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Elisabeth grabbed him by the neck. “Don’t even think it. They would eat you alive.”
The terrier didn’t seem to take notice of her warning. He went on snarling and barking at the village dogs as if to say, Back off. These are my people.
Rogan chuckled. “If Helena sees that dog up here, she’s liable to have my head on a platter.”
“Miss Roseingrave isn’t here and you won’t tell her, will you?” She turned her best wheedling smile in his direction.
“Arrah, now, Miss Fitzgerald. Would I snitch on the little bugger? Not likely.” He scratched Killer behind an ear, the terrier leaning against the harper with eyes half-closed in joy. “He’s good company when he’s not stealing the cheese from my lunch.”
Rogan pulled up outside a blacksmith’s shop, the ring of a hammer matching the thump of her brain against her temples. He leapt down from the box to tie the ponies and give them a rough scratch upon their heads. “You stay with Douglas while I purchase provisions.”
Once he was gone, she drew aside the curtain to check on Brendan.
He slept on, his face chalk-white but for two vivid spots of color high upon his cheeks. Sweat damped his hair, sickness dulling the vibrant brilliance of him like a shade placed upon a flame. Where was his glittering Fey beauty now? Where was the rakish charmer who could twist her into knots simply by looking at her? This efficient killer possessed a savagery and a harshness she’d never experienced in the men she’d known. A dark heart to the diamond. A wolf among lapdogs.
So, why did her heart race remembering their one and only kiss? Why did she, even for a second, imagine the life she might have led if not for his disappearance? Why did Brendan crowd her thoughts to the detriment of common sense?
Her skin prickled, a fizz of excitement bubbling through her. Was this some cosmic plan in motion? Was Rogan right? She shook her head. Right or wrong, there was nothing and no one for her here.
He couldn’t sleep. The air pressed cool and wet against his face. Killer pressed hot and furry against his ribs. Rogan snored and smacked his lips. Elisabeth remained a hump of a blanket across from him. Roseingrave? Who knew? She appeared and disappeared on a regular basis. No announcements of her departure. No sound to mark her returns. The Amhas-draoi warrior elevated inscrutable mystery to an art form.
Her intentions toward him remained an unanswered question, though he was still alive, whic
h boded well. Surely the fact she’d not executed him immediately meant she had other plans for him. Plans that did not involve a quick severing of his head from his shoulders. She wanted something. He could well imagine what that something was.
Brendan closed his hand round the stone. The jolt of its power kicking against his chest. A flash of fire pouring between his fingers.
Rose and orange and gold and bright white burst across his vision. Cleared to reveal the same field of dead. The same pall of thick, choking smoke. But this time, the defeated king lifted his head, and Brendan felt the connection between them like a current. The mage energy charging through his tired body.
Arthur pointed with the broken edge of his sword. Brendan’s gaze following. One body among the hundreds and thousands. A corpse, bloodied and hacked, a mess of gristle and bone. The face, a little older, a little more careworn, but still recognizable.
Aidan.
His brother. A curl of auburn hair fell across a forehead blue-white in death. Sightless eyes staring toward a sky wheeling with crows.
Brendan slammed his hand against the side of the wagon, pain shooting up his arm. Shattering the vision into a million dancing shards of light.
Not a vision of past battles. But a prophecy of what lay in store for the Other should he fail.
Roseingrave, Máelodor, Elisabeth be damned!
He wouldn’t fail.
ten
“It’s not as grand as you’re probably used to, but it’s home.” Helena ushered them into her tidy comfortable parlor with an imperious wave of her hand before sinking into a chair, exhaustion clear in the tight lines beside her mouth.
After days on the road, Elisabeth’s bones rattled and road dust lay in gritty layers upon her skin and in her hair. She couldn’t wait to peel herself out of her gown and scrub every particle of her body until it squeaked.
Rogan sauntered into the room as if long familiar with its comforts. Despite the circumstances, Elisabeth had grown to like the enigmatic harper. Over hours of conversation, he’d proven to be a man of many talents and many faces. Cunning and resourceful. Always quick when spirits flagged to play a tune upon his harp and jolly them along with a song or two.
Brendan entered last. Thinner, paler, his molten amber eyes overlarge in his gaunt face. Elisabeth could almost see the wheels turning as he took in the Amhas-draoi’s lair from the lack of fripperies or feminine dainties to the shelves of books, a vase of fresh flowers upon a piano.
“No chains. No whips. No torture devices of any kind. You’re safe enough for now, Douglas,” Helena said, motioning him toward a chair by the fire.
Suddenly the marks of his illness were erased in a breathtaking smile. “I’d say that hellish trip was torture enough for one lifetime, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh no, not nearly enough,” Helena replied maliciously.
