Saerla heard Farlan’s cry that might be her own. Protest rose within her, so strong it tore apart the fabric of the Vision. It broke up into separate, blinding shards of light.
Leaving Saerla alone and grieving in darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rory caught Saerlamore closely against him when she abruptly sagged in his grasp. At first he thought—feared—the blade he held against her throat had moved without his intention. Cut her. For whatever he threatened and whatever he claimed, he could never harm this woman. Startled, he gazed down into her face as she lolled against his shoulder. Eyes closed. Not so much as a drop of blood marking her skin.
Rhian screamed and charged him, evading Leith’s clutches.
Rory, stunned, lowered the woman in his arms to the ground, going down with her so she lay half across his knees.
Rhian threw herself down beside him, making a heap of her skirts in the grass. Rory cast the knife aside and spread his hands. “I did no’ touch her.”
“Nay. ’Tis a Vision.” Dark blue eyes seared him. “She is a Seer. Did ye no’ ken that?”
“This? This is a Vision?” Rory stared down at Saerla, sprawled in his lap. She looked dead. Did she breathe? For the life of him, he could not tell.
“’Tis no’ always like this. Sometimes when the power o’ it overtakes her.” Rhian’s hands moved even as she spoke, loosening the front of the drab gray gown.
No color whatever remained in Saerla’s face. Rory had seen dead men with more health to them.
“Will she die?”
“Nay, she is but…stricken. We maun get her awa’ out o’ here. Inside.” Rhian looked around for Leith. “Can ye lift her, my love?”
“I will carry her.” Rory gathered Saerla up like a child and climbed to his feet. The men standing around them, his warriors all, fell back and opened the rough ring to allow him passage to the fortress.
They hurried, Rhian at a near trot and Rory following. By the time they traversed the forecourt and got inside, he was quite certain Saerla did not breathe.
Gone from the world. All her beauty, all her brightness. The warmth of her, the light. A loss beyond imagining.
The world would dim if she left it, nevermore to brighten again.
“Where?” Rhian asked when they got inside.
“My chamber.”
He led the way now. Climbed the stairs as if they did not exist, as if his feet did not touch the stone.
The door of his chamber stood open. The attendant guard had gone. Och, by God, he had sent men to drag her away out of here. What harm, what terrible harm, had he done?
“On the bed,” Rhian barked, and ducked past him to rush ahead. Rory set Saerla on the bed with infinite care. The place where he’d kissed her. Tasted her. Where, for a few brief moments, she had been his.
Only then did he realize Leith had followed them. His cousin closed the door and came to stand at Rory’s side.
“Can ye save her?” Rory asked Rhian.
She went down on her knees at the side of the bed and reached for her sister. Seized her hands and chafed them. Rubbed her arms.
“Does she breathe?” Rory demanded.
“Aye.”
He nearly fell down, so relieved was he.
“She has been taken hard by this Vision,” Rhian said. “It happens so but seldom.”
“But she will recover?”
