Chapter 27
Sage returned to the barn to find Marcustugging at the brown tunic he now wore—which had previously belonged to the assassin. The tunic fell to his mid-thigh like most tunics, but the sleeves pulled tight around his biceps and shoulders. And a large red stain marred the front near his stomach. The black breeches were like a second skin around his thighs. But the clothing would do. “I moved the horses to the forest. We’re ready.”
Marcus nodded and looked up at Sage.
She gazed at the dead man stretched on his stomach on the floor. He wore Marcus’s green tunic and black breeches. She hoped her plan would work. The assassin’s blond hair pooled around his head on the straw beneath him. If they were lucky, it would be enough to fool Marcus’s cousin. She clutched the book in her hand.
Marcus glanced at the assassin and then back to Sage. “Are you certain about this?” Marcus asked.
Sage turned to him and took a deep breath, filling her lungs. “It will work,” she assured him with certainty.
Marcus grinned, his eyebrows rising in admiration. “It’s a brilliant plan.”
“Have you come to expect less from me?” she asked playfully.
He eased the book from her hands. “I know how much this book means to you.”
She recalled seeing Marcus’s face shoved into the dirt by his cousin’s men, and she clenched her jaw in anguish. She stepped forward and pressed her lips to his to relieve the torment of the memory. When she pulled back to look into his deep blue eyes, she admitted, “Not as much as you mean.”
Marcus’s stare softened, and he ran his fingers along her cheek. “How could I have gotten so lucky? I first captured you for your skill, and now you have captured my heart.”
“I love you, Marcus,” Sage whispered, shifting her head to press a kiss into his palm.
Marcus’s hand slipped to the nape of her neck, and he drew her tightly against him, claiming her lips in a searing kiss.
Tingles peppered her skin, and even though he was hurt and even though their lives were in danger, Sage felt breathlessness sweep over her. An intense need to have more of him. She groaned softly.
He pulled back, brushing a lock of her short hair behind her ear. “We’ll have the rest of our lives together.”
She nodded in agreement and stepped clear of him. The cool air touched her heated skin, and the space from Marcus allowed her to be rational. She opened her hand to display a piece of iron and flint. She bent and picked up some dry twigs of hay.
“The villagers think this farm is haunted,” she told Marcus as she walked over to the dead assassin. She knelt beside him and put the hay on top of the flint. “We are simply dispelling the ghosts.”
She struck the flint, drawing her hand down sharply with a loose wrist to produce the spark. A spark jumped into the hay, and she lifted it up, gently blowing on it until the small red ember ignited into a flame. She glanced at Marcus over the flame.
He nodded in acceptance and encouragement.
She walked up to him, carefully holding the burning straw. The flames eagerly consumed the straw. Sage stared at the book for a moment. It had brought her to Marcus, brought them together. And it was a book. It had meant so much to her at the start of this adventure. She lifted her gaze to Marcus.
Now, there was someone more important.
Marcus stretched the book out toward her like an offering.
She extended her hand forward and touched the crackling flame to the parchment pages. They flared to life as the hungry fire devoured the pages. The pages would burn, making it impossible to decode the book, but the leather binding would not. It would curl and shrivel, leaving enough evidence for Marcus’s cousin to find it.
Marcus shifted the book, turning it this way and that to ignite more of the pages. The fire spread, its flicking tongues greedily encompassing the parchment. He held it until the flames were nipping at his fingers. Then he tossed it on top of the assassin.
Sage strolled to the back of the barn, cupping her hand about the burning hay. She stooped, touching the fire to some old hay on the ground. She waited until the fire ignited the hay before moving to another spot. She walked to three different locations in the barn, starting different fires before dropping the burning hay on the ground. She backed to Marcus’s side, watching as the fire spread quickly across the dry straw and up the side of the wooden barn.
She glanced at the book. The leather cover blackened further as the fire inside scorched it. For a moment, she didn’t think the fire would catch on the clothing or the hay around the assassin. Then, the flames crawled onto the green tunic and erupted in dancing fingers of fire.
The fire crept across the assassin’s back and into the surrounding hay.
Together, she and Marcus watched as the blaze spread through the barn, crackling across the hay on the floor and ascending rotting beams.
Sage looked at the assassin. The fire was growing, claiming his corpse in its inferno.
The scent of burning flesh wafted to Sage, and she covered her nose against the stench.
