Page 50 of Rise of the Morrigan

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"Where is Fand?"Cú Chulainn asked, kneeling before King Manannán mac Lir.

"Do not pretend yourself ignorant!"

"I know not of what you speak, your Highness." Cú Chulainn kept his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. He was not sure what Faerie custom dictated, but when brought before an earthly king under any sort of accusation it was deemed inappropriate to look him in the eye. An odd custom, when Cú Chulainn thought about it. After all, it is often the guilty who divert their eyes away from their accusers. No wonder it was rare any who stood accused before a king would ever be deemed innocent. Tradition, itself, demanded the suspect assume a posture of guilt.

"My own army sent to recover you saw you in your true form! You are the one with the ríastrad who captured my own wife's affections!"

Cú Chulainn grinned a little. Fand still had feelings for him? All the times he'd fantasized about finding her again. Imagining their touch... their kiss... the magic flowing between them. He'd thought it little more than a fantasy. Surely she'd forgotten about him soon after their encounter... at least he'd presumed as much. But to hear she'd been longing for him as much as he had for her, that her love for him had driven a wedge between the man she'd had to marry.

For a moment, Cú Chulainn's heart soared. Then, it sank into the depth of his gut. He'd just married Emer... But the marriage hadn't been consummated. Until it was, he'd have an out... but did he want to take it? To do that to Emer after all she'd been through? After all he'd promised her? His heart longed for Fand, but his honor, his virtue, all of it told him he should follow through with his commitment to Emer. Cú Chulainn swallowed his thoughts. He was getting ahead of himself. He had to survive this ordeal before even considering what he would do.

"I confess," Cú Chulainn said. "I do have the ríastrad. And I do love Fand... I've always loved her. Since the moment she quieted the beast within me."

"And you dare assault my Fomorian scouts on her behalf? What was it, some feeble attempt to impress her, to lure my wife to your side?"

Cú Chulainn cocked his head and raised his eyes—meeting the king's gaze straight on. "Wait... what?"

"Again, you imagine you can fool me with your feigned ignorance?"

"I do not know what you're talking about."

"My Fomorian scouts, whom I sent to keep watch over Fand. They tell me that they were assaulted by one with the ríastrad."

Cú Chulainn sighed. Aife, it had to be Aife... was this her way of getting revenge on him? Turning the Faerie King against him? How did she know he harbored a love for Fand? Cú Chulainn's blood boiled in his veins. Not only had Aife killed Forgall, but now she was conspiring against him. Would he ever rest? He'd never kill the mother of his child... at least not until his son came of age. But so long as she lived she'd seek ways to avenge what she thought was a betrayal.

"Your Highness, there is another with the ríastrad. A warrior, a woman. I trained with her under the warrior-queen Scáthach."

"Our kind can sense the presence of a ríastrad when it attempts to usurp a human mind. It is why Fand came to you to begin with! That the beast would be tamed."

Cú Chulainn nodded. "That's because the beast has no need to usurp this woman's mind. She and the ríastrad are both monsters of a sort. Their union... it's more like they willingly share the same body."

"Preposterous!" the king bellowed. "You expect me to believe when one with the ríastrad appears to thwart my Fomorian scouts... who attempted to free Fand from their presence... that thisotherwarrior who supposedly has the ríastrad was the one who did it when it is you who has harbored affection for my wife all these years?"

The king wasn't wrong. But how did he know what he felt for Fand? "Why do you think I love your wife, your Highness?"

The king rolled his eyes. "Of course you do. A faerie cannot love a human who does not love her in kind. We are not capable of such sentiments. That my wife still pined after you meant beyond a doubt that you felt the same. Otherwise, her love for you would have waned and she would be at my side still!"

"I never knew," Cú Chulainn shook his head. "How was I supposed to know she loved me, too? That my loving her would have such consequences?"

"Which is why I never came for you until now. Not until you assaulted my scouts. Not until you attempted to play the hero and lure her to you again."

"I told you," Cú Chulainn said, rising to his feet in defiance. "It wasn't me!"

"Lies!" the king shouted, before turning toward the sorcerer—the one who'd debilitated him with his spell before. It was while under the ríastrad the sorcerer had bound him before. He probably didn't stand much of a chance in a re-match with the strange, veiled, magician. Still, his odds were better escaping with the aid of the ríastrad than in his mortal form.

No sooner did he change his shape did the sorcerer raise his staff and take aim directly at Cú Chulainn. He'd anticipated it... he tried to run, the flee... his only shot was dodging the sorcerer's attack. One zap from the sorcerer's staff was all it would take...

He dodged the spell once.

But the second time... he tried to move out of the way. But as fast as he could move the sorcerer's magic was faster, as fast as lightning. Cú Chulainn winced—he was done for.

Then, silence...

It was like the world all around him had stopped... like time, itself, had frozen in place.

The sorcerer's spell—a single, powerful, beam of lightning was suspended in mid-air, not three feet from where he stood. For a moment he simply stared at it, mesmerized by the power of the jagged beam of magic that coursed from the sorcerer's staff and had nearly taken him out.

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