Once Upon a Castle

by Nora Roberts

  With a shrug, he peeled off his shirt and tried the sweater on. It fit as though it had been made for him. Of course it had, he realized. She’d spun the wool, dyed it, woven it. She’d known the length of his arms, the width of his chest.

  She’d known everything about him.

  He was tempted to yank it off, toss it aside. He was tired of his life and his mind being open to her when so much of hers was closed to him.

  But as he started to remove the sweater, he thought he heard her voice, whispering.

  A gift. Only a gift.

  He lifted his head, looked into the mirror. His face was unshaven, his hair wild, his eyes reflecting the storm-cloud color of the sweater.

  “The hell with it,” he muttered, and snatching up his camera and case, he left the house.

  He wandered the hills for an hour, ran through roll after roll of film. Mockingbirds sang as he clambered over stone walls into fields where cows grazed on grass as green as emeralds. He saw farmers on tractors, tending their land under a cloud-thickened sky. Clothes flapping with whip snaps on the line, cats dozing in dooryards and sunbeams.

  He wandered down a narrow dirt road where the hedgerows grew tall and thick. Through small breaks he spotted sumptuous gardens with flowers in rainbows of achingly beautiful colors. A woman with a straw hat over her red hair knelt by a flower bed, tugging up weeds and singing of a soldier gone to war. She smiled at him, lifted her hand in a wave as he passed by.

  He wandered near a small wood, where leaves unfurled to welcome summer and a brook bubbled busily. The sun was straight up, the shadows short. Spending the morning in normal pursuits had settled his mood. He thought it was time to go back, see if Bryna had cooled down—perhaps try out the darkroom she had equipped.

  A flash of white caught his eye, and he turned, then stared awestruck. A huge white stag stood at the edge of the leafy shadows, its blue eyes proud and wise.

  Keeping his movements slow, controlled, Cal raised his camera, then swore lightly when the stag lifted his massive head, whirled with impossible speed and grace, and bounded into the trees.

  “No, uh-uh, I’m not missing that.” With a quick glance at the ruins, which he had kept always just in sight, Cal dived into the woods.

  He had hunted wildlife with his camera before, knew how to move quietly and swiftly. He followed the sounds of the stag crashing through brush. A bird darted by, a black bullet with a ringed neck, as Cal leaped over the narrow brook, skidded on the damp bank, and dug in for the chase.

  Sun dappled through the leaves, dazzling his eyes, and sweat rolled down his back. Annoyed, he pushed the arms of the sweater up to his elbows and strained to listen.

  Now there was silence, complete and absolute. No breeze stirred, no bird sang. Frustrated, he shoved the hair out of his eyes, his breath becoming labored in the sudden stifling heat. His throat was parchment-dry, and thinking of the cold, clear water of the brook, he backtracked.

  The sun burned like a furnace through the sheltering leaves now. It surprised him that they didn’t singe and curl under the onslaught. Desperate for relief, he pulled off the sweater, laid it on the ground beside him as he knelt by the brook.

  He reached down to cup water in his hand. And pulled back a cup of coffee.

  “Do you good to get away for a few days, change of scene.”

  “What?” He stared down at the mug in his hand, then looked up into his mother’s concerned face.

  “Honey, are you all right? You’ve gone pale. Come sit down.”

  “I…Mom?”

  “Here, now, he needs some water, not caffeine.” Cal saw his father set down his fishing flies and rise quickly. Water ran out of the kitchen faucet into a glass. “Too much caffeine, if you ask me. Too many late nights in the darkroom. You’re wearing yourself out, Cal.”

  He sipped water, tasted it. Shuddered. “I—I had a dream.”

  “That’s all right.” Sylvia rubbed his shoulders. “Everybody has dreams. Don’t worry. Don’t think about them. We don’t want you to think about them.”

  “No—I thought it was, it wasn’t…” Wasn’t like before? he thought. It was more than before. “I went to Ireland.” He took a deep breath, tried to clear his hazy brain. Desperately, he wanted to turn, rest his head against his mother’s breast like a child. “Did I go to Ireland?”

  “You haven’t been out of New York in the last two months, slaving to get that exhibition ready.” His father’s brow creased. Cal saw the worry in his eyes, that old baffled look of concern. “You need a rest, boy.”

  “I’m not going crazy.”

  “Of course you’re not.” Sylvia murmured it, but Cal caught the faint uncertainty in her voice. “You’re just imagining things.”

  “No, it’s too real.” He took his mother’s hand, gripped it hard. He needed her to believe him, to trust him. “There’s a woman. Bryna.”

  “You’ve got a new girl and didn’t tell us.” Sylvia clucked her tongue. “That’s what this is about?”

  Was that relief in her voice, Cal wondered, or doubt? “Bryna—that’s an odd name, isn’t it, John? Pretty, though, and old-fashioned.”

  “She’s a witch.”

  John chuckled heartily. “They all are, son. Each and every one.” John picked up one of his fishing lures. The black fly fluttered in his fingers, its wings desperate for freedom. “Don’t you worry now.”

  “I—I need to get back.”

  “You need to sleep,” John said, toying with the fly. “Sleep and don’t give her a thought. One woman’s the same as another. She’s only trying to trap you. Remember?”

  “No.” The fly, alive in his father’s fingers. No, no, not his father’s hand. Too narrow, too long. His father had workingman’s hands, calloused, honest. “No,” Cal said again, and as he scraped back his chair, he saw cold fury light his father’s eyes.

  “Sit down.”

  “The hell with you.”

  “Calin! Don’t you speak to your father in that tone.”

  His mother’s voice was a shriek—a hawk’s call to prey—cutting through his head. “You’re not real.” He was suddenly calm, deadly calm. “I reject you.”

  He was running down a narrow road where the hedgerows towered and pressed close. He was breathless, his heart hammering. His eyes were focused on the ruined walls of the castle high on the cliff—and too far away.

  “Bryna.”

  “She waits for you.” The woman with the straw hat over her red hair looked up from her weeding and smiled sadly. “She always has, and always will.”

  His side burned from cramping muscles. Gasping for air, Cal pressed a hand against the pain. “Who are you?”

  “She has a mother who loves her, a father who fears for her. Do you think that those who hold magic need family less than you? Have hearts less fragile? Needs less great?”

  With a weary sigh, she rose, walked toward him and stepped into the break in the hedge. Her eyes were green, he saw, and filled with worry, but the mouth with its serious smile was Bryna’s.

  “You question what she is—and what she is bars you from giving your heart freely. Knowing this, and loving you, she has sent you away from danger and faces the night alone.”

  “Sent me where? How? Who are you?”

  “She’s my child,” the woman said, “and I am helpless.” The smile curved a little wider. “Almost helpless. Look to the clearing, Calin Farrell, and take what is offered to you. My daughter waits. Without you, she dies this night.”

  “Dies?” Terror gripped his belly. “Am I too late?”

  She only shook her head and faded back into air.

  He awoke, drenched with sweat, stretched out on the cool, damp grass of the bank. And the moon was rising in a dark sky.

  “No.” He stumbled to his feet, found the sweater clutched in his hand. “I won’t be too late. I can’t be too late.” He dragged the sweater over his head as he ran.

  Now the trees lashed, whipped by a wind that came from no
where and howled like a man gone mad. They slashed at him, twined together like mesh to block his path with gnarled branches armed with thorns. He fought his way through, ignored the gash that sliced through denim into flesh.

  Overhead, lighting cut like a broadsword and dimmed the glow of the full white moon.

  Alasdair. Hate roiled up inside him, fighting against the love he’d only just discovered. Alasdair would not win, if he had to die to prevent it.

  “Bryna.” He lifted his head to the sky as it exploded with wild, furious rain. “Wait for me. I love you.”

  The stag stood before him, white as bone, its patient eyes focused. Cal rushed forward as it turned and leaped into the shadows. With only instinct to trust, he plunged into the dark to follow the trail. The ground trembled under his feet, thorns ripped his clothes to tatters as he raced to keep that flash of white in sight.

  Then it was gone as he fell bleeding into a clearing where moonlight fought through the clouds to beam on a jet-black horse.

  Without hesitation, Calin accepted the impossible. Taking the reins, he vaulted into the saddle, his knees vising as the stallion reared and trumpeted a battle cry. As he rode, he heard the snap of a cloak flying and felt the hilt of a sword gripped in his own hand.

  9

  The Castle of Secrets glimmered with the light of a thousand torches. Its walls glinted silver and speared up toward the moon. The stone floor of the great hall was smooth as marble. In the center of the charmed circle cast by the ancients, Bryna stood in a robe of white, her hair a fall of fire, her eyes the blue of heated steel.

  Here she would make her stand.

  “Do you call the thunder and whistle up the winds, Alasdair? Such showmanship.”

  In a swirl of smoke, a sting of sulphur, he appeared before her. Solid now, his flesh as real as hers. He wore the robes of crimson, of blood and power. His golden looks were beautiful, an angel’s face but for the contrast of those dark, damning eyes.

  “And an impressive, if overdone entrance,” Bryna said lightly, though her pulse shuddered.

  “Your trouble, my darling, is that you fail to appreciate the true delights of power. Contenting yourself with your woman’s charms and potions when worlds are at your mercy.”

  “I take my oath, and my gifts, to heart, Alasdair. Unlike you.”

  “My only oath is to myself. You’ll belong to me, Bryna, body and soul. And you will give me what I want the most.” He flung up a hand so that the walls shook. “Where is the globe?”

  “Beyond you, Alasdair, where it will remain. As I will.” She gestured sharply, shot a bolt of white light into the air to land and burn at his feet. A foolish gesture, she knew, but she needed to impress him.

  He angled his head, smiled indulgently. “Pretty tricks. The moon is rising to midnight, Bryna. The time of waiting is ending. Your warrior has deserted you once again.”

  He stepped closer, careful not to test the edge of the circle and his voice became soft, seductive. “Why not accept—even embrace—what I offer you? Lifetimes of power and pleasure. Riches beyond imagination. You have only to accept, to take my hand, and we will rule together.”

  “I want no part of your kingdom, and I would rather be bedded by a snake than have your hands on me.”

  Murky blue fire gleamed at his fingertips, his anger taking form. “You’ve felt them on you in your dreams. And you’ll feel them again. Gentle I can be, or punishing, but you’ll never feel another’s hand but mine. He’s lost to you, Bryna. And you are lost to me.”

  “He’s safe from you.” She threw up her head. “So I have already won.” Lifting her hands, she loosed a whip of power, sent him flying back. “Be gone from this place.” Her voice filled the great hall, rang like bells. “Or face the death of mortals.”

  He wiped a hand over his mouth, furious that she’d drawn first blood. “A battle, then.”

  At his vicious cry, a shadow formed at his feet, and the shadow took the shape of a wolf, black-pelted, red-eyed, fangs bared. With a snarl, it sprang, leaping toward Bryna’s throat.

  Cal pounded up the cliff, driving his mount furiously. The castle glowed brilliant with light, its walls tall and solid again, its turrets shafts of silver that nicked the cloud-chased moon. With a burst of knowledge, he thrust a hand inside the cloak and drew out the globe that waited there.

  It swam red as blood, fire sparks of light piercing the clouds. He willed them to clear, willed himself to see as he thundered higher toward the crest of the cliff.

  Visions came quickly, overlapping, rushing. Bryna weeping as she watched him sleep. The dark chamber with the globe held between them and her whispering her spell.

  You will be safe, you will be free. There is nothing, my love, you cannot ask of me. Follow the stag whose pelt is white, if your heart is not open come not back in the night. This gift and this duty I trust unto you. The globe of hope and visions true. Live, and be well, and remember me not. What cannot be held is best forgot. What I do I do free. As I will, so mote it be.

  And terror struck like a snake, its fangs plunging deep into the heart. For he knew what she meant to do.

  She meant to die.

  She wanted to live, and fought fiercely. She sliced the wolf, cleaving its head from its body with one stroke of will. And its blood was black.

  She sent her lights blazing, the burning cold that would scorch the flesh and freeze the bone.

  And knew she would lose when midnight rang.

  Alasdair’s robes smoked from the violence of her power. And still he could not break the circle and claim her.

  He sent the ground heaving under her feet, watched her sway, then fall to her knees. And his smile bloomed dark when her head fell weakly and that fiery curtain of hair rained over the shuddering stones.

  “Will you ask for pain, Bryna?” He stepped closer, felt the hot licks when his soft boots skimmed the verge of the circle. Not yet, he warned himself, inching back. But soon. Her spell was waning. “Just take my hand, spare yourself. We will forget this battle and rule. Give me your hand, and give me the globe.”

  Her breath was short and shallow. She whispered words in the old tongue, the secrets of magic, incantations that flickered weakly as her power slipped like water through her fingers.

  “I will not yield.”

  “You will.” He inched closer again, pleased when he met with only faint resistance. “You have no choice. The charm was cast, the time has come. You belong to me now.”

  He reached down, and her shoulder burned where his fingers brushed. “I belong to Calin.” She gripped the amulet, steeling herself, then flipped its poison chamber open with her thumb. She whipped her head up and, with a last show of defiance, smiled. “You will never have what is his.”

  She brought the amulet to her lips, prepared to take the powder.

  The horse and rider burst into the torchlight in a flurry of black, storm-gray, and bright steel.

  “Would you rather die than trust me?” Cal demanded furiously.

  The amulet slipped through her fingers, the powder sifted onto the stones. “Calin.”

  “Touch her, Alasdair”—Cal controlled the restless horse as if he’d been born astride one—“and I’ll cut off your hands at the wrists.”

  Though there was alarm, and there was shock, Alasdair straightened slowly. He would not lose now. The woman was already defeated, he calculated, and the man was, after all, only a foolish mortal. “You were a warrior a thousand years ago, Caelan of Farrell. You are no warrior tonight.”

  Cal vaulted from the horse, and his sword sang as he pulled it from its scabbard. “Try me.”

  Unexpected little flicks of fear twisted in Alasdair’s belly. But he circled his opponent, already plotting. “I will bring such fury raining down on your head…” He crossed his arms over his chest, then flung them to the side. Black balls of lightning shot out, hissing trails of snaking sparks.

  Instinctively Cal raised the sword. Pain and power shot up his arm as the charges
struck, careened away, and crashed smoking into stone.

  “Do you think such pitiful weapons can defend against a power such as mine?” Arrogance and rage rang in Alasdair’s voice as he hurled arrows of flame. His cry echoed monstrously as the arrows struck Cal’s cloak and melted into water.

  “Your power is nothing here.”

  Bryna was on her feet again, her white robe swirling like foam. And her face so glowed with beauty that both men stared in wonder.

  “I am the guardian of this place.” Her voice was deeper, fuller, as if a thousand voices joined it. “I am a witch whose power flows clean. I am a woman whose heart is bespoken. I am the keeper of all you will never own. Fear me, Alasdair. And fear the warrior who stands with me.”

  “He will not stand with you. And what you guard, I will destroy.” With fists clenched, he called the flames, shot the torches from their homes to wheel and burn and scorch the air. “You will bow yet to my will.”

  With lifted arms, Bryna brought the rain, streaming pure and cool through the flames to douse them. And felt as the damp air swirled, the power pour through her, from her, as rich and potent as any she’d known.

  “Save this place,” Alasdair warned, “and lose the man.” He whirled on Cal, sneered at the lifted sword. “Remember death.”

  Like a blade sliced through the belly, the agony struck. Blood flowed through his numbed fingers, and the sword clattered onto the wet stone. He saw his death, leaping like a beast, and heard Bryna’s scream of fear and rage.

  “You will not harm him. It’s trickery only, Calin, hear me.” But her terror for him was so blinding that she ran to him, leaving the charm of the circle.

  The bolt of energy slapped her like a jagged fist, sent her reeling, crumbling. Paralyzed, she fought for her strength but found the power that had flowed so pure and true now only an ebbing flicker.

  “Calin.” The hand she’d flung out to shield him refused to move. She could only watch as he knelt on the stones, unarmed, bleeding, beyond her reach. “You must believe,” she whispered. “Trust. Believe or all is lost.”