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“Are you ready? I look forward to seeing what secrets the room holds.” Her words rushed so fast from her mouth that they sounded garbled to her own ears.
Magnus laughed. “There are not many women who would be enthusiastic about searching out secret rooms locked away for years. There will be cobwebs and spiders, you know.”
“You mean to frighten me?” she asked, her grin wide. “You will need to use more than cobwebs and spiders to put fear in me.”
“Skeletons?” he asked.
“Do you honestly think we may find a skeleton?” she asked excitedly.
“Will you map him if we do?” he teased.
She was serious in her answer. “I often thought it might prove beneficial to map a skeleton—think what one can learn from it.”
Magnus shook his head, closing the ledger he had been working on. “Come, let us see if we can find you a skeleton.”
She eagerly followed alongside him as they made their way to the tower room. The room was large, the hearth small, and four windows, strategically placed, looked out on spectacular views of Dunhurnal land. A fire had been lit, but it barely warmed the empty room.
“What are your plans here?” Reena asked, turning in a complete circle to view the entire room.
“I have not yet decided, though I have heard told that the tower room is sometimes used to hold a special person prisoner.”
Reena took a second glance around the room. “It would be very lonely to remain so close yet so far removed from everyone, and to look out the windows and see the land and be unable to venture out—” She shivered and hugged herself. “How horrible a fate.”
“And one that will befall no one in my keep.”
His firm yet sad tone chilled her and another shiver raced through her.
“You are cold?”
“Nay, it is the feel of the room that chills.”
“I feel it myself,” he said. “Let us search the secret room and be done with it.”
Reena eagerly followed him over to the room that appeared carved out of the stone wall, a thick chest braced against the open door. It was an ingenious design, the door looking as if it were part of the wall when closed.
“How did you ever find this?” she asked, her hand examining the smooth stone edge of the door.
“By mere accident.” Magnus took one of the lighted torches from the wall and entered the room. Reena followed close behind him, feeling as if she’d stepped into the mouth of darkness.
The chamber was nothing more than a tiny cell, dark and dank, with cobwebs surrounding two trunks that sat one on top of the other in the corner. Nothing else occupied the small space.
Magnus stood frozen for a moment; his eyes were riveted to the far stone wall. She wondered at his thoughts. Did they disturb him? Did he recall a memory of another time and similar room? Lately she found herself wanting to know more about him and his past, and the reason he was called the Legend. But it would not do to ask; she was certain she would discover her answers, given time.
“Let us shed light on what is hidden,” he said. “Can you hold this torch?”
Reena took it from him and stood aside while he broke through the cobwebs and moved the two dust-covered trunks out into the tower room. She gave one last look around the small space and was about to leave when something on the far wall caught her eye. She walked the few steps further into the room and held up the torch, casting light on the wall.
She reached out and touched a metal ring secured firmly in the wood. She wondered over its purpose and made a mental note to include it in her drawing of the room.
A last glance yielded no more discoveries, and she left the room to see what Magnus had found in the trunks.
Reena stood, her eyes rounding at the sight of the sparkling gems Magnus held in his hand and the plethora of gems contained in a smaller box in the trunk. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires glittered magnificently.
Magnus dropped the gems back into the small wooden box and took the torch from her, replacing it in the metal wall sconce.
“Secret treasure,” Reena said on a whisper, as if no one should hear her. She dropped to her knees and reached out slowly to touch a dark red ruby pendant on a strand of pearls, then stopped and looked to Magnus.
“Touch what you will,” he said, a smile defining his handsome features.
