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Rumors, like illness, thrived in cramped conditions, and long hours passed as she refuted false reports and calmed troubled minds.
“Gossip is a many-headed hydra. Attack one story and three more grow in its place.”
She wasn’t surprised to find Daigh watching her from the open barn door. His haunted grave-black eyes, the severe magnificence of his angled features, the herculean strength in his crossed arms and the broad curve of his shoulders. Her resident butterflies took flight once more, beating against her insides until she quivered with excitement.
He motioned toward the cook fires and makeshift tents. “Máelodor is skillful at fertilizing already rich soil. Look at them. Resentful. Afraid. Angry.”
“Is it any wonder? We’re taught from the cradle to hide what we are from those who don’t understand and would label us monsters.”
His lips curved in the merest hint of irony. “Yes,” he answered softly before nodding once more toward the gathering. “But listen closely. The agitation. The defiance. Us versus them. These are the seeds of revolution.”
She glanced over her shoulder, seeing what Daigh saw. The pinched, sour faces, the clenched jaws, the growing impatience. Shuddering, she pulled her shawl close around her. “Is Máelodor powerful enough to manipulate an entire race?”
“Many are ready to rise up. Discontented. Restless. All they wait for is a leader to unite them. The last High King. Máelodor uses it to his advantage.”
“But Arthur was a great hero. A champion. He would never—”
“He’ll have no choice, Sabrina. As one of the Domnuathi, he’ll be helpless against Máelodor’s powers. A tool to be used by the Great One.”
His words and his emotions spilled hot and laced with fury. They battered her mind, dagger-edged and desperate. He raged at fate. At the heavens. At the gods themselves for deserting him. Leaving him to face Máelodor’s evil alone.
She’d watched him ride off once to a death she knew he’d not escape. The vision of that parting and the grief that followed haunted her still. Could she do it again? Could she let him walk away? Without once asking why?
“You broke free. He doesn’t control you anymore.”
“He lives inside me, Sabrina. Always searching for a way to control me again. Until one of us is dead, that threat remains.” Ducking his head, he retreated back through the door.
She should turn now, walk away, and never look back. She’d known from the first that Daigh MacLir brought trouble in his wake. That to fall beneath the spell of that muscled body and those fathomless eyes would spell disaster. She’d known and not cared.
Not then.
Not now.
She followed him into the gloom of the low-ceilinged barn. Daigh brushed down a heavy-boned mare, murmuring to it in soft nonsensical words. “Paid barnu pob dyn ar weithredoedd un.”
“What are you saying to her?”
He ran his hand carefully over a bare patch on the mare’s flank. “See these marks on her side? She’s been used cruelly. I’m telling her not to judge all men by the actions of one.”
The mare’s ears flicked back as she shifted ominously, one leg poised. Daigh merely murmured again, his voice low pitched, more words in a rolling, lilting growl. “Rwyt ti’n brydferth. ’Dwi’n gwneud yr hyn sydd angen i amddiffyn ti.”
Sabrina leaned against the partition. “Now what are you telling her?”
Daigh smiled. “That she’s a beauty of a lass. And I mean her no harm. I only do what I must to keep her well.”
Delicious heat lapped against her insides as Daigh gentled the mare with hands and voice. The horse lowered its head, breathing deeply, the large brown eyes half closed, sides twitching at every pass of Daigh’s brush.
“Look at her,” she said. “She trusts you. Believes you.” Their eyes met, Sabrina willing him to see her heart.
A rare and sudden smile lit his face, startling her with its brilliance. Sending her heart leaping into her throat. “How long can we play this game of words?” he teased.
Reckless excitement swept her along just as it had in Dublin when the rugged lilt of his voice, the scent of his skin, the forever depth in his gaze had drawn her on when sanity told her she was mad. “How long do you have?”
“I was closer to Brendan than any of my family. Not that I didn’t love my parents, but Mother’s love was all for Father. No one else could intrude into that bubble. And as for Father, Aidan was his heir. Brendan his favorite. I, a mere daughter. Not much use. Not much trouble.” She twirled a stalk of timothy grass between her fingers. “Not until I could be used as barter.”
In heavy weather, the barn loft leaked both wind and water, but tonight only moonshine spread across the floor. A few weak stars glimpsed through broken shingles. What was it about the musty sweetness of hay and the mutter and shift of animals that made confidences possible? Or was it the company? Sabrina sat on the one and only stool. Daigh beside her upon an upturned bucket.
They’d resided thus for hours. Daigh pulling stories from her one after another like ribbons from a carnival magician’s sleeve. Never tiring of tales from her years with the bandraoi, but also teasing free recollections of the great house by the sea, of tagging after her brothers, whining to be included in their games, her parents’ distant affection. All memories she locked away when she departed her home for what she assumed would be the last time. They spilled from her in a cleansing flow, Daigh content to listen. An understanding ear. A strong shoulder to lean on. Something she hadn’t had in uncounted years.
