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The bleakness of Amber’s voice made Meg flinch in silent sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said.

“Don’t be. Better that I live untouched than be touched by Duncan now.”

“He would never lift a hand to you,” Meg said quickly.

“He wouldn’t have to. I can feel his fury like black wings beating against my soul.”

Instinctively Meg held out her hand in a gesture of comfort, then remembered that pain rather than ease would flow from her touch. Her hand dropped to her side.

“Duncan will soften,” Meg said. “I’ve never seen him so tender with anyone as he was with you before he knew that…”

“That I was less than I seemed and he was far more?” Amber’s mouth turned down in a sad curve.

“His temper is like a summer storm,” Meg said, “loud and even frightening, but it passes quickly.”

“The rocky fells will melt and run like honey before the Scots Hammer forgives me for tarnishing his honor,” Amber said. “Such forgiveness would require great love. Duncan loves me not.”

The combination of anguish and acceptance in Amber’s voice told Meg more than words could have.

“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Meg whispered.

“I knew it might. I hoped it wouldn’t.” Amber closed her eyes. “I wagered…everything. I lost.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Duncan came to me in shades of darkness…and touching him taught me that the darkness was mine, not his.”

“I don’t understand.”

Amber smiled oddly. “I doubt that anyone could unless they were cursed with my ‘gift.’”

Motionless, Meg waited,seeingAmber’s truth and sorrow with Glendruid eyes.

“Mine was a lifetime of night,” Amber said simply. “Duncan was my dawn. How could I let Erik hang him?”

“Hang Duncan?” Meg asked, appalled.

“Aye.”

As though chilled, Amber wrapped her arms around herself and whispered, “‘Death will surely flow.’”

Coolness coursed down Meg’s spine. “What was that?”

“Cassandra’s prophecy, the one I hoped to evade.”

“What prophecy?”

Amber’s laugh was a cry of throttled pain.

“More fool I,” Amber said bleakly. “Rich life was the lure, death is the truth. Better that I had never been born.”

“What prophecy?” Meg asked again, sharply.

The tone of her voice brought Dominic immediately to his wife’s side.

“What is it, small falcon?”