He moved back to the stone and she followed, rather than lying back down. This pleased him absurdly. She settled down opposite him, crossing her legs and smoothing her kirtle over them, tucking the edges beneath her knees and feet. She glanced around at the others, then leaned toward him and whispered, “Tell me about one of your dreams.”
He settled back against the stone and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why should I tell you one of mine when you will not tell me one of yours?”
“Because mine are nightmares. You said yours were dreams, and those are not so terrible to recollect.”
A smile pulled at his mouth from her logic. “Have you only nightmares, Rose? No dreams?”
Her dark lashes lowered thoughtfully, and when she raised them again, he could see a memory there. “Aye, there is a dream I have sometimes. It’s silly, or though it will seem to someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Aye, a great healer.”
He snorted softly at her praise.Great healer. If she only knew. But she would never know. “Tell me anyway. I vow I will not laugh.”
She took a deep breath, her gaze unfocused in recollection. “Very well. It never starts the same. I will be dreaming of what I did that day. Some healing—setting a bone, stitching a wound—then someone yells at me to stop, that I’m doing it wrong. When I turn to look at the person, it’s me.” She frowned, her gaze far away. “The dreams change then. The patient is gone and I am swimming. This is where they are all the same. It’s raining, and I am in a great, dark body of water.” Her voice grew hush, her brow furrowed. “There is something beneath the water, something I’m afraid of. I cannot see land, so I just swim and swim.” She swallowed convulsively and licked her lips before continuing. “Sometimes I go under, and I’m drowning, but there’s no pain. I float downward, my arms out.” Her arms opened as if to embrace someone. Then her gaze cleared and fixed on him. She lowered her arms. “And that’s it.”
“That sounds like a nightmare to me. The second part at least.”
She gave him a small, humorless smile. “Not really. Atleast, not compared to my other dreams.” Her mouth curved a bit more, into something genuine. “You have to tell me one of yours now.”
“Very well. But remember, I never said they made sense.”
He couldn’t believe he sat in the moonlight talking to this woman about dreams. He’d only spoken to his daughter of dreams, and only then some of the more fantastic ones that he thought she might find entertaining. It was an unusual experience, whispering in the dark with Rose, at once utterly right and terribly wrong.
“I recently dreamed I was a boy again. I was at Strathwick, but it was different. It was filthy and run-down. The well was fouled. Everyone was gone, even the animals. I saw feathers and dung but no living thing. I searched all over the castle but couldn’t find a soul.” He paused, trying to translate the elusive images of the dream into words. “I was standing in the courtyard when it suddenly occurred to me to look up.” He tilted his head back, blind to the starlit sky, still looking within. “There, coiled all along the battlements, was an enormous serpent. It drew back its head and hissed at me.”
He returned his gaze to Rose, who leaned forward, eyes wide and lips parted.
“I couldn’t move at first,” he continued. “It swayed toward me—its head did, that is—as if it wanted to eat me, but I just stood there, staring at it. Then Deidra ran by—I know not where she came from, as I vow the castle was deserted when I searched it before. I tried to yell, to warn her, but I couldn’t speak. The serpent saw her and moved as if to strike. I was finally able to move, so I reached formy sword, but when I drew it, it was not a sword but a goose.”
He leaned back against the stone, signaling the dream’s end, and looked at her expectantly.
She’d been watching him with wide, rapt eyes, and when he fell silent, she blinked. “That’s all? You don’t know what happened to Deidra?”
He shook his head. “I woke up.”
“Thatisvery strange.” Then she covered her mouth and laughed softly. “Your sword was a goose? How did it fit in the scabbard?”
He laughed, too, and shrugged. “I know not. And it was a large goose.”
“Cooked or alive?”
“Alive and honking.”
Rose felt as if she were dreaming now, sitting in the dark, laughing with the wizard of Strathwick. He was an exceedingly handsome man when he laughed—when he made her laugh. She had not felt so lighthearted in months. When was the last time she’d forgotten, for just a moment, her father and his illness? But Strathwick made her forget all that and made her recall, all too vividly, how he’d kissed her.
She bent her knees beneath her kirtle, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. She bit her lip thoughtfully. “May I ask you a question?”
“Aye.”
“Why did you pretend to be a groom?”
He leaned his head back and gazed up at the sky, his lips still curved in a slight smile that made her heart flutter and race.
“You’re not going to let me forget about that, are you?” He sighed. “Very well. More than once someone has attempted to kill me. I have guards, but if I’m severely wounded, there is little I can do. Drake and the others will fight, of course, but if they’re also hurt, I cannot help anyone until I am better. So it only makes sense. An assassin will strike their intended target—me, or the person theythinkis me. If Drake is hurt, I subdue the assassin and am still able to heal Drake.”
“What if someone were to kill Drake? Surely you cannot raise the dead.”
