Adrian (14 page)

Malcolm looked at Adrian's torso again and waved his pipe stem toward him. “Although there's nae much to it any longer, I'd remove the rest of your blouse, were I you.” Then he turned into the wood again and disappeared into the darkness.

Adrian glanced over his shoulder at the castle once more as he slid the remnants of his shirt from his arms and let it fall to the grass near his destroyed satchel. He wouldn't be gone long.

Well, he hoped he wouldn't be gone long, following a man who, only moments before, had been content to witness Adrian's bloody death, and who possibly carried a hunger for revenge against the woman in the castle whom Adrian had come here to help. He was only going into a strange, perpetually dark forest. Full of afternhangers and God knew what else.

He couldn't help but chuckle at this last thought. Wouldn't God be surprised at the strangeness afoot on Wyldonna, if he existed?

Adrian had to trot a bit to catch up to Malcolm's trail.

He wanted to
know
for himself...

 

Maisie ate the midday meal alone, begging off even kind Reid's offer of company. She felt like a fool, an idiot, for trying to reach Adrian Hailsworth. Why not just let him search, let him be, leave him to his own stubborn closed-mindedness?

Because of the way his skin felt beneath your hands
, a voice whispered in her mind.
The way he looks at you, talks to you, like you have a mind inside your head and are not simply the king's sister. The way he argues with you, pushes you for answers, like you are not the queen.

She shook her head and looked down at her wooden bowl, where she had done little but push the bits of fish around with her knife tip. He had had enough time to himself now, and Maisie wanted to see what he had found.

She was certainly not seeking him because she longed for the sound of his voice in her ears once more.

She wiped the blade on the small cloth beneath her place and returned it to its sheath before standing from the table and leaving her deserted hall for the west wing. Adrian had likely started there, as far from the eastern tower—and her—as he could think to get.

She roamed the corridors and stairwells for over an hour, only passing one pair of servant girls along the northern walkway. They were a full head shorter than Maisie, although grown women by Wyldonna's measure, and she couldn't help but glance enviously at their delicate, pointed ears and the feminine slant to their eyes as they bobbed their heads to the queen. They belonged. Their tribe was healthy and vibrant and would inhabit Wyldonna for generations to come.

Maisie told herself she was only imagining the whispered twitters that trailed behind them in the corridor, but her face heated all the same.

She began walking faster, her brows drawing closer together with each empty chamber, each deserted corridor. Perhaps they were merely missing each other. She entered the stairs of the southwest tower and began to climb, pushing the door of the turret open and glancing inside.

Empty.

Maisie sighed and was about to close the door and head back down the stairs when she felt the sudden urge to see if anyone was about the grounds. She crossed the small diameter of wooden floor to the window and leaned her elbows upon the sill to raise up on her toes and peer out of the glassless opening.

There they all were, far below her—the people who were once her friends. Going about their business without so much as a thought for Maisie, unless it was a wish of misfortune. The baser creatures, especially. Naught would please them more than to see her destroyed, because she had betrayed the mighty, saintly Malcolm.

Maisie snorted. Aye, the man who would have them all fight to the death to preserve a wooden farthing he'd nowhere to spend.

Her eyes roamed away from the cluster of the woodland village to the treetops, and then she leaned farther up on her toes to survey the grounds around the castle proper. Her eyes caught on something light-colored and she frowned, squinting at it. As she looked, she thought she could make out darker objects strewn alongside the white thing.

Her heart skipped half a beat, but then she shook her head in denial. No, it couldn't have been Adrian. She had expressly forbidden him from leaving the castle without her or Reid, and Reid would have asked permission before going off with the Painted Man. Maisie had explained to Adrian about some of the folk of the isle, and how dangerous they were to him.

And he hadn't believed a word she'd said.

Maisie swept from the tower room and down the twisting stairs, running past the elfin girls again so quickly that they were forced to press themselves against the walls to prevent being run over. At last she came to the vestibule and wrenched open the door, running out into the yard and toward the crumpled pile on the grass.

Her skirts swung around her legs as she came to a stop. Maisie dropped to her knees and picked up the rent pieces of cloth, holding them before her. It was Adrian's shirt.

She looked around her and saw his satchel and its contents in pieces on the ground, including scraps of parchment on which slivers of drawings made in her own hand could be seen.

“Great gods,” she breathed, running her fingertips along the shredded cloth. In that instant she could smell the beasts, feel Adrian's fear, hear their gurgling growls. “Afternhangers.”

She bent and scooped up what remained of Adrian Hailsworth's presence in the yard and then stood with her arms laden. She turned in a circle, searching for him, feeling for him, and then faced the wood once more, her knees beginning to tremble.

She took a hesitant step forward, feeling the trees watching her. She swallowed the catch in her throat.

“Adrian!” she called out to the wood, which grew darker with each passing moment.

Hysteria tried to climb her spine, wrap its skeletal arms around her neck. She shook it off, juggled the items in her arms to swipe at her eyes. Then she stepped closer to the edge of the wood.

His name echoed on and on. The only answer to her calls was the sighing of the sea far below. Her eyes scanned the darkened ground around her and Maisie could discern the wide, rumpled path of crushed grass. Something—or things—had passed back and forth over the yard between the wood and the pile of Adrian's ruined things.

Had something also been dragged? A man's thrashing body, perhaps?

She had two choices: She could return to the castle and wait, see if he somehow returned. If he didn't? He was dead. Maisie told herself that was the most likely result any matter. But then what would she do?

She tried to see into the dark shadows as she contemplated her other option. She could search for him—for his body at least. If he wasn't already dead, perhaps there was still something she could do to save him. But what if she was caught up by the same creatures who had taken Adrian? Trapped in the dark wood, there would be none to hear her screams. And even if her cries for help were heard, Maisie wondered whether they would be answered by the folk dwelling beyond the trees. She could die at the teeth and claws of those she was already risking her life to protect.

But if Adrian Hailsworth was dead, her life was forfeit any matter.

She thought briefly of returning to the castle to locate Reid. He would be a measure of protection for her, but at what cost with the time if might take to find him? She knew the stunted giant would answer her plea without hesitation, but by then it could be too late, and the consequences for Reid might be dire.

She had brought Adrian Hailsworth to Wyldonna, and so she alone was responsible for his safety.

Maisie let the bundle of linen and leather and parchment fall away as she walked into the wood.

T
he smoke from Malcolm Lindsey's pipe was like a white, spicy beacon in the shimmery darkness of the steep woodland path, and Adrian followed its wafting trail as it curled into his nostrils and seemed to pull him along. His bare skin prickled in the damp, but the effect was already fading, and Adrian gave a moment's notice to the fact that he really didn't feel cold at all, despite half of his body being exposed to the chill air of a northern island in late winter.

In fact, he realized, he hadn't been cold since his arrival on the island; he'd left his cloak in his borrowed chamber and it had never occurred to him that he would need it. His vision jarred and bumped as he tromped down the path behind Malcolm, and Adrian opened his mouth to send forth a short
ha
of breath.

Steam billowed before his face.

So, yes, it
was
cold here. Only
he
wasn't cold. Actually, he felt quite comfortable. Perhaps it was the side of the island he was currently traversing—a blocking of the wind? A sheltering of the deep valley?

He had no more time to consider the possible reasons why he was suddenly immune to such a winter clime, for it was then that Adrian followed Malcolm from the wood, emerging on the narrow dirt track between the idyllic cottages Adrian had seen from the turret window earlier in the day.

Up close, they were even more charming than he'd guessed—tidy little stone homes with deep, rounded overhangs to protect the foundations from the dripping damp mist that seemed to permeate everything here. Solid wooden doors, rich with oil, matched sturdy shutters flanking the little windows, and the dooryards of the cottages were stamped flat, swept clean between the mossy round stones seemingly placed there more for aesthetics than to actually mark boundaries between the plots.

Some of the doors stood open, and as he passed, Adrian could see the cozy glow of peat fires reflecting off the daubed walls in the tidy interiors, shadowed inhabitants going about their domestic tasks just the same as anyone would expect. In one yard, a small boy was perched on a stool with a blanket draped about his shoulders, a woman in long skirts going round him with a blade, plucking at his curling blond hair with one hand and trimming with the knife in her other. It seemed a typical scene to Adrian, and the sight of these people afforded him a measure of comfort until he drew nearer to them.

The woman glanced up at their approach and nodded with a preoccupied smile but then glanced back at Adrian, her eyes wide. The boy's mouth fell open into an
O
as he stared at Adrian's bare skin, and it was then that Adrian noticed the boy's pointed ear beneath the fringe of recently trimmed hair, the almond shape of his and his mother's eyes. The woman turned, staring blatantly at him as he passed, while the boy began to chatter excitedly in a language Adrian did not understand.

Adrian nodded to the woman.

After he and Malcolm had passed, Adrian glanced back over his shoulder in time to see the woman hurrying to the cottage next door, her son close at her heels in his flapping makeshift cape.

Soon the sound of doors scraping open filled the narrow track between the cottages, and Adrian heard the tromp of footfalls behind him. He turned again to witness the humble street filling with people who emerged from the homes and animal sheds, from around corners and between structures, some still carrying the tools of the day's chores—long pitchforks, axes, mallets.

They were following them, and talking quietly to one another in the strange tongue. Adrian had a moment of worry; was Malcolm leading him into an ambush?

Adrian looked ahead again to see Malcolm's profile turned toward him, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes over his beard betraying his smile. The man gestured with his pipe.

“You've nae need to fear,” he said, as if reading Adrian's mind. “They're as curious of you as you are of them, I'd wager. The tale of the Painted Man is an old one, and all have heard its telling since they were bairns. They've waited a long time for you, lad.”

Adrian frowned, readying to ask Malcolm to clarify his comment. Surely he didn't mean to equate the marks on Adrian's skin with some fairy-tale story told to children. He was only a man desperate to escape a hellish past by covering his scars with a pagan art form. If anything, it was pathetic. He would not allow Malcolm to portray him as something he was not in order to perpetuate a bit of island lore.

But the thought was whisked from his mind as his eyes caught sight of a man coming to stand at the edge of the track, leaning one elbow atop the handle of his long pitchfork, hooking his other fingers over the sharp curve of a jutting hip. Adrian looked down the man's heavy breeches to where their frayed hems ended at his hairy, slender midcalf—

Above a pair of hooves.

Before the idea of what he was seeing could fully penetrate his brain, the road ahead was widening between two rounded hills into a common area overlooking the sea, and the dusky dirt track was being painted with low, slinking shadows of huge catlike creatures. A bale fire in the center of the common lit up the lithe range of their sliding shoulders as the creatures crisscrossed the path ahead, their low growls burbling over the sounds of the sea beyond. They watched Adrian boldly.

Afternhangers. At least a score of them.

“Malcolm?” Adrian asked.

“All's well,” Malcolm said cheerily and forged ahead toward the feline beasts, each bigger than a man.

The afternhangers scattered as Adrian and Malcolm drew near, many of them giving graceful leaps onto the hillsides sheltering the common, some padding and bounding away to the farside of the bale fire, around which large flat stones and halved logs were arranged in concentric circles. The fire flickered up the wide chimney created by the hills, and Adrian could at last see clearly the nature of the beast who had attacked him.

Their fur was silky-looking, gleaming like polished chestnuts in the firelight. Every feature on the big cats' faces was the same rich auburn color—their flat, soft-looking noses, even the long whiskers that jutted from rounded muzzles—save for the yellow eyes and the insides of their pointed ears, which were a satiny, disturbing black.

One of the beasts had the audacity to give a quiet shriek at him, and Adrian saw that the inside of the afternhanger's mouth—tongue, gums—was also the deep color of ebony around gleaming yellow teeth.

The fleeting image of hell contained inside a satiny skin occurred to Adrian, and although he wanted to look away from the afternhanger, he met its glittering eyes. The animal shrieked again and averted its gaze, getting up to circle its perch as if suddenly uncomfortable.

Ahead of Adrian, Malcolm chuckled.

He followed the erstwhile king of Wyldonna to the far side of the common, where Malcolm stopped beside a low carved seat that appeared to have been fashioned from a stump. The bearded man's back was to the sea far below, and Adrian took a moment to look out over the water, which was only a lighter shade of dusk beyond the fire's glow. His brow furrowed as he thought he saw bobbing yellow lights beneath the waves, glowing and shimmering between the still shadows of the crawlers.

What were they?

Adrian shook his head and turned back around to see the common now crowded with the folk who had followed him, their numbers growing as shadows emerged from hidden tracks stretching along the hillsides, pushing handcarts or dragging skids, which they left at the edge of the meeting space. Adrian saw long white beards, the outlines of pointed caps. He heard the ruffling and flapping of wings as what appeared to be massive white birds with long spindly legs and draping translucent feathers dropped from the gloom to light on the boulders above the pacing afternhangers.

There was a quiet murmuring in the air, hovering over the balefire, and all the wildly differing pairs of eyes—yellow and slanted and round and black—were trained on Adrian's torso.

He felt another wash of gooseflesh erupt on his skin, but it was not due to the chill in the air.

The folk eased down onto the benches and stones in pairs and clusters until all the seats were filled and the area fringing the common was staggered with the shadows of those left to stand. The murmuring died away to leave the perfect whispers of the waves on the beach and the wind in the trees. The air was crackly, charged, expectant.

“
Les geants
?” Malcolm asked into the crowd.

“Still within the mountain, sire,” the man with the beastly cloven feet answered with extreme deference and a nod of his head, which Adrian now noticed was rather long at the upper jaw.

Malcolm grunted. “They shall hear well enough, then.” He stepped away from Adrian toward the balefire and put his back to it, joining the crowd of strange folk to regard Adrian openly. To say that Adrian felt on display would be too mild.

“Wyldonna,” Malcolm said solemnly but firmly, his eyes meeting Adrian's. “Your queen has delivered to us the Painted Man.”

A gasp swept through the crowd, and a moment later, those gathered there lowered into a bow behind Malcolm.

Adrian frowned as the people—he didn't know what else to refer to them as—rose from their subjective postures. He didn't know what to make of what he was seeing, but he would not allow Malcolm Lindsey to perpetuate a myth to further his own agenda against his sister. There could be no other reason for this gathering, no other reason for the man to bring him before the people of Wyldonna.

It was a blatant attempt to wrench power back to himself.

“No,” Adrian called out, scanning the crowd, his eyes glancing over and largely ignoring Malcolm. “I am not part of your legend, whatever it may be. I am an Englishman; my name is Adrian Hailsworth. I did indeed come to your island at Queen Maighread's request, but it is only to assist you in your fight against the one who threatens your peace. My presence cannot be attributed to any tale you've been told.”

Malcolm chuckled, and Adrian had no choice but to regard the bearded man again. “That
is
the tale, lad. And it is one older than you, older than me, older than—” he held out his arms and half-turned in either direction—“everything here. That you doona believe it doesna mean it isna true. You have come at the point of Wyldonna's history when everything here is in danger of being destroyed. You are marked with the magic signs. You are the Painted Man.”

“What do you mean?” Adrian demanded. “I was not born with these marks.”

Malcolm Lindsey only nodded, as the crowd behind him whispered excitedly among themselves. “No one is born with marks like that, lad. You were chosen because you proved yourself worthy. You earned your magic.”

“Proved myself worthy to whom?” Adrian demanded with a snort.

The bearded man spread his arms wide and looked up and around him—at the woods, the horizon, the sky shrouded with mist—before he let his hands drop and met Adrian's gaze again. “By all that is.”

“That's what you call God, I suppose.” He shook his head in frustration when Malcolm's easy smile only deepened. Then Adrian held up a palm. “I've not
earned
any magic. I'm
not
magic.”

The little boy who had been having his trim—and who now sported a coif that was decidedly lopsided—grinned at Adrian good-naturedly, the glow of the fire flickering over his gap-toothed gesture of goodwill. It was almost as if Adrian had told him a marvelous joke, and although the lad didn't truly believe it, he appreciated the humor all the same.

“Everyone's magic, Man.”

“No. They're not,” Adrian said, causing the boy's grin to falter. A quiet gasp swept through the crowd. Adrian looked around to find Malcolm again. “Was there something you wished to show me, or was this all only a ploy to parade me before the people so that whatever actions you plan to take against your sister would seem justified by some ancient nonsense?”

“I've something to show you,” Malcolm said easily. “Our folk have been working hard to construct a machine of war to defend us against our enemy when he returns.” He gestured to Adrian's right, along the craggy cliff where Adrian could just make out the dark oval entrances of the sea caves. “In the mountain.”

Adrian was intrigued despite himself. “A machine of war? How would you come by knowledge of such a thing? I would think you would attend to any trespassers by casting a spell on him or setting your wild beasts on his men.” Adrian couldn't help but glance at the afternhangers, who had draped themselves over the rocks.

“Although we are removed from the world,” Malcolm said, “we are nae ignorant of it. Many of our folk have journeyed abroad; some have gone as far as to enjoin with man in pursuit of livelihood.” He paused. “And as to why we canna simply dispatch Felsteppe upon his arrival—why we must resort to such crude and mundane methods—surely Maisie told you that he will come on the equinox.”

“She did,” Adrian allowed.

“It is only one of four days of the year when we can neither prevent Wyldonna from being landed nor can we keep anyone who wishes to go.”

“You can't use magic against him,” Adrian reiterated.

“Not until he has proven himself a threat.”

Adrian's eyebrows rose. “I'd say returning to the island with ships full of armed men constitutes a threat.”

“Nae if his ships and men do naught but sit in the harbor,” Malcolm argued.

“But then how many of those men will know how and when exactly to return to Wyldonna on their own?”

Malcolm smiled. “Which is why I was keen to show you what we've built.”