Nora Roberts's Circle Trilogy Read online

  He could smell beeswax, and roses cut fresh from the garden. The turf fire simmering in the grate. He left them behind, walked up the stairs to his mother’s sitting room.

  She was waiting, as he’d known she would be. Sitting in her chair, her hands in her lap, clasped so tightly the knuckles were white. Her face carried all the weight of her grief, and went heavier yet when she saw what was in his eyes.

  “Mother—”

  “You’re alive. You’re well.” She got to her feet, held out her arms to him. “I’ve lost my youngest son, but here is my firstborn, home again. You’ll want food and drink after your journey.”

  “I have much to tell you.”

  “And so you will.”

  “All of you, if you please, madam. I cannot stay long. I’m sorry.” He kissed her brow. “I’m sorry to leave you.”

  There was food and there was drink, and the whole of his family—save Cian—around the table. But it was not a meal like so many he remembered, with laughter and shouted arguments, with joy or petty disagreements. Hoyt studied their faces, the beauties, the strengths and the sorrows as he told them what had passed.

  “If there is to be a battle, I will come with you. Fight with you.”

  Hoyt looked at his brother-in-law Fearghus. His shoulders were broad, his fists ready.

  “Where I go, you can’t follow. You’re not charged with this fight. It’s for you and Eoin to stay here, to protect with my father, the family, the land. I would go with a heavier heart if I didn’t know you and Eoin stand in my stead. You must wear these.”

  He took out the crosses. “Each of you, and all the children who come after. Day and night, night and day. This,” he said and lifted one, “is Morrigan’s Cross, forged by the gods in magic fire. The vampyre cannot turn any who wear it into its kind. This must be passed on to those who come after you, in song and story. You will swear an oath, each of you, that you will wear this cross until death.”

  He rose, draping a cross over each neck, waiting for the sworn oath before moving on.

  Then he knelt by his father. His father’s hands were old, Hoyt noted with a jolt. He was more farmer than warrior, and in a flash, he knew his father’s death would come first, and before the Yule. Just as he knew he would never again look in the eyes of the man who’d given him life.

  And his heart bled a little.

  “I take my leave of you, sir. I ask your blessing.”

  “Avenge your brother, and come back to us.”

  “I will.” Hoyt rose. “I must gather what I need.”

  He went up to the room he kept in the topmost tower, and there began to pack herbs and potions without any real sense what would be needed.

  “Where is your cross?”

  He looked toward the doorway where Nola stood, her dark hair hanging to her waist. She was but eight, he thought, and held the softest spot in his heart.

  “She didn’t make me one,” he said, briskly. “I have another sort of shield, and there’s no need for you to be worrying. I know what I’m about.”

  “I won’t cry when you go.”

  “Why would you? I’ve gone before, haven’t I, and come back handily enough?”

  “You’ll come back. To the tower. She’ll come with you.”

  He nestled bottles carefully in his case, then paused to study his sister. “Who will?”

  “The woman with red hair. Not the goddess, but a mortal woman, one who wears the sign of the witch. I can’t see Cian, and I can’t see if you’ll win. But I can see you, here with the witch. And you’re afraid.”

  “Should a man go into battle without fear? Isn’t fear something that helps keep him alive?”

  “I don’t know of battles. I wish I were a man, and a warrior.” Her mouth, so young, so soft, went grim. “You wouldn’t be stopping me from going with you the way you stopped Fearghus.”

  “How would I dare?” He closed his case, moved to her. “I am afraid. Don’t tell the others.”

  “I won’t.”

  Aye, the softest place in his heart, he thought, and lifting her cross, used his magic to scribe her name on the back in ogham script. “It makes it only yours,” he told her.

  “Mine, and the ones who’ll have my name after me.” Her eyes glimmered, but the tears didn’t fall. “You’ll see me again.”

  “I will, of course.”

  “When you do, the circle will be complete. I don’t know how, or why.”

  “What else do you see, Nola?”

  She only shook her head. “It’s dark. I can’t see. I’ll light a candle for you, every night, until you return.”

  “I’ll ride home by its light.” He bent down to embrace her. “I’ll miss you most of all.” He kissed her gently, then set her aside. “Be safe.”

  “I will have daughters,” she called after him.

  It made him turn, and smile. So slight, he mused, and so fierce. “Will you now?”

  “It is my lot,” she told him with a resignation that made his lips twitch. “But they will not be weak. They will not sit and spin and knead and bake all the damn day.”

  Now he grinned fully, and knew this was a memory he would take with him happily. “Oh won’t they? What then, young mother, will your daughters do?”

  “They will be warriors. And the vampyre who fancies herself a queen will tremble before them.”

  She folded her hands, much as their mother was wont to do, but with none of that meekness. “Go with the gods, brother.”

  “Stay in the light, sister.”

  They watched him go—three sisters, the men who loved them, the children they’d already made. His parents, even the servants and stable boys. He took one last long look at the house his grandfather, and his father before, had built of stone in this glade, by this stream, in this land he loved with the whole of his heart.

  Then he raised his hand in farewell, and rode away from them and toward the Dance of the Gods.

  It stood on a rise of rough grass that was thick with the sunny yellow of buttercups. Clouds had rolled to layer the sky so that light forced its way through in thin beams. The world was so still, so silent, he felt as though he rode through a painting. The gray of the sky, the green of the grass, the yellow flowers and the ancient circle of stones that had risen in its dance since beyond time.

  He felt its power, the hum of it, in the air, along his skin. Hoyt walked his horse around them, paused to read the ogham script carved into the king stone.

  “Worlds wait,” he translated. “Time flows. Gods watch.”

  He started to dismount when a shimmer of gold across the field caught his eye. There at the edge of it was a hind. The green of her eyes sparkled like the jeweled collar she wore. She walked toward him regally, and changed to the female form of the goddess.

  “You are in good time, Hoyt.”

  “It was painful to bid my family farewell. Best done quickly then.”

  He slid off the horse, bowed. “My lady.”

  “Child. You have been ill.”

  “A fever, broken now. Did you send the witch to me?”

  “There’s no need to send what will come on its own. You’ll find her again, and the others.”

  “My brother.”

  “He is first. The light will go soon. Here is the key to the portal.” She opened her hand and offered a small crystal wand. “Keep it with you, keep it safe and whole.” When he started to remount, she shook her head, took the reins. “No, you must go on foot. Your horse will get safely back home.”

  Resigned to the whimsy of gods, he took his case, his bag. He strapped on his sword, hefted his staff.

  “How will I find him?”

  “Through the portal, into the world yet to come. Into the Dance, lift the key, say the words. Your destiny lies beyond. Humankind is in your hands, from this point forward. Through the portal,” she repeated. “Into the world yet to come. Into the Dance, lift the key, say the words. Through the portal…”

  Her voice followed him in, b
etween the great stones. He locked his fear inside him. If he’d been born for this, so be it. Life was long, he knew. It simply came in short bursts.

  He lifted the stone. A single beam of light speared out of those thick clouds to strike its tip. Power shot down his arm like an arrow.

  “Worlds wait. Time flows. Gods watch.”

  “Repeat,” Morrigan told him, and joined him so that the words became a chant.

  “Worlds wait. Time flows. Gods watch.”

  The air shook around him, came alive with wind, with light, with sound. The crystal in his uplifted hand shone like the sun and sang like a siren.

  He heard his own voice come out in a roar, shouting the words now as if in challenge.

  And so he flew. Through light and wind and sound. Beyond stars and moons and planets. Over water that made his sorcerer’s belly roil with nausea. Faster, until the light was blinding, the sounds deafening and the wind so fierce he wondered it didn’t flay the skin from his bones.

  Then the light went dim, the wind died, and the world was silent.

  He leaned on his staff, catching his breath, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the change of light. He smelled something—leather, he thought, and roses.

  He was in a room of some sort, he realized, but like nothing he’d ever seen. It was fantastically furnished with long, low chairs in deep colors, and cloth for a floor. Paintings adorned some of the walls, and others were lined with books. Dozens of books bound in leather.

  He stepped forward, charmed, when a movement to his left stopped him cold.

  His brother sat behind some sort of table, where the lamp that lit the room glowed strangely. His hair was shorter than it had been, shorn to the jawline. His eyes were vivid with what seemed to be amusement.

  In his hand was some sort of metal tool, which instinct told Hoyt was a weapon.

  Cian pointed it at his brother’s heart and tipped back in the chair, dropping his feet on the surface of the table. He smiled, broadly, and said, “Well now, look what the cat dragged in.”

  With some confusion, Hoyt frowned, scanning the room for the cat. “Do you know me?” Hoyt stepped forward, farther into the light. “It’s Hoyt. It’s your brother. I’ve come to…”

  “Kill me? Too late. Already long dead. Why don’t you just stay where you are for the moment. I see quite well in low light. You’re looking…well, fairly ridiculous really. But I’m impressed nonetheless. How long did it take you to perfect time travel?”

  “I…” Coming through the portal might have addled his brains, he thought. Or it might be simply seeing his dead brother, looking very much alive. “Cian.”

  “I’m not using that name these days. It’s Cain, right at the moment. One syllable. Take off the cloak, Hoyt, and let’s have a look at what’s under it.”

  “You’re a vampyre.”

  “I am, yes, certainly. The cloak, Hoyt.”

  Hoyt unhooked the brooch that held it in place, let it drop.

  “Sword and dagger. A lot of weaponry for a sorcerer.”

  “There’s to be a battle.”

  “Do you think so?” That amusement rippled again, coldly. “I can promise you’ll lose. What I have here is called a gun. It’s quite a good one, really. It fires out a projectile faster than you can blink. You’ll be dead where you stand before you can draw that sword.”

  “I haven’t come to fight you.”

  “Really? The last time we met—let me refresh my memory. Ah yes, you pushed me off a cliff.”

  “You pushed me off the bloody cliff first,” Hoyt said with some heat. “Broke my bloody ribs while you were about it. I thought you were gone. Oh merciful gods, Cian, I thought you were gone.”

  “I’m not, as you can plainly see. Go back where you came from, Hoyt. I’ve had a thousand years, give or take, to get over my annoyance with you.”

  “For me you died only a week ago.” He lifted his tunic. “You gave me these bruises.”

  Cian’s gaze drifted over them, then back to Hoyt’s face. “They’ll heal soon enough.”

  “I’ve come with a charge from Morrigan.”

  “Morrigan, is it?” This time the amusement burst out in laughter. “There are no gods here. No God. No faerie queens. Your magic has no place in this time, and neither do you.”

  “But you do.”

  “Adjustment is survival. Money is god here, and power its partner. I have both. I’ve shed the likes of you a long time ago.”

  “This world will end, they will all end, by Samhain, unless you help me stop her.”

  “Stop who?”

  “The one who made you. The one called Lilith.”

  Chapter 3

  Lilith. The name brought Cian flashes of memories, a hundred lifetimes past. He could still see her, smell her, still feel that sudden, horrified thrill in the instant she’d taken his life.

  He could still taste her blood, and what had come into him with it. The dark, dark gift.

  His world had changed. And he’d been given the privilege—or the curse—of watching worlds change over countless decades.

  Hadn’t he known something was coming? Why else had he been sitting alone in the middle of the night, waiting?

  What nasty little twist of fate had sent his brother—or the brother of the man he’d once been—across time to speak her name?

  “Well, now you have my attention.”

  “You must come back with me, prepare for the battle.”

  “Back? To the twelfth century?” Cian let out a short laugh as he leaned back in his chair. “Nothing, I promise you, could tempt me. I like the conveniences of this time. The water runs hot here, Hoyt, and so do the women. I’m not interested in your politics and wars, and certainly not in your gods.”

  “The battle will be fought, with or without you, Cian.”

  “Without sounds perfectly fine.”

  “You’ve never turned from battle, never hidden from a fight.”

  “Hiding wouldn’t be the term I’d use,” Cian said easily. “And times change. Believe me.”

  “If Lilith defeats us, all you know will be lost in this time, for all time. Humankind will cease to be.”

  Cian angled his head. “I’m not human.”

  “Is that your answer?” Hoyt strode forward. “You’ll sit and do nothing while she destroys? You’ll stand by while she does to others what she did to you? While she kills your mother, your sisters? Will you sit there while she turns Nola into what you are?”

  “They’re dead. Long dead. They’re dust.” Hadn’t he seen their graves? He hadn’t been able to stop himself from going back and standing over their stones, and the stones of those who’d come after them.

  “Have you forgotten all you were taught? Times change, you say. It’s more than change. Could I be here now if time was solid? Their fate is not set, nor is yours. Even now our father is dying, yet I left him. I will never see him alive again.”

  Slowly Cian got to his feet. “You have no conception of what she is, what she is capable of. She was old, centuries old, when she took me. You think to stop her with swords and lightning bolts? You’re more fool than I remember.”

  “I think to stop her with you. Help me. If not for humanity, then for yourself. Or would you join her? If there’s nothing left of my brother in you, we’ll end this between us now.”

  Hoyt drew his sword.

  For a long moment, Cian studied the blade, considered the gun in his hand. Then he slipped the weapon back in his pocket. “Put your sword away. Christ, Hoyt, you couldn’t take me one-on-one when I was alive.”

  Challenge, and simple irritation, rushed into Hoyt’s eyes. “You didn’t fare very well the last time we fought.”

  “True enough. It took me weeks to recover. Hiding around in caves by day, half starving. I looked for her then, you know. Lilith, who sired me. By night, while I struggled to hunt enough food to survive. She abandoned me. So I’ve a point to square with her. Put the damn sword away.”

  When
Hoyt hesitated, Cian simply leaped. In the blink of an eye he was up, gliding over Hoyt’s head and landing lightly at his back. He disarmed his brother with one careless twist of the wrist.

  Hoyt turned slowly. The point of the sword was at his throat. “Well done,” he managed.

  “We’re faster, and we’re stronger. We have no conscience to bind us. We are driven to kill, to feed. To survive.”

  “Then why aren’t I dead?”

  Cian lifted a shoulder. “We’ll put it down to curiosity, and a bit of old time’s sake.” He tossed the sword across the room. “Well then, let’s have a drink.”

  He walked to a cabinet, opened it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sword fly across the room and into Hoyt’s hand. “Well done on you,” he said mildly and took out a bottle of wine. “You can’t kill me with steel, but you could—if you were lucky enough—hack some part of me off that I’d rather keep. We don’t regenerate limbs.”

  “I’ll put my weapons aside, and you do the same.”

  “Fair enough.” Cian took the gun out of his pocket, set it on a table. “Though a vampire always has his weapon.” He offered a brief glimpse of fangs. “Nothing to be done about that.” He poured two glasses while Hoyt laid down his sword and dagger. “Have a seat then, and you can tell me why I should get involved in saving the world. I’m a busy man these days. I have enterprises.”

  Hoyt took the glass offered, studied it, sniffed at it. “What is this?”

  “A very nice Italian red. I’ve no need to poison you.” To prove it, he sipped from his own glass. “I could snap your neck like a twig.” Cian sat himself, stretched out his legs. Then he waved a hand at Hoyt. “In today’s worlds, what we’re having here could be called a meeting, and you’re about to make your pitch. So…enlighten me.”

  “We must gather forces, beginning with a handful. There is a scholar and a witch, one of many forms and a warrior. That must be you.”

  “No. I’m no warrior. I’m a businessman.” He continued to sit, at his ease, giving Hoyt a lazy smile. “So the gods, as usual, have given you pitifully little to work with, and an all but impossible task. With your handful, and whoever else is fool enough to join you, you’re expected to defeat an army led by a powerful vampire, most likely with troops of her kind, and other manner of demon if she deigns to bother with them. Otherwise, the world is destroyed.”