Sacrifice

by Heather McCollum

  One looked to Drustan. “Maybe it would be best for ye to take him.”

  “I can’t touch the boy,” Drustan said at the same time William walked up to Tenebris and lifted the child into his arms.

  “What happened to him?” William asked. The mother ran up, pulling the child from him. “Take him to Matilda up at the keep,” William instructed. “She can heal him.”

  Drustan focused on Tenebris’s thoughts. The thoughts of animals were different than human thoughts, shaped by instinctual perceptions of the world. Humans look like monsters with claws that can shoot to kill an animal at a distance.

  “Tenebris swam out to the boy where he was clinging to a rock in a swollen river,” Drustan announced. “The boy bravely took the wolf’s offer of help.” Tenebris stood and shook the moisture from his coat, causing several guards to back up, bows cocked and ready.

  “The wolf saved the boy,” William said. “He is not to be harmed.”

  Drustan bent down to scratch Tenebris’s head. His friend was unhurt. Go. Rest. Pleased.

  Tenebris turned and loped back across the moor. The men watched, mesmerized, suspicion in their bent brows and minds. Drustan nodded to William. The man was honorable. “Thank you.”

  William turned toward the keep, relief heavy in him. “Helen will feed yer meal to the dogs, MacDruce, if ye leave it too long.”

  Drustan glanced at the retreating tail of his friend and followed the Maclean chief. “Do I still get to be handcuffed to Anna?”

  William cursed on a soft chuckle.

  The corners of Drustan’s mouth turned upwards. It felt good.

  The hall was hot compared to the outside air. When the sun set in the autumn-painted Highlands, temperatures plummeted. The boy sat at the table wrapped in a wool blanket, his mother whispering to him with tears in her eyes while he spooned soup into his mouth. Drustan found the healer, Matilda, sitting across from them. She leaned heavily on the edge with her elbows, but she smiled.

  Anna’s beautiful eyes sought Drustan as she listened to the boy’s tale. The bright torchlight made them glitter. Bewilderment and a hint of respect played across her features.

  The mother shook her head at her son’s tale. She was a widow, the boy’s father having died in a raid years ago. “How can this be?” she asked.

  “He just swam to me,” the boy said. “Waited until I reached for him. I was so cold. I…I couldn’t hold on anymore.”

  The boy looked at Drustan. “Did they hurt him?”

  Drustan gave a small shake of his head. “His name is Tenebris, and he’s pleased that you were strong enough to hold onto him.”

  The boy’s cheeks pinkened and his little chin rose. Drustan could easily read the reason the boy ran away. Children were cruel to one another. Drustan knew that firsthand. Several older boys in the village had teased Josiah about his clumsiness with the wooden practice swords. They always had a snide remark or whisper ready to torment him.

  The boys in St. Mary’s orphanage, where Drustan had grown, had whispered about his strangeness, excluding him from everything, not letting him touch them. Of course that had been wise.

  Drustan frowned and looked to William. He was standing across from Josiah with the table between them. “Why did you leave Kylkern?” William asked.

  “I am no good at being a warrior. I…I thought to make a clean start on my own,” he murmured. “I fell into the stream while crossing a log.” The boy sounded dejected, embarrassed for losing his grip. His mother would surely keep him tied to her skirts now.

  “And yet you have the strength and courage to jump onto a wolf’s back,” Drustan observed.

  “Perhaps ye but need more guidance with the practice sword.” William nodded to the boy. “In three days’ time we will begin yer training.”

  “With…with you, sir?”

  “Aye,” William answered with a brisk nod.

  Drustan opened his mouth but stopped himself from volunteering to assist. The boy certainly didn’t need to be around someone who could make him ill with a single touch. His stomach knotted and he pushed the old wound back where it belonged, deep inside. Semiazaz had assured Drustan that once the final battle was won and he was free of his evil brethren that he’d help Drustan rid himself of the curse.

  Drustan’s regard drifted to Anna and she dropped her gaze to the floor, and then the table, and then she turned to look at the hearth across the hall. Had she been observing him? The thought cheered him.

  The mother, Miriam, shepherded the boy, still wrapped in a woolen plaid, out of the hall. “Dry clothes and a warm bed,” she said, knowingly. “And then we will talk about punishment for scaring the breath from me.” Her words were terse but full of love. Drustan watched them depart, a heaviness in his gut. To envy a weak, nearly-drowned child who might possibly be switched with a stick seemed ridiculous, yet the emotion clung to him tenaciously.

  “Matilda,” Patricia said. “You should retire to bed. The healing took a lot from you.”

  She shook her head. “There are garlands to hang and I am recovered. Josiah was mostly just tired and worried over his adventure.” She smiled and nodded even though Patricia shook her head.

  “I can help,” Drustan heard himself say before thinking. They all looked at him. Did they not want his help? He pointed to the two-story rafters. “I can easily hang the garland from the highest points.”

  William’s other niece, Alicia, giggled and held her hand out before her. The spoon levitated from its spot. “I can help, too.” She smiled, her young face smooth and joyous.

  “Do not go near Mr. MacDruce, Alicia. His touch will make sickness grow in ye,” William warned.

  Drustan cleared his throat at the glint of fear in Alicia’s bright eyes. He shifted with discomfort. “Not necessarily grow,” he said. “If she has a defect anywhere, my touch will…make it worse. Sometimes that reduces things.”

  “Can ye fasten onto a target within the body, a focus?” Matilda asked. “It is how I heal.”

  Drustan thought about the boy he’d helped in the stone circle. “At times I can focus my curse on fast growing particles in the body and the curse kills those parts.”

  “Cancer?” Anna asked on a breath. Her beautiful green eyes widened on the question. “You can cure cancer?”

  Chapter Six

  Drustan watched Anna’s cool features melt and open with something like awe. “It is tricky,” he said. “It’s difficult to direct my curse, but yes.”

  “You could help so many,” Anna said low.

  “He could hurt so many,” William countered.

  Matilda walked toward him around the table. “If you can focus your magic to kill cancer in the body, perhaps we can help you focus your power on some benign part of a person so that yer touch does not harm them.”

  No one had ever schooled him before in control. Drustan had honed his magic with experimentation through his life, but he hadn’t been willing to experiment on living creatures.

  “Perhaps,” Drustan said, sifting through Matilda’s thoughts. Her offer to help seemed genuine based on her flashing ideas of hope. He was another sickness she could cure.

  “I…” he began slowly as if waiting for her true selfishness to show in her thoughts, though none did. “I would greatly appreciate your assistance.” Matilda smiled fondly at him, and despite the risk, she found him attractive. Most women found him frightening unless observing him from afar, except for Bast and the other she-demons who wanted to rule the new world.

  Matilda was pretty with the same dark hair as her uncle, and was probably in her early twenties. A simple read told him she was a widow with a young daughter, her husband having died from an accident when far from her side. She felt that her healing abilities would protect her from his cursed touch. He doubted it.

  “Matilda,” Anna said and Drustan noticed a faint staining of her cheeks. Her lovely features tightened so that her smile seemed forced. Did she not like the idea of risking William’s niece to h
elp him?

  “Did you know that Mr. MacDruce is actually your great-great uncle? His sister was Serena, your great-grandmother.” She took a sip from her pewter cup and looked to Drustan, her delicate eyebrows raised as if waiting for his agreement.

  Helen came out of the hall with a box. “Here be the garlands then. If there’s to be a wedding in the morning, we need to spruce up this old hall tonight.” She set the box of dried flowers on the table and motioned for several men to set down their cartons.

  “She died a hundred years ago,” Matilda said, her lips protruding into a little pout. A family tree played through the girl’s mind as she looked at him.

  Drustan reached for the box, disentangling a long length of threaded wheat bows. “As you know, Gilla’s children were split up, sent to different time periods. Serena flew to the eighteenth century while I landed in the nineteenth.”

  “Then ye are also related to Kailin Black,” Alicia said.

  “She is another of my sisters.”

  Patricia took Matilda’s arm, turning her gently toward the stairs. “I think we’ve had enough discussion tonight, wouldn’t you agree, darling?” She looked to William, who appeared more like a donkey than a darling with his face hard. An image of Drakkina sat in William’s mind.

  “Has my sister shared the prophecies regarding the end of time?” Drustan asked him. “The destruction of this tainted world?”

  “Not tonight,” Patricia said, her sweet voice soured with her frown. “Tonight is for decorating and then rest. We can discuss the apocalypse tomorrow after the wedding celebration.”

  Drustan noticed a faint smile cross Anna’s mouth. “Then let us get started,” Anna said.

  Alicia clapped her hands and ran to the box while Patricia walked Matilda to the dark stairwell. Drustan made certain to keep his barrier set, even though the effort took concentration and energy. Anna walked close, her arm brushing his as she squeezed in. His powers dissolved and he jerked.

  “It’s just me,” she said low. “No need to flinch away.”

  “I don’t flinch.”

  “You just did.”

  “The barrier I keep up around me requires energy. When you make my curse evaporate with a touch I have nothing to push against.”

  “Oh,” she said and untangled a fragrant lavender pouch tied with blue silk ribbon.

  He looked at the slight downward curve of her lips. “It is,” he started and hesitated as her beautifully clear green eyes turned to him. He cleared his throat. “It is a relief. I can rest when you touch me. Thank you.”

  He watched the corners of her mouth rise as she nodded. She stepped closer so that she brushed his arm while she worked to straighten the garland.

  Alicia used her magic to lift and drape the string of dried flowers and herbs around the chandelier above, careful not to touch the lit gas lamps with the dry edges of flowers.

  Anna shook her head at the floating spectacle. “I had no idea how much they were hiding on my account.”

  Patricia strode over to the box, patted Anna’s shoulder, and leaned in to her ear. “I took to my bed for a week after they let me see. You’re handling all this very well.”

  Anna sniffed and shook her head.

  Within the hour, the gray stone walls of Kylkern’s great hall were transformed with tapestries brought down from some room above stairs. Between little Alicia and himself, they were able to unroll, rid them of dust, and hang them along the stark walls. Scenes of battles, weddings, and Highland festivals were stitched in dyed wool threads. He recognized the famous Battle of Culloden, the devastating defeat of the Jacobite army in 1746. Drustan paused before another tapestry depicting a blue bird impaling the eye of a Scotsman wearing a different plaid, standing with a familiar woman on the steps of Kylkern. The woman leaned against a tall Scot in Maclean tartan, sword in hand.

  He inhaled and the scent of honeysuckle caught his attention. A heartbeat later he felt the freeing brush of Anna’s arm. “It is an odd image,” he said. “One that must have a brilliant story behind it.”

  She stepped up level with him, their gazes both raised to the colorful depiction. “You do not know the story?” she asked.

  “No. It’s part of why I came here.” He lowered his gaze to stare at her delicate profile. Her gently sloped nose tipped upward toward the depiction. Long lashes blinked against her smooth skin. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. What a perfect little ear she had.

  “Part?” she asked on a breath but didn’t lower her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze slipped down the wall to him. “Why else are you here then?”

  Did she not know? How could she not after seeing his paintings of her, after learning that she was the only person he could touch. Did she just mean to draw the words from him?

  “I am here for you, Anna Pemberlin.” Their gazes held. He watched her obsidian pupils widen slightly in the dark. Her breathing quickened. It was true that he could not read her thoughts, but her body gave signals. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what the signals meant. “You saw my paintings and—”

  “The bird was, I believe, your sister’s,” Anna interrupted, turning her gaze and entire body back toward the tapestry. “Patricia told me a tale about a bird saving Serena from a madman bent on killing her on the steps of the castle. The bluebird attacked the man and the laird of the Macleans killed the would-be assassin.”

  “Anna—”

  “You really should call me Miss Pemberlin, Mr. MacDruce. I am the older sister, and Patricia is to be married tomorrow. Then she will be Mrs. Maclean.”

  Drustan watched her pull her braid around in front, twisting it. She tapped her booted foot and grasped her skirt in a fist with her other hand.

  “As much as I appreciate the etiquette lesson,” he said casually, “I will continue to call you Anna.”

  Flashing eyes met his. “But I’ve asked you not to.”

  “And I’ve chosen to ignore it.”

  “You can’t do that. Proper behavior—”

  “I was raised by demons, Anna. My only friend is a wolf and I live quite comfortably in a tree. I do not adhere to the guidelines of your society.”

  Anna’s lovely lips opened as if to retort, but then fell closed once more. Her cheeks and neck took on a rosy hue.

  William sauntered over, no doubt taking note of his soon-to-be sister’s discomfiture. “We should find our beds,” he said, looking between them. “Guests will begin to arrive at dawn.”

  Drustan stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “Did your man locate the handcuffs? I might be dangerous in the night if not shackled to Anna.”

  Anna huffed loudly, murmuring “ridiculous” and “infuriating” under her breath before turning to stare them both down. “I will sleep where I have been, with my sister. You, sir, may sleep in the dungeon if there is a fear you will wreak havoc on the castle in your slumber.” With that she strode purposely across the room to her sister and Maclean’s young niece, her lovely back straight and her glorious, re-woven braid swaying with her steps.

  William kicked at a charred log in the fire, causing it to break and the flame to surge up around it. “From what Patricia says of her opinionated sister, ye play with fire, MacDruce.”

  “Fire I can handle. It is all the mandates of society I cannot tolerate.”

  William snorted. “Perhaps ye are a Highlander then. We prefer things wild and free up here. Patricia says her sister hates societal dictates, perhaps as much as you do.”

  Drustan studied the man’s face. Despite his tight lips, a smile seemed to touch William’s eyes. No human being, who knew of Drustan’s evil touch, had ever gifted him a sincere smile. Semiazaz smiled patiently but there was always deception in his black eyes. William Maclean on the other hand looked genuine. Perhaps because Drustan had saved the boy.

  “Shall I find the dungeon then?” Drustan asked, his tone casual, as if testing his perception.

  “I doubt it would hold ye withou
t my sister-in-law tied to ye. We have a few empty chambers in the east tower. They’ve been dusted for the guests. Take any of them for yerself.” William called over his shoulder to a clansman still near the entryway. “Lucas, lead our guest up to the east tower.”

  Drustan nodded. “I am grateful for your hospitality.”

  William’s stare was still assessing. “I am grateful ye brought my betrothed’s sister back.” The words were simple, but seemed to carry so much more. How much had the Silver Witch told him about Gilla’s evil son? William began to walk away but his voice carried back to Drustan. “We will talk of this final battle. After my wedding night.”

  “Follow me,” said a wiry, young clansman, still dressed in his hunting plaid from earlier. Drustan kept his distance as he walked, and his gaze followed Anna, Patricia, and Alicia into the dark stairwell. He and the Scot caught up quickly and they followed them upward. Sconces held candles that flickered with a wisp of breeze around the corner of the coiled steps, and the ladies’ skirts brushed whispers against the stone walls.

  As they rounded one corner, Alicia raised her hand off the stone she’d been using for support and guidance. As Drustan trailed his fingers to that particular stone, a zing of energy crackled up his hand, making him yank it back. He paused, grabbing the taper from the sconce. A dragonfly sat etched into it, matching the one he’d had as a child on his calf, the one Semiazaz had him burn off with a candle the nuns had left unattended.

  They reached the top of the steps, and Lucas pointed down the hall to the left. “This way to the east wing.”

  Drustan watched Patricia follow Anna into a room further down on the right. Just as the door was shutting, Anna peeked out, her gaze catching his for a moment. Caught looking, she jerked inside and slammed the door.

  ****

  Anna stood behind Patricia as Helen’s niece, Gertrude, wove blue ribbons amongst the twisted pieces of Patricia’s brown hair. The whole length was expertly arranged on the top of her head.

  “So then William tried to use his magical intuition to guess my favorite flower,” Patricia said.