"Why not tomorrow?" she'd said, frowning. "I was just starting to get the hang of advances."
"Well, you're welcome to practice on your own. But you may not want to."
She'd been mystified… but he'd made it clear that he wasn't going to be training her the next day, and she didn't want to bother him. But the next morning, she realized exactly why when she sat up in bed and felt pain shoot through just about every muscle in her body. Groaning, she rolled over, wincing and complaining as she dragged herself out of bed, every muscle aching. Ah. So, this was why he insisted on alternating days. Very good. She traipsed downstairs to breakfast and all but collapsed into a seat beside Anna, who was hiding a smile behind her hand.
"How was training?" she asked innocently.
"Training was great. Not so much a fan of the big burly men who broke into my room and beat me up in my sleep, apparently. Why the hell do I hurt so much?"
Anna laughed, throwing her head back. "Oh, yeah. I remember that from when I started training." She softened a little at the look of abject misery on Julia's face. "Don't worry. It does get better. Eventually," she added. "Protein helps."
Julia helped herself to a generous serving of extra eggs, shaking her head with a mixture of chagrin and amusement at how profoundly sore her body was. "You could have warned me."
"Could have but didn't. Anyway, would it have stopped you?"
She thought back to the morning before, to moving across the courtyard with Galen, his hands guiding her movements, the warmth of his body so close to her… and a blush rose to her cheeks, unbidden, as she mutely shook her head.
Anna grinned. "No better foreplay than a sword fight, let me tell you."
"Seriously?"
"How did you think Gwyneth was conceived?" Anna giggled at the thunderstruck look Julia shot her, shrugging her shoulders and spreading her hands. "What? It's true! Gets the blood pumping –"
"Anna! Gross!"
As the days passed, Julia began settling into a pleasant routine. After a little bit of interrogation, Anna gave way and told Julia a few tips for dealing with the muscle soreness, including a set of shoulder stretches that felt absolutely delightful on her sore and aching body. She also recommended a hot bath – a recommendation that Julia was more than happy to take up. As much as she missed her scorching showers, there was something very pleasant about a slow, careful warm bath. The amount of effort required somehow made it more special, more of an event… and she appreciated every moment all the more.
The next day, she met Galen bright and early in the courtyard, quite determined to do well at these lessons now that she knew what kind of impact it was having on her body. The soreness was unpleasant, but it was also evidence that what she was doing was working – that she was building new muscles and learning new ways of using them. Sure enough, she was already feeling more confident with the dirk in her hand, and even Galen admitted a grudging amount of respect for the progress she'd made. Now that she knew she was working on something that would help her attain more independence, she was entirely capable of being calm, patient and dedicated… even taking Galen's still occasionally condescending instructions came easily to her, knowing that it was going to make her stronger.
After all, she'd seen him fight with a knife… there was nobody in the castle she'd rather be learning these skills from. And who knew? Maybe one day she'd take him on in a sparring match and actually give him a run for his money, the way Anna so often sparred with her husband Donal. What she'd said about foreplay stuck around in her mind, making her blush occasionally as she and Galen trained together, but if he noticed, he didn't say anything. Probably assumed the pink in her cheeks was a result of exertion, not anything else…
It was a nice way to spend the time, and it was helping her sleep better, too. The more she trained with Galen, the more she seemed to sleep straight through the night, with no confusing dreams to disturb her. On the off days, though, the days when they didn't train together… that was when the dreams came creeping back. They were increasingly detailed, her dreams of Glimmerbright… less vague wandering through the forest with the sound of his voice echoing in her ears, and more actual interactions with him. In one dream, they waltzed together over the smooth surface of a heart-shaped lake that was frozen to its core… in another, they lay under a blanket of stars on a picnic rug, entwined closely in each other's arms. She always woke from those dreams sweating with her hair tousled and her heart beating fast… and for some reason, she couldn't shake the idea that they were a little more than hallucinations. That somehow, on some level, in those dreams, she was making contact with the strange man she'd met out there in the forest… that he, too, might be having the same kinds of dreams about her…
But that was impossible. Wasn't it? He was out there, and she was in here – surrounded by iron, kept well away from him. They couldn't make contact with each other even if they'd wanted to… and by now, he'd have surely forgotten all about her.
And Julia did her best to pretend that the thought didn't fill her with dismay.
Chapter 35
A full two weeks had passed since her nocturnal adventure. Her training with Galen was going swimmingly – he was pleased with her progress, and had even given her permission to carry her actual metal dirk with her around the castle, to get used to the weight of it on her hip, in the special scabbard he'd given her, complete with a belt that suited her gowns rather well – even if it drew a few surprised looks from the guards she passed to see a woman with a weapon at her hip. They still had their occasional tiffs, of course, especially when his instructions got condescending or he grew impatient with her being unable to grasp some intricacy of technique or another – but for the most part, they were getting on very well.
But things outside the walls were getting worse. She'd heard murmurs among the servants about Glimmerbright, now – news of the man seemed to have spread like wildfire, and he was the preferred subject of conversation among the townsfolk and the servants in the castle. Where was he? Where had he been sighted most recently? What could he be up to? She always avoided these conversations when she could, doing her best to avoid being interrogated… though word had also spread that she'd had a personal interaction with him. Thankfully, the story seemed to stop short of sharing the details of the rather romantic evening the two of them had spent together – the gossip went that she'd run into him in the woods, but the guards had saved her before anything too serious could happen.
"It's the full moon," Elena said softly, shaking her head. "They're always stronger under the full moon. That's why things have been getting worse."
"Why's that?" Julia asked, curious. Sure enough, the moon had been waxing over the last few weeks, growing bigger and bigger in the sky each night until it felt like being in clear daylight to stand in the courtyard… that was, when the clouds weren't eclipsing the great orb.
Elena just shrugged her shoulders. "Not sure. Might be a source of their power, might have something to do with the world beyond the Burgh… or it might just be an old wives' tale and actually have nothing to do with the Fae at all. Hard to say, especially with such little concrete information. But if I were you, I wouldn't go down to the woods tonight, dirk or no dirk," she said, giving Julia a grin.
Julia flushed a little. She'd been bragging about her new dirk skills a little too much, it seemed, if even Elena was taking gentle jabs at her about it.
Still, she felt strangely restless all day. The guards had been ordered to double their patrols for the night of the full moon, with Brendan a firm believer in the power of the moon to increase the activity of Unseelie Fae. She wished she could talk to Glimmerbright about it, ask him what it was about the moon that increased his energy… then scolded herself for that thought. She was never going to see him again, never going to speak to him. It was too dangerous… especially given that it was very possible that he had something to do with all the attacks on guards and villagers, on the dying crops and the unwell cattle. Still, a
part of her couldn't resist wondering whether that was even true… was there some chance that he wasn't to blame, that he'd been misunderstood?
After dinner, she usually headed up to her room… but tonight, for some reason, she didn't feel like lying in bed and reading like she usually did. She'd been borrowing books about the Fae from the archives upstairs and taking them down to her room to read, hoping to learn something useful from the dusty old tomes… but overall, they were more useful as a sleep aid than a source of any real information. And right now, she didn't want to read. She wanted to keep walking, despite her sore legs from training yesterday… so after a lingering hesitation at her floor, she continued up the spiral staircase.
The rooftop… that was where she wanted to be. She shivered a little as she stepped out onto the roof, feeling the chill night air whip at her hair and toy with the skirts of her gown… but it wasn't too cold, not once she was out here. And besides… the moon was utterly magnificent, banishing such pedestrian thoughts about the temperature from her mind. She stood for a long time, gazing up at the moon where it glowed above the forest, enormous and bright, for all the world like a great eye shining down… and her eyes widened when she realized just how bright it was. Why, she could see the forest as though it were daylight… but it was almost more than that. As though the silvery light of the moon was revealing more of the forest… more than she could ever see during the day…
She lost track of time, staring out over the forest with her hands resting on the stone wall at the edge of the rooftop. From here, she could see just about everything… she watched as a pair of guards rode from the castle into the path that lead through the forest, their horses ambling contentedly along what must be a familiar trail by now. She gazed into the forest, watching as a few errant birds rose from the treetops and flew away. Was Glimmerbright out there, even now? she wondered. Was he looking up at the same moon, drawing power from it… or maybe — and her heart fluttered in her chest at the thought — he was even thinking of her, the same way she was thinking of him?
That was strange. Usually, up on the roof, the sounds were muted and muffled. The castle was quiet, and there was little sound from the guards on the tops of the walls down below. Behind her was the gentle wash of the waters of the Loch against the beach, and ahead of her the soft sighing of the wind through the trees… but there was something else, tonight. A kind of strange humming that sent lightning rippling up and down her spine… a strange, unearthly sound. What was that? If she'd been back home in the city, she'd have assumed it was the humming of an electrical wire or something like that… but that couldn't be it, could it. It was something else. One long, continuous note… but as she listened, it slid effortlessly down a few tones, then back up, and she realized with a shock that it was music.
Music… but not from any instrument she'd ever heard. But where could it be coming from? It sounded like it was coming from miles away… back in New York, she'd had a neighbor who played the trumpet, and she always knew exactly how far away he was. But this… it was so distant, hovering on the very edge of hearing, that she'd swear it was coming from the depths of the forest itself.
It was hard to know how long she stood there, just trying to hear that beautiful, haunting, edge-of-hearing music. Every time she moved or shifted, it would fade… but when she was still, it crept back into her hearing. Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and she itched to be closer to it, even tensing her fingertips on the top of the wall as though she could simply climb over and fly to it… and even that thought didn't seem so ridiculous. Wasn't magic real? Hadn't she seen all manner of crazy things these last few weeks? Was it so unthinkable that she might take wing? That would certainly get rid of the issue of sneaking past the guards to get back out to the forest again…
She shivered a little, surprised by the tone her thoughts were taking. She wanted to be out there… wanted to be in the forest again, with Glimmerbright's glowing eyes on her and his hand on her waist, guiding her in a dance around the clearing they'd spent that magical evening together in… her whole body seemed to burn for him, and she realized with a start that the music was louder. She looked down, her eyes resting on the iron gates that guarded the castle, and the music faded again as her mind returned to the Watch, to her training with Galen, to Galen himself… but when her mind strayed back to Glimmerbright, she realized the music was louder again.
"What's going on?" she breathed, her voice whipped away by the wind up here. But she knew – before she even heard the answer, she knew.
Glimmerbright was out there. And he was waiting for her.
Chapter 36
"How?" she whispered, her eyes filling with shock as the realization hit her. It was Glimmerbright… that was the only explanation. And though she couldn't see him, couldn't feel him, couldn't hear his voice… somehow, she knew he was there. She shut her eyes, her hands clenching on the cold stone of the wall, and as she did, his presence intensified… as did the sound of the music in her ears. She swayed to it a little, entranced by the strange melody, the way it seemed to play around in her mind like a cat with a ball of yarn… beautiful, graceful, incredibly powerful in an understated way… just like him. Just like Glimmerbright.
"Hello, Julia."
She heard his voice, clear as day, and as loudly as if he'd been standing right beside her… but not quite the same. It was as though his voice was traveling on something other than air, as though the vibrations somehow belonged to the moonlight, not to the air itself like regular sound. She tilted her head up, let the light of the moon fall onto her closed eyelids. She probably looked ridiculous, she thought remotely… and then she heard the suggestion of a chuckle.
"No, Julia. You look beautiful. Moonlight suits you."
"How am I hearing you?" she whispered… but even as her lips parted, she knew there was no need to speak aloud. He could hear her. Wherever he was, however he was doing this… he didn't need her voice to understand her. Did that mean he was reading her mind? That was… well, she might have bene concerned by that, or embarrassed, or violated… but somehow, she wasn't. He could hear her thoughts, share her mind with her. How beautiful. How wonderful. And at the same time… how unsurprising, really. Wasn't he clever, wasn't he magical? Of course, he could hear her thoughts. She only wished she could hear his… and there came another chuckle, louder this time, the laughter echoing through her mind and somehow tingling in her fingers and toes, like a ripple of water washing right over her.
"Ah, I've missed you. I've missed that quick mind."
"I miss you too," she said softly, meaning it. "Where are you?"
Another chuckle that seemed to move through her body like the wind. "Hard to say. Everywhere and nowhere."
"That doesn't help me at all."
"Why? Would you come and find me?"
He sounded curious, interested… and flattered. She could feel her heart beating hard, feel the adrenaline start to surge in her body, opened her eyes and began scanning the treeline as though she might see him… there. In the distance, among the trees… it wasn't something that she saw or heard, it was something that she felt. Deep in her bones… that was where he was. And she wanted to go to him. She wanted to go to him more than she'd ever wanted anything… and as her eyes rested on that spot, she heard the music swell in her mind, just slightly.
"You're not allowed," came Glimmerbright's voice, full of a sadness that made her heart ache. "You have to stay within the castle walls, don't you?"
"I'm nobody's prisoner," she said softly, shutting her eyes again and trying to focus on the music that was washing over her. Strange… it wasn't just the music that she was half hearing, half feeling. It was almost as though there were hands on her body – a soft touch on her shoulder, a press on her hip, as though the wind itself was embracing her. It was giving her gooseflesh all over her body and stoking fires deep in her belly where she hadn't felt anything for quite some time… and she shivered again, overtaken by a new urgency. She needed to reach
him. Needed to see him in person, not just this strange phantasmal presence…
But he was right, she realized dizzily as she took a few stumbling steps toward the stairs that would take her back down and into the castle. She wasn't allowed out… it was dangerous out there. There were wolves, and it was freezing, and there were all sorts of terrible things going on… weren't there? No, no, she'd be safe. She knew she'd be safe. Glimmerbright would be there to protect her from all the things that meant her harm. He'd sweep her into his arms the way he had that night when she'd fallen from the tree and spirit her away to his warded circle… and this time, nobody would know she was there. Nobody would be able to interrupt them, nobody would pull her away from him or touch him with awful, cruel, cold iron…
She was halfway down the stairs without realizing it, and she laughed a little dizzily. Part of her though that maybe she should get her cloak, if she was going out into the woods… but no, that would slow her down. She needed to get out there. Needed to see Glimmerbright, to fall into his arms again… if he could protect her from wolves, he could protect her from the cold night air. Besides, what she had in mind involved less clothing, not more… and a deep blush came to her cheeks as she hastened across the entrance hall…
And ran smack into Galen.
She blinked up at him, disoriented, the music still howling in her ears. "Aren't you on patrol?" she said blankly.
"Aye, I was. Just got in. It's the middle of the night, Julia, why are you still up and dressed?" He stared down at her, frowning, and she blinked.
"No, it isn't, I only went upstairs ten minutes ago –"
But as she looked around, she realized with a start that the castle was all but abandoned – it was well past dinner time, that was for certain. Disorientation made her dizzy and she stumbled a little, feeling Galen reach out to steady her – and with Glimmerbright's voice in her ear, she tugged her arm free of his grasp. "Julia?"
Woken By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 7 Page 16
