Lord of Shadows (2 page)

It wasn’t like her to spend time reminiscing on the past.
The head of the Sisters of High
Danu
said it was useless spinning what-ifs in your head. One could lose oneself in the infinite possibilities of action and consequence until reality grew dangerously frayed. Madness lay in second-guessing.

But today, Sabrina courted madness. She’d forced herself to remember all that had occurred that long-ago November day from beginning to end. Let it flow from her brain to her journal in a mad scrawl. And at Sister Brigh’s first shout was only as far along as noontime.

“You ungrateful, undisciplined hoyden, come out this moment.”

When Sister Brigh scolded, Sabrina felt more like a disobedient ten-year-old than the woman of twenty-two she was. But then, Sister Brigh considered anyone younger than herself a recalcitrant child, which included almost the entire
bandraoi
community. The woman was a hundred if she was a day. Only Sister Ainnir rivaled her in age. The two like mossy twin holdovers from centuries past.

“Sabrina Douglas! I know you can hear me!”

Sister Brigh by far the mossier. And the louder.

Sabrina sighed, closing her journal on the pen marking her place.

November 16, 1808, would have to wait.

November 16, 1815, was calling.

The priestess’s clamoring faded as she left the barn. Turned her search to the nearby outbuildings—creamery, laundry, gardener’s sheds. The convent was large. It would take the head of novices ages to check everywhere.

Rising from her hiding place behind the stacked straw bales and grain bins, Sabrina dusted the grime from her skirts. Straightened her apron and the kerchief covering her
hair before slipping back into the bustle of the order’s life. And right into Sister Brigh’s ambush.

“Gotcha!” Her talons sank through the heavy wool of Sabrina’s sleeve. Squeezed with enough force to bring hot tears to her eyes. “Ard-siúr’s had me searching for you this hour and more. And here you are, hiding as if there wasn’t honest work to be done.” She snatched the journal away. “Are you scribbling in that silly book again? You’ve been warned more than once about frittering away your time unwisely.”

Sabrina stiffened, giving Sister Brigh her best quelling look. “I wasn’t frittering. And I wasn’t hiding.”

It passed unnoticed. “Hmph. Come along. You’ve kept Ard-siúr waiting long enough.”

As they passed through the sheltered cloister, a group gathered at the front gates. Voices raised in surprise and confusion, drawing even the determined Sister Brigh’s eye from her purpose.

Sabrina craned her neck to peer over the crowd. “What’s happening?”

Sister Brigh responded with a scornful huff. “No doubt a lot of stuff and nonsense. Wouldn’t have happened in my day, you can be sure of that.”

Her day being sometime during the last ice age. Sister Brigh dressed in furs and sporting a club, no doubt.

She tightened her hold on Sabrina. Doubled her pace. Up the steps. Throwing the door wide with barely a word. Slamming it closed with a whisper equally as effective.

The old priestess’s sanity might be in doubt, but her magic was irrefutable.

The temperature plummeted once inside and out of the bleak afternoon sun. Frost hung in the passage leading to
Ard-siúr’s office, causing Sabrina’s nervous breath to cloud the chilly air. The cold seeped through her heavy stockings and the double layer of petticoats she’d donned beneath her gown.

It wasn’t even winter yet and already she longed for spring. Spring and a release from scratchy underclothes and chilblains and runny noses and afternoon dusk and drafty passages. At this moment, she’d sell her soul for warmth and light and, well . . . something different.

So little varied within the order that any change, even the gradual shifting of seasons, seemed an adventure. But perhaps that was only because the genuine change she longed for still eluded her and would continue to do so if Sister Brigh had her grumpy way.

As they were shown through the antechamber to Ard-siúr’s office, Sister Anne waved a cheery hello. Received a bulldog scowl from Sister Brigh. A wan smile from Sabrina.

Compared to the chilly atmosphere of the outside corridor, Ard-siúr’s office seemed an absolute tropical paradise. A small stove put out heat enough to keep the tiny room comfortably cozy, and the thick rugs on the floor and bright wall hangings cheered the stark, color-draining stone. Add to that Ard-siúr’s cluttered desk complete with purring cat and the slow tick of a tall case clock in a far corner and Sabrina’s taut nerves began to relax.

The atmosphere seemed to have the opposite reaction for Sister Brigh. Her eyes darted around the room with fuming disapproval as she drew up in a quivering pose of long sufferance, only now releasing her death grip on Sabrina’s arm.

Ard-siúr put up a restraining hand while she finished her thought, her pen scribbling across the page, her lip caught girlishly between her teeth as she worked.

The head of the Sisters of High
Danu
seemed as eternal as the ancient standing stones guarding a nearby cliff-top meadow. Tall. Broad. A face weathered by years, yet eyes that remained clear and bright and full of humor. Her powers as a
bandraoi
and sorceress seemed to rival those of the
Fey,
as did her air of regal self-containment. But Sabrina knew it took every ounce of her gifts both innate and learned to preside over an order of
Other
while concealing their true nature from a distrustful
Duinedon
world.

To all beyond the walls of the order’s demesne, they were merely a reclusive house of contemplative religious women. It fell to Ard-siúr to see that it remained that way. An unenviable task. Though, come to think on it, there was one who envied it very much.

Sister Brigh breathed heavily though her nose like a kettle letting off steam.

Finally, Ard-siúr placed her pen in its tray. Scattered sand across the page. Shook it clean. Folded it. And cast her penetrating gaze upon the pair standing silently before her.

“Thank you, Sister Brigh, for locating Sabrina.”

Her acknowledgment clearly meant as a signal for the head of novices to depart.

Instead Sister Brigh barged ahead with a list of grievances. They rolled off her tongue as if she’d prepared them ahead of time. “Three times in three days, Ard-siúr. Three times I’ve caught her with her head in the clouds when she should be working. That or she’s scribbling in that diary of hers. You can’t keep brushing it under the rug. It only encourages her to feel she’s above the rules. The lord’s daughter she once was rather than the aspiring
bandraoi
priestess she’s supposed to be.”

The sarcastic emphasis Sister Brigh placed on “aspiring”
had Sabrina bristling, but one look from Ard-siúr and she subsided without argument.

“Is this true, Sabrina? Do you feel above the rules? That your family’s station in life entitles you to special consideration?”

“No, of course not, but—”

Sister Brigh slammed the journal on Ard-siúr’s desk, sending the cat leaping for cover with a hiss. “Sabrina’s lack of devotion and her failure to abide by our way of living undermine her candidacy. And I, for one, believe she would be better off leaving the order and returning to her family.”

Ard-siúr turned her gaze upon Sabrina at last. “Sister Brigh brings up serious charges. Could it be that you aren’t as committed to a life among us as you think? That you begin to yearn for the future you might have led but for tragic circumstance?”

Sabrina blinked. Had Ard-siúr brought that up on purpose? Did she know what Sabrina had been writing in her diary? Or had the mention been mere coincidence? Always difficult to know with the head of their order. She seemed to have a canny knack for discerning all manner of things. Especially the bits you didn’t want known.

Perhaps forcing her mind back to that long-ago November day hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She’d dredged up memories long buried. Forgotten how much they hurt.

“I’m more than ready to take up my full duties as
bandraoi
.” She shot an offended glance Sister Brigh’s way. “And I didn’t mean to make you wait, Ard-siúr. I was trying . . . you see, I needed . . . it happened today seven years ago, Ard-siúr. And I felt as if I needed to remember it clearly before it slipped away.”

Ard-siúr gave a slow nod. “Ah yes, your father’s death.”

“His murder,” she clarified.

“It was seven years ago today the
Amhas-draoi
attacked and killed my father.”

“And for good reason, if half the rumors are true,” Sister Brigh mumbled. “Ard-siúr, even if it’s not enough for you that Sabrina shirks her duties and carries on as if she were queen of the manor, you must see that her presence brings the order unwanted attention. Never in our history was one of our priestesses interrogated by the
Amhas-draoi
.”

“It wasn’t my fault they wanted to speak with me. I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Keeping secrets from the very brotherhood sworn to protect us? Worse and worse.”

“That’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.”

“Enough.” Ard-siúr lifted a hand.

Momentum behind her, Sister Brigh barreled on. “A father working the demon arts. A fugitive brother running from the
Amhas-draoi
. The family of Douglas is cursed. And the sooner you’re gone from here, the better for the order.”

Sabrina turned a hot gaze on the elderly nun.

“I said enough.” The whip crack of Ard-siúr’s voice finally silenced Sister Brigh, though she remained red-faced and glaring with suppressed fury. “This is neither the time nor place. If you have valid arguments to make, bring them to me at another meeting and we can discuss it further.”

Turning her attention to Sabrina, Ard-siúr smiled. “My dear, I requested your presence merely to deliver a letter that’s come for you by messenger.”

How did one simple sentence drop the bottom out of her stomach and create an immediate need to draw nonexistent covers over her head? In her experience, letters never boded well. Like holding an unexploded bomb in your hand.

The door burst open on the flustered face of Sister Anne. “Ard-siúr, Sabrina’s needed in the infirmary right away. A man’s been brought in. Found half drowned on the beach below the village.”

“May I go?” Sabrina cast beseeching eyes in Ard-siúr’s direction.

Sister Brigh looked as though she chewed nails, but the head of the order dismissed Sabrina with an imperious wave of her hand. “Go. Sister Ainnir needs your skills. The letter will await your return.”

Plucking up her skirts, Sabrina dashed from the room in Sister Anne’s wake. She could kiss the unlucky fisherman who’d rescued her. Saved in the nick of time.

It was only fair to return the favor.

“Guide the mage energy as you would a surgical instrument. Precise. Focused,” Sister Ainnir advised quietly over the still form of the man lying between them.

Sabrina fought to check the magic simmering in her blood, humming along her bones. Less the accuracy of a stiletto than the bluntness of a battle-axe. Release the power now, she’d char the poor unfortunate man to cinders.

“Pay attention, Sabrina. Your mind is not on your work.”

No, it was still seething with resentment at Sister Brigh’s accusations. Lack of dedication. Above the rules. Frittering. If Sabrina wasn’t careful, the head of novices would have her on a coach to Belfoyle before the year was out. Nasty cow.

“Sabrina! Careful.”

The mage energy surged in a dramatic arc of red and gold and coral and the palest green. Lit up her insides until she felt the buzzing in her ears, the zing of it lifting the
hairs on her arms, squeezing her chest like a pair of whalebone stays.

The man spasmed, gasping for a breath he could not catch. Animal rage boiled off him in waves. Desperation. Terror. Panic.

The emotions raked the inside of Sabrina’s skull like caged animals. She staggered against the instant throbbing behind her eyes. Spots and pinwheels bursting across her vision like Guy Fawkes fireworks.

His throat constricted as he vomited a trickle of seawater from lungs full and useless. He flung out a fist, sending Sabrina leaping backward.

Frustration. Disappointment. Fury.

Stark and immediate and enough to make Sabrina dizzy. She threw up every mental barricade, yet still the echoes of his pain battled through to sink razored claws into her brain.

“Don’t stop,” Sister Ainnir urged. “Don’t break your concentration. It’s too soon.”

The
Fey
threads of Sabrina’s magic danced along her skin like an increasing storm charge. A shimmering will-o’-the-wisp at the corners of her sight. Whispering in her head like a breeze or an echo or a rush of water over rocks.

She wrapped herself in the sensations, the empathic crush of overpowering emotion lessening to a bearable degree. No longer in danger of passing out, at any rate.

Gathering the healing fire, she renewed her lost focus. Used her lingering anger to hone her determination to scalpel brilliance. Returned to his bedside, bringing her powers to the assistance of Sister Ainnir, whose strength waned after hours of fighting the underworld for possession of this lost sailor’s soul.

“That’s it. Feel the way it bends to your will. Careful. Don’t force it.” The infirmarian took Sabrina’s hand, moving it to a spot just above his right lung. His flesh was icy cold, the palest milky blue but for the crisscross web of silver scars. “There now. See? Do you feel the way the life wavers just there?”

Sabrina let the rise and fall of his faltering breaths bear her along. In and out and in and out, winding her healing magic into the pattern. Steady. Unerring. But wait . . . something not quite right. Not as it should be. Instead, unfamiliar strands tangled and knotted and bound themselves without her aid or her powers. A new pattern. A strange weaving of life and mage energy, unfaltering darkness at its core. A rippling, slithering brush against her mind as she worked.

Then nothing. The unidentified magic vanishing as subtly as it appeared.

She delved deeper, but a jerk of the man’s head and unconsciousness became sleep. Death receded.