Page 2 of Laird of Twilight
But his granddaughter! Oh, she was perfect. His heart filled with new love.
“Take the child in exchange for your son,” the queen said. “That is our bargain. She is called Eilidh”—Ai-lesh,she pronounced softly—“it is her fairy name, and so holds great power. Take care not to say her name aloud often.”
“Then I will call her Elspeth, after my wife. I will love this child as if she were my own.” He moved back quickly, before losing his son could tear his heart again, before they could change their capricious minds and take back the babe. The wee squirming bundle was dear to him already. Tears stung his eyes. “Niall–”
”We will meet again, Da. Take care of her.” Niall sighed. “The power of the Fey flows in her blood, so she will feel the lure of it sometimes. Let her live with you in the Highlands until we call her back to us when she turns twenty-one.”
“Let her stay with me always,” Donal protested. “She will thrive and be happy. I have already lost my son to your ilk.” He looked at the queen.
She shook her head. “The girl must come back to her kind. But if you find the treasure stolen from us long ago by one of your own name, she might stay with you longer. Return that to us, and we could make a new agreement.”
“The fairy treasure? No one knows where that is, or if the legend is even true.” The Fey were prone to exaggeration, Donal knew.Daoine Síth,they were called in the Gaelic—people of peace. Yet they were not peaceful if crossed. He must be cautious.
“A MacArthur stole our treasure long ago. One of your own line.” Her voice was ice cold now. “We will have it back, or we will take souls from this glen until we do, just as we have done since the day it disappeared. Your land for this treasure. Your sons and daughters for our treasure. You are fortunate that we even let you take this little one.”
“I do not know how to find the treasure.”
“Somewhere in these hills, or in some earthly hall, it lies. You will need two keys to open it. You already have one, the blue stone.” She meant the pretty thing he had set into the rock earlier. “The second key lies in your arms.”
“The child? I do not understand. Tell me where to look for the treasure.”
“If we knew that, we would not ask your help,” the queen snapped. “Find our treasure and escape our thrall—or bring back the girl when she is grown. There is a binding spell around her.” Her beautiful gaze held his. She lifted her arms high.
Sensing her power igniting, Donal stepped back. “This is a wicked bargain. The lass should choose what she wants in her own life. There must be another way.”
“Love,” Niall said suddenly. “Love can break any fairy spell. It is the strongest magic in any realm.” He drew his dark-haired lover closer. “If our daughter finds true love, the spell that binds her will dissolve.”
“But if she finds that, she would not come back to us,” said the mother. “Oh, Donal MacArthur! She must never fall in love. I want my child back.” Her voice trembled.
Donal moved back further, knowing he must leave now, with the child—and leave his son behind.
“Farewell, Niall,” he forced out. His son lifted a hand sadly. Shielding the infant with his plaid, Donal moved backward again. He dare not turn his back on the beautiful ones who watched him, or on their shining world. Only when they had faded into the mist did he turn toward the cold wind and moonlight, blinking away tears.
Wee Elspeth would never return to that realm if he could prevent it, he thought as he hurried away, holding his granddaughter, his treasure. Somehow he would keep her safe in the earthly realm. He was obligated to return every seven years to the hillside portal, but he would keep the lass away from the glamourie of the Seelie court and the irresistible enchantment of her ilk.
She must find true love, Niall had said. That was something few ever found. But if she married and moved far away from this place, and from the Highlands, that might be enough to break the hold of the Otherworld. He would arrange a marriage for her one day. A Lowland match. Otherwise, the Seelie Court might take her, just as they had taken Niall.
If he could only find their treasure, that would release all their hold. But he had searched for years and did not know where else to look. His MacArthur kin had lost much because of that missing treasure. Lands, loved ones—
He would never let this precious lass spend forever in their realm. Determined to protect her, he hurried onward.
The Highlands, 1808
Elspeth sat beside her grandfather in a wing chair like his, two chairs in green brocade flanking the fire. She watched small blue flames licking around peat bricks, and traced her fingers over the worn texture of the chair arm. Sitting proper and straight, as their housekeeper Mrs. Graham had taught her, she smoothed her dress of pale pink sprigged with flowers, and reached up to pat the green ribbon wound in her dark hair. Crossing her feet in white stockings and black slippers, she watched her grandfather.
He was studying the pages of a little leather book, the one where he kept all the notes and curious criss-cross drawings for his weaving. He marked a page with his pencil,scritch-scratch.
“Grandda, will you teach me the weaving?”
"I will, someday,” he said, distracted.
She swung her feet like the clapper of a bell. “Tell me about the Fey again.”
He looked at her. “So beautiful,” he replied. “Like you, hey. Quick-witted and joyful, like you. And so fickle, which of course you would never be.” She laughed, and he continued. “Remember, if theDaoine Síthlike us and love us, good fortune is ours.”
“Only so long as they are pleased,” she prodded, for she knew all his tales.
“True, if they become annoyed, they will turn their hearts and their backs to us, and their blessings and gifts will become curses. And we must never look back if we walk away from them, or we will be in their thrall forever. Such happened, to…my son.”
