Lord of Shadows (35 page)

“Of course.” Sabrina smothered her rush of panic in a smoothing of her apron over her knees. Straightened from where she’d been tending to an ugly steam burn from a cook’s pot. Followed Ard-siúr out of the blustering December wind and into the cool, dim passage. Up the stairs. Past the ever-cheerful Sister Anne, who waved a hello before faltering under Ard-siúr’s severe gaze.

What did she want? What did she know? Sabrina’s thoughts whirled like dry leaves.

Once inside, Ard-siúr took up position behind her desk, motioning Sabrina into a chair, her expression solemn.

“Is there something wrong?” Sabrina donned a look of innocent confusion, hoping the flush of heat staining her cheeks didn’t give her away.

There followed a long, anxious pause as Ard-siúr seemed to gather her thoughts, come to conclusions lost to Sabrina. Finally, she spoke. Slowly. Deliberatively. “Sister Brigh has come to me with her concerns over Mr. MacLir’s continued stay and your continued interest in him.”

“It’s no longer Sister Brigh’s affair. I’m a guest. Not a novice.”

Ard-siúr tapped the tips of her fingers together. “But you are also a young lady of good reputation. I would hate to see you throw that away on one such as Daigh MacLir. As, I’m sure, would your brother.”

“Kilronan may control my movements, but not my heart.”

“And your other brother?”

Sabrina felt through the fabric of her apron to the note folded within. What was Ard-siúr getting at with her roundabout questions and her long, tension-filled silences?

The head of the order lifted a hand toward the window. “Those men and women out there and thousands like them grow more restless. What will be their fate be should a war between
Other
and
Duinedon
come to pass? Even after seven long years, much depends upon Brendan Douglas.”

Ard-siúr folded her hands, her features placid and patient, though Sabrina sensed the dismay and the frustration and the anxiety the priestess worked hard to suppress. Or perhaps those weren’t Ard-siúr’s emotions at all, but her own roaring in her ears, pounding like a drum behind her eyes.

“It’s not Brendan’s fault,” she argued, though her excuse sounded feeble even to herself. For in essence it was more Brendan’s fault than anyone’s. He’d been one of the mages who’d begun the nightmare of King Arthur’s resurrection. His dark magics as much as Máelodor’s had fed the murderous plotting.

Ard-siúr opened her hands as if tossing away her interest. “It is not my place to assign innocence or blame. That is the purview of the
Amhas-draoi
.”

Who hunted Brendan and would kill him without a second thought.

Daigh had called her courageous. She didn’t feel brave, but she’d not see her brother murdered in cold blood.

Sabrina never flinched. Not even against Ard-siúr’s most focused stare. “Did you wish to speak to me about Daigh or Brendan?”

“They both concern me for different reasons.”

Holding her breath lest she lose her nerve, Sabrina rose confidently from her seat. “Then you should speak to them. Not me.”

A few rotted, slimy staves of wood, a length of old mud-caked rope, four bottles still corked and wax-sealed. This was all the cove gathered to its shores today.

Using the tip of his knife, Daigh dug out one bottle’s cork. Tasted the contents. Still good. He took another swallow. Stared out at the waves, letting the steady wash of the surf dull the interminable throbbing behind his eyes. Inhaled the pungent, briny air, hoping to break the press of dread centered low in his gut.

Neither brought relief.

Downing the rest of the wine, he tossed the bottle far out into the pewter-black sea before taking the hill path back.

The Great One’s control strengthened. Daigh could no longer deny the dark presence forcing its greasy way back into his mind. Little time remained before he would again be Máelodor’s puppet and any hope for escape was gone.

Sabrina caught sight of him as he entered the gate. Looking up from winding a length of bandage round a man’s hand, her face broke into a smile, pink flushing her cheeks.

He deliberately turned away, shoving the demon-flare of Máelodor’s magics as far from the surface as he could. Hoping she wouldn’t catch a hint of his increasing loss of control.

“Daigh?”

She’d followed him. Her gentle touch seared him like a
burning brand. He jerked away, but not before the murderous thunder of his thoughts flared wildly in his eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asked, hesitation replacing the smile of before.

“Nowhere that concerns you.”

“It’s . . . he’s . . . it’s happening just like you said, isn’t it?”

He clenched his jaw against the frenzied, hot stab of pain centered at the base of his skull. Clamping around his brain until he couldn’t think, couldn’t see beyond Máelodor’s vicious anger. “Leave me. Now.”

“I can help.” She rummaged in the bag slung over her shoulder.

“There is nothing you can do.” He caught her wrist, forcing her to meet his accursed gaze. Her horror laid bare in the blue of her eyes.

“Is this scoundrel bothering you, milady?”

Neither one of them had noticed the approach of Sabrina’s patient and two of his mates. They eyed Daigh with a mix of trepidation and swagger, an edgy frustration in the flexing of their meaty fists and the squint in their broad farmer’s faces.

Sabrina pulled herself together enough to offer the men a faltering shake of her head. “No, it’s all right. Really. Thank you.”

The leader of the group tipped his wide-brimmed hat, rubbing at a thin white scar on his chin. “That’s all right then, milady. But you let Simms know if there’s trouble.” He glared at Daigh. “Watch yersself, lad. I seen yer kind afore and I’ve dealt with ’em as I seen fit.” He drew a finger across his throat. “It’s yer kind brought the
Duinedon
down on us. Actin’ as if yer powers make you better.”

Daigh released Sabrina’s wrist, gauging this new challenge. “It’s no act.” A red haze burned at the corners of his vision, a crackling awareness lifting the hairs upon his arms and neck. His stare moved slowly over the intruders, the venomous mage energy alive in his eyes.

They fell back with a startled oath, scuttling away like whipped curs, only the leader glancing over his shoulder with a black look of foreboding.

“They were only trying to protect me,” Sabrina said.

He shrugged off her hand, pushing his way past her. “I know, Sabrina. So am I.”

Drawing her cloak around her, Sabrina scanned the pale ribbon of road. The darkening spread of trees to either side. The sun had sunk until naught but a haze of orange and yellow brightened the western sky, a smearing of thin clouds painted bright red. Long shadows striped the ground and reached up the walls behind her. Mingled with the smoke from the fires within.

A figure topped the rise. Paused for long minutes as if judging whether to proceed.

Impossible to identify from this distance, but definitely male. Tall. Lean. A greatcoat hung open over high boots.

Sabrina leapt to her feet. Waved, hoping to coax him down.

He lifted a hand in answer. But rather than approaching, he disappeared back over the hill.

And though she waited until full dark and the rising of a late moon, he did not come again.

She slipped within the gate, her dark gown a paler black against the night, a hood covering her hair, yet he
recognized her. The agile, clever movements, the slenderness of her body. And when she turned toward the stables seeking him out, her face glowed milky in the moon’s dim light. Tears glistening upon her cheeks.

He ducked farther into the gloom, and she passed him without pausing.

Whom had she left to meet? Who would draw her from the safety of the order in the middle of the night?

The answer struck.

Brendan Douglas.

His hands closed to fists, the presence uncoiling to glide up from the darkness where Daigh had chained it. He fought back but it had grown sly enough to evade his few defenses. A pitiless, reptilian smile daggered through his brain until he could barely stand, and he clenched his jaw to keep from moaning.

Máelodor read his thoughts. And celebrated success.

Like a fuse burnt to the touch hole, Daigh’s time ran out.

The true battle began now.

The child tugged her skirts. Shoved the note into her hand before running back to the gaggle of children playing tag. Sabrina looked around. Was Brendan hidden beneath the disguise of a thin-shanked farmer unloading bags of seed from a tumbrel? The man hunkered over a dice game? The messenger in tall muddy boots and a threadbare jacket idly picking his nose in the library doorway out of the rain?

She unfolded the note carefully as if it might blow up in her face, dread making her heart thump painfully in her chest.

The crossroads. Come immediately.

B.

She’d said it before: Letters never boded well.

They met upon the road, almost as if he’d been waiting for her. Despite his coarse homespun, weathered boots caked
with mud, and a rough leather coat that stretched over his broad shoulders and ended at least three inches above his wrist, he strode forward with a confident air. Head up. Jaw tilted at an arrogant angle. A commanding gleam in his gaze, a broken branch clutched carelessly in a loose fist.

“Should you be out here alone?” he asked, whipping at the tall grass of the verge with his branch.

“We’re still on the order’s lands.”

“So were we once before,” he answered, falling in beside her. Nothing of the lover in the ominous, hulking anger. Electrifying an already charged atmosphere. His manner pulsed with barely repressed savagery and a thunderous rage.

She swallowed her tears before they’d show upon her cheeks. She’d known this day approached. Still it hurt with a swift, lancing pain.

Crossing a stile, they entered the orchard. Threaded their way through an arched avenue of bare mingled branches, the order’s walls glimpsed here and there beyond a fold in the hill.

“He’s mad to risk coming here,” he snarled. “Does he want to be caught?”

Her stomach shot into her throat, throwing him a horrified look.

“Aye, Sabrina. I know who it is you steal away to meet.” He hunched deeper into his coat. “As does Máelodor.”

“No!” She tripped over a root. “You didn’t—”

Daigh caught her, muscles rigid, face harsh with anguish. “He draws me back, his power far greater than mine.”

“But the memories.”

“They’re not enough to fight his presence inside me.”

The orchard row ended at a tall, overgrown hedge. A narrow slatted gate led to the lane and crossroad beyond.

She paused, a hand upon the latch. “What will you do if Brendan comes?”

“Warn him. It’s all I can do.”

A snap of a twig, the scuttle of a fox, followed immediately by a sudden rush of beating wings and the croaking scrape of hundreds of crows as they rose into the air. Sabrina’s heart thundered, but beside her Daigh went completely still, eyes narrowed, his branch leveled for battle.

Animal rage poured off him in sour waves, a brimstone stench that churned her stomach. It pounded against her and over her like a great wave. Crushing her beneath the weight of it. No barriers she could erect strong enough to keep him out. The link between them unbreakable and unstoppable.

Mage energy fractured the air. A wall of flame leaping between them. A blast of deadly, ground-shaking battle magic.

She dropped her bag, clamping hands to her head as if she might hold it steady on her shoulders, her vision overwhelmed by a pair of baleful, snaky eyes. Pupils constricted to narrow slits. The yellow-red light of its iris streaked with fire.

She lurched and cried out, falling on her knees in the dust. Daigh, hunched and shaking across the road, his branch abandoned beside him.

A pair of shining boots stepped into the corner of her eye. She looked up into the frozen blue stare of Gervase St. John.

“I see you received your brother’s note, little sparrow.” The words slicked along her nerves like slime. Viscous and oily. He glanced over at Daigh’s shuddering figure. A long pause followed that she felt as a quiver of wild anticipation. “And you’ve brought a friend.”