Adrian (8 page)

Halfway down, Maisie paused to slide the door into place securely, shutting out the view of the sky fading quickly to night, and what looked like a million shooting stars streaking over the deck above.

 

Adrian pored over the amateurish plans for hours by the light of the lantern over the table, which, for what reason he couldn't fathom, didn't so much as wobble or cast a cross shadow. Maisie Lindsey scooted a bowl containing a hunk of bread and some sort of rich stew close to his elbow at one point, although Adrian could not recall any evidence of her cooking over the strange, cauldronlike heating apparatus in the cabin. He told himself he was only preoccupied with the maddening drawings before him.

Regardless, the stew was delicious.

The drawings couldn't be accurate, which frustrated him. How was he to appropriately plan for the search when it was clear the renderings of Wyldonna Castle were incomplete or incorrect? No structure of this mad design could possibly stand. Whatever chambers were missing or unexplored and thereby unaccounted for on the sketches could very well be the best locations to pursue, but he could not count on them until he was in the place itself. For now, he would be forced to plan with what he had.

Adrian traced a finger between two lines representing a corridor—obviously the wing of the castle that held the royal apartments. Clearly noted was the queen's chamber, and down a bit and across the way, a large square room labeled “Malcolm.”

Adrian lifted his head and glanced about the cabin, his vision blurry from his intense concentration. “Who is Malcolm?”

The redhead was sitting in her queer chair, her arms laid carefully along the wooden rests, staring at him unabashedly. “The king.”

“The king, yes, of course,” Adrian mumbled, half to himself. Then he directed his voice to Maisie again. “Where is he exactly?”

She shrugged.

“No one knows?”

“Likely he does.”

He frowned at her. “Not helpful, Lady Maisie.”

“If we knew where he was, we'd have little use for you now, would we?”

Adrian decided to ignore the baiting remark. “When did he leave the island?”

“He didna leave the island.”

Adrian sat back in his chair with a loud sigh, rubbing his hands over his eyes and then dropping his palms to his thighs. His back ached from hunching over the tabletop. “Has no one searched? I have seen maps of the Scot coast; there is no island of such magnitude that a healthy-sized search party could not cover in a pair of days.”

“The queen looked for him.”

“Only the queen?”

“There wasna anyone else.”

He stared at her and she stared back, and Adrian noticed suddenly how remarkably attractive Maisie Lindsey was just then, half-reclining in her low chair, her riotous red hair falling over both shoulders to below her small, high breasts, her dainty feet crossed at the ankles. Adrian found himself intrigued at the way she seemed utterly at ease, studying him openly as if he were a painting or sculpture.

“What do you mean, there wasn't anyone else?”

“Nearly everyone abandoned the castle after they learned of the queen's pact with Glayer Felsteppe.”

Adrian snorted. “Loyal lot.”

“They hate her. They have reason to, I suppose.” Maisie shrugged again and continued to stare at him. She appeared different this night than the way she'd behaved since they'd met. Sadder. Resigned. Adrian found himself with the odd urge to comfort her.

“Then she must doubly appreciate your devotion.”

“I hate her, too.”

That gave him cause to smile and he cocked his head. “At least you stayed.”

“Did I?”

His smile broadened into a grin. It was true. Maisie Lindsey had likely traveled farther from Wyldonna than any of the others who had merely abandoned their posts at the castle.

She didn't return his smile but cocked her head, mirroring his pose. “What are the markings on your arm?”

Adrian felt his grin fade and he dropped his eyes back to the drawings on the tabletop, sitting up in the hard wooden chair once more. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I saw them, Adrian,” she chided. “When you were having your—” her palms came away from the armrests and turned toward each other, as if she could somehow manifest the correct word—“nightmare.” The palms fell back down.

Adrian sniffed, shuffled through the leaves of parchment before him, cleared his throat. “I have . . . scars.”

“From what?”

He kept his eyes trained on the drawings, although he wasn't actually looking at them. “I was taken prisoner in the Holy Land more than two years ago and obliged to remain a guest of Saladin for some time. The hospitality of his generals was quite lacking.”

“Scars are nae black.”

Adrian sighed and at last raised his eyes to meet Maisie's once more. “No. They aren't.”

Her gaze was like flashing emeralds in the lanternlight. “Both arms?”

“Yes.”

“May I see them?”

“No.”

They continued to stare at each other until Maisie suddenly folded and rose from the chair. She approached him slowly, carefully, but deliberately, as if he was a wild animal she didn't wish to spook.

Perhaps he was.

She came to a stop at the edge of the table, so near Adrian's chair that the skirts of her gown spilled over his boots. Adrian continued to stare at the drawings before him, but his vision was of no use as his other senses could only detect the woman's presence so near to him, like a promise of heather-scented danger, but one that would thrill rather than frighten.

She trailed a pale hand along the splintered end of the table, her little oval fingertips barely grazing the wood until they met Adrian's right elbow. She grasped a fold of his sleeve and rubbed it between her thumb and finger.

“How did you get them?”

“A Chinese,” Adrian said brusquely, feeling the heat of her skin through the linen. “He had the misfortune to happen upon me the day I saw the extent of the effect my injuries had left on my body. He offered to help . . . assuage some of my distress at my appearance. It is a talent of his culture, though forbidden in the West. Especially in a cloister of monks.”

“More than your arms.”

It wasn't a question, but Adrian answered her anyway. “Yes.”

Her fingertips trailed up his right arm then, her touch so light and yet so full of energy that the hair on the back of his neck raised.

“May I see them?” she asked again.

“No.”

“Why?” The question was not asked in a demanding manner. Her fingertips skimmed across his shoulders and she moved around his chair in order to complete the path her hand wanted to follow down his left arm. “Does it shame you?”

Adrian felt heat come from his neck. “It's not a fit sight for a woman.”

“I'm nae easily frightened.”

He looked up at her then, and saw that her gaze was already on his face. “But you're frightened of Wyldonna. Of your own home. Of the queen?”

Her trailing fingers slowed to a halt over the folds of linen at his elbow. “Aye.”

Adrian frowned. “Would she harm you?”

“If she has to.” Her fingers picked up their journey once more, dragging her smooth nails down his sleeve to the edge, her eyes never leaving Adrian's. “Perhaps I need some of your black paint myself. To protect me.” She slid one finger under the seam of linen at his wrist, testing him.

Adrian reached across with his right hand and grasped her wrist, and it was as if desire for her broke over him like a rogue wave. The hum generated by their skin pressed together was nearly audible to Adrian, the sensation penetrating his very bones.

“No,” he said quietly, struggling to keep his voice level to disguise the way the feel of her was affecting him.

She didn't pull away from him, and Adrian did not release her. Could she, too, feel the strange energy between them? Regardless, she must be taught that she could not press him. His mind and his decisions were his own, and they were resolute.

And yet she managed to turn her wrist in his grasp so that her fingers were open, her palm lying up, the veins in her delicate wrist exposed to him like an offering.

“You canna run from your fears forever,” she said quietly.

“Neither can you,” he said, his confusion with the feelings her touch roused in him causing his voice to roughen with anger.

“I'm nae,” she replied and at last pulled her arm away. Adrian let her cool skin slip through his fingers and the hum faded from his bones. “I'm running at mine.”

She moved away from the table, and Adrian could hear her footsteps behind him, then the ringing of the metal clasps as she pulled open the curtain to her berth.

“Good night.” The rings sang again.

Adrian stared down at the end of his sleeve where Maisie had touched him and then at his own hand, which had pressed her skin. His flesh was still pricked with tingles.

And he wondered if ink would be enough to protect either of them from whatever awaited their arrival at Wyldonna.

T
he Englishman was once more already awake and about the cabin when Maisie exited her berth the next morning, although he barely acknowledged her presence, and she extended him the same courtesy. His only comment was that, in seeking to break his fast, he had been unable to access her provisions trunk, and Maisie was glad she'd had the forethought to seal it the day before. Citing the stickiness of wood at sea, she made a show of struggling with the lid before she opened it and produced suitable rations for both of them.

He spent the day studying the drawings again, and although Maisie doubted anyone could be so academically single-minded, the task seemed to keep him sufficiently distracted from the fact that he was still confined within the crawler. He paced a bit at times, true, but it appeared to her as if he was working through imagined scenarios in his mind rather than trying to escape invisible demons. His brow furrowed beneath the fall of his dark hair and he seemed oblivious to her presence, even when she gave up trying to occupy herself and surrendered to the urge to observe him openly from her chair while she waited for the unpleasantness she knew was to come.

Maisie heard the song before Adrian. She had felt Wyldonna in her bones hours before the watery moans penetrated the hull of the ship, and so she expected them, but a shiver raced up her spine all the same. She couldn't help but think of her fate should the thickness of the crawler's wood not stand between her and what sang in the icy water beyond.

Adrian heard the mourning wails then, his face raising from the parchment on the tabletop. He turned toward her, and his ever-present frown deepened, increasing his look of solemn handsomeness.

“Do you hear that?”

Maisie nodded.

He seemed to concentrate on the sound, turning his head slightly away from her for a moment before muttering, “Change in water temperature, perhaps. Or depth.” His eyes flicked to her again, demanding an answer before his mouth could form the question. “Are we near the coast?”

“We are,” she said, content for the moment to continue watching him in peace. Likely the last peace she would know for some time.

He nodded and returned his attention to the drawings.

The howls grew incrementally louder as the minutes passed, and although to Maisie's ears they were piercing, vicious screams, she knew they would sound much differently to Adrian.

As if on prompt, he looked up again, his expression now more puzzled than annoyed.

“What
is
that?” he insisted quietly and stood, the motion shoving the chair back and away from him. Maisie watched the way his body became attuned to the sound filtering through the cabin, the way his head cocked. He turned to her suddenly. “I want to go above.” And before she could answer him yes or no, he was striding across the floor and had gained the ladder.

“You canna,” she called out mildly, unconcerned for his safety. He would never be able to open the hatch until she bade it open.

He tried anyway, jerking at the latch with frustrated grunts. “It's stuck again,” he growled, backing down the ladder swiftly. “Where is the knife?”

“The knife didna open it last time and it willna open it now,” Maisie said, watching him as he strode toward the provisions trunk and dropped to one knee. He struggled similarly with that piece for several moments while the squeals grew louder in the close space, before shoving the heavy trunk away with a vicious curse. His growing distress was clear.

“Sit down, Adrian. We'll land soon, and any discomfort you feel will be over.”

But rather than heed her advice, his now wild eyes landed on the wooden chair he had so recently vacated. He seized the back of it and carried it toward the ladder, springing into a jog halfway across the floor. He drew the chair sideways over his head and flung it at the hatch with a shout.

Maisie didn't flinch as the chair broke into scores of pieces, but Adrian cried out in fury when he saw that the door was unscathed. As the screeches grew even louder, he clapped his palms over his ears and swung toward her, his face twisted in agonized ecstasy.

“
What is it
?” he demanded again. “I must know!”

“Sirens,” Maisie replied, careful to meet his eyes directly.

He winced, as if the answer confused him and the confusion brought him pain. “No.”

She didn't argue with him; it would do no good. The only way he would believe was to see the heartless creatures with his own eyes, and should that occur, his satisfaction would be short-lived before he met a grisly death.

Then, suddenly, the song was gone, as if the cries were threads snipped off by a sharp blade. Adrian lowered his hands and blinked, his eyes dazed as they seemed to search the air above his head.

“What happened?” he asked. “Where did it go?”

Maisie closed her eyes.
Please . . .

A loud, hollow thump shook the crawler, the sound echoing as if a mighty drum had been struck. And then Maisie did flinch.

They knew she was aboard.

Another thump, then a pair, and then it was as if all the sounds of hell were unleashed on Maisie Lindsey's vessel—the wails of the sirens returned with a blast as a thousand hammers seemed to pound the wood with the intention of destroying it.

Maisie could imagine the cloudy-white hands beyond with their toothlike claws, beating on the hull of the crawler, seeking her.

Adrian shouted something, but Maisie could not decipher his words through the thunder and piercing squeals. When two strong hands gripped her upper arms and shook her, she opened her eyes to see his panicked face.

“We've run upon rocks!” he yelled. “We must go above before the ship breaks apart!”

She only shook her head at him, pressing her mouth into a line.

“Maisie!” he demanded, shaking her again. “If we stay here, we'll die!”

“Nay!” she shouted back into his face. “Here, we are safe! But if I open that door, we are both dead in an instant!”

His expression was pained, although she could not tell if it was from the irresistible lure of the song he heard or the thought that the crawler would burst apart at any moment, flooding the interior with seawater and drowning them both.

He shook her again, as if it would convince her.

Maisie wrenched her arms up to mirror his hold on her. “Nay!”

They stayed frozen in their postures for what seemed to Maisie to be an hour, with the deafening roar of fish belly skin beating against the wood and the hellish, hungry screams buffeting them in their desperate embrace. Maisie didn't know if Adrian clung to her out of fear or fury, but she didn't care as long as he clung to her.

He was
real
. And he was holding on to her.

Then, like a ripple of water receding from the shore, the crashing blows against the hull began to fall away from the crawler, from the end of the cabin where the sleeping berths lay, all along the sides as if they were moving through a barrier. The cries began to fade away as well until only the sounds of Adrian's labored breaths filled Maisie's ears.

Save for one final scream, risked by the bravest or most vengeful of the creatures, which seemed to explode inside the cabin.

Maisie swallowed as the scream's echo faded into unnatural silence, and she saw the look of recognition come across Adrian's face. He'd heard.

Then the cabin gave a violent lurch, tossing most of the contents on its sides, and Maisie and Adrian tumbled to the floor still gripping each other.

The crawler had landed.

 

Adrian's eardrums felt achy and swollen inside his head as he helped Maisie to stand, and then released her to kick his way through the pieces of broken chair and shove the overturned table aside. Only the cauldron, sitting within an iron frame that allowed it to sway, was left aright, and its flames continued to crackle.

The drawings had slid to the floor—which Adrian guessed to now be at a thirty-degree angle—and come to rest near the trunk where Maisie kept the food stores. He was disoriented, and so he squatted with his hip braced against the trunk to help maintain his balance as he quickly shuffled the pages together and then rolled them.

He dared a glance at Maisie. She had thrown back the curtain to her bunk and was looping the long strap of a satchel over her red curls to rest on one shoulder. Her arms reached out and her pale, delicate fingers began plucking items from around the narrow bunk like birds pecking at the ground, tucking this and that quickly inside the bag.

Adrian's head throbbed.
Sirens . . .

He stood just as Maisie turned from her berth. She looked at him expectantly.

“Well?” she said. “Are you coming or nae?”

He hesitated. “Won't there be someone to meet us?”

Her delicate features hardened. “I hope nae. Although if you doona hurry, we may indeed have to contend with some rather unpleasant individuals. It willna be long before word of my return spreads.”

Adrian's mind fairly tripped over itself with the questions he wanted to ask, but he had doubts that he would believe any answer Maisie Lindsey gave him, so he only nodded his understanding and stepped to his own compartment to retrieve his few belongings.

They crossed to the ladder, and Adrian let the lady precede him. She laid a hand to the latch and the door slid open, as if the track it sat in had been greased. She looked over her shoulder and blew a quick breath through her lips before completing the climb.

Adrian looked over his own shoulder and saw that the flames in the cauldron were gone. No smoke curled from the vessel, no smell of spent fuel wafted on the air. The fire had simply vanished as if it had never been lit.

Adrian shook the mad ideas from his head and followed the woman through the doorway.

He wasn't certain what he had expected upon his arrival at Wyldonna, but it was not what he saw as he stepped onto the deck of the listing crawler. For one, it was nighttime. But the sky was not the inky black pricked with stars he was accustomed to. Instead, it was a dull charcoal color, almost misty, and there was no starlight to cheer it.

The gloom was not so thick, though, that he could not make out the coast upon which they'd landed—steep and rocky, with the jagged black outlines of coniferous trees crowding down to the shore and blocking out his view of the horizon to either side. The crawler had come to rest on a sliver of rocky beach, and Adrian was surprised that the oars he expected to see protruding from the port side of the vessel were already gone. Likely pulled inside by weary crew, eager to disembark, he told himself. There was a long dock perhaps only ten feet from where they'd made land, but it was empty, standing in the gloom like a ruin.

Adrian turned to look over the roof of the cabin behind him at the sea beyond. Indeed, it was blanketed by a heavy fog, and he decided that the strange light of the place could be attributed to nothing more magical than low clouds. The water was flat, oddly still. No sound came from it save the common lapping at the shore.

“Adrian.”

His head turned back quickly at the sound of his name, spoken in a low but urgent tone. Maisie Lindsey wore an intense expression on her face, and in that moment, Adrian considered that the queen had made a wise choice in champions. All the lady would require to complete the picture of a mythical Gaelic woman warrior was a weapon.

“Listen to me verra carefully,” she said and took his hand. He looked down at it briefly; she was gripping him hard. “Once we step down from the crawler, you mustna release my hand. Until we are safely inside the castle, it is imperative that you keep hold of me.”

“It's not that dark, Lady Maisie,” he said. “I've found my way along roads in deeper night than this.”

“It isna night,” she snipped. “It's just before supper.”

Adrian looked up at the sky again. “That's impossible.”

“Winter in Wyldonna means almost constant darkness,” Maisie said. “And it's nae your losing your way I fear; the folk who live in the wood will sense that an outsider has come onto the island.”

Adrian felt his brows raise. “They would challenge my presence?”

“Nay,” she said levelly, meeting his eyes in the gloom. “Some would just eat you.”

“Shh.” She nodded. “As long as you remain joined with me until we are in the castle, you'll be safe. But we must hurry nonetheless. I'm only slightly safer than you right now, especially since some already know I've returned.” She turned toward the low side of the crawler, pulling him along.

“The sirens,” Adrian said in a flat tone, following her to the edge. “And I thought it was me they sought. My ego is crushed.”

She shot him a look. “You step down first—you're taller than me. But doona let go,” she hastened to add.

Adrian gave her a mocking bow. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

Maisie Lindsey frowned at him but came easily into his arms after his boots had crunched down on the rocky beach. She turned away from him immediately and began pulling him up the steep incline, toward a slender path Adrian could see amidst a tangle of winter-naked briars at the foot of the hill.

“The sirens have an endless craving for men's blood, true, but they forgot about you quickly—it's me they wanted.”

“Why, you're nearly as popular as the queen,” he said, trying to make his voice light, although it was taking an enormous amount of concentration to navigate the path behind Maisie, who skipped up the shadowy and sliding track as if it were nothing more treacherous than a set of well-made stairs. Adrian's leg began to ache as he tried to avoid weighing on her arm.