Knight Everlasting

by Jackie Ivie

  “Lads, the shutters.”

  Both brothers were at the far end of the room, pulling open shutter after shutter along the far wall. After the first one, Juliana could see the inverted V shape had been carved and thinned, so the windows were linked closer than the original thirty-foot depth of wall granted them. The result was a series of narrow windows, spaced closely together, gaining a view encompassing Buchyn Loch, a bit of dark land that was the opposite shore, and past that nothing but open sea.

  The sky had cleared more, for sun sent the shadow of Castle Ketryck’s battlements out to skip along the low-hanging wisps of clouds. Juliana’s eyes followed the jagged outline of castle projected onto mist that was stained with the most unearthly glow as it reflected the multihued shimmer from the water beneath.

  “Oh . . . Aidan.”

  It was as if he’d planned for her to see this, and at the most perfect moment. Juliana’s eyes were wide, and the same thing happened to her lips as her mouth dropped open. Her heart was hammering until it felt like a caged thing, shoving at her chest wall with every bit of how the experience touched her, spoke to her . . . entangled her even more with him.

  Aidan cleared his throat beside her. “Arran? You’re to fetch whatever the Lady Reina requires.”

  He released the hold atop Juliana’s left hand as he spoke, but she barely felt it. She was rooted to the spot in awe. And then she felt him pulling her hand off his arm before he turned away, although he didn’t move.

  “Alpin? You’re to make certain she stays here. Guard the outer chamber. Nobody leaves. Nobody but Lady Reina enters. You ken?”

  He was somehow in the space right in front of her, although she hadn’t seen him move. He’d also tipped his head down and toward her, putting him so close his breath meshed with hers. Juliana was gripped by his gaze. He sighed out a huge breath, sending air all over her nose and lips.

  “And now . . . I must go.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t know what it would be. She should thank him. Something stopped her. Pride. Juliana stood to her full height, which was just below his chin, and faced him.

  “You’re safe now, Juliana. With me.” He swiveled from her and gestured for his brother. “Alpin . . . now!”

  The last was clipped and rapid and angered. He was at the door in four steps, Alpin at his heels. Juliana watched him pull it open and then shut it behind him with a slam.

  “You’ve brought a lady with you.”

  Aidan lowered his chin and blinked, trying to bring into focus the elderly woman who was perched atop a stuffed stool engrossed in her sewing. Myriad tall vases of oddsmelling oils sat on shelves and tables in her tower. And then she’d lit the wicks within them, putting a haze of smoke into the room that was being caressed and then grafted by what daylight came through her window. He didn’t know how she could see to sew.

  “Have I?” he asked.

  She smiled at her project. Murky sunlight washed her lined face, giving her a beatific and innocent aura and hiding the vituperative, malevolent, and evil woman.

  “You knew it the moment you landed atop her.”

  Aidan shrugged. “Which time?” he asked.

  Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat chuckled, bringing the lines into even more definition. She bent back to her sewing, putting two more nearly invisible stitches into the cloth, with thread that had the same issue. She might as well have been sewing with air between her needle and the fabric, Aidan decided.

  “Every time . . . sweet laird. All of them. You knew her innocence. And you still took it.”

  He grunted an answer.

  “And now you come to me.”

  “Aye.”

  “It’s . . . too late. Almost.”

  He rolled his head atop his shoulders, listening for the cracking of bone, and then looked back at her. “Well . . . ’tis your fault. All of it.”

  She laughed again at that. She lifted her bit of material and perused it while she spoke. “Your da had the same idea. He erred. I doona’ control the fates. I only read them.”

  “Then . . . read them.” He took a step farther into the room and looked about before trying to pierce the haze, which appeared to have thickened. This tower was granted to her by his grace, and taken away by the same. He watched as she assimilated the threat and then nodded.

  “Rash. Reckless.” She shook her head and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “But there is also courageous. Victorious. Exactly as I foretold. Your da was a fool to argue it.”

  Aidan pulled in a large breath and nodded. “So. Assist me.”

  She stood with the heft of old age dogging her bones, and wadded the material into a roll on her arm. Aidan tried to pierce the smoke at her movements. She pushed at her material, shoving it onto itself again and again, over her lower arm, and from there to her hand, while it packed tighter and tighter and got smaller and more compact, until when she’d finished, there was a tear-drop-shaped thing that fit in the palm of her hand. Aidan watched it and still didn’t believe it.

  “When did you decide to make her your woman?” she asked.

  “I dinna’,” he replied.

  “She is in your chambers . . . as we speak.”

  “Oh. I dinna’ decide that,” he clarified. “’Twas an impulse.”

  “And when did this impulse happen?”

  “The moment Lachlan stopped me.”

  She nodded. Lifted her piece and twirled it in front of her face, back and forth, while what sunlight there was picking out facets on the thing. Aidan shut his eyes and shook his head; reopened them. It looked jewel-like, and that wasn’t possible, either.

  “Lachlan . . . MacGorrick. That one is a mistake of nature.”

  “Aye. Kerr’s father’s cousin. That would be the Lachlan I speak of,” Aidan replied.

  “You did it to keep her . . . safe?”

  “I canna’ keep her from the Black MacKetryck’s machinations if I doona’ ken where she is.”

  “And . . . in your bed is the safest place?”

  Aidan tilted his head to one side, sucked in on his cheeks, and still couldn’t prevent the flush. He knew it was happening even without the slight reddish tint starting to color the smoke hovering in the room. She didn’t see it since she’d decided to go to her fire, and poke a full blaze into existence from just a few embers, but he knew she was aware of his reaction. It was in the chuckling she kept doing.

  “So . . . now the grand MacKetryck laird needs a charm from me?”

  “More than one,” he admitted, blinking the red haze into a pinkish washed one.

  “Lady Reina would have sufficed for that. Yet . . . you seek me. Despite your fear.”

  “What fear?” he asked, lowering his voice and chin farther.

  Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat spun up from the fireplace and tossed something at him. Aidan twirled to one side, listening to the rain of blades hitting the floor from the skeans she’d tossed. And then popping with a distinctive sharp sound, making nothing more than black spots where he’d been standing.

  “Rash. Reckless. And quick. I forgot to add that one,” she informed him before nodding. He watched her go back to her fire.

  “You should have been put to the stake and burned,” Aidan said, watching her as close as possible through the red fog coloring his vision, getting deeper and then fading along with each beat of his heart. Red. Pink. Red.

  “You’d be the third MacKetryck to try such. And all that happened is . . . the Lady Reina got disfigured. Scarred.”

  “And that because I halted it and saved you. Both of you. Me. Aidan MacKetryck.”

  She stood, pondered her fire for a moment, and then looked over her shoulder at him. Aidan tightened everything, preparatory to evading whatever she tossed again. Instead, she smiled.

  “So . . . what do you ask of me, Aidan MacKetryck?”

  “I need a charm. Of vast potency.”

  “Vast?”

  “To turn back time.”

  Sh
e shook her head. “You think me a sorceress?”

  “You doona’ wish to ken what I think you,” Aidan replied. “I would not ask it, if I were you.”

  She turned fully to him to stare from across the span of room. The fire leapt higher behind her, silhouetting her smokeblurred, thin, frail form. With the red coloring everything, it was macabre and sinister. Aidan locked his teeth and returned her look exactly as given. She finally sighed.

  “Sweet laird . . . it might be something if you . . . had the ring?”

  “The ring?” He shouldn’t be surprised. He still was.

  “The one with entwined serpents. Tucked into your sporran. That ring.”

  Only three men knew of it. And none of them would betray him. Aidan put his hands on hips, attempting a relaxed, indifferent pose, but knew it was to stop the trembling. Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat had always frightened him. Very few of his clansmen would be in the same room with her. And never alone.

  “I doona’ have it any longer,” he informed her.

  She shook her head. “Pity.”

  “What else would work?”

  She ignored him for a moment and turned back to her fireplace and the small kettle that was now hanging from a hook in it. He narrowed his eyes on a smoke that was starting to itch and burn his eyes and watched her toss the strange prism she’d created from her material into the kettle. Then she put in one drop of liquid from another tall container. She stirred her kettle slightly to a clanking sound of metal on metal.

  “’Tis a verra powerful thing . . . to turn back time, Aidan Niall MacKetryck. It also begs the question of why. What perchance would you change . . . had I the ability to do it for you?”

  “What else would work?” he repeated.

  “Would you wish to keep from meeting with her? Aidan Niall.” She was clicking her tongue again, fussing over her fire, shaking her head and speaking more to the flames than to him. “Fate canna’ be changed so easily. She’d have crossed your path again. With even worse happenings.”

  “Fate?” he asked, raising one brow.

  “Or perhaps you need a potion to stop her potency to you? Is this what you came to Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat for, sweet laird?”

  He opened his mouth. Shut it.

  “There is nothing against a love such as you both have. You ken?”

  You both. His ears heard it, but his heart was already hitting at him over it, putting a red wash to the haze in full, hued shades, coloring everything about the scene.

  “So . . . what else can I do for you, Aidan Niall?”

  He shook his head slightly, blinked, and cleared his throat. “Since you canna’ do what I need, I ask a charm. A potent one.”

  “I will na’ stop the bairn you’ve planted in her belly. If this is what you wish . . . I warn you. The male child she carries is the start of your legacy. I will na’ destroy it. You ken?”

  His legs wobbled. His ears started ringing, and everything else on him was twitching. Jumping. Giddy with it. Giving him such a huge rush of sensation, he was weak and dizzy with it. Red colored everything and everywhere he looked. Aidan locked every muscle he owned and broke into huge heavy gulps for breath as if he’d just come in from a battle on the list. He heard her cackling in the background as an oddly resonant sound. He broke into a full sweat before he had the urge to faint finally conquered and buried again. His limbs were sore with it. His heart was a huge heavy pounding force with it.

  The bairn.

  “’Tis a pure shame . . . you requested a betrothal with the Campbell heiress. You should have seen me afore sending the note.”

  “Can—” Aidan had to stop and clear his throat. It sounded like he’d stuffed a hunk of dried bread in his mouth and was choking on it. She found that even more amusing. He couldn’t see her clearly, but he had no trouble hearing her laughter.

  “Can I alter that? Is this what you ask?” she asked, once she’d ceased the hilarity and gone back to stirring and clanking the object in her pot.

  He nodded.

  “The Campbell clan is a verra large clan, Aidan Niall. Strong. Rich.”

  He nodded again.

  “Even more bloodthirsty than MacKetryck clan. With more warriors. More weaponry.”

  His head was pounding in rhythm with the red, sending a bloodred hue through him and onto the fog that was billowing about the room . . . before fading back to a light wash. He blinked, but it just kept coming, filling his vision, heating his blood. Dark red. Light wash. Dark red. Light wash. Blood-hued . . .

  “Is that a . . . nae?” he asked finally.

  “Make certain the child is a MacKetryck, Aidan Niall. Legal and binding. Doona’ let it be born a bastard.”

  He sucked in a huge breath, held it until it burned his chest, matching the dark red all about him. Then he exhaled. “I risk war with the Campbell clan then.”

  Her answer was slow and distinct and said with a hint of laughter. “But Aidan Niall MacKetryck . . . you listen, but you doona’ hear. You have . . . two brothers.”

  And that was when red washed over everything.

  Aidan pulled his sword with his right hand and backed against the wall as a huge swell of red flared right out of the fireplace, filling a fog that was near impenetrable, and then it approached him.

  Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat was laughing hard. The sound reeked of ill-will and triumph. Aidan blinked the moisture from his eyes and it just kept coming. Aidan Niall didn’t cry. Tears were for the fainthearted, the weak, and for women. They weren’t for him. He shoved his left arm across his eyes and the blur hampering his sight and swung his sword out with his right arm, creating havoc and hitting less.

  The floor moved, rolling beneath him and sending him to his knees. Aidan rolled and was immediately back on his feet, hitting again at the thick shape in the fog she’d summoned. And moisture just kept blinding him, making it even harder to fight and conquer.

  “And it’s all your own doing, Aidan Niall . . . yours.”

  The moan of voice hampered him, weighing his arms with a sow’s bulk and his legs with anchor chains. Still, his body cursed him with sobs. Aidan shoved his arm across his eyes again, reacting blindly to an image to his left, spearing a weightless banshee, before it disappeared, sending him to a full-out fall, which would have been on his front, except he twirled midfall and landed on his side . . . his sword side. Half-winded, he was again right back on his feet, after completing the roll. The move cost him breath and stamina for countless moments, while he pulled for air through vapor that resembled a wall of sodden plaid.

  “May the great laird, Grant Niall MacKetryck . . . witness this!”

  His father?

  The blow caught him full on the back, taking him to his knees, where he bent forward, retching and sobbing, although he’d never admit to the latter. He staggered back to his feet before another one could land, and stumbled backward until he found a stone wall with punishing force.

  Aidan did another shove across his eyes, lifting his sword at the same time. Then he was moving along the wall, lashing out at anything that had substance or moved. But there was too much. In the reddish tear-blurred vision the room was alive with poucah, peopled with demons, and filled with evil. Everywhere he turned, swinging, and stabbing and moving, there was another red, fog-dense shape. Aidan kept hacking and slicing, and carving a way to the hag, who wouldn’t stop her tormenting words.

  “Alpin will make a great husband for the lass.”

  Alpin? Aidan’s heart pumped anger and rage through him hard and swift, drying his eyes as nothing else had. That gained him vision and clarity with every blink, turning the moisture into bloodred scrape and dust dry. Juliana would wed Alpin over Aidan’s dead body.

  “Aye . . . my laird. Alpin. His is a world of game and fish and wine. He may na’ even mind that her maidenhead was stolen. Unlike your first wife.” And then she laughed.

  She knew about that, too? Aidan had never told anyone. He was taking it to his grave.

>   Heat reflected through the red haze, her fire glow glinting off his claymore, and Aidan swiveled toward it, in an arc of motion that had the kettle hooked and flung across the room, while a bit of red coal hung up on his blade.

  But she’d moved. Aidan blinked through eyes that burned, swinging his head in an opposing motion to his blade. Waiting. Listening. For the hag to speak again. Just once.

  “Or . . . you could choose . . . the Black MacKetryck as her husband. Dugald. He would like that.”

  The breath from her insidious whisper touched his right side and Aidan flipped his left hand over his shoulder before she’d finished, swiveling his body to follow, putting his sword out at the ready while gripping her old throat and squeezing. Listening to her choked sigh of breath. Squeezing more. Lifting her from the floor with the pressure of his fingers, and seeing nothing but red. Bloodred.

  “Enough!” he hissed, bringing her close enough he could see the fright in her light gray eyes.

  And then everything changed. Aidan blinked and watched it. Disbelieved it and still watched. The fog dissipated, turning back into sun-kissed smoke haze. The red faded and then disappeared as if it had never been. The fire was burning merrily in the hearth, and the only sound was a kettle glancing off a wall.

  Dame Lileth Fallaine-Dumphat was right in front of him, looking small, frail, elderly, pathetic, and worried. Aidan stood, breathing hard while he looked down at the woman in front of him, wringing her hands and looking up at him with an innocent expression. Aidan stood to his full height, gave two heavy chest breaths, and then looked back down at her.

  “You should na’ burn so many . . . potions,” he told her through clenched teeth.

  She smiled, but this one didn’t have much mirth to it.

  “It clouds things.”

  “Na’ enough, sweet laird.” Her voice was raspy-sounding, as if she’d just been choked. Aidan sent a swift glance there, but there was no mark of fingers. Nothing. Just old, pale skin.

  He grunted and lifted his sword above his head, while his left hand reached for the tip, to guide it back into the scabbard.