“And is that the reason you seem to find my death so amusing?”
“It was not so much your death, but the mere fact that you succeeded in short-circuiting Malin’s plans.”
Malin was the head of the Raziq, and my father’s former lover. She was also a woman scorned, as my father had apparently refused to give her the child she’d wanted, deciding instead to seek out and impregnate my mother. It was a combination that made her less than benevolent when it came to me and, in part, the reason behind my latest kidnapping. What she’d actually done to me during that time I couldn’t say, because she’d erased all memory of it.
Although given that she’d told me my father would more than likely kill me if he ever found out about it, I’m guessing it was something pretty bad. Something that perhaps tied me to her just as much as my father.
“I hadn’t exactly planned to die, you know.”
“Humanity rarely does. It is one of their greatest failings.”
Strength fade, Amaya said, annoyance heavy in her mental tones. She didn’t like having to admit to any sort of failing. Must draw —
No, I cut in. Drop the shield.
And I mentally crossed my fingers that my father hadn’t been waiting for that very event.
The faint lilac haze around me flickered, then died, and Amaya’s blade became shadowed once more. I tensed but, despite my fears, my father didn’t immediately attack.
Not that I relaxed any. “It’s a failing also shared by the Aedh. I hardly think Lucian had planned to die so soon.”
“Perhaps not, but he was aware of its approach, as you well know.”
He paused, and that vague sense of amusement vanished. My grip on Amaya tightened so abruptly it was a wonder my knuckles weren’t glowing.
“Lucian’s plans are no excuse for you having lost the second key, however.”
“No, because you own some of that blame.” My voice was curt, which was perhaps unwise given the state of both my strength and Amaya’s. “You not only knew he was fucking the sorceress Lauren, but also that he was working with the sorcerer who stole the first key. You didn’t tell me the first fact until after I’d questioned you about her, and you didn’t even bother mentioning the second.”
“Because it should not have been relevant. No human should have been able to access the fields, let alone the gates.”
“But he had Lucian’s help, and he’s a very powerful dark sorcerer.”
“Lucian could not attain full energy form, and therefore should not have been able to step onto the fields.”
“So how the hell did the sorcerer get to the gates with the first key if he didn’t have Lucian’s help?”
His anger swirled around me, fierce and frightening, but this time, its force was not aimed at me. And it had a rather frustrated edge to it.
“That I do not know.”
And it killed him to admit it – a situation that cheered me up no end. “We think the sorcerer accessed the fields via stone portals formed by both black and Aedh magic —”
“While that is more than possible,” my father interrupted, “he should not have been able to see the light and dark paths, let alone access them.”
“Unless he had Lucian’s help.”
“Even Lucian would not have been so foolish as to direct a human to their location. Not when he had his own plans for them.”
“Lucian’s plans had nothing to do with the gates. He not only wanted revenge on the Raziq, who’d made him less than he was, but to turn back time and once again become full Aedh.”
An aim that seemed right up there with pigs flying, and yet Lucian had totally believed it was possible.
“Only the strongest magic raised on the strongest ley-line intersection could feasibly allow a human to achieve something like that.”
I frowned at his slight emphasis on the word “human.” “Meaning Aedh are capable of transcending time?”
“Of course.” Amusement filtered through his words again. “How do you think Lucian came to spend so much time here on Earth? He was not only stripped of his ability to become full Aedh, but he was relegated to suffering eons of human development.”