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Daigh’s eyes burned through her, sending a flare of familiar heat low in her belly. “You sought to save a man from drowning. You’d no idea he’d pull you down with him.”
Sabrina staggered into the dormitory passage. Toward the stairway to her bedchamber. If only escape could be found in a locked room and dreams. But it couldn’t, and so no surprise met the sliding crystalline fog, the lurching dizziness as she tumbled into Daigh’s past. The thinning veil of mist revealing a smoke-filled hall full of confused voices. Men and women moved like wraiths, their eyes weary, their bodies crouched and distressed.
Daigh prowled just beyond the firelight. She knew his stance, the cock of his head, the quiet intensity behind his every gesture. He greeted a crew of rough-looking men who’d only just arrived. Mud-spattered. Breathing hard. Daigh looked her way, the flames’ flicker dancing across his eyes. His gaze sharpened on her face, his love winding its way through her, stronger even than his nervousness or the gravity she sensed hung around him like a heavy cloak.
The fog closed in, the scene fading back into the gray swirl of cloud, talons sinking into her shoulder wrenching a startled cry from her lips.
“Gotcha, girl.”
Sabrina jerked her head up and into the face of Sister Brigh, more shriveled and dried up than usual. “If you think to scold me for shirking my duties, you’re too late. I’ve no duties and you’ve no authority,” she snarled, taking out her anger and confusion on the old woman.
“But I’ve the sight in my eyes and I know what I see. You and that man. He arrives then you arrive. Neat and tidy. And now I see your boldness when you look upon him. And his lust when he meets that look.”
“You’re eyesight’s failing. Mr. MacLir doesn’t look at me with anything but scorn.”
She tried wrenching away, but the old priestess’s fingers bit deep into Sabrina’s flesh. “You’re a fool, girl. He watches you. Always with that empty, black stare. The mage energy swirling round him like a storm cloud. I know what he is. I hear things. Notice things. You should be careful, girl.”
“Careful of what?”
Sister Brigh’s eyes darted fearfully to the door as she wrung her bony, grasping hands. “He’s dead risen. What they speak of as a Domnuathi. Evil gave him life. Evil follows him. I see the beast upon his back. The Morrigan’s ravens flying close at his heels. No good can come of it.”
“Daigh wouldn’t harm us. We saved him.”
“He’ll do as his master bids with as little remorse as grinding a bug beneath his heel.” A cruel smile creased Sister Brigh’s face. “You fear it’s true even as you defend him. I can see it on your heart. He’s hurt you already.”
Sabrina slammed closed her mind from Sister Brigh’s prying, but the priestess had decades of training at infiltrating even the most shuttered thoughts.
“I protect what’s mine, girl. This order. My sisters. MacLir must go. If he leaves, the evil and the danger go with him.”
“If he leaves, the evil will take him over, and we’ll be worse off than we are now.”
“The sisters of High Danu survived the ages by keeping our heads down and our magic quiet. I’ll not have that destroyed. Not by you, Ard-siúr, or him.”
Sabrina finally tore herself free from Sister Brigh’s vitriol. The dormitory no longer a refuge, she stumbled back into the yard. Daigh hadn’t moved from the spot where she’d left him. His eyes lifted to hers, and that same bond of unshakeable love passed between them as in the hazy gloom of a Welshman’s hall.
Clouds passed over the sun, throwing his face into shadow. The connection severed.
Daigh turned away.
The men bowed aside and the women displayed shy smiles as Sabrina moved among the refugees. Asking after children or aged parents. Answering questions about a fever here. A rash there. Ard-siúr may have refused her the order’s resources, but her skills were hers alone and couldn’t be taken away. These she leant willingly along with advice and reassurance.
According to a frantic note from Jane, it would be only a matter of days before Aidan arrived and even these small duties would be forevermore denied
her. Poor Jane. Sabrina owed her. It sounded by the tone of ill-usage in the scribbled missive that Aidan had not been exactly pleasant since Ard-siúr’s letter had arrived. She would make it up to her. She would grovel as only a best friend could.
“Heard they burned three farms over by Ballenacriagh.”
“Is it true the government’s begun registering Other?”
“Will the Duinedon attack us here?”
“They say barracks are being reinforced with regiments home from the wars.”
“They treat us as if we were less than human.”
“I’ll fight rather than let the Duinedon round us up like sheep.”
“That goes for me as well. Let them come, I say. We’re more than a match for the Duinedon.”
