Two months... Our ships must have passed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
“But you didn’t tell him of your relation.” Cate took another small step, so subtle I would have missed it if I wasn’t now looking at the back of her cloak.
Julian shook his head. “I almost did on several occasions, but then held my tongue for good once I learned his thoughts about our kind.”
“What do you mean by that?” Tom asked.
“You know well what I mean. Always to serve, never to rule.” Julian spat the last words, flecking Marin’s cheek with saliva. She cringed, and attempted to turn her face away when her head snapped back to attention.
“Be still!” he barked at her. She went stiff, her eyes enormous against her deathly pallor.
Ailish hissed through her teeth. “Stupid bollix,” she muttered for just me to hear.
Cate sidled another inch forward. “You disagree with Brigid’s laws?”
“How can I not?” Julian’s nostrils flared with indignation. “Ireland is swarming with redcoats and poverty, and we’re to sit idle, using our gifts to passively serve humankind.” He shot a fierce glare at Henry. “Well, I ask you, what better way to help the Irish than to drive the English from our shores.”
“We all want them gone,” Tom said without the least inflection.
Julian smirked at him. “So you say, except you’ve no mind to do anything about it. But the redcoats are wee babes compared to what my mother had planned.” He glanced over my shoulder at the shriveled corpse seated on the throne. “You were right about her wanting to destroy Ireland for what happened to her first children. And for most of my life I thought to help her.”
Vengeance. His mother had named him well.
Another few inches and Cate stood a full foot ahead of me. “What changed your mind?” Her tone remained conversational as inch by inch she crept closer.
Julian relaxed his hold on Marin. “It happened when I reached an age to enter the mortal world on my own. It didn’t take long before I met up with other goddess born and learned just how much had changed from the time King Bres imprisoned my mother. Since then, the Tuatha Dé had returned to the Otherworld, leaving humans to rule in their stead.”
He dipped his head, and the black lock fell over his forehead, covering one eye. “I tried to explain this to Carmen when I returned home, how it would be better to rule the people than destroy them for something they had no hand in doing.” He blew out a heavy breath. “She could have been their queen had she been willing to see reason.”
“Yet your words fell on deaf ears,” Cate said.
“Not just my words.” Julian pushed the hair from his eye. “Once I thought it over, I realized Ronan and Roddy had probably shared the same stories. But nothing could dissuade her from a course of complete destruction. She told me then how she’d started plotting her escape the day I was born, and she first felt the curse weaken.”
Tom readjusted his stance, lifting his sword tip from the ground without moving any closer. “How did your birth affect it?”
“When the Tuatha Dé defeated Carmen, King Bres used their blood to seal the passageway. By chance alone Ronan and Roddy entered the dolmen and found her. There’s nothing more powerful than birth blood, and when she delivered their offspring, both Brigid’s and Cailleach’s blood flowed from her womb onto the stones of her prison.”
Cate sidled a few more inches forward. “It wasn’t enough though.”
“Not by half,” Julian confirmed. “A year back, she ordered me to search for descendants from the remaining Tuatha Dé involved in her defeat, the sun god Lugh and the war god Nuada.”
Henry stiffened visibly with this revelation.
“It took months of digging to find the Lughnanes,” Julian continued. “And another month to connect them to the Lundlams in northern England. I arrived in their village last summer to follow the lead, but by the time I traced the family to the Duke of Norland, I learned his lordship had vanished.” He darted a look at Henry. “I planned to take the father in place of the son, but the duke was not one to trust strangers, and rarely traveled from home without armed escorts.”
“So you killed Lord Stroud and assumed his identity,” Henry said.
“What better disguise to get close to a noble? But by that time you had returned home, and I had no more need of the duke. Still the problem remained of getting you to Ireland.” His mouth curved upward. “Until rumors of Miss Kilbrid swept through London, and I knew how best to strike. Truth be told, I would have stalled as long as possible if Deri hadn’t arrived unexpectedly with orders to muddle the wits of any descendants I had discovered and compel them to Wexford.”