“I don’t normally room people down here. It’s such a long walk from the central part of the manor. Plus it sometimes gets cold in the winter months.”
She casually pointed at the painting. “Did you say this was Xavier? Your brother?”
He nodded slowly. “I commissioned it in 1745, the last time I saw him in person.”
She looked at him and then back at the painting. “I thought you all went your separate ways when you arrived here in 1698?”
“We did. But Xavier sought me out that year. He needed my help with something. Something only I could do.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It was. Xavier and I traveled together for almost a year before I settled in London and he moved north to Scotland. There, he endeared himself to the chief of Clan Campbell, Archibald, first Duke of Argyll.”
“He joined a Highland clan?” Avery’s knowledge of Highlanders was limited to what she’d learned in romance novels. She looked at the portrait again and tried to remember anything she’d read about the Campbells.
Nathaniel nodded. “Xavier’s skills with a sword were unparalleled among humans. Of course they would be, considering he was a dragon warrior who trained in the pits of Paragon from the time he was a boy. He was one of the toughest, you know?”
“Raven told me the fights were fixed so that Marius would always win.”
“Oh yes, that’s true. We all understood we were not allowed to beat Marius because he was the eldest heir. But if anyone could have, it would have been Xavier. I was never much of a fighter myself, but even Gabriel wouldn’t take on Xavier if he didn’t have to.”
“Hmm.” Avery stared up into the blue eyes of the portrait.
“He was initiated into the Campbell clan, and over time advanced to be war chieftain. That was a rare honor as he arrived as an outsider, an outlander as the Highlanders called us. But the thing about dragons is we can change our appearance to look any way we wish, and we have magic that allows us to understand and speak any language we hear. Over time, he grew close to Archibald and even married his second daughter, Lady Jane.”
Avery felt on odd and unexpected weight on her chest to hear Xavier was married, despite the nuptials occurring centuries ago. She pushed the strange and uninvited feeling aside. Was she crushing on an oil painting?
“He didn’t love Jane, of course,” Nathaniel added for some strange reason. “The marriage was only to serve to cement Xavier’s relationship to the Campbells. It made him truly one of them, although they never actually knew where he’d come from. Archibald, Xavier said, suspected he was a fairy.”
“A fairy?” Avery chuckled.
“The Highlands are full of fae, Avery. Most humans believe the stories of the wee folk are all folklore, but as you have been inducted into the supernatural, I feel no guilt informing you that fairies are real, very dangerous, and not a bit wee at all. In fact, they look just like humans when they have their wings tucked away. Mischievous devils. Archibald would have felt quite powerful having one in the family, and certainly Xavier fit the bill. He was unnaturally strong, healed quickly from injury, and never seemed to age.”
“So Archibald knew he wasn’t quite human but was simply happy to have him in the clan?”
“Exactly. Archibald died in 1703 and was replaced by his son John. All was well until the Jacobite uprising of 1715 when James Francis Edward Stuart attempted to regain the thrones of England, Ireland, and Scotland for the exiled House of Stuart. He failed, but England learned he had support in the Highlands. So by 1725, the Campbells, who were loyal to the crown, were enlisted to be part of the Black Watch, six companies of trustworthy Highlanders tasked with the purpose of crushing any remaining Jacobites.
“But over the next twenty years, it was clear the Jacobite cause was again gaining traction. Those were dark and difficult times. Xavier could see the writing on the wall. Soon clan would turn against clan, and England would bring the full weight of its fist down upon the Highlands.
“One thing you should know about Xavier is he’s a man of honor. He puts a high price on fairness. During all his time with the Campbells, he refused to abuse his power even when it would have benefited his chieftain. He hated war, especially the idea of a war among his own kind. John Campbell secretly shared Xavier’s concerns, and after an exceptionally bloody skirmish, the two men had a meeting of the minds.” Nathaniel walked toward the painting and looked fondly up at his brother.
“He’s a pacifist?”
Nathaniel glance at her and laughed. “No. Xavier is a warrior, but he has to feel he’s fighting a just war.”
“So what did he do?”
“By that time, it was clear that Xavier wasn’t aging, so John was sure he must be a fairy. He asked him to use his fairy magic to hide and protect a portion of the clan, to keep them safe from the war that was to come. That’s why he came to me. Dragons, you see, have the innate ability to protect their treasure.”
“I remember. Alexander has a cave in Sedona that’s warded against the supernatural. And Nick told me that Rowan created an entire hidden city for her best friend, Harriet, and her people. This place, Mistwood—you can’t even see it from the road. It seems to take up no space.” Avery shook her head. Dragon magic was amazing.
Nathaniel nodded. “Exactly. Xavier needed something bigger.”
Avery crossed her arms. “How big are we talking?”
“Together we created a pocket near Bidean nam Bian, the highest point in what used to be the county of Argyll. What you need to understand, Avery, is we were doing something no dragon had ever done before. We didn’t just ward a part of the land; we copied space.”
Avery shook her head. “Copied space? What does that mean?”
“We didn’t take existing acreage and fold it into a pocket; we expanded what was there, duplicated it. Xavier and I, with help from the fairy kingdom, created a land that had never existed before. You won’t find it on any map, but it is big enough to support thousands of Highlanders for multiple lifetimes. We created roughly six hundred square miles and protected it with the strongest wards known to our species.
“Nothing supernatural can get through those wards, and no human can find the doorway inside. The Campbells who stayed behind wiped all memory of Xavier from their history. Several hundred Highlanders followed my brother into that pocket of space, which he named the builgean—bubble in Gaelic—not just Campbells but others who wanted to avoid the coming battle. Xavier became the chieftain of a new branch of Clan Campbell that still exists today, locked in a world that has branched off from us since 1745.”
Avery shook her head. “What are you saying? That he never came out?” She laughed. The thought seemed ludicrous. Certainly the people would eventually long to travel beyond the borders of the wards.
“Never. Xavier rules over a land of perpetual abundance, fed by his dragon energy. A land where presumably the world is the same as it was in 1745. A land completely cut off from the modern world.”
“But surely you’ve visited him over the centuries. You helped design the wards!”
Nathaniel shook his head slowly. “Although my magic is incorporated into the wards, his is as well, and fairy magic. As a supernatural, even I can’t get through. Over the centuries, Xavier has sent a few human scouts out and they’ve brought me messages of his well-being. I’ve provided them with some simple pleasures on occasion. Books mostly. Ideas. They told me stories of their existence before I returned them to the pocket, but since the day of its creation, I’ve never ventured inside.” He looked at her then, in the direct way of a dragon, an idea sparking amethyst in his normally gray eyes. “But you can, Avery. You’re still human. I can bring you to the door. I’m the only one who knows where it is. You can go through and tell my brother what is happening in Paragon. You can tell him that we need him.”