Seventeen – 03

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “You know, just once I wish that one of you could show up and not utter some kind of ominous warning like that.  Or spew threats.  It’s always one or the other.  Why can’t anyone just pop in to say hello?”

Leinth just stared at him for a long moment.  “You’re trying to make light of the situation.”

“I am absolutely trying to make like of the situation,” Phelan said.  “Because if I don’t, I have a feeling I’m going to run screaming off in that general direction over there until I hit the lakeshore and find a way to drown myself.  At least then my fate would be in my own hands.”

“You’re the Taliesin!”  Leinth practically shouted.  “Your life and fate stopped being wholly yours to command the day you shouldered that mantle!”

“I didn’t have to,” Phelan said with stark honesty, staring back at her.  He took two steps away from the fire, two steps closer to her and the limits of his wardings.  “I did it for Seamus, so he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of being happy.  I gave him what few choices he could make after he agreed to marry into your clan.  A great deal of good I did him, huh?  He died.  He was murdered.  Assassinated.”

“No,” Leinth said softly.  “No, Phelan, he was lost.  There’s a grave difference.  No one knows what really happened to him.  Not a single one of us.”  Pain hung heavy in her voice and Phelan almost—almost—winced to hear it.

“What the hell are you talking about?  He was killed.  They brought us his armor.  Your people brought us his armor.”

“And they blamed his supposed death on me, on my betrayal.”  A muscle in her jaw twitched.  “I would never have hurt him.  I loved him—more than my sister ever did and ever could.

“You and yours think me a traitor,” she said in a soft, shaking voice.  “But I’m not, Wanderer.  I’m not.  I never was.

“Whatever happened to Seamus the Black was not my doing.  I had nothing to do with his disappearance at all.”

“Then where is he?”  Phelan demanded.  “Surely you’ve been looking for him.”

“For centuries,” she snapped.  “And if you can find him, I’d damned well thank you for doing it!”

Phelan rocked back against his heels, blinking at both her and himself.

Do I actually believe she might be telling the truth?  Is Seamus alive?

Hell.  I do, don’t I?  I really do.

“Hell,” he breathed, then glanced toward the east.  “If he’s still alive—”

“Everything that hunts you and more will be after him.  The only thing more tempting than the Taliesin is the former Taliesin.”

Phelan swore and grabbed his staff, then stopped, realizing there was nothing to fight here.  This was one battle he couldn’t win.

Not here, anyway.  Not now.

But maybe someday.

Someday.

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