Page 47

She favored him with an arch look. “Maybe.”

Ailsa had just ducked out from behind a dense thicket of elders, after emptying her bladder, when Fern approached her.

Kayla and Darach were busy saddling their horses on the other side of the corrie where they’d camped overnight.

Cern waited a few yards away, his magnificent red-brown coat gleaming despite the dull morning light. The rain had held off, but a heavy helmet of gray pressed down overhead, barely letting in first glimmers of dawn.

Fern halted before her. “All is well, Ailsa?” Her voice was low, her gaze direct.

The two of them hadn’t spoken privately once since their escape from Craeg Aonaranach. There’d been no time or opportunity. But this morning, the directness of Fern’s stare made her tense. The huntress had a way of scrutinizing her, as if she were flaying everything away and seeing straight into her soul.

“Well enough,” she replied.

“You didn’t sleep?”

Ailsa pulled a face. “No.” She’d tossed and turned overnight, plagued by what she’d seen back at Craeg Aonaranach and the knowledge that those same warriors she wanted to help were now hunting them.

But something else bothered her too, something that gnawed at her constantly.

Their escape from the fort had brought out the bavaan again, had shown her what it was capable of. The truth was that she no longer trusted herself as instinctively as she once had. The two parts of her were at war these days.

She worried that the bavaan was stronger.

“I didn’t sleep either,” Fern admitted with a shrug. Indeed, Ailsa marked the dark crescents beneath her eyes. “I won’t until we’ve outrun our pursuers.” She halted there, favoring Ailsa with another flaying look; one that demanded frankness.

Their gazes fused for a long moment, before Ailsa sighed. “Do you know what I am?”

Fern’s eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t initially. When we first met, I found your scent unusual … even more so than Darach’s.” She hesitated. “I’ve met faeries that smell like you before … and now I’ve watched you fight too. If I had to guess, you have bavaan blood in you.”

“You’d be right. My mother is one.”

Fern inclined her head. “Your father was Marav?”

“Aye … a druid. Shortly after she gave birth to me, my mother handed me to a passing traveler. I’ve only just learned all this from Kayla.”

Fern considered this before her gaze flicked right, over Ailsa’s shoulder, toward where Kayla was struggling to tighten Thicket’s girth. The gelding was sneaky and had deliberately puffed up his chest and belly, obstructing her efforts. For the moment, the tattooist wasn’t paying them any attention. “Your mentor kept that from you?”

“Aye.” She wondered then if Kayla ever regretted not leaving her behind on that fateful night, not packing up her horse, placing the newborn babe on a tree stump, and departing without a backward glance.

She never dared ask.

And now that things were so tense between them these days, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

“She had her reasons though.” Ailsa’s tone turned brisk. She wouldn’t cast blame on her mentor any longer. It was time to put that hurt behind her. She glanced back at Kayla. They needed to clear the air; things unspoken only festered. “What matters is that I know now.” She paused then. “Even if I’m not sure where to go from here.”

Seated astride Rùn, Ailsa watched Darach stride from the trees that flanked the path. He still bore a slight limp, yet he stood taller today. Stronger.

“No sign of any tracks nearby,” he announced before casting a glance back at the shadowy woodland. “Although, when I was scouting, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.”

Ailsa tensed. “Aye?”

“Aye.”

She frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

They’d been following a rutted track. It wound its way over stony hills and through clumps of woodland that had now given way to dense pines, spruce, and birch. The day was waning, a gray gloaming settling around them. The Goatfells reared up behind them now, a sign that they were almost at the edge of The Uplands. The Borderlands were close.

But if Niall’s hunters were still on their trail, they’d pursue them for a while yet.