by Jen Holling
Her face was flushed and damp with sweat. She began to retch violently, her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Drake!” William barked. “Get me the chamber pot!”
But his brother didn’t move. William swore and lifted his daughter into his arms. She began to cough and choke, her face turning an alarming shade of purple. William checked her color to see if he could heal her, but his examination showed nothing amiss, except a weakening of her color.
He clutched her to his chest, frantic. She was so small and frail. Her entire body jerked and spasmed with each heave, bringing nothing up. Her eyes sprang open, and she wheezed, gasping and gagging and clawing at her throat. She was dying.
William was vaguely aware that he alternately prayed under his breath and pleaded with his brother to help. He lay Deidra on the bed and forced her mouth wider, but he could see nothing in her throat. His heart stuttered as she continued to gag and make soundless noises as if she were choking, her eyes bulging and bloodshot. Her back arched, and her heels dug into the mattress. William thrust a finger down her throat, searching for the obstruction. He felt something stiff and narrow. He grasped it and quickly yanked it out.
It was a damp feather. Deidra immediately went limp, her head rolling to the side. He lowered his head beside hers, and relief washed over him when he felt her soft, warm breath against his cheek. She had choked on a feather. It made no sense. He should have seen and felt the feather in her throat when he’d examined her with his magic. And besides that, how the hell did a sleeping child manage to get a feather stuck in her throat?…Witchcraft.
He went to Drake and tried to shake him awake, but his brother was as unresponsive as Deidra. Fingers of panic clutched at William’s chest. He was afraid to leave them, and yet this was no ailment. This was black magic. A warning.
Fear had temporarily staved off his lassitude, but he felt it returning, weighing down his limbs. He didn’t have time for weakness. He threw open the door, searching for a servant, someone to send to fetch Rose to him, but the corridor was deserted. He started to return to the bed, leaving the door open, when he spotted a piece of parchment on the floor just outside the door. It was sealed with a blob of black wax with no mark.
He picked it up, peering up and down the corridor again. After checking on his brother and Deidra and finding them the same, he broke the seal.
Your brother will wake at dawn. Your daughter will be released from the curse when you are clear of Glen Laire’s mountains. Be quit from Lochlaire within an hour of dawn, and speak to no one, or your daughter will bock up pins until she bleeds to death. I wonder if you can heal that.
William read the letter over and over again, then looked at the star-shaped bruise on his arm. The task he’d sent Sir Philip on was futile. The witch was here at Lochlaire—and he had to leave or let his daughter die. He thought of Rose, waking and finding him gone. He closed his eyes, crumpling the parchment in his fists. Finally he dropped it onto the bed, staring at the open window. The gray of predawn burned off into the pink light of daybreak. Drake groaned, rubbing his hand over his face and pushing himself up to sitting. He groaned again, dropping his head into his hands.
“My head aches like someone spent the night hammering on it. I didn’t drink that much.”
William tossed him the letter.
Drake read it quickly. His brow furrowed, then his gaze shot to the window. “Who the hell—”
“Never mind that,” William said. “Gather our things. We must be gone from here or Deidra dies.”
Chapter 17
The wizard watched from the battlements as the skiff containing Strathwick, his brother, and the unconscious witch-child rowed across the loch. Perfect. He left the battlements and returned to the hall. It was deserted. By now the Irishman would be too sick to notice anyone coming or going. Everything was progressing as planned.
He slipped into Alan MacDonell’s chambers and was greeted by the sound of Hagan retching violently and groaning behind the painted screen across the room. Conan was gone of course, courtesy of Rose. That had not been part of his plan, but it was of no consequence.
He paused to make certain Alan still slept. He was motionless on the bed, oblivious to his guard’s infirmity. It had been most difficult to get Hagan to ingest the purgative without somehow implicating himself in it. The guard had become even more diligent since Strathwick had suggested witchcraft. Irritation pricked at him. That had been another small rut he’d not planned for. No one had seriously suspected witchcraft until the wizard of the North had arrived. Now Isobel was determined to touch every damn thing in the castle, and Gillian hunted daily for ghosts. He might have made a mistake somewhere; he’d been arrogant before, secure in their trust. If he did not end this now, he would be discovered.
He crossed the room quickly, grabbing a pillow off the end of the bed. He stared down at Alan’s sleeping face. So many years he’d languished under Alan’s shadow, watching him pass up opportunities to expand the wealth and power of the Glen Laire MacDonells. No more.
He pressed the pillow over the sleeping man’s face. Alan reacted immediately and with more strength than the man had anticipated. He threw his weight onto the pillow and lay there until Alan stopped struggling. He removed the pillow. Alan’s mouth hung open, his eyes slitted and glazed.
“No more,” the man whispered, triumph beating in his chest.
Then he noticed Alan’s beard. It sparkled faintly in the firelight, as did the blankets covering him. He frowned, leaning closer—but there was no time to investigate. The sound of vomiting stopped abruptly, and all that could be heard was heavy breathing.
“Alan?” the Irishman called, his voice suspicious.
The man sprinted quietly to the door, taking the pillow with him; he couldn’t chance Isobel touching it and seeing everything, and he had no time to place a spell.
“Who’s there?” Hagan called, alarm in his voice.
The man slipped out of the room, relieved the hall was still deserted, then hurried to the safety of his chambers, where he waited for someone to bring him the news that the chieftain of the Glen Laire MacDonells was finally dead.
Rose cracked her eyes open. Her head throbbed and her mouth was as dry as straw. It took her a moment to remember all that had occurred. The first memories to assault her were disjointed images from a nightmare but unlike any she’d had before. A creature with horns and batlike wings—a small dragon, perhaps—had sat on her chest. She’d tried to throw it off but had been unable to move, paralyzed as it had sucked the life from her.
Even as she tried to recall the dream it dissipated, replaced by the memory that she had not spent the night alone. Warmth spread through her at those recollections. She turned her head. The pillow beside her was empty. She smoothed her hand over the bed where he had lain, her muscles protesting. Where was he? She wanted to jump out of bed and find him, but she was so very tired that she just lay there, thinking of him, a satisfied smile pulling at her lips.
The morning sun streamed through her open window. She sighed and pushed herself to sitting. Her head spun. Conan rested at the end of the bed, tongue lolling from his mouth. She had no clothes. A shiver rattled her teeth. She was reaching for her torn shift when she noticed that her shoulders were black and blue.
She gasped, holding her arms out to get a better view. Both shoulders and the tops of her forearms were covered with bizarre bruises. Bizarre but not unfamiliar. They were just like her father’s bruises. A half moon, a horseshoe. She pressed her fingers to them but felt no pain.
There was a knock on the door. Before she opened her mouth, the door burst open. Rose pulled her shift over her head, covering herself. Isobel stood in the doorway, her hair wild, her face streaked with tears.
“Come quick, Rose! It’s Da! The wizard has murdered him!”
Rose sprang to her feet, trying to push the lethargy away, though it still dragged at her. “Dead? No!” She ran down the stairs and through the corridors as if st
ruggling through honey, her breath sawing painfully in her chest and throat. She burst into her father’s crowded chambers. Hagan Irish sat by the fire, his head in his big hands and his shoulders shaking with broken sobs. Roderick sat in a chair beside the bed, his son Liam asleep in his wet nurse’s arms behind him. Gillian and the earl embraced each other near the bed, and Stephen sat on the bedside, his head bowed. Rose pushed past them all.
“Oh, God, oh God, no,” she muttered, forcibly pushing Stephen aside. She touched her father’s cheek. It was pale and cool but not the pallor of death. She leaned close to him so her cheek was against his mouth. No breath. She called her magic to her, holding her hands over his body. Roderick grasped her shoulders, murmuring soothing words to her and trying to draw her away.
“No!” she cried, struggling to throw him off but unable in her weakened state. “Wait! He’s not dead!”
The room fell silent behind her. Only the sound of the crackling fire could be heard as Roderick’s fingers dug into her shoulders. Abruptly, he released her.
“The protection spell,” she murmured. “It saved him…kept him alive.”
But not for much longer. Her father’s pale green light had faded to almost nothing, a mere pulsing hue, barely discernable, each pulse further and further apart. His heartbeat. It was slowing, stopping. There was something around his head, a gray film, similar to what she’d seen around Liam’s head when the cord had suffocated him, as if the brain were dying.
“Someone get William!” she cried. “Now!”
“We can’t,” Gillian said beside her, a soft hand on her arm. “He’s gone. He left the castle this morning at dawn…We believe someone poisoned Hagan. Uncle Roderick saw Strathwick leave Father’s room…and Hagan was ill this morn. He heard someone in here, and when he came to check on Da…this is how he found him.”
“Gone.” The word rushed out of Rose on a harsh breath. He left? What had he been doing in her father’s chambers? She looked back down at her father. He was dying before her eyes. She had no time to worry about William now. She would think of that later.
Rose put her failure with Tira out of her mind and placed her hands over her father’s head. She shoved back the lassitude threatening to overcome her and called on her magic as William had taught her. It built inside her, swirling in her chest, a blue sphere, stronger than ever before. Hands were on her again, voices telling her to let him go, it was over, he was dead.
“Leave off!” she shouted, and the hands fell away.
She sent the magic down her arms, into her father. It swirled around the gray film, encircling it, and then she called it back. It rushed up inside her, cutting off her air, blackening her vision. She flailed her arms and felt someone catch her as she fell.
She was in the water of her dream, sinking down and down, except she fought it, struggling to rise to the top, struggling to suck in air. Something pressed over her mouth, smothering her with each inhalation.
“Da! Da!” she could hear herself calling as if from far away.
“Rose? What’s wrong with Rose? What happened?” It was her father. Someone gripped her hand, and she felt the blackness, like a dam breaking, trying to flow out of her.
She wrenched her hand away and let the cold black water close over her.
It had taken them the better part of the morning, but by noon, William and Drake emerged on the south side of the narrow mountain pass, Glen Laire behind them. William found a shallow cave, built a fire, and waited.
The longer he waited, the angrier he became. He sat on a flat stone, head in hands, and went through the list of possible suspects. He came back to one person repeatedly. Roderick. Sir Philip was also a possibility, as he inherited if anything happened to Roderick or his son, but Sir Philip wasn’t even at Lochlaire, so he could not have written the letter William had found outside his door.
Whoever wrote the letter was not following their end of the bargain. Deidra did not wake. She did not vomit up pins either. Several agonizing hours passed with no change. Finally William stood.
“I’m going back.”
“Wait,” Drake said, panicked. “What about Deidra? What am I to do if she starts bocking up pins?”
William shook his head, his heart like a stone in his chest. “I know not. I cannot even help her if that happens. That’s why I have to go back. The only person who can release her is there, in Lochlaire.”
Drake didn’t protest anymore, but he looked sick with worry. “Be safe, brother.”
They clasped hands. “If I don’t come back…” He looked at his daughter’s slack face, his throat and chest constricting. “I will come back.”
William mounted his horse and left the cave, following the narrow ledge until he reached the mountain pass. He kept a hard hand on the reins as his fear and anger transmitted themselves to his horse. She shook her head, trying repeatedly to dart dangerously forward. At the pass a path led away from the glen, twining down the mountain, obscured in places by sharp boulders and scrub. William turned into the pass, then reined in sharply.
His way was blocked, filled steep wall to steep wall with mounted men, and at the center was Jamie MacPherson. William forced himself not to look back along the cliff to where his daughter and brother hid; he did not want to give their location away.
MacPherson spurred his horse forward, reining in when he came before William. “Where’ve you been hiding, Wizard?”
William calculated his chances of getting past the men and was not comforted by the odds. “This is between you and me, MacPherson. I’ll fight you—just keep your men out of it.”
MacPherson smiled. His eyes were bloodshot, and a day’s growth of golden stubble glinted on his chin and jaw. “I’m not interested in a fight anymore, Wizard. You’ve an engagement with a witchpricker who’s verra interested in your magic.”
William pulled on his horse’s reins, turning it on its hocks to flee down the southern path. He drove his heels into the horse’s side just as pain pierced his shoulder. He grabbed it; an arrow haft jutted out. White-hot agony splintered through his arm and chest, but he was still moving, his horse picking her way down the path. He heard the others behind him, following, and wrapped the reins around his hand.
“No!” MacPherson shouted at someone behind him. “No more—I want him alive.”
William urged his horse faster, but it wasn’t fast enough. He heard a horse closing in on him, then a fist struck out at him, to knock him from his saddle. William grabbed it with his good arm, yanking MacPherson from his horse. The other man snatched at him, and they both went down amid hooves and stones. William fell hard on his wounded shoulder, breaking the arrow haft and jamming the head deeper into his shoulder.
He rolled away, blinded with pain. Hands were on him, yanking him to his feet, twisting his arms behind him.
MacPherson stood before him, grinning malevolently. “Look what we found.” He grabbed William’s hair and forced him to look up the path. Sweat stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly, clearing his vision. Several of MacPherson’s men descended the path on foot, one carrying Deidra, still unconscious, in his arms, two others shoving Drake in front of them.
William pulled at his bindings. “Let them go! They’re not witches. You have me, what need you with them?”
“Och, I’ve heard different, Wizard. I’ve heard the child is a witch. And as for your brother.” MacPherson looked away from William to Drake, who was being shoved roughly down the path. He stumbled and fell to one knee. MacPherson drew his dag from the saddle holster and aimed it at Drake’s head.
“Heal this, Wizard.”
“No!” William yelled, lurching forward. As the gun discharged, he slammed his forehead into MacPherson’s nose. There was a liquid crack. It was enough to throw off MacPherson’s aim, but the bullet took Drake in the chest. William watched his brother go down, blood staining his plaid.
“Drake!” William roared, surging forward as hands pulled him back.
MacPherson swung around
, blood streaming from his nose, his mouth twisted with fury. “You’ll pay for that one, Wizard.”
He slammed the hilt of his dag into William’s head again and again until he saw nothing else.
“Da!” Rose woke abruptly, the memories of the past few days flooding her the moment she opened her eyes.
“Aye, aye, I’m here.”
She looked around, her mouth agape when she saw her father sitting in a chair beside her bed. “Da…you’re out of bed!”
“Aye, that I am, thanks to you.” He looked frail and tired, swaddled in a plaid, but he was here, in her room.
She couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened and closed, and her vision blurred, but nothing came out. Finally she crumpled forward over her knees, face buried in her hands, and wept. Months of despair flowed out of her, hiccuping sobs gripping her weakened body. Her father was out of bed. He was not dead, like Tira. Every time she thought of his lifeless body and the blackness that had overcome her, she cried harder.
Her father murmured soothing words, distressed by her tears, so after a time Rose marshaled her emotions. She rubbed her hands across her eyes and gave her father an apologetic smile. “Forgive…but I had lost hope…and here you are, out of bed.” Her voice caught, tears threatening to overcome her again.
“Well, don’t get too excited. Lord Kincreag and Hagan must take some of the credit, as they practically carried me. But I’m here and it’s been months since I left that bed. And it’s because of you.” He gazed at her, shaking his head in wonder. “Your mum always said to me that you were the strongest of us all. It’s not that I didn’t believe, love, because I did. I saw it in you every time I looked at you and spoke to you, the iron will. But I didn’t understand what she meant. I do now.”
Rose stared down at the blanket. “I would never have known what I was capable of if not for William—I mean Lord Strathwick.” She shot her father an anxious look. His expression remained gentle and understanding. “He saw it in me and taught me.”
