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 shiftover 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 struggling 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, barelydiscernable, 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.Icannot 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.”
