"As you say, my lord." The suzerain of Atlanta maintained his casual stance, not reacting as Michael approached him.
Metal screamed as, at the last possible moment, Locksley brought up his blades to keep one of Michael's from splitting his face in two. The cold, swelling rage inside Cyprien, eager for satiation, rammed against the fortress wall of his will. He drew on it, channeling its ferocity into his swords.
Air parted with high-pitched whispers around razor-edged steel.
"Perhaps I should mention my loyalty to you is consummate," the suzerain murmured as he avoided Michael's sweeping thrusts with deft movements and rapid, flashing parries.
Michael did not relent, but fought Locksley back, making advantage where there was none. "So you will not fight me?"
"I will not kill you." Locksley abruptly turned and tried to shift around him, but ended up cornered. "The high lord may not feel such restraint."
"He took her," Michael heard himself mutter. "He bespelled us all with his cursed tongue, and took her from me, before my very eyes. I could do nothing to stop him."
"Richard is desperate." Locksley's black hair slipped from its queue, making a slash of jet above the amethyst glitter of his eyes. "Or perhaps he seeks to force his will on you through her." He grimaced as the edge of Michael's right sword grazed his shoulder. The wound bled for only an instant before closing and vanishing. "He has done so before, my lord."
He didn't like being reminded of how he had been made to betray Alexandra by secretly passing her medical data to Richard. "He vowed he would not harm her."
"I doubt that he has." Locksley sounded exasperated. "Truly, Michael, what can you hope to accomplish? The Irish built Dundellan so well that not even Cromwell could take the bloody thing. Even if you should breach Tremayne's defenses, it is hopeless. Not even Lucan could kill the high lord."
Lucan, who might have spared Michael this if he had carried out his orders to assassinate their king.
"Richard is not invincible." Michael brought down his left blade, knocking the sword from Locksley's right. "I am not Lucan."
"Richard has long been our liege lord—"
"No one takes what is mine." He drove the suzerain to his knees and held him there by holding one razor-sharp sword tip at his throat, and the other under his nose. "No one."
Turquoise eyes burned into violet. Blood brightened the blade, and the smell of bergamot grew heavy.
"Easy, lad." A big man stepped out of the shadows, from where he had been observing the bout. A definite note of heather mingled with the bergamot and roses in the air, and had a curious but immediate calming effect. "Rob, if you're fond of that beak of yours, shut your mouth and drop your weapon."
The other sword in Locksley's hand clattered as it hit the stone floor. Byrne's talent and the sound combined dispelled enough of Michael's killing rage for him to step back and allow the suzerain to rise and retreat from the sparring circle. He blinked the haze from his eyes and saw the red stain on his blade, and a thin ribbon of the same streaming down the front of Locksley's wide, pale chest.
"I beg your pardon." He handed his blades to Byrne. "I have not been myself."
"A Kyn lord separated from his sygkenis rarely is." The Scotsman inspected him. "If this is what I can expect from taking a life companion, I think I will keep to my bachelor life."
"Aye, so shall I," Scarlet, Locksley's seneschal, muttered. "And perhaps borrow some of Lord Byrne's armor when next you spar."
"You worry like an old woman, Will. Bring us some wine, will you?" As his seneschal left, Locksley gingerly touched the rapidly healing wound under his chin before glancing at Byrne's tattooed face. "I could use the armor, I daresay."
"Stay out of the circle, Rob; you'll live longer. Seigneur." Byrne turned to Michael. "I would feel better about this siege of Dundellan if you would have me to serve as your second. 'Twould not be the first time I took back a castle from a bloody Englishman."
Michael rubbed his eyes. "This is not Bothwell, and I do not have fourteen months."
"Or seven thousand men," Locksley added.
As the three blending fragrances radiating from the male Kyn receded, Jayr, Byrne's seneschal, came from the other side of the room to join them. She moved without sound, and handed a red towel to Locksley without comment. Her unusual scent, like that of tansy flowers, always reminded Michael of the spiced cider he had often enjoyed during his human life. It seemed odd that the remote, reserved girl invoked such happy memories. She was the least friendly Kyn he had ever encountered.
"I appreciate your loyalty, but I need you both here," Michael said as he watched Rob wipe the blood and sweat from his chest. "If I do not return, Jaus will be my successor."
"Bollocks," Byrne said.
"What my large friend means is, you won't return," Rob said. "Valentin is worthy, but he cannot rule as seigneur in your place for long. This John Keller can do nothing but become another weapon in Richard's hands. The high lord can destroy his mind with a single whisper. Byrne's seneschal has seen it done."
Jayr glanced briefly at Locksley and her master but said nothing. Michael had noticed over these last days of preparation that she would not speak unless addressed directly, and only then with a bare minimum of words. Many of the Kyn preferred females to be seen and not heard, but Michael had not known Byrne was one of them.
"The high lord will not harm anyone but me," Michael said, "and he will not use his voice to do so."
"Richard does as he pleases." Byrne studied his face for a moment, and his stoic expression darkened. "Mother of God, I see it now. You cannot mean to challenge him over a woman, lad."
"He took what is mine," Michael said simply. "It is my right."
His statement made the two suzerain fall silent. Jayr stepped into the circle, picked up Locksley's blades, wiped them clean, and returned them to the wall rack.
Rob cleared his throat. "Even so, I would not take the human to Dundellan. The high lord issued orders for his head. Whatever the outcome of your challenge, it is unlikely that the human will leave the castle alive. Leave him here and we will look after him."
Michael thought of John Keller's determination, and his own promise to let Alexandra's brother help him take her back. He needed a human to do what the Kyn could not, and he doubted he could have persuaded Keller to remain behind unless he had clapped him in irons. "I vowed I would take him, and if I did not he would go anyway. With us, he has a chance."
"A chance to displease the most powerful Kyn in existence," Byrne said, his disgust plain. "Who, if you have forgotten, has never been challenged. If you will not use me, seigneur, at least summon Lucan."
Michael had already considered it. Richard could kill anything living with his voice, but Lucan could do the same with a touch.
Lucan had been poorly used by Richard and the Kyn over the years, until the killing had driven him to abandon his position as the high lord's chief assassin. Michael had offered Lucan a jardin only to keep him from creating havoc in America.
But his old enemy had changed. Now Lucan no longer walked alone, but had taken Samantha Brown, a human female changed by Alexandra's blood into Kyn, as his sygkenis. With his life companion's help, he had begun to thrive as suzerain.
Doubtless Michael could use Lucan's reluctant gratitude to persuade him to act as his second, but he no longer wished to kill. Michael knew if he was not successful at Dundellan, Lucan might be the only Kyn left with talent powerful enough to stop Richard.
"I will not ask this of him," Michael said. "Lucan has earned the right to live in peace." Unless I fail.
Jayr stiffened and drew a dagger, turning toward the door. A heartbeat later it opened, but not to Will bringing in wine.
"As you say, suzerain." A tall, black-haired woman came in, the full skirt of her dark gray silk gown embroidered with arcane symbols in heavy silver thread. She did not bow or curtsy, but regarded Michael with unblinking dark eyes. "It seems that some of us have yet to earn such a gift."
Byrne's seneschal sheathed her dagger.
"Cella." Michael went to her and took her hands in his as he kissed her cheeks. "I did not think you would come."
"You have never summoned me until now." Marcella Evareaux looked past him at Jayr for several moments before she produced an empty smile. "Your sygkenis has repaired my brother's wounds many times. She offered me friendship, although I would not take it. The Evareaux are in her debt. I will serve."
Michael knew Alexandra had treated Marcella's brother, Arnaud, for shotgun wounds on more than one occasion. "You know that she would not ask this of you."
"She did not summon me. You did." Her smile tightened. "I will serve, my lord, if you will hold me in reserve until the last." She looked at Jayr again, nodded to the other Kyn, and left the room, taking with her the elegant scent of wisteria.
"Evareaux's sister is lovelier than I remember," Rob murmured. "I have not laid eyes on her since King George's redcoats ran tail between their legs back to the homeland. Why does she not walk among the Kyn?"
"I cannot say." Michael dragged a hand through his hair. "Cella keeps to herself."
"She does it well; I had thought her long dead." Byrne eyed his seneschal, who stared at the door. "What is it, Jayr?"
The girl didn't answer immediately. "Nothing, my lord."
"It is decided." Michael shrugged into his shirt. "Thierry and Jamys will remain here with Jaus to protect our interests. Marcella serves as my second. We leave for London within the hour."
"Aye," Byrne muttered. "God help us all."
Gabriel's dream maiden would not come to him, and he had no desire to remain in the thin, pain-racked darkness without her. He brought himself out of the strange state that provided rest for the Darkyn but only mimicked human sleep, and forced his sluggish senses to do the same. Benait may have locked him in an eternal night, but a familiar lethargy in Gabriel's muscles told him that the sun still burned in the sky.
