by Scott, Amber
The low hum from a carnyx carried on the breeze like a warning call. Leave here, it whispered. A swift departure was in order. The ceremony had begun.
He’d no call to keep her in conversation. Particularly, with attempts at darker arts under way. Few knew of the true old ways and perhaps even those knew not what power could be conjured in them. But the participants believed, and Quinlan had firsthand knowledge of what desperate acts mankind was capable of when clinging to beliefs.
He’d no call to force her to leave, but would, if she didna of her own accord. He’d discovered what he’d come for. His king would not be pleased, but at least he’d be satisfied.
The music lifted, louder, sweeping through the air, its magick carrying close. Some sort of energy prickled over his arms. She must have felt it, too, because her eyes widened, her gaze darted about from her arms to the trees to the fire.
“Gabh!” she called, her palm outstretched.
Quinlan scowled. What was she attempting? Speaking the old tongue, treating the word as only an Ovate would. Like a command. He’d witnessed Breanne attempting the enchantment more times than he could recall, years ago. When nothing happened, Ailyn repeated the words in a hiss. Panic laced her features and he guessed that which she sought.
Her blade.
Seeing the glint of the handle, Quinlan kicked his toe beneath it. It rose in the air between them. He caught it first. Her eyes widened. He offered it to her on an open palm. A treaty of sorts, he hoped. Yet she didn’t take her dagger.
The prickle of the energy in the air irritated his skin and sent his heart racing. A stark thought seeped through. What if the rite held real power? “We must leave here. Our skins will be safer deep into the woods. Away with me now, lest they find us here. Whoever you’ve lost, I’ll help find.”
She tipped her head. Had she no sense? He’d be damned if he’d take her over his shoulder and run with her screaming like a banshee. The deep thump of a bodhran startled her. Her gaze darted to the bonfire, its flames just visible through the few trees.
She grabbed for her blade, then retreated, frowning. “I have to find someone,” she said.
Quinlan closed the space between them, and took hold of her upper arm. “Whoever it is, they are not here. As I said, none have passed.”
She wrested it free, looking at him like one would a snake. “I must look elsewhere, then.”
Turning on her heel, she strode back into the woods.
“Not on your own, you won’t.” He could just imagine the lass winding through the trees only to emerge on the other side of the rite, ripe for the plucking. “If you’ll listen to sense, I’m offering help.”
“I neither want nor need your help!”
But her voice belied that with every passing moment her fears grew. Her confidence didna falter in her skills. She looked as much a warrior as any he’d man on in a raid with the skills to match. What scared her, then? He knew better than to test a man, or a woman’s pride. The prickle on his arms pinched. Whatever enchantments the rite might have stumbled into, the sensation in the air grew, too.
“Let us away from this,” he said, attempting a placating tone and failing miserably. “Once safe, I vow we shall find your friend. This land is my home. I know it well. Agreed?”
She didn’t like it. The set of her jaw said as much, but after a moment she acquiesced and followed him when he stalked into the wood. The prickle in the air receded, along with the hum and roar. He took them deeper still. They’d near the cliffs soon. The sea’s briny scent hung heavier in the air.
Through the winding path amid the trees, in the damp air, wet as she was, she kept up. More impressively, she cooperated, following, only glancing about a bit. Not a single protest. A new sound carried to his ears. The faint crash of the ocean. Slieve League cliffs.
“A bit further is all....” He paused, looked.
She was gone.
He spun right, left, again. Around. “Lass?” he called low, insistent. The air hung still as a frozen pond. They’d escaped the dark magick, he was certain, yet where could she have gone to? Quinlan stepped carefully back through the dense patch of trees, listening for signs of her. Breathing, movement, anything.
A tight, high-pitched scream rent the air. Quinlan’s stomach fell. He stalked through the thicket. “Lass? Answer me. Ailyn?” If they’d found her, made off with her, he couldna live with himself. “Lass,” he called out in a deep bellow. A faint answer. He brushed limb after limb away, the branches snapping, scratching. He stumbled toward the sound of her voice, through a patch of trees and into a clearing.
“Maera,” she called out.
He turned toward the sound. She swirled into view, seemingly from the shadows of the trees, thick locks of her hair swinging free of her braid. But her cheeks were no longer dry. “It’s gone,” she said upon seeing him.
“What is gone?”
Shaking her head, she walked into the water. “How can it be gone?”
“Are ye daft? Come out of the water.”
She waded further in, sweeping her hands through it, sending waves and ripples over the inky, moonlit surface. Quinlan strode to the water’s edge. Over the shoulder like a barbarian it was, then. He’d have to carry her kicking and screaming. And newly wet.
Ah, but the fear she’d struck through him, and yet the relief, even now as she kicked and tossed at the pool. He could throttle her.
He approached her as he would a wounded deer. “What is gone?”
She threw her hands out in despair. “She has to be here.”
“If she passed this way, we’ll find her.” His toes ached just looking at her in the shining ripples. She must be numb through. “Come out of the water, Ailyn.”
“Find her?” she asked, coming forward a step. “How?”
Aye, that was it. Lure her to safety. Far better a pixie to deal with than a banshee. “Whoever it is you were calling. You asked if had I seen another.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “You...would help me find her?”
“Aye, but only if you come out of the water.”
An odd look it was that she gave him, but she complied. Sloshing, she walked out of the pool, sending more moonlit ripples. The distant thrum faded. Quinlan took off his mantle, offering it to her. The odd look deepened. Mayhap not odd, considering how harsh he’d been with her. In all his life he could not place a single female, save his sister and mum, having looked at him so suspiciously. Not merely of his intentions, which she doubted obviously enough. But also, she questioned his skill.
He wasn’t out to prove himself. Just to protect her from herself. He pushed the wool at her again. “We’ll not be searching far nor wide if you freeze to your death, lass.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she took it slowly, carefully. The hem nearly dragged into the water. Quinlan ducked to grab it lest it get wet. She jerked backward, flinging the mantle out of reach, then hugging onto it.
“What is her name?”
That made her nostrils flare. She considered him a moment. “Maera.”
“Was she on foot or astride?”
Again, she considered him, her bearing distrustful. “On foot.” She nodded. “Aye, on foot. Of course.” She wrapped the mantle around her shoulders and strode to the shore. She began scanning the ground.
For signs of her missing friend? He supposed it mattered not. Let her look for pixies for all he cared, so long as she didna force him into a midnight swim. The cold night air penetrated his deerskin vest and wool tunic. Better to keep moving than to stand about and freeze. He followed her, imitating her, looking for evidence of trespassing.
Why Ailyn only looked along the shore couldn’t be accounted for, but once she tired of the search, mayhap she would concede his escorting her to safety.
Nigh full around the small pond, Ailyn halted. “I can’t understand it. No sign of her at all? Is there another pool near here? Another body of water to be had?”
“There is naught but the sea.” He drew a
bit closer. “Pray tell, why do you only look for her near the water?”
She liked that question not a bit. “I have to find her.”
“Aye, and I’d like to help but it seems deeper in the wood is a wiser bet. She can’t have gotten far. If we each scan—”
“Why do you care?” she said, stepping forward so that the light of the moon showed the green of her eyes, lighting her deep red hair.
What did she mean, why? What sort of man would he be to simply leave her? “It appears I’ve a penchant for lasses in distress.”
That pricked her temper nicely. She set her mouth and put her hands on her hips. “I thank you for stopping me from walking to that fire, but I’m fully capable of fending on my own. I dinna want nor need your help.”
“So you keep insisting.” Better angry than frantic. “I beg to differ, lass.”
She took the mantle off, wadded it up, and tossed it to him. Quinlan caught it with a low chuckle. The heat of her temper shone in her eyes, yet that wariness remained. He scared her? Was that it? Still, afeared of him, she held her ground. Och, but a firebrand, this one.
She opened her mouth to speak, her finger pointing when both her words and her gesture were forgotten. Her head tipped. “D’you hear that?”
He heard naught but the leaves, the distant hum of the rite. If he listened even harder, the very distant hush of the sea. Or did he only imagine hearing the sea, knowing it was close? The rite grew silent, and Quinlan didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned.
“They’ve ended the ceremony, lass. We must not linger.”
“There,” she said. “Maera?” She scanned a nearby thicket, palming her blade. “Maera, can you hear me?”
Then Quinlan heard it, too. A small whimper.
Ailyn walked like a huntress searching out prey. Quinlan joined her search, his gaze scouring for the form of a woman. He listened for another sound. Another whimper.
“Maera, please, can you hear me?”
The pain in her voice—the alarm—wanted to grip him, too. A disturbing thought echoed in his mind. The rite ended, but it had stirred something dark. He could feel something turning the air. His mind couldn’t reason it, but his gut warned louder and louder—something was coming.
“There!” He saw movement. Ailyn looked where he pointed. She rushed to the spot before he could warn her to take care. He joined her side. Despite the darkness, he recognized the scarlet of blood. The woman’s pale gown was soaked in it.
“Maera, no. Please, no. What have you done?” Ailyn touched the woman’s shoulder, pulling it, but rather than to lay her on her back, to view it.
Two long gashes broke the creamy surface of Maera’s skin, the source of the bleeding. Ailyn tore at her tunic and pressed it to the cuts to stanch the bleeding. All she seemed able to say was, “No.” Over and again. A command. “No.”
The woman’s face was ashen, her breathing shallow. She lay on brilliant, filmy fabric that was also covered in blood. No, not fabric. More like…wings. A costume of some sort.
The prickling air stole in around them. An alluring warmth came with it. The sensation could not be what he imagined. Surely, merely a storm brewed on the horizon. “Here,” Quinlan said, and interceded. He scooped up the woman and wrapped his mantle around her. “We canno’ stay here, lass. I feel a rain approaching. We must get to shelter.”
She pinned him with a wide-eyed stare. “You don’t understand. Her win—she’s hurt. I must get her back. Now. She’ll die if I don’t.” Emotion choked her words. “Please, help me get her to the water.”
“The water? Are ye mad? She’ll drown to be sure. Nay.” He tightened his hold on the woman his arms. He’d be damned if he’d let her bleed her death. Tir Conaill was too far on foot. Had he not followed Ailyn, he’d have an inkling of where his horse might still be tethered.
Ailyn pulled at his shoulder, shaking her head. “You cannot take her. You do not understand. Please!”
“Follow if ye wish, lass, but I’ll not see her drowning and if ye stay, find you they will. The worshippers or the storm. But they’ll not find her.”
He strode east, away from the thickening heat that filled his gut with dread. The woman lay as a dead weight in his arms and the ground seemed to conspire against his feet. Nay, ’twas the darkness trying to stop him.
On a pained groan, Ailyn followed, breathing hard. Again, she pulled on his bicep, coming to stand in front of him, making a sorry attempt to take the woman from his arms. “She’ll die!” Authority rang in her words.
A deeper authority overruled hers. Her fear and pain stabbed him with guilt. But if he trusted his feel for the land he’d known all his life, he’d find their way to his steed, then onward to Breanne’s. “I’ll fetch her a healer. You’ve no call to trust me, Ailyn, I ken that. But I’m asking you to anyway.”
The dark feeling and warmth neared enough to feel like a bog pulling his legs under him. Quinlan growled, refusing to give in to the burn in his thigh muscles and biceps. He searched her stare. “That rite wrought a dark force to life, lass. I can feel it coming. If you’ve any sense in your head, believe me or not, but I implore you—run!”
Ailyn’s gaze widened as though she thought him mad. “Run?”
“Aye. Run!”
Her mouth parted but she had no words. Her eyes went from his to the woman in his arms to the woods.
Again, he felt the eerie claw of danger looming closer. “Do not fear for your friend. I’ll follow. I swear it.”
With one backward glance, Ailyn ran. She moved as lithely as a doe. She ran, leapt, and within a few fast breaths, disappeared beyond a copse of trees. The darkness thickened, visible now. A greenish gray fog unfurling along the ground, slinking toward his booted feet. His stomach turned.
The weight in his arms felt to double. Triple. Every step took more effort.
He’d failed to witness the full rite, so he couldn’t begin to surmise its purpose. What did he know of the old ways beyond the snatches of stories Breanne had shared in her training? He could tell Niall O’Donnell why the clan’s herd had lost numbers. His king should have sent a galloglas for this deed. Such a trivial thing to think of now as the thick stuff flowed around his calves, curling forth, feeling the area.
Like sludge, it seeped upward. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his word to Ailyn. But he’d die trying. His only relief was knowing that Ailyn had fled. She’d heeded his warning. Even stranger than the possessive relief was a thought that echoed in his head—protect her with your life.
The thought unnerved him. The unearthly sensation that surrounded it sent his mind reeling, too. Certainty over whom it referred to dug deep inside him. The thought did not refer to the woman in his arms. But to the one who fled. If the notion was true, if Brigit or even the Lord Christ himself had bestowed on him such a task, only one question remained.
How could he keep such a flighty yet headstrong lass such as Ailyn safe?
Chapter Four
Ailyn ran. She didn’t know where she could end up or when to stop, but the look in the man’s eyes as he spoke those words shot through her mind to pierce her heart. He’d sensed something. Danger? Why hadn’t she sensed as much? She did not like this human world where she felt surrounded in silence.
The gathering at the fire. Skins for skirts. Her shoulder throbbed. She dared one glance back. Wait, where was he? Why had he not followed? She came up short, regret hitting her full force.
What had she done?
She’d abandoned Maera. She’d trusted a mortal. He’d fooled her! When he had merely eyed Maera’s beautiful torn wings, she thought perhaps he was as he said. Only interested in aiding her. For no other purpose save honor. She put her fists to her temples, swearing to the goddesses.
He’d tricked her! Shame washed her cheeks in heat. No, surely not. If he wanted faerie bones, two were certainly better than one. Stealing Maera went against what his actions showed, too. Logic argued that had he sought Maera all along,
he’d have been keener on looking in the first place. Yet he’d treated Ailyn as one would an errant child. He done naught but protected her, albeit a bit forcefully.
Much like she’d attempted to protect Maera.
The force he’d warned was coming for them…could magick like that exist here in the mortal realm? Could it be so powerful as to hinder a man so clearly well built and trained for battle?
She had to go back and find them. Ailyn spun, searching the shadows for signs of him. Maera’s dress would catch moonlight despite the shadows. Despite the blood. By Bridget, the blood. So much blood. Her wings were all but severed. The most sacred sign of her noble birthright, cut through. From the passage? By the gatherers?
Ailyn had utterly failed her duty. Failed her brother and her childhood friend.
She’d failed the guard, the queen, and the entire kingdom.
Returning in the direction she’d come, Ailyn stalked carefully, looking, praying for a glimpse of Maera’s raven hair or the man’s broad shoulders. Her bare feet were almost numb and certainly cut. This was all his fault. If he’d let her be, she could have brought Maera to the water. Ready for the veil. Aye, that is what she should have done. His damned obstinate stance. As domineering as any Fae Northman. He should have left well enough alone.
No, the fault was her own. She should have left Maera, then led the guard back to the glade. If not all of the men, at least Colm. She should have dragged Maera out from the first or called out for someone, or swam faster. She should have accepted what Maera had in mind. She should be better at this after so many months of training.
A branch snapped and the sound echoed through the quiet stillness. Ailyn froze. Chills prickled her skin. How different this wood felt compared to home. She could not feel this place inside of her. No tingle. No warmth. A low growl pierced the quiet and brought her up short. The throb in her shoulder stabbed to her stomach where it beat low, hard. The growl was close and sounded like none she’d heard afore.
