The warmth built into a ball behind his eyes until it almost blurred his vision. He ground his heel into the earth. He didn’t expect her to thank him for what he was sacrificing to help her because she’d also sacrificed for him, but if he was going to suffer the wrath of the fae for her, he at least deserved to know why she hated him. No more half-veiled accusations.
He blocked her path. “I’m not taking you farther until you tell me one thing I’m guilty for. One thing I actually did other than give away a few coins.”
She stayed out of his reach, like she had practice evading angry men. “You did the one thing I begged you not to do. You broke your promise.”
He ran through the dream in his mind and the time since they’d met again. “I didn’t promise you anything.”
“Is that what you’ll tell yourself after you abandon me this time as well?” The muscles in her throat tightened like she was trying to swallow and couldn’t. “I’m the eejit here for not taking warning from the first time. I knew better. But my brother…” She shook her head.
Frustration cascaded inside him. It seemed unreasonable for her to hold a promise he’d made in their past life against him now, but that had to be the case. “All I know of our past together is what’s in the dream. When did I make this supposed promise?”
“It happened that night, so it’s in the dream. There’s no point pretending you don’t know.” Ceana’s voice was a tangle of angry and sad and confused. The streaks of reds, purples, and oranges in the sunset behind her seemed to mirror her emotions. “The fairy said the wishes would take over when we both fell asleep. You swore to me that we’d take turns staying awake until we found a way to break the curse. Then you went to sleep anyway.”
He ground his fingers into his forehead. So that’s what was at the bottom of her anger toward him. It wasn’t that they’d almost drowned. She’d been willing to give up her wishes for him even after that. It wasn’t that he allowed her to take the curse on herself and give him the blessing of the wishes. They’d been friends even after that.
It was that he’d been the person she trusted most, and then when she most needed him, he failed her. She had no good reason to believe he’d keep his promise this time, and that old sting of betrayal spilled over to color everything he did.
Worse, he couldn’t even trust himself.
He almost hadn’t gone after her when his dadaidh and Tavish took her away. It was possible he’d grown tired of fighting to keep the wishes from taking effect, or that he’d decided to take them for himself and break his promise. It was also possible he’d simply fallen asleep despite his best intentions.
And, in the end, it didn’t matter if it was intentional or not. It almost made it worse if it wasn’t because, to her, it must seem that she couldn’t trust him to keep his promises even when he intended to.
Somehow, he had to prove to both of them that wasn’t the case. The task seemed more monumental than finding a cure for a fae curse. “It’s not in my dream, and that’s all the memory I have of before the wishes. The dream ends the moment the fairy vanishes.”
“She left out your promise? Why would she do that?” She paced in front of him as if she couldn’t decide whether to stay with him or cut her losses and leave. She skidded to a stop. “Unless it would make you unhappy. Like the little boy in Dunvegan.” She slowly lifted her gaze to his face. “It would have made you unhappy?”
It would have made him unhappy. It did make him unhappy. “Aye, but that doesn’t change what happened.”
“It might.” Her eyes smiled at him even though her lips didn’t. “A little. For me.”
The words trickled down into his core. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was a start.
For a second, the idea of reaching for her hand crossed his mind, as if taking her hand was something he’d done before. Instead he stuffed his hands under his cloak. “Come on. We have ground to make up.”
Chapter 12
A hound baying jerked Ceana awake. She squinted against the darkness. It took her three breaths before she remembered where she was—Duntulm Castle lay across a field and up a hill from where they’d camped.
During their travel, the full moon had passed, and the waning moon was covered by clouds and barely gave off enough light to see by. As hard as she squinted, she couldn’t make out any forms moving nearby in the darkness. With the way sound traveled at night, they could still be beyond her ability to see them even in daylight—assuming it hadn’t been all in her dreams. She’d gone to sleep afraid that Tavish and Allan would catch them so close to Duntulm Castle that the defeat would be twice as bitter.
If she hadn’t dreamed the dog’s howl, as close as they were to Duntlm Castle might not be close enough. Last night, they camped within sight of the walls but stopped short because the castle gates had been barred for the night before they’d arrived.
The hound bayed again.
She rolled over, planted her hand atop Gavran’s mouth, and shook him awake.
He sat straight up, almost smashing his head against hers. She pressed a finger to her lips and lowered her hand. The dog howled closer this time.
They grabbed their cloaks and sprinted from the ring of bushes where they’d camped.
They cut through a fallow field, and another where the spring barley barely brushed the front of her boots even though summer was upon them. By this time of year, it should have been near to her knees. Patches lay withered and yellow.
The hulking mass of Duntulm, the MacDonalds’ castle, rose up on the top of the cliff from the gloom. The four-story-tall tower looked like an angry giant, ready to crush them with a house-sized fist. Briny air from the sea beyond filled her lungs and nipped her cheeks.
She slid to a stop, her calves and thighs on fire from the uphill run. “Gavran, wait. How do we get inside?”
His shadow rose and fell in the dark ahead of her, as if he were breathing heavily too. “We’ll tell the guards we’re running from our disapproving families.”
They were running from disapproving families, though they’d never been lovers the way his story implied. It would only work if the guards believed it. “Does the Lady MacDonald provide sanctuary for such couples?”
Gavran motioned her forward, and they stumbled up the last fifty feet of the hill. “I heard a rumor last fall about a couple who eloped to MacDonald castle.”
A deep ditch with a single plank across it separated them from the curtain wall and the guardhouse.
Her breathing hitched. She’d climb any tree, but this was different. She couldn’t see the bottom. It reminded her of a pit leading straight into hell, and she hadn’t been on speaking terms with the Almighty since the curses. Maybe she wasn’t as ready and willing to die as she’d thought. And especially not when freedom from the curses might be within her grasp.
Gavran guided her onto the plank. “Don’t look down.”
“Why do people always say that?” She stretched her arms out from her sides for balance. “You do know saying that only guarantees I will, don’t you?”
She reached the middle. The plank quivered beneath her. Her head spun, and she froze. If only they’d made it to the castle a few hours earlier, they could have crossed the regular bridge and been safe inside by now.
“You can do it,” Gavran called behind her.
“How certain are you?”
“You’re almost there.”
She shook her head, immediately regretted the movement, and edged forward again. “How certain are you about Lady MacDonald providing sanctuary?”
“Half. I’m sure of the rumor, but I don’t know how much truth it held.”
The hound’s calls seemed to be right on top of them, and the rhythmic thumping of cantering horses joined it.
Her feet hit the solid ground. She gasped in a breath and planted her hands on her knees. “Half is better than what I have to offer.”
“It’s all we have.” He bounded across the plank. His teeth flashed in the darkness. “
Besides, that’s as sure as I was you were telling me the truth when I cut you from the tree.” He pounded on the watch door. “And we’ve no other options.”
Fair enough true. Gavran had a sense about people she’d never had. He never forgot a neighbor’s name or something they’d told him in all the time she knew him. She’d always been better with problem-solving than with people.
The watch door slid open, and Gavran gave them the story. She held her breath. She could see the horses outlined against the treeline below.
“You’ll have to wait until morning,” the guard said.
A shout carried on the night air. They’d been spotted.
She ducked under Gavran’s arm and pressed her face as close to the guard window as possible. It was at the perfect level for Gavran, but only her eyes could peer over the top. A bearded face looked back at her. The ale and garlic on his breath made her eyes water.
“Please.” She wrapped her hands around the bars. “They’ll have us dragged back home by then.”
The guard nodded to someone behind him, and chains rattled. “I’ll let ya in, but you’ll have to spend the rest of the night in the dungeon.”
Every speech she’d tried to prepare for Lady MacDonald sounded like she should be locked up for madness or cast out for trickery.
Ceana leaned her cheek against the damp stones next to the tiny slat on the locked door so she could see down the hallway. The guard who’d put them in the cell had left a single torch burning at the end. It’d almost burned down now. There couldn’t be much left to the night, and she was no further ahead. She shouldn’t have rejected Gavran’s offer to help her figure out how best to phrase their plea to Lady MacDonald.
It joined her list of the many, many things she shouldn’t have done. Her brain couldn’t even properly focus on what she’d soon say to Lady MacDonald. Even now, days later, it was too full with replaying her argument with Gavran.
She slapped a hand against the stones. Behind her, Gavran groaned in his sleep.
She turned around to face where he slept, sitting up, his head tilted back against the wall. She pressed her fingers into the stone behind her and dug for the hatred that had grown like mold inside her during her time living under the curses, but she couldn’t find it. It seemed to have been burned away and wiped clean.
In its place, the truth lay bare and stark, leaving her nowhere to turn to avoid it.
Rather than clinging to her memories of their years of friendship the way she should have, she’d held on to the one thing he’d done wrong. She’d been trying to punish him for it ever since they’d reunited. It wasn’t fair of her.
She didn’t know what to say or do to make it right. Apologies had always felt empty to her—mere words and words cost little. Her dadaidh had been master of apologies to her mamaidh when he sobered from the drink.
Apologies and excuses and promises he’d never keep. Those didn’t mend a wound any more than thank yous paid a fiddler.
She wasn’t even sure she could do it—apologize, forgive him, start again. It was safer to rely on herself.
It was safer to rely on herself because then nobody could let her down. When she hadn’t expected her dadaidh to be responsible and take care of her, she wasn’t disappointed and left wanting when he wasted his time and their money on drink. If she’d relied on him instead of herself, they all would have starved.
It was safer to rely on herself because then she didn’t have to suffer the consequences of anyone else’s bad choices when they refused to listen to the potential dangers she spotted in their plans. At least when she decided to walk out into the loch that night to collect cockles, the trouble she’d gotten into had been of her own making. She hadn’t been dragged out there by someone else who hadn’t been willing to listen to what might go wrong.
It was safer to rely on herself because no one looked on her with pity and thought her weak. She didn’t end up pleading for help, leaving her feeling naked while fully clothed. There were no sighs that said they didn’t want to help her but felt obligated to.
It was safer, but her stubborn self-reliance was also what got them into this in the first place. She was here now because she went out into the lochs collecting cockles alone, insisting she had to do it by herself. If she’d accepted Gavran’s help that night—asked for it even—they might have reached the shore safely on their own.
More than the wishes, her refusal to trust anyone but herself might have been what cost her the best friend she ever had.
She didn’t want to be that person anymore. She just wasn’t sure how to change it.
Gavran snorted, jerked upright, and rubbed a hand over his face. “Was I asleep? Why didn’t you wake me?”
She pressed close to the wall at her back, her hands behind her. “You deserved some rest, and we’ve no idea what the morrow will bring.”
He stared at her in a way that made her feel like all her thoughts were playing across her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. She thought he might have smiled, but the lighting was too dim for her to tell for sure. “Other than the obvious.”
It wasn’t fair that he still knew her so well when he couldn’t even remember her. “I don’t know what to say to Lady MacDonald.”
It wasn’t the full truth, but it was as much truth as she was brave enough to share.
He patted the floor beside him.
She crossed the cell slowly and lowered herself down next to him, leaving enough space so that their arms didn’t touch. “If I get it wrong—”
“You won’t. You’ll know what to say when the time comes.”
“How can you be so sure? Words tend to abandon me when I need them most.”
He dropped his wrists over his knees. “What did you say to the boy? Back in the market.”
The two hardly seemed related, but a smile filled her heart at the memory. One bannock was a far cry from what she longed to give him, but it’d been something. It’d made her feel like herself again. She’d seen him there so many times since the curses took hold of her, and she’d never been able to do anything to ease his suffering. “I told him the bannock was from his guardian angel and to remember that the angels of children see the Lord’s face in heaven.”
“Why tell him that?”
Because she knew what he needed to hear. That must be Gavran’s point. When she needed to, she’d know what to say to Lady MacDonald as well.
Gavran was still watching her as if he wanted to hear her answer, though. “To give him hope. When every day’s a fight, sometimes hope’s all you have to keep you going.”
He stiffened beside her. “Ceana.”
Her name came out soft. Kay-na. Same as he used to say it when they’d had a quarrel in their teens and he wanted to mend it.
And it choked her. She swallowed hard against a lump that wouldn’t give.
He shifted, angling toward her a fraction. Darkness hid his face. “Please forgive—”
She clamped her hand over his mouth. Their private signal. Forgiveness offered. Forgiveness accepted. Maybe some part of him would remember and hear all the things she was too weak to say. “I’m the one—”
He put his hand over her mouth, and her heart thrummed in her ears, so loud something must be wrong with it. He smiled against her palm, and she lowered her hand.
He leaned back against the wall again. Then, quickly, as if he wanted to do it before he could talk himself out of it, he scooted closer and slid an arm around her shoulders.
She should pull away. Her body didn’t respond to the command.
Her body might have forgotten, but the woman who once loved him was the old her. She wasn’t looking for that from him now. All she wanted now was help and forgiveness and maybe even friendship.
Since they both intended only that, maybe there was no reason to pull away.
Besides, it’d be insulting to reject his olive branch. And after all, the night would only grow colder before it got warm. There was no fire here to st
ave off the chill.
She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.
It was the most practical thing to do.
Chapter 13
A door rattled down the hallway, and Ceana scuttled to her feet. Her legs felt stiff from sitting on the hard floor, and a hazy feeling still filled her brain from lack of rest. The light now streaming down the hallway suggested they’d slept away part of the morning.
It couldn’t bode well that Lady MacDonald had waited so long to send for them.
A different guard from the one who’d brought them down the night before unlocked the door. “Lady MacDonald extends her apologies for leaving you waiting so long.”
The guard led them through a narrow passageway between buildings, open on the top but lined with stone walls on both sides, and out into the inner courtyard. Ceana blinked against the sun.
Sizzling rose from their left, where venison roasted on a giant spit over an open flame. The rich scent of roasting red meat, fennel, and rosemary hung heavy in the air, and Ceana’s mouth watered. It was no wonder her body felt held together by nothing more than her dirty clothes. She and Gavran hadn’t had anything to eat but what they could forage since the bannocks Gavran bought the morning they went to the spaewife. That was days ago.
A little boy, carrying a stack of wood high enough that only half his face showed, stared at them on their way by.
The guard let them into the main building. The woman waiting inside with another guard had exotic skin, like the Middle Eastern trader Ceana had once seen bringing silk to Dunvegan Castle, and hair and eyes the color of a seal’s pelt. The blue of her dress matched the depths of the ocean and seemed to flow around her.
She didn’t hold out her arms. She didn’t smile. She didn’t introduce herself or welcome them. Yet the overwhelming urge to hide in her embrace and cry on her shoulder nearly drove Ceana to her knees. Like she’d find peace there. She couldn’t explain it. Even as a child, she’d been the one to hold her mamaidh when she cried, not the other way around.
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