because she’d just realized why someone might have wanted her sister to die.
“I need to go back.” She drew her hands away from Lachlan’s and walked to the archway covered by the curtain. “Both of us need to go back.”
Carys sat woodenlyat the banquet table after a massive dinner of venison, roasted game, and candied fruit while the two kings made speeches singing the other’s praises and complimenting Queen Elanor on her hospitality.
She was curious to examine Eamer, Dafydd’s wife, but there wasn’ta chance to mingle at a royal banquet. Everyone seemed to acknowledge that Seren and Eamer had not been particularly close. Aisling had mentioned it more than once, and Lachlan never spoke about her.
The woman in question was the tall lady she’d seen step out of the coracle behind King Dafydd. She was taller than her husband, though not as tall as Robb. Her hair was dark and braided back from a severe and dramatically beautiful face. She had a strong jaw, deep-set eyes, and a sculpted mouth that was pursed and painted deep red to match the velvet dress she wore to complement her husband’s finery.
A gold crown was set on her forehead, and though her eyes flitted to Carys every now and then, she mostly seemed to avoid looking at her.
Eamer of Tara, second daughter of the High Queen Orla of Ireland, and by most accounts, the mildest of the four. Married to Dafydd of Cymru for the past twenty-three years.
Carys kept her voice barely above a whisper, grateful that Cadell always seemed to hear. “Twenty-three years? So Seren was in Alba when they married?”
Yes. Elanor was the only mother figure that Seren knew as a child.
“So Seren and her stepmother didn’t have much of a relationship.”
Things were cool between them. Eamer respected Seren’s role as Dafydd’s daughter, but they were not close. Seren had no warmth for Eamer but was always ready to compliment her work as queen.
“Got it.”
On the other side of Eamer were three willowy fae whose skin seemed to glow from within. One was a fair-skinned man with braided hair the color of pure gold and a gold hoop piercing his nose. The next fae was a dark-haired woman with olive skin and vivid blue eyes, her flowing hair rippling over her shoulders like ebony water.
The third was another man, his skin brown as hazelwood and his dark gold hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders. His eyes were vivid green, but his mouth settled into a firm, straight line. He wore a dozen golden piercings in each ear.
The fae lords from the Borderlands. They control the gate through which you arrived and have been watching you all night.
Carys tried not to squirm. “I didn’t notice them.”
If you had, I would be surprised. Do not be alone with them.