Could Saerla break away? Could she, while he remained distracted? He was strong,strong. Strong enough to lift her without effort. And furious. She could feel that in every muscle, every sinew pressed against her back.
She could not break away, but she might be able to trick him.
Her dirk lay in a loop at her belt. Her fingers searched for it, and Moira, catching the movement, sought to engage the monster’s attention.
“Leave her go, or I swear by this holy ground on which we stand, ye will regret it.”
The man holding Saerla—Rory MacLeod—huffed a breath. A scornful laugh.
“Leave her go,” rasped Farlan, his heart in his eyes, “and tak’ me instead.”
Rory’s voice rumbled up through his body, and Saerla’s. “Why should I want ye? When I ha’ one o’ MacBeith’s daughters.” He snugged Saerla closer to him. “I will tak’ her home. That will mak’ two o’ the three at MacLeod.”
Saerla swung up the dirk in an arc, clutched tight in her fingers. So swift was the motion, her captor did not catch it in time. Stabbing blindly, she drove the blade into his right shoulder, to the hilt.
He bellowed, and everyone there cried out. For an instant, his grip on Saerla weakened. She threw her weight against his restraining arm and felt the blade of his sword connect with the skin at her throat.
“Nay!” Moira cried.
And then, with preternatural speed, Rory MacLeod recovered. His grip once more tightened, and he lifted Saerla clear from the ground, leaving her feet reaching desperately for the turf.
The circle around them broke and contracted. She saw Moira’s face coming at her, full of agony. Moira cared naught for her own safety. Saerla felt herself falling, falling even though Rory MacLeod held her still in his arms. She saw her mother’s face and the view over the glen from the holy stones up on the rise. She heard the clash of weapons resume, and someone screaming.
It sounded like her own voice. A blow took her hard on the head, turning the screaming to silence, and the darkness came down.
*
“Is she dead?”someone asked.
In a distant sort of way, Saerla thought she knew that voice. Male. Not anyone close to her, nay. But it chimed through her mind, arguing she’d heard it before.
Another answered it, a grunt of sound that sent fear rushing through her like flame through straw.
“I do no’ think so. Help me wi’ this, Leith. The bitch left her dirk in me.”
Leith. Aye, that was his voice Saerla recognized. But—he was not at MacBeith. He had gone back to MacLeod, and Rhian after him.
Och, by the gods, was it possible she was no longer at MacBeith?
Alarm sent her eyes flying open. She stared into the dim air of an unknown place and fought desperately to orientate herself.
She lay on her back on a pliant surface. Still clad as she’d been for battle, she seemed to be. Unhurt except for a dire pounding in her head and a sickness in her gut prompted by—
That second voice. Harsh and brutal. She remembered it rumbling up through her. Rory MacLeod. How could she be here, where he and his cousin Leith spoke together? Was this a Vision? Or—
Or was she caught in events foretold by a Vision already Seen?
She began to tremble violently where she lay. The two men, surely no more than a pace or two away from her, ignored her as if they believed her senseless.
She lifted up her pounding head just enough to see.
A fire burned on the far side of the chamber, silhouetting the two men. They seemed to struggle together. It took Saerla an instant to realize that the bigger of them—aye, he was Leith MacLeod—stripped the battle armor off the other in order to examine his wounds.
Neither of them so much as glanced at Saerla. But aye, this must be real and not Vision—she must truly be here, since Leith had asked whether she lived or not.
“The bitch tried to kill me. Twice,” Rory muttered.
The bitch was her. She had tried to kill him. She had failed.
