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Not exactly the heights of so-called literary achievement, but Sister Ursula didn’t have to eye her as if she wouldn’t know poetry from prose.
With a vague nod, the priestess glided away, and Sabrina was left alone to try to make heads or tails out of the gibberish staring up at her from the enormous, dusty tome.
She reread the last passage, hoping it would make more sense the second time around. Not a bit. The writer of this tract delved in great footnoted detail into the nature of memory. The biology. The physiology. The psychology. Even the chemistry. There were diagrams, tables, charts, and references to other works by other equally obscure scholars with their own sets of tables, charts, and references. Following the circumlocution ended her right back where she started. A dog chasing its tail.
But still it had been the closest reference she’d found so far to the odd hallucinations she’d experienced. Not that it mattered. Daigh had disappeared. Whatever had caused her to fall into his memories would stop now that he was gone. So why spend her last hours here browsing endless titles, trying to read ancient texts, and puzzling out unintelligible hieroglyphs?
That was the real question she should be studying.
She sank her chin onto her hand. Peered up into the weak light coming through the filmy clerestory windows, and tried throwing herself into a memory as if diving off the cliffs below Belfoyle. But no odd shifting and spinning of the room took place. No melting of the stacks and shelves into a damp, dripping wood. No Daigh slanting his mouth against hers in an axis-tilting kiss that sizzled her insides like a torch.
She sighed. Thank heavens.
And closed the book.
Night closed in. The fire dying back to glowing embers. Cooling to gray ash. The temperature dropping with each passing hour until his breath fogged the chilly air, and his body cramped with cold.
Bloom’s ship left in the morning. Daigh had only hours before he’d lose his chance to follow. Find Máelodor. Make sense of what was becoming an increasingly dangerous conspiracy.
He tried rising. Dropped back with a pained moan, nerves flayed raw and even breathing almost more effort than he could muster.
He sought the solace of sleep. Managed only cluttered hideous dreams that left him retching and sick. But awake, he saw only the suffused lust of the man calling himself Lancelot. Heard once more his blood-chilling avowals of Douglas’s torture.
Sabrina’s brother. A man he’d never met. But fated for a death as gruesome as any devised.
If the man sought Brendan Douglas he might turn his sights upon Sabrina. Use her as a pawn in the capture of her brother. Surely nothing could harm her while she remained with the bandraoi. Not even Lancelot’s malignant powers.
Still, Daigh had penetrated the sanctity of their walls. As had Bloom. It wouldn’t take much to separate Sabrina from the crowd. Get her alone. Take her captive.
His heart turned over in his chest. His brain alive with images each more terrifying than the last.
He battled back his fear by concentrating on the snatches of conversation. Struggling to fill in the blanks. Bloom and Lancelot spoke of a diary. Kilronan’s diary.
Sabrina.
Their first conversation.
You were asking someone for a diary. Demanding it.
Apparently he’d succeeded. But at what price?
A man twisted with hate. A sword arcing silver above him. A battle he nearly lost. And a woman’s tearful pleading for mercy. Piecemeal memories surfaced like sharks to feed, leaving him shuddering and sick. He curled into a ball until it passed.
Black faded to gray as dawn approached, and strength returned by interminable degrees. Rolling to his knees. Levering himself to his feet. Straightening against the spine-snarling twitch of fried muscles.
The Earl of Kilronan’s diary had told them where to find the Rywlkoth Tapestry. A tapestry kept with the bandraoi. A tapestry he’d last seen hanging in Ard-siúr’s office.
Sabrina.
Lady Sabrina.
Daughter and sister to the Earls of Kilronan.
Sister to Brendan Douglas.
Sister of High Danu.
The clues clicked into place, creating a heart-dropping image.
