Highland Sorcerer (9 page)

They sat on the ground and Edeen showed
her how to wear the long hose and lace up boots. Edeen's voice
lowered. "The bands on Toren's wrists were covered in symbols,
aye?"

Charity's fingers stilled on the boot
laces.

Edeen's eyes flicked up and locked with
hers. "Can ye recall them?"

"You're going after him?"

Edeen glanced toward the short doorway
and quickly nodded.

"Shaw doesn't know, does
he?"

"He'd never allow it."

"Why? Does he not care about his own
brother?"

Hurt and temper flashed across Edeen's
features. "He cares. If anything, he cares too deeply, but he
understands our duty to the magic, our charge to never disrupt the
balance. If Aldreth turns even one of us to her darkness, all is
lost."

"Toren would never—"

"He will fight her to the end of his
sanity, but magic cares naught if its keeper is in his right mind.
The witch will win.” Her voice cracked. “She will corrupt my
brother, though his mind and spirit will be destroyed in order for
her to do so. We cannot blend our magic with a wielder who has
consorted and taken from demonkind. Aldreth’s magic will join with
him and her evil taint will tilt the balance to a black stain. Ye
have no notion of what that will unleash."

"Monsters." Charity's vocal chords felt
raw, though her small plea silenced Edeen. "Vampires, werewolves,
hobgoblins, the dark Fae..."

Edeen's chest heaved in and out as
though she'd been running. "We can't let that happen. All we can do
is going into the Shadowrood before Toren’s is touched by darkness.
If his magic is unbalanced, ‘twill filter into all our magic. Our
clan has to leave and take our magic that once belonged there with
us to keep the world safe from the darkness. Safe from what we will
all become. Otherwise...."

"Otherwise, your clan that is so strong
together and meant to hold off the darkness will become the worse
darkness. The taint will grow and fester and my century will be
overrun with everything evil that exists with magic." She shivered.
A thin layer of ice formed around her heart. History had already
claimed the Limonts. Their clan had already gone into the
Shadowrood, disappeared. And if they did not, the magical balance
would be disrupted and evil would overcome light. Her time, her
family, her sister—would be overrun in darkness.

The entire future from this point
forward would be changed.

"Is there…?" Edeen drew back, her
fingers pawed at the folds of her gown over her bent knees. "Is yer
time bereft of magic?"

Charity frowned. "There's some, though
mild. We sift what we can from the land."

"Earth magic." Edeen nodded. "'Tis good
that some remains. So we succeed?"

She probably shouldn't tell her this
what with messing around with fate and the Butterfly Effect, but
who says she wasn't fated to spill the beans anyway? After all,
Shaw and Col had been scouting Aldreth's place to rescue Toren when
she'd popped in on them. Shaw had changed plans, making the
decision to take the clan into the Shadowrood after she'd told him
about the spelled bands. Who says she wasn't brought here for that
very purpose? "Your clan vanishes."

Edeen nodded solemnly, though there was
a tiny flutter of her fingers. "Then… mayhap Shaw is right." Her
eyes glistened with unshed tears. "We must leave Toren to his
fate." Her eyes lifted, pleading. "Do yer histories reveal what
happens to him?"

Charity could barely speak around the
closing muscles in her throat. "No. There's nothing."

Chapter
Twelve

Silence strained the air.

"Edeen, you and your brothers do what
you must, but I promised Toren I would save him."

Charity shifted to stand, but Edeen
pulled her back to the ground. The girl's fingers dug into her
wrist.

"I will not abandon any of my brothers
without trying first to save them."

The women stared at each other across
the charged atmosphere. Charity nodded, her limbs heavy with
relief. She didn't have to do this on her own and since she didn't
know how to get back to Aldreth's castle after the trek through the
forest dangling upside down from Shaw's shoulder, she couldn’t do
this on her own even if she wanted to. She had no idea where the
dang castle was.

"Can ye recall the symbols?" Edeen's
features had gone soft, pleading.

"Upon Toren's wrists?" Charity scraped
her teeth across her bottom lip. "A little. This was in the
center." She traced a spiral in the dirt then added a jagged line
shooting off its end. "It glowed. Do you know it? Will you be able
to get the bands off of him?"

"That's Aldreth's mark, her family's
symbol. 'Tis very old, very powerful. The mark of the High Sorcerer
of Alduein. If 'tis that which binds my brother, he could not
overcome it. 'Tis a wonder he was able to break free long enough to
travel upon time. Do ye remember more? If I can see what
combination the witch has spelled it with, I may be able to unravel
the binding properties enough to get him free."

Charity's stomach dropped like a stone.
"I'm sorry. I don't remember."

Forehead puckered, Edeen's lips pinched
tight. "Mayhap I can help. I can guide ye to the memory of
it."

As an empath, sifting through memories
should pose no challenge, but…Charity wasn't crazy about letting
someone traipse freely around inside her head. She hadn’t been too
thrilled when she thought Toren had felt her emotions when she had
felt his. It was just…personal. "Okay."

Edeen's eyes narrowed.

"Yes, I'll do it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. I've told you, I came
here to help Toren."

Frowning, Edeen nodded and reached for
her hand. When Charity stiffened, Edeen smiled. "'Twill not be
painful."

"Okay, yeah. It's just—" She shook her
hands. "It's a little weird."

She wasn't sure what she expected, but
the quiet nothing wasn't it. Edeen closed her eyes so Charity
guessed she was meant to do the same.

And sat there,
waiting…expectant.

She opened one eye to see if anything
had changed. Edeen remained across from her, serene, breathing
evenly, with her eyes still closed.

Charity closed her own again and
thought of Toren. She worried about him. Every moment she spent
safe here in this stupid wigwam, he was suffering beneath Aldreth's
hand—and she hadn't even healed him in this renewed timeline, given
him the respite he'd traveled so far through time to
receive.

He still suffered at this moment with
broken ribs and with the way his body hung from his wrists it had
to be excruciating.

Maybe she shouldn't have changed
things, but rather left the original timeline alone.

An image of their first meeting flooded
her mind, where she had healed him and something indefinable passed
between them. Charity ached for that connection again, for his
strength and compassion, even his vulnerability and fear of what
might become of his people should he give in.

Once more she saw him as he'd been in
the dungeon. Aldreth torturing him while he hung from the gray wall
by the bands glowing at his wrists.

Charity started.

This was it. Edeen had somehow guided
her back to this memory. The girl's magical touch was so light, so
subtle, she hadn't known the girl was present or was in fact
prodding her to where she needed to go. Amazing talent.

All right then. Let's do this. Charity
focused everything she had on the glowing bands. Her vision
sharpened, seemed to zoom in on Toren's wrists. The veins at the
inside of his wrist that she could see, pulsed blue. His skin was
red and swollen. She looked at the thick leather bands, at the
glowing forms.

Triangles with slashes. Crescent moons
facing each other. She couldn't make out the other half of a
squiggly line that curved around to the front, hidden next to the
gray stone. They needed to see the rest of it.

Aldreth plunged a hand upon Toren's
chest. He stiffened, screamed. Charity's sight jerked to his pained
face, her heart swelling with compassion for him. Anger at the
witch. This wasn’t happening now, she reminded herself. It was only
a memory. She forced herself to look away and focus on the symbols.
His wrist pulled against the band, twisted—

Charity fell forward. Her palms crushed
the ground. Edeen had fallen beside her, her breathing labored. Her
face was too pale. She didn't look good at all.

Charity felt the girl's neck for her
pulse.

The blanket that served as a door
lifted. "I brought—get away from her!"

Crouching his way in, Col shoved a
steaming bowl on the ground and lunged for them, pushing Charity
aside. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," Charity squeaked.

Gone was the baby faced Highlander. In
his place was an angry warrior focused entirely on her.

"Peace, Col." Edeen pulled herself up.
"'Twas my doing. I sought answers through the lass's
memories."

Col helped his sister up to lean
against him, still keeping a wary eye on Charity, though his
countenance softened considerably. "Ye should not have done it
without I or Shaw near. Ye know how it weakens ye."

Edeen let out a dainty little snort.
"If Shaw knew what I'm about, he'd forbid it."

A dark brow rose spuriously. Were all
the Limonts able to do that? "What are ye about?"

Edeen twisted in his arms to better
look up at him. "Oh Col, I've seen the symbols Aldreth used. I can
get them off Toren. I know I can. We can free him."

Charity narrowed her eyes. Had Edeen
been able to see more of the symbols than she had or was the girl
making a wild guess as to what the hidden parts of the markings
were? As though sensing her thoughts—empath, she probably was—Edeen
glanced at her, her mouth tightening.

Col looked stunned. Charity didn't know
if he'd help them or be a hindrance by running off to tattle to
Shaw. She was sure they'd get no cooperation from that quarter.
She'd sized Shaw up as the kind who wouldn't budge when he believed
he was doing the right thing. And he'd made it clear that putting
the entire clan before Toren was the right thing.

Maybe it was. She couldn't really fault
him. She just knew bone-deep that her right thing was saving Toren.
She'd known that the first time she'd healed him and even though
that blending of souls technically no longer existed, she had felt
it. Still felt it.

"Ye're sure?" Col asked
Edeen.

She nodded.

Col stared at the leafy walls made of
branches. If she searched hard enough Charity was sure she'd see
the pistons of his mind rapid firing. "We'll need to slip out on my
watch while Shaw and the others sleep."

Edeen's head bobbed and Charity bobbed
her own head right along with her.

"We'll need a plan."

"I have a plan. Have had one a long
time though Shaw would not hear it out." Edeen grinned, taking on
her role of being the older of the two.

One of Col's eyes squinted. "Why does
yer expression strike the fear of the gods to my heart?"

Chapter
Thirteen

Col's watch turned out to be the last
one before dawn. The light watch he called it. The easiest watch
usually assigned to him since his older brothers still treated him
as a child needful of protection rather than a protector in his own
right. His stiff bearing spoke of just what he thought of that
notion, the underlying rebelliousness evident in the toss of his
head. Charity had the feeling that if Edeen hadn't broached the
matter of them running off to save Toren, that Col would have done
it on his own anyhow.

They slipped easily past the little
group of slumbering Highlanders that had been with Col and Shaw
when they’d first found her at the castle. They slept wrapped in
their long blanket-like plaids around the dying embers. On an
unconscious level, they were all probably accustomed to the thread
of Col's boots during the early watch and to the light steps of
Edeen as she preferred to wake before the men and perform her
morning ablutions in private. Though a few of the men stirred, none
fully awoke.

Soon the three were in the forest,
walking in silence while they made their way down slope toward the
gray castle. By early afternoon, they came to the back of the
castle.

Col led them around to the front of the
austere structure where there were, indeed, tall wooden gates and
several guards stationed out front and two more up in the round
towers to either side. The castle reminded Charity of what she
thought Sleeping Beauty's castle should look like, remote and
surrounded by a dense forest. All it needed was giant thorns and
the witch to turn into a dragon. Aldreth couldn’t turn into a
dragon, could she?

Charity frowned at the
thought.

Keeping well back in the brush, Edeen
revealed her plan and Col immediately began arguing.