He stopped walking and spun slowly, searching for—well, anything. He saw naught but trees stretching endlessly in every direction, the light between the trunks turning milky green.
Fear struck him. He did not know how to leave this place. To get home.
Home. The hearth in the small house his family shared, his parents and sisters gathered around it. His ma dishing out pottage and her oatcakes—or better yet, some bannock, of which he could never get enough. A feeling of warmth and belonging.
He had strayed so far from that now.
If he called out again, would Rory come? Rory might well have his own path to follow, from which he would not stray. Better to call Farlan, who had a kind heart.
Something niggled at his mind. Farlan had gone, given up his place in the clan. Rory was beyond furious with him.
Was that how Leith had come here? Searching for Farlan? No matter what, Farlan was his friend. He would never leave Leith abandoned here. Alone.
“Farlan?” he called, and then listened to the silence.
*
Rhian smoothed thebandages in place and let her hands linger on Leith MacLeod’s skin, slide across his chest and his shoulders. Down his arms. She caught his hands in her own.
“Can ye hear me?” Was he there? No flicker, no glimpse of spirit animated him. Rhian squeezed his fingers and felt—something. A tingle. A stirring.
But she could not tell quite whether that tingle came from him or from inside her.
She needed to fetch help. She must find someone to set a new guard. She had to notify Alasdair that an intruder had tried to commit murder here.
If she left, though, whoever had done this might return and finish the job. Might use a dirk this time.
If she let go of this man, he might perish.
Why should she think that, though? She did not hold the man here. Did she? Indeed, he did not even know she was with him. His hands—large, strong hands—lay limp in hers.
“Leith MacLeod?” She received no response. Yet she could still feel something. She could feel his spirit. Trapped somewhere alone.
Bending her head over their joined hands, she again whispered a prayer. Then she spoke a charm, a summoning, employing what small measure of magic she did possess.
“Leith MacLeod, hear me.”
His head stirred on the pallet and his lips moved. A breath of a sound escaped them.
Rhian bent closer in an effort to hear him.
“Help me. I am lost.”
Rhian’s heart thudded in her breast. Before she could react, his left hand moved in hers, writhed, and clutched her fingers tight.
His voice rose in an eerie wail, crying like that of a child in the dark. “Farlan. Farlan!”
“Aye. Quiet, now.”
“Farlan, help me.”
Och, by all that was holy, what should she do? Leave hold of him? Abandon him here, to go and fetch his friend?
“Farlan?” Leith did not see her, that was plain. He saw nothing at all.
“Hold tight,” she told him, and folded his hands on his chest. “I will bring your friend.”
She shut the door of the pen after her and whispered another charm, one of protection this time. She could not say what the man inside meant to her, save that she’d taken on his protection. Without her permission, her heart had done so.
