Rhian rose to her feet from the side of the cot. “You focus on getting well, Alasdair. And if the pain becomes too great in the night as may be, call me and I will mix a draught. And I will tell no one that the mighty Alasdair MacBeith had recourse to a potion.”
Unexpectedly, he grinned at her. “I just might do that.”
Rhian went out from the healers’ hut and sought the evening air, aching for a few moments alone. Out in the forecourt she found herself surrounded by yet another soft gloaming. Stars appeared overhead one by one, alongside a lopsided moon. The air smelled of wood smoke and wild thyme.Home.
She loved this place to the roots of her being. At one time, she’d been willing to swear she would die for it.
Now she wondered how she would survive a lifetime. Without him.
Like one testing the air, she framed a thought and sent it out.My love?
When they’d been lying together, close beside one another in her bed, they’d been given the gift of hearing the words in one another’s minds.
But Leith was far from her now. She heard nothing in reply. Only a soft wind sighing over the land. Blowing down from the height where Da lay, where dwelt the clan’s magic.
Deep magic, it was. It lay in those stones, raised so long ago. In the very soil of the glen, in the waters that flowed down the brae sides to the loch. It dwelt in them all, even in her, far more than she’d ever before suspected.
She twisted her fingers together and raised her face to the sky, drawing upon that magic.
Leith? My love. I canna bear it.
No reply came from the far-distant stronghold across the loch, the place where he must be. But the soft wind that caressed her cheek seemed to whisper to her.
Believe. Believe.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Will ye beable to fight again, wi’ that arm?” Rory aimed the question at Leith along with a narrowed stare. It was midday, and they had just come from the drilling field, where Leith had not taken part in the training. Neither had Rory, as it happened. Though he’d dressed in his leathers, he spent most the session directing the other men.
Now, back in Rory’s chamber, which used to be Camraith’s, he stripped off those leathers, affording Leith a look at the wound in his back.
The sight of it made Leith’s stomach lurch and turn. Aye, they’d heard at MacBeith that Rory had been sorely injured. Even that he lay near to death. Leith had imagined naught like this.
Arrow wounds, as he knew, were dire things. The barbed head of an arrow went in much more easily than it came out again. This arrowhead had torn the flesh when it was extracted and opened up a huge wound just to the left of Rory’s spine.
He now wore no bandaging upon it. The torn flesh looked raw, the scarring at its edges new and pink.
Leith swore bitterly, and Rory glanced over his shoulder.
“Christ Jesus, Rory, that looks bad.”
Rory made a face. “Aye, so, ill luck had a part in it. The healer says the arrow took me at just the right—or wrong—angle, passed between two o’ my ribs, and went in deep.”
“How deep?”
“Deep enough, as I say, to nick the lung.” Rory turned to face Leith, denying him further sight of the wound. “It took two o’ them to dig it out again. The damned arrowhead turned and got caught on my ribs on its way out.”
Leith’s stomach did another slow roll. “I hope ye were senseless for most o’ that.”
Rory shook his head, a scowl wrinkling his brow. “I remember it all.”
“Ye should no’ be up on your feet.”
“I ha’ no the luxury o’ bein’ off them.”
Ignoring that, Leith went on, “And for certain ye had no business launching another attack while still so torn up. How can ye stand the leathers against yer skin?”
Rory shrugged and drew a soft tunic on over his head. “I had nay time to wait. I needed to get ye back, did I no’? Ye being my heir and all.”
