by Vivian Wood
The bitterness of the decision was still heavy on his tongue a week later as he walked amongst the small clusters of sleeping clan members, moving from one end of the narrow valley toward the other. He paused as he came to a pallet whose occupant was entirely covered, except a riot of golden curls that couldn’t be repressed. He knew those curls well, had admired them and longed for their owner since boyhood.
Anne Grant was just one more thing he’d given up when he’d left on his fool’s errand to fight for the King. If only Rhys had listened to his father and stayed in Tighnabruaich, let his younger brother Craig serve the King’s cause. The pallet shifted, and Anne rolled onto her back, giving him a good look at her sleeping face. Next to her, Rhys could now see her young son Toran. The boy was a perfect copy of his father, one of the first men slain by the MacGregors.
The knowledge that not only had he lost any chance at Anne’s love, but also her respect for Rhys as clan leader, was every bit as harsh as the guilt he felt for her loss. She was lost to him, in every sense. Even if he’d wanted to court Anne some day, even if he didn’t know that she looked at his adventures in the King’s service with no little loathing, Anne had eyes for no one but her beloved Logen, and the son Logen had given her.
Stomach tightening, Rhys moved on. There was no use longing for a woman who now hated him. He needed to focus on the present, on keeping the clan together and alive. If they could but make it to the sea, follow the coast upward a few days’ ride, they might make it to the MacLeans, his mother’s people. He wasn’t entirely certain of the welcome the Macaulays would receive, but it was their only chance.
Rhys turned and trudged up to the top of the easternmost hill, steadying himself several times against the loose rocks and soil underfoot. At the top, he saw the very beginnings of dawn, as he’d predicted. Shoving a hand through his dark hair, which he’d released from its tie to brush the top of his broad shoulders, Rhys spent a moment adjusting his plaid, which had loosened somewhat on his ascent up the hill. He then opened his sporran, the leather pouch that hung from a chain around his waist, and withdrew a folded map and a tarnished bronze compass.
Squatting, he gently spread the the map out on the ground. The paper was already worn thin, tearing at the fold lines, the smaller print smudged and faded. After a few minutes’ calculation, Rhys determined the direction of the sea and the closest route to the coast. Going to the sea would solve the problem of their fast-diminishing rations, as well as leading them inexorably north toward the MacLeans.
He put the map and compass back in his sporran and turned to head back down the valley, then froze in place. He squinted into the distance, cursing the feeble early morning light. Was that… damn, it was smoke. From the look of it, quite a large campfire, and only a few hours’ ride from where Rhys now stood.
“Damnation,” he muttered. Peering down into the valley, he pressed two fingers to his lips and gave a long, low whistle. Three sleeping forms shot to their feet in moments, all three guard captains in perfect sync as they turned to find Rhys, trudging toward him as they rubbed sleep from their eyes. Rory, Donal, and Tristan were his three most trusted men, and true to form they were at Rhys’s side in under two minutes.
“Laird,” Donal said, inclining his head respectfully. Rhys appreciated Donal’s tried and true loyalty, but he had no time for formalities just now.
“Smoke,” Rhys said, pointing to draw their attention to the horizon. The sky was growing lighter by the minute, which meant that the MacGregors could be on the Macaulay camp in a matter of hours. Sooner, even, if they’d sent scouts ahead.
Tristan looked at the smoke, then looked down into the valley where the clan slept.
“Shite,” he said, his brogue thick as tar. “We canna move the bairns. No’ yet, no’ when they’ve hardly slept a wink.”
“Aye,” Rhys agreed, conscious of his own accent, how his words had been worn down and rounded by his time serving the King. Just one more thing that separated him from his clan.
“Nor can we fight, unless they’re a very wee number,” Rory pointed out, rubbing the back of his neck. “No’ with the women and the babies atop us as such.”
Rhys nodded, already knowing that his next words would be every bit as bitter as the announcement that the Macaulays would flee Tighnabruaich.
“Donal, you must take five men and lead the women away,” Rhys said, his voice nearly faltering on the last syllable.
“Laird—” Donal stuttered, but Rhys stopped him with a gesture.
“Go now, start waking them up. Tristan, get some lads to ready the horses. And Rory, we need to ready the men to ride.”
“Where, Laird?” Rory asked, his brow hunching.
Rhys looked at Rory, his stomach as leaden as his heart.
“Straight to the MacGregors, lad.”
Rory visibly swallowed, but in a heartbeat all three men were sliding down the valley, following Rhys’s orders. Rhys looked at the smoke rising in the sky once more, then looked down at his bedraggled, exhausted clan. In his heart of hearts, Rhys had not an ounce of hope that this day, this fight, could end in the Macaulays’ favor.
Just as he moved to slide down the valley, following his men to make the announcement to the clan he’d failed, the air around him seemed to tense, thicken. The valley, his clan, the early morning sky… it all slid away from his consciousness, and all he could see was white. Pure, formless, endless white. He looked down, and he could see himself perfectly well, but all else was insubstantial and blank.
For a moment, Rhys couldn’t help but think that an arrow had taken him by surprise, hit him in the neck and killed him in an eye’s blink. This endless white, then, was purgatory. He’d wait here until he was sent to hell, the sentence he deserved for ruining his clan, turning his back on his people in his quest for glory and excitement.
“Rhys.” A woman’s voice, her accent unlike any Rhys had ever heard. Not Scots, Irish, or English. Not even French, which Rhys had heard a few times. Mayhap Italian or German; he’d heard such people had strange ways of speaking. But why would a German be speaking to him in purgatory? Perhaps an Italian, like Dante?
Turning slowly, Rhys was astonished to find a very wee woman standing a stone’s throw from him. She was so foreign as to puzzle him, her skin so dark from the sun that she was brown as a river rock from head to toe. She wore a strange, formfitting blue gown, her glossy midnight hair braided close to her head. Her feet were bare, and she wore no jewelry or plaid, nor any other mark of her clan. She was not young, despite her dark hair, yet she was not quite old and wizened either. Ageless, in a way that made Rhys aware of her inhumanity.
“Rhys,” she said again, over-pronouncing his name, so it sounded less guttural, like Reece. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” he said, watching her with baited breath.
“I am Mere Marie,” she said slowly.
“Am I dead, then?” he asked, looking around at the vast whiteness around him once more.
“Oh,” Mere Marie said, looking surprised. “No, but I’ve a feeling that you’re not far from it, present circumstances considered.”
Rhys took a few moments to parse her oddly-accented words, then nodded.
“Aye, I suppose,” he agreed. “My people are in grave danger. I need to get back to them.”
Mere Marie waved a hand.
“Worry not, their world out there is… let us say, paused, for the moment. Nothing will happen without you.”
Rhys merely cocked his head, trying to understand why… how… where he was.
“I see I’m not making things better,” Mere Marie said, her copper eyes flashing with something akin to amusement. “I am here to save your people, your…”
“Clan,” Rhys filled in when she hesitated.
“Yes. I want to make a bargain,” she said.
Rhys stilled.
“So you’re the devil, then,” he concluded, shocked by his own lack of surprise. She was fetching, in a manner, and
exotic.
“No!” Mere Marie said, clearly startled. “No, no devil. I work on what you might consider to be the other side of the equation.”
Rhys puzzled that out.
“You’re an angel? You work for God?”
The peculiar woman flinched, then shook her head again.
“No. But I’m closer to an angel than a devil. Today, at least.”
Rhys decided to take that statement at face value, turning back to her earlier words.
“You spoke of a bargain,” he said.
“Yes. I can save your clan, if you wish. I can destroy Angus MacGregor, make him sorry he ever threatened your people."
Rhys narrowed his gaze.
"I'm not sure how you'd do that. The MacGregors are stubborn bastards. Even if you did, my people have nothing to go back to now. The village is burned."
Mere Marie canted her head, considering. After a moment, she waved her hand to indicate the vast whiteness surrounding them.
"You have seen that I have power. I can change things, go back before the MacGregors first attacked your clan. If that is your wish."
Something in her tone made Rhys question her motive.
"And what of the cost? I gather that your help is not without some reciprocation."
Mere Marie gave him a calculating look, then nodded.
"It's true, there is something I want. Your service back in my... land," she said. Rhys could sense that she was choosing her words very carefully. No surprise there, really; witches derived much of their power from incantations, words spoken in the correct order, at the right moment. They were often circumspect in their phrasing.
"For how long?" he asked.
"You would never return to Scotland, I'm afraid."
Rhys felt like she'd delivered a physical blow.
"Never return to Scotland?" he echoed, taken aback. "From where do you hail, witch?"
A muscle ticked in her jaw, and Rhys could tell that she found him disrespectful.
"You'll address me as Mistress, or nothing," she hissed, pointing a finger at him. The change in her was startling, making Rhys take a step back despite having the advantage of greater size on his side. "Now will you choose to save your people, or not?"
Rhys glared at her, but he knew what his answer must be.
"Aye. I'd do anything," he said. Anne's image flashed in his head, the perfect example of why he'd sacrifice all for his clan.
"Good," Mere Marie said. She produced a thin book bound in midnight black leather, and opened it to show him a contract.
There was more in the contract, several paragraphs of text, but Rhys didn't need to read it. No matter what it said, he would sign. At the bottom of the page was a broad line, awaiting his signature.
"Have you a quill?" he asked.
Mere Marie handed him an odd silver instrument. The rod was perhaps as long as his hand and thinner than one of his fingers. Rhys took it, gripping it uncertainly. Mere Marie gestured, showing him how he ought to hold it, to press the tip to the page. The second he pressed the instrument to the paper, a deep jolt of pain shot through him. The ink came out a deep, vivid crimson, and it took Rhys several moments to realize that he was somehow signing the contract in his own blood.
"Go on," Mere Marie urged, her eyes darkened with anticipation. "Finish it."
Gritting his teeth, Rhys scrawled his signature across the book's page. The second he withdrew the instrument, Mere Marie snatched the book back, blowing on the page to dry the ink. She closed the book with a snap, then took the pen back from him, vanishing both items easily.
"It is done," she said, strangely eager.
"Will I be able to say my goodbyes?" Rhys asked.
Mere Marie shook her head slowly.
"This scene, what's happening right now... It will never happen," she explained. "You'll never come back from the war. Instead I will save your brother's life, which means your clan will never be undefended."
Something warm bloomed in Rhys's chest. He hadn't considered that his brother might live as part of the bargain, but no news could be more welcome. He couldn't form the words to express the feeling, so he looked into the distance and nodded, feeling his throat constrict with happiness. Truly, this was the first good thing to happen since he'd returned from the King's service.
"Let us go, then," he managed. "Take me to your land, Mistress."
Mere Marie shot him a look of pure satisfaction, then clapped her hands together.
"Close your eyes," she said. "And prepare yourself for your new life, Rhys Macaulay."
Rhys closed his eyes, and everything went blissfully dark.
3
Chapter Three
Gabriel
London, England — 1847
A bone-shaking growl of pleasure ripped from Gabriel Thorne’s throat as he hurtled down a narrow London side street, frantically racing toward his sister’s rooms in Whitechapel. The leather satchel slung about his torso was heavy, slowing him down a little, but nothing could dampen his spirits. Not when he was this close to attaining a better life for himself and his sister Caroline.
He turned a corner and came out onto a larger thoroughfare, dodging several horse-drawn carts. Darkness had fallen over the city, and Gabriel passed two young boys carrying tall brazier torches, slowly working their way down the sidewalks as they lit the gas street lamps. With the ground under his feet better illuminated, Gabriel allowed himself a final burst of speed as his sister’s cheap second-floor apartment came into view, the hastily-built clapboard structure leaning against the next building. Back-to-backs, they were called. Whitechapel was crammed with tenements like these, row after row after row of houses for the poor. And the Thornes were certainly poor, despite Caroline’s recent marriage.
No longer, though. A smile tipped Gabriel’s lips as he approached Caroline’s building, slowing to keep himself from plowing into a trundling oxcart. It had taken him twenty nine years of life, five years of painstaking magick practice, and several months of preparation for the enrichment spell he was about to cast.
Gabriel fairly flew up the stairs to Caroline’s flat. Running along the wobbly outdoor walkway to her house, he almost slammed into Caroline’s husband Thomas, who was just stepping out the front door. The red-haired blacksmith was already scowling, which was not a bit unusual, but his expression darkened further when he looked up to find Gabriel in the doorway.
Thomas’s lips lifted in a sneer, the threat of violence clear as he bared his teeth at Gabriel. Gabriel could sense that Thomas’s bear was close to the surface, no doubt stirred up by yet another argument with Caroline. Bear shifters were a hot-tempered lot to begin with, but Thomas and Caroline were exceptionally so. They’d been close to brawling every minute of the day since they’d tied the knot.
Needless to say, Gabriel disliked Thomas every bit as much as he loved his sister.
Gabriel stepped to the side to let Thomas pass, then hurried inside and closed the flimsy front door.
“Carro!” he shouted for his sister. “I’ve brought it!”
Caroline emerged from the further of the two rooms that made up her apartment, wiping at her eyes.
“What ‘ave you brought, then?” she asked, her accent much thicker and rougher than Gabriel’s own. Given the choice between the two siblings, Gabriel’s parents had spent a portion of what little money they had sending Gabriel off to the parish seminary at a young age. There Gabriel had befriended Old Wilhem, who had taken in Gabriel when his parents died.
It took Gabriel two years to find his sister after their abrupt separation, and by then Caroline, age thirteen and three years older than Gabriel, had already found rooms of her own and taken a job as a scullery maid in one of the great houses in London.
“I told you. I saved up and send off for some ambergris through the post,” he said, politely ignoring his sister’s tear-reddened eyes and nose. Usually Gabriel was blunt to the point of offense, but he was sweeter with his sister than anyone else. She was all
he had in the world, and he was determined to do right by her. She deserved so much more than breaking her back to clean rich people’s homes all day and then coming home to care for a mercurial, often cruel husband.
Thus the spell, whose ingredients Gabriel began to pull from his satchel, naming them as he carefully laid them out on the table that dominated Caroline’s front room.
“Here’s the ambergris,” he said, producing a small wax paper packet of the priceless whale secretion. “And mandrake, Shisandra and yarrow root, spotted owl feathers, and dragonsbloom…”
Caroline watched him, her lips pressed into a near frown. She let him continue until he’d listed all the ingredients of the spell, eyes widening as he pulled out a dusty spell book, a golden wand, and a hand-sized, hollow bowl made of delicate crystal. All borrowed from Old Wilhem without the man’s knowledge, but that couldn’t be helped. When Gabriel introduced the last tool he needed for the spell, a small but wickedly-sharp ceremonial knife, Caroline’s brow furrowed with concern.
“Wot ya think you’re doing with all that, eh?” she asked.
Gabriel grabbed her wrist and pulled her over to the table.
“Sit with me. The spell won’t take long. Once it’s done, we’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams,” he said, a grin spreading across his face.
“You been with that ol’ wizard too long, Gabes,” Caroline informed him with a cocked brow. “You’ve gone cracked.”
“Not yet,” Gabriel said with a wink. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Caroline gave a long-suffering sigh, but waved him on.
“Tell me, then,” she said.
“It’s simple. I mix all the ingredients, summon the right spirit, say just the right things, and then we’re rich as Croesus,” he told her.
“I don’t know, Gabes. Ya sure you know wot you’re messin’ with?” Caroline asked.
“Perfectly,” he shot back, arching a brow.
Caroline waved a hand and blew out a breath.
“Go on, then, Mister. When carrots start growin’ on your ‘ead, I’m gonna laugh.”
