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Then he heard them. Hooves on pebbles. One horse, laboring up the steep climb.
Coming one at a time, as planned. As Cassia had planned.
He unraveled to his feet.
Cassia appeared out of the splattering drops of rain. Draped in her pink and purple gown, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders, she slid off Fury’s back.
“Jesus,” he said in astonishment.
“You’re going to need your horse back.”
He stepped toward her, his heart beating hard, the grayness receding under the color of her. “Cassia.“
“And you’re going to need me.”
“Dammit, woman, I—”
They heard the sound at the same time. Voices in the distance. Coming up the path. The rain started falling faster.
“You are a beautiful, stubborn woman,” he rasped.
She tilted her face up. Raindrops fell on her cheeks. “Tell me what to do.”
Her father rode up the trail alone, at the head of his line of men. They were wisely spread out far, respect for the narrowness of the trail and the dizzying heights on one side. His hood was pulled forward, his eyes on the trail as rain splattered in fat drops on the dusty trail.
His horse’s pace slowed and he looked up.
Cassia stood in the middle of the path.
He checked his horse. “Jesus God, Cassia.”
“Hello Father.”
“How…how did you get here?”
“The outlaw you hired brought me.”
“Hired?” He gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t,” was all she said.
He glanced around swiftly. “How did you get away?”
Máel stepped out from the trees. “She did not.”
Her father’s face washed white.
Máel lifted the bow to his jaw, an arrow nocked and aimed at her father’s heart. “Get off the horse. Tell your men to stay back or you die.”
Her father twisted in the saddle and called to his soldiers. The first of them was just rounding the bend. Her father shouted again.
The man stopped short. “What trouble, my lord?”
“Landslide,” Máel said quietly.
Her father looked at Cassia, but when she simply stared back, rain pelting off her hooded and cloaked body, he turned and called out, “There is a rock slide. Give me a moment. Take the others back down.”
“Get off the horse,” Máel repeated.
