Morrigan's Cross (Circle Trilogy 1)

“An amusing claim to fame.”

For a time they said nothing, just stood, two men of striking physical similarity, in a rainy world of the dead.

“If I’d gone with you that night, as you asked me, ridden out with you, to stop as you said at the pub in the village. A drink and a tumble…” Hoyt’s throat went hot as he remembered it. “But I had work on my mind and didn’t want company. Not even yours. I had only to go, and none of this would be.”

Cian slicked back his dripping hair. “You take a lot on yourself, don’t you? But then, you always did. If you’d gone, it’s likely she’d have had us both—so it’s true enough, none of this would be.”

What he saw on Hoyt’s face brought the fury rushing back into him. “Do I ask for your guilt? You weren’t my keeper then or now. I stand here as I did centuries ago, and barring bad luck—or my own idiocy in letting you drag me into this thing and the serious risk of a stake through the heart, I’ll stand here again centuries after. And you, Hoyt, food for the worms. So which of us has destiny smiled on?”

“What is my power if I can’t change that one night, that one moment? I’d have gone with you. I’d have died for you.”

Cian’s head whipped up, and on his face was the same hot temper it had held in battle. “Don’t put your death, or your regrets, on me.”

But there was no answering anger in Hoyt. “And you would have died for me. For any one of them.” He spread his arms to encompass the graves.

“Once.”

“You are half of me. Nothing you are, nothing that was done changes that. You know it as I know it. Even more than blood, more than bone. We are, beneath all that, what we ever were.”

“I can’t exist in this world feeling this.” Emotion swirled now, into his face, his voice. “I can’t grieve for what I am, or for you. Or for them. And damn you, goddamn you for bringing me back to it.”

“I love you. It’s bound in me.”

“What you love is gone.”

No, Hoyt thought, he was looking at the heart of what he’d loved. He could see it in the roses his brother had planted over their mother’s grave.

“You’re standing here with me and the spirits of our family. You’re not so changed, Cian, or you would not have done this.” He touched the petals of a rose. “You could not have done it.”

Cian’s eyes were suddenly ageless, filled with the torment of centuries. “I’ve seen death. Thousands upon thousands. Age and sickness, murder and war. I didn’t see theirs. And this was all I could do for them.”

When Hoyt moved his hand, the petals of an overblown rose spilled down and scattered on his mother’s grave. “It was enough.”

Cian looked down at the hand Hoyt held out to him. He sighed once, deeply. “Well, damn to us both then,” he said and clasped hands with his brother. “We’ve been out long enough, no point in tempting fate any longer. And I want my bed.”

They started back the way they’d come.

“Do you miss the sun?” Hoyt wondered. “Walking in it, feeling it on your face?”

“They’ve found it gives you cancer of the skin.”

“Huh.” Hoyt considered it. “Still, the warmth of it on a summer morning.”

“I don’t think about it. I like the night.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the time to ask Cian to allow him to do a little experimental bloodletting.

“What do you do in these businesses of yours? And with your leisure? Do you—”

“I do as I please. I like to work; it’s satisfying. And makes play more appealing. And it’s not possible to catch up on several centuries during a morning’s walk in the rain, even if I were inclined.” He rested the sword on his shoulder. “But likely you’ll catch your death from it, and spare me the questions in any case.”

“I’m made of stronger stuff than that,” Hoyt said, cheerfully now, “as I proved when I bashed your face not long ago. You’ve a fine bruise on your jaw.”

“It’ll be gone quicker than yours, unless the witch intervenes again. In any case, I was holding back.”

“Bollocks to that.”

The shadows that always fell on him when he visited that graveyard began to lift. “If I’d come at you full, we’d be digging your grave back there.”