Page 45 of A Fine Scottish Spell (The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns #2)

“Screeching is unnecessary. My hearing is impeccable, I assure ye.” Jeros strolled alongside the wall of windows and concentrated on the peaceful view of the trees gently swaying and fluttering in the wind as if dancing to music.

“Princess Faeniana can marry someone else of the Realm to appease her kingdom’s agitators.

I feel certain one of my lesser brothers would be more than happy to overlook her selfish wit and cruelty for the abundance of her physical attributes.

” He pushed one of the taller windows open a bit wider, concentrating on the shushing of the breeze through the leaves.

The sound soothed him. Kept him from saying things to his mother that he might not yet wish to unleash.

“And ye know as well as I that the Fifth Kingdom will still go to war. That is what they do. Warmongers. The lot of them. Not happy unless they are stirring chaos and leaving death in their wake. Too much Unseelie blood in them, if ye ask me.”

“Ye speak of their Unseelie blood and yet it is yerself who choose to wear the mantle of darkness rather than the light.” Queen Nyna charged forward, her teeth bared and lightning flashing in her pale eyes. “Ye are full blooded Seelie. Yet ye dress like one of them ? —”

“One of whom, Mother?” He knew who she meant. He simply wished to make her say it.

“One of those bloody Scots. Ye have always admired those mortals. For what reason, I canna fathom.” She strode forward, shaking a finger.

“And yer hair should be the shining white of yer father’s and his father’s before him.

Not the blue black sootiness of a wicked raven’s wing.

Ye know that well enough. Ye look like an Unseelie yerself. ”

Jeros restrained himself, fighting to be respectful, although he had begun to wonder why bother.

“I wear the mantle of darkness because it suits me, Mother, and the Scots are a rare breed of mortals whom I respect and admire. Let it go. And no matter how much ye rant and rage, I will not marry that woman. Match her with Warlen or Ganan. Or someone else from the Court. I feel certain that someone other than myself would welcome the challenge of taking her to wife.”

“Ye are the prince. Heir to the throne. Only yer marriage to Princess Faeniana will appease the Fifth Kingdom.”

“Then they will not be appeased, and if they are foolish enough to wage war against the Seventh Realm, they will die.”

“War is no small thing. Have ye no care for those who would die?”

Jeros snorted, ready for this conversation to reach its end.

“Ye speak of caring. Yet we all know yer worry is for the moonstone mines that lie within the borders of the Fifth Kingdom, not the subjects of the Realm. I am not a fool, Mother. I know how ye lust after their agates and fluorites as well.”

She took a step back and glared at him.

Momentary regret washed across him. Perhaps he should not have said that, but he knew it was the truth, and if the Fae of light, the mighty Seelie, valued anything, it was the truth.

“I have a fated mate. Ye know the prophecy. Would ye have me defy it and plunge the Seventh Realm into darkness for a thousand ages?”

His mother’s scowl hardened even more. “How do ye know that Princess Faeniana is not yer fated mate?”

“Because all I feel for her is disgust and loathing. She is a cold, vain, heartless creature. Ye would shackle me to that ?”

Queen Nyna yanked an orange off a nearby tree and tore it in half, slicing through it with her long, gleaming nails. “I would shackle ye to whatever it took to maintain peace within the Seventh Realm.”

“And that is why yer word carries no weight with our son or within the Realm, my love,” boomed the mighty voice of King Salfan as he shimmered into view. “Return to our chambers, wife. I would speak to our son. Alone.”

Eyes flashing with fire, Queen Nyna sank into a low, respectful curtsy. “My king…would it not be better if both of us spoke to him?”

“No. From the ire in his eyes, I would say ye have already said enough. Be gone, Nyna. Do not test me.”

Her head snapped up at the king’s dropping of her title, but her lips pressed into a thin, tight line as she bit back her words.

Jeros’s mother knew better than to challenge his father.

Theirs had been no love match. Their arranged marriage had taken place because she had once been deemed the most fertile Fae of the Seelie.

Perhaps that explained her willingness to deny the prophecy of a fated mate for the king’s firstborn.

After another curtsy, she disappeared from view, shimmering into the air like morning mist burning off in the sunshine. His father held up a finger and barely shook his head. “I can sense ye, Nyna. Enough games. Do as yer king bade ye.”

Jeros arched a brow.

King Salfan nodded. “She has left us. Finally.” His tensed stance relaxed, and he smiled. “Ye give me great pride, my son, but there is war to consider. What say ye?”

“I say the Fifth Kingdom will revolt no matter who anyone marries. If they canna blame it on a marriage gone wrong, they will blame it on the rain.”

“I think ye have the right of it, lad.” The king meandered deeper into the citrus trees, studying them with a critical eye. “Have ye sensed yer fated mate? Do ye know where she is?”

“I feel her unrest, but she is still verra far away.”

“Have ye consulted with Mairwen? Seven Cairns brings fated mates together to strengthen the Highland Veil.”

“She stalls. As does her assistant. They show me bits and pieces, then tell me the rest must wait.”

“Must wait?”

“Aye,” Jeros said, “puts me off, saying the timing is not right or some such other falsehood. I believe she fears the war and the Weavers becoming caught up in it.”

“Aye,” the king agreed. “The Weavers dislike war. At least, those of the light dislike it. Those of the dark side enjoy a good, mortal scuffle here and there.” He palmed an orange as if weighing it for its ripeness.

“Speak with her again. Mairwen has been known to wear down those she wishes to bend to her will. Let us use one of her tactics against her. Wear her down. When she grows sick of ye, she will tell ye what ye wish to know.”

“I will speak with her today.”

* * *

As Jeros crossed the boundary into Seven Cairns, the tingle of their magical wards swept across him like the burning sting of a sandstorm.

The village of the mystical Weavers was hallowed ground, blessed and protected by the temperamental goddesses who would just as soon obliterate a Fae as look upon one.

The goddesses despised Seelie and Unseelie alike but tolerated the Seelie somewhat better, only looking upon them as lower-class creatures unworthy of their notice.

Therefore, he could enter Seven Cairns. But the ancient gods and goddesses truly hated the Unseelie, fearing that the dark Fae might someday join with the forces determined to destroy the Highland Veil and throw all existence into even worse chaos.

The Unseelie were forbidden access to the hallowed grounds of Seven Cairns.

“Prince Jeros.” Mairwen waited for him in the doorway of the Weaver’s ancient meeting hall. “I have been expecting ye.”

“I am sure ye have.” He offered her a polite nod, then followed her inside.

Mairwen was as good as royalty among the Weavers.

As the Divine Master Weaver and rumored daughter of the goddesses themselves, she deserved to be respected and handled with caution.

“I shall not insult ye with useless niceties. Ye know why I have come.”

“Aye.”

“And?”

“She is coming.”

Excitement thrummed through him. At last, he would finally meet his fated mate. “Show me.”

Mairwen shook her head. “I fear that would be unwise, my prince. Ye should meet her when the Fates decide. But I swear she is coming, and that yer meeting will happen quite soon.”

“Why would it be unwise for me to just look upon her, old one? I know ye have ways of viewing those whom ye wish to match.”

Mairwen studied him, her expression unreadable. “Ye would not feel the connection with my ways, and it would be unwise, as I said.”

“I will feel the connection when she arrives. Did ye not say she comes?”

“I did.”

“Then allow me to see her so I know what to expect.”

The old one pursed her lips, her somehow thoughtful silence grating on his nerves. “What if ye dislike what ye see?” she asked. “Will ye refuse her and spend the rest of this life denying that half of yer soul?”

Very few things possessed the power to frighten or make Jeros uneasy, but Mairwen was one of them. “Show me and allow me to decide.”

“Very well.” She moved to the table and picked up one of her strange flat slabs of mirror-like rock.

“This is my assistant’s tablet. She has connected it to Scotland’s surveillance cameras.

Do not ask me how. I leave all that to Keeva.

But she has also somehow focused it on Lexington Elizabeth Vine with some sort of tracking device.

It will allow you to see yer Lexi, as she likes to be called, as she approaches Seven Cairns.

” She tapped on the reflective surface of the rock, the tablet as she had called it, then handed it to him.

“There. The lass with the long brown hair. There is yer fated mate, my prince.”

The tall, young woman dressed in a shockingly tight pair of blue trews faced away from the camera, revealing a fine shapely arse and a thick mane of dark brown hair pulled back and knotted at her nape.

It cascaded down her back in a river of tempting curls.

His fingers itched to bury themselves in what looked to be their silky depths.

She was slight of build and had a delicateness about her, even though she walked with surety in her colorful red boots with the strange decorations and sharply pointed toes.

He wished she would turn so he could see her face.

But when she did, he gasped and drew back.

The sight of her made his heart dip low, and all excitement left him. “She is…disfigured.”

“Yes. She almost died in an automobile accident when she was naught but a small child. Yer Lexi has been through a great deal to become the lovely young woman she is today.”

“Lovely?” He would not use that word to describe the hazel-eyed lady smiling and chatting with someone beside her.

Pleasant enough, perhaps. But never lovely.

The right side of her face was covered in scars, her cheekbone slightly misshapened and flatter, not full and high-boned like her left.

Why did she not wear a mask? Or a scarf?

Why did she not do something to try to hide that side of her face?

“So the rumors are true,” Mairwen said. “Ye are the Prince of Perfection, unable to see past the surface of anything. It is one’s soul, one’s heart that is truly beautiful or ugly, my prince.

What would I see if I looked within ye and viewed yers?

Would I see beauty or ugliness in yer heart and soul? ”

Indignance shot through him like a swallow of raw whisky. “That is not fair, old one. Ye knew I would be shocked by her appearance. Ye baited me.”

“I did no such thing. I advised ye to wait. Ye refused.”

“Why would the Fates match me with such a woman?”

“Yer souls were matched lifetimes ago. Would ye waste this lifetime and miss the joy the two of ye could share?”

“She is mortal. Her lifespan is but the blink of an eye.”

Mairwen spat like an angry cat. “Ye know as well as I that as soon as the two of ye bind yerselves one to the other that her lifetime will match yers. ’Tis part of the Seelie alliance with the goddesses.

Unlike the limits they place upon the Weavers who dare to love mortals. Consider yerself blessed.”

The bitterness of her tone insulted him. He held out the tablet, ready to be rid of it. “Is there no way to heal her? Cover her disfigurement with a glamor?”

“Are ye truly that superficial? That vain?” Mairwen threw up her hands. “Perhaps ye would be better suited marrying that cruel princess of the Fifth Kingdom. Yer heart and soul are as black as hers. Now ye ken why I delayed this match. Mistress Lexi deserves much better than the likes of yerself.”

“I am not that shallow!” Indignant rage charged through him.

How dare Mairwen accuse him of such. He was merely shocked by the woman’s appearance.

He realized full well that it was what lay beneath the surface that mattered.

“Ye trapped me,” he accused again, trying to convince himself as much as trying to convince Mairwen.

He was ashamed of his reaction, realizing he was no better than his mother.

“If she is my fated mate, I will do right by her. I will not reject her.”

“Well, my…my. Aren’t ye generous?” Mairwen placed the tablet on the table and walked away. “I suppose we shall see if she accepts ye, yer high and mightiness. This meeting is finished.”

“Ye dare dismiss me as if I were a young, thoughtless cub?”

Mairwen whirled about, the unsettling blue of her eyes brightening with an eerie light as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed outside.

“Ye are a thoughtless cub, but I expected no less from the son of Queen Nyna. Leave, Prince Jeros, and do not return until ye have learned the lessons that Fate hopes to teach ye.”

“What the devil does that mean?”

Deafening thunder split the air and shook the ground. “Ye will see,” Mairwen promised with a calm just as unsettling as the thunder. “Ye will see.”