Nora Roberts - Face The Fire

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Face the Fire

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved.

Copyright 2002 by Nora Roberts

This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

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ISBN:0 -7865-2764-1

A JOVE BOOK

Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375Hudson Street,New York ,New York10014.

JOVE and the J design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc. Electronic edition: September,2002

Titles by Nora Roberts

SACRED SINS

BRAZEN VIRTUE

PUBLIC SECRETS

GENUINE LIES

DIVINE EVIL

HONEST ILLUSIONS

HIDDEN RICHES

TRUE BETRAYALS

SANCTUARY

HOMEPORT

RIVERS END

THE VILLA

MIDNIGHT BAYOU

Anthologies

A LITTLE MAGIC

The Once Upon Series

(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

ONCE UPON A STAR

ONCE UPON A ROSE

Trilogies

ThreeSistersIsland Trilogy

HEAVEN AND EARTH

The Irish Trilogy

TEARS OF THE MOON

The Born In Trilogy

BORN IN ICE

TheChesapeake Bay Trilogy

RISING TIDES

INNERHARBOR

The Dream Trilogy

HOLDING THE DREAM

To lovers, old and new

O love! O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul through

My lips; as sunlight drinketh dew.

ALFRED, LORDT ENNYSON

Prologue

S EPTEMBER1702

H er heart was broken. The jagged shards of it stabbed at her soul until each hour, each moment, of what her life had become was a misery. Even her childrenthose she had carried in her body, those she carried for her lost sisterswere no comfort.

Nor was she, to her great shame, any comfort to them.

She had left them, even as their father had left them. Her husband, her lover, her heart, had returned to the sea, and the parts of her that were hope and love and magic had died that day. Even now he would not remember the years theyd had together, the joy of them. He would not remember her, or their sons, their daughters, the life theyd made on the island. Such was his nature. Such was her fate.

And her sisters, she thought as she stood on the cliffs she loved, above a sea that boiled and bucked. They, too, had been fated to love and to lose. The one who was Air had loved a handsome face and kind words that had disguised a beast. A beast who had shed her blood. He had murdered her for what she was, and she had not used her power to stop him.

And so the one who was Earth had raged and grieved and built her hatred stone by stone until it had become a wall that no one could breach. She had used her power for vengeance, forsaken her Craft, and embraced the dark.

Now the dark closed in, and she who was Fire was alone with her pain. She could fight it no longer, could find no purpose for her own life.

The dark whispered to her in the night, its sly voice full of lies. Even knowing them for what they were, she was tempted by them.

Her circle was broken, and she could not, would not, withstand alone. She felt it, creeping closer now, sliding along the ground in a filthy fog. It hungered. Her death would feed it, and still she could not face life.

She lifted her arms so the flame of her hair snapped in the wind that she called up with a breath. She had such powers left in her. And the sea howled in response, the ground beneath her shuddered. Air and Earth and Fireand the Water that had given her great love, then had stolen it away again. This last time they were hers to command again.

Her children would be safe, she had seen to that. Their nurse would tend them, teach them, and the gift, the brightness, would be passed down.

The darkness licked along her skin. Cold, cold kisses.

She teetered on the edge, will straining against will as the storm within her, and the storm shed conjured, raged.

This island, that she and her sisters had conjured for safety from the ravages of those who would hunt and kill them, she thought, would be lost. All would be lost.

You are alone, the darkness murmured. You are in pain. End the loneliness. End the pain. And so she would, but she would not forsake her children, or the children who came from them. Power was still in her, and the strength and wit to wield it.

A hundred years times three, this isle of the sisters is safe from thee.

From her reaching fingers, light whipped, spun, a circle in a circle.

My children your hand cannot reach. They will live and learn and teach. And when my spell comes undone, three more will rise to form the one. A circle of sisters joined in power to stand and face the darkest hour. Courage and trust, justice with mercy, love without boundaries are the lessons three. They must, by free will, join to face their destiny. If this they fail, one, two, or three, this island will sink into the sea. But if they turn back the dark, this place will never bear your mark. This spell is the last cast by me. As I will, so mote it be.

The darkness snatched at her as she leaped, but could not reach her. As she plunged toward the sea, she hurled her power around the island, where her children slept, like a silver net. One

M AY2002

I t had been more than ten years since hed stood on the island. Over a decade since hed seenexcept in his mindthe wedges of forest, the scatter of houses, the curve of beach and cove. And the drama of the cliffs where the stone house stood beside the white lance of the island lighthouse. He shouldnt have been so surprised by the pull and tug, or by the sheer simplicity of pleasure. Sam Logan was rarely surprised. But the delight in seeing what had changed, and what hadnt, surprised him by its depth.

Hed come home and hadnt realized, not completely, what that meant to him until hed gotten there. He parked near the ferry dock because he wanted to walk, to smell the salty spring air, to hear the voices from the boats, to see the life flowing along on the little bump of land off the coast ofMassachusetts .

And perhaps, he admitted, because he wanted a little more time to prepare himself before seeing the woman hed come back for.