Chasing Shadows (29 page)

Sarah skidded to a stop in front of the opening, gasping. The tight spiral staircase was shrouded in shadows that evolved into total darkness. No sounds came from within, save a dull and haunting whistle that she hoped was the wind and not the false Shadow taunting her from below. Frozen in indecision, her mind conjured up images of what the darkness held, and they were plenty disturbing to keep her from following. But he
had
gone down there, and each moment she spent thinking about it was another minute lost.

Hurried footsteps brought her head around, and she saw Terrance, the man who’d hired her, running unsteadily down the hall. “I tried to keep up. Did you lose him?” he gasped, leaning on his knees as he fought for breath.

Sarah frowned, knowing that she probably had by now. “I’m afraid so. He went this way,” she said, pointing down the stairs and hoping he didn’t urge her to follow.

Terrance called the man a vile name that caused her eyes to widen. She was even more surprised when he hurried back in the direction he had come. “Quickly!” he called behind him. Sarah jogged to keep up, her legs starting to feel like Jell-O. But if the man knew of a shortcut to wherever the false Shadow had disappeared to, then she could push past the cramp in her side to find answers.

She was confused when he led her back to the main staircase where the majority of the indoor staff had congregated.

“Move!” Terrance shouted, elbowing people out of the way to make room for the both of them.

Sarah’s knees nearly gave out at the image before her. A hand covered her mouth as she gasped, freezing in horror before her legs quivered and she dropped to her knees beside the crumpled form.

Edith lay in a puddle of blood, face devoid of color, hands stained with a mixture of her own blood and the ash she hadn’t yet rubbed off. Her mouth worked when she saw her, causing Sarah’s eyes to fill with tears. She choked on a sob, her hand hovering beside the arrow protruding from the prostrate woman’s abdomen, knowing that removing it would only make things worse.

Some of her senses returning to her, Sarah pressed shaking hands around the stem of the arrow, wondering why no one had thought to stanch the flow of blood that had already created a murky red puddle on Edith’s uniform.

“Get help!” Sarah screamed in a frantic voice. A few onlookers scattered, though most remained with forlorn or pitying expressions. She turned back to Edith, whose eyes, pooling with tears, were focused on her. “You’re going to be fine,” Sarah choked out. There was too much blood! “The doctor’s coming” Then she remembered that the physician was in prison. Would there be a replacement?

She tentatively put more pressure on the wound, feeling sick when sticky liquid bubbled up from beneath her palms. Oh, God!

She whispered her reassurances in a quavering voice. “Help’s coming.” Her stomach roiled in panic and revulsion at the sight of so much blood. A skinned knee usually made her insides quiver, and the sight of thick red liquid flowing over her knuckles was enough to make her pass out. Pressing her lips into a tight line, she tasted the acidic tang of her own blood in her mouth. Edith needed her; she would
not
panic.

Edith shook her head weakly, as if she knew the outcome. But Sarah refused to believe there was nothing they could do to save her.
God,
please! She realized that she had whispered it aloud, and the desperate plea seemed to encompass the intuition of all present, no matter how much they might wish to believe otherwise.      

With waning strength, Edith reached up to touch her tear-stained cheek. “I understand . . . now,” she rasped, throat working convulsively with the effort to speak. Sarah tried to quiet her, telling her to save her strength for when the doctor arrived. But whatever it was seemed too important to let it go unsaid. “I . . . wanted . . . to tell you.”

Sarah shook her head, confused by her mutterings. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She knew she sounded frantic, but she couldn’t help it with the light fading in Edith’s eyes and the flow of blood beneath her fingers slowing on its own.

The hand of the dying woman dropped from Sarah’s face. Her chest rose less frequently, and her eyes began to droop. Sarah’s own widened in alarm. “No! Edith? Edith, stay with me! What about your boy, your husband? They need you.”

Edith released a sigh and met her eyes one final time, the corner of her mouth tipping almost imperceptibly. The look on her gray face was a mixture of joy and sadness. Sarah would never forget her face in that moment, nor the look of longing that burned feverishly in her eyes. “I
am
going . . . to them.”

Confused, Sarah’s searched her face for the answer, and fresh tears pooled in her eyes when she realized her meaning. She tried to control her sobs. “Oh, Edith. Why didn’t you tell me?” Now Sarah understood the haunted, faraway look in her eyes all those times. How had they died? Edith had mentioned that she’d suffered at Cadius’ hand when he doubted her loyalty. Was it possible that the death of her loved ones had been the consequence she had alluded to?

By the time Sarah blinked to clear her vision, Edith’s head had tipped to the side, eyes once bright with life staring dully at the wall. The small smile was frozen in place, now a sick parody of angelic joy on her lifeless face.

Sarah started, becoming aware that blood no longer pooled beneath her hands. She shook her head, unwilling to believe that Edith was gone, and pressed harder on the wound, as if she could replace the blood lost. “No. No, no, no, no!” She knew she sounded hysterical, but it wasn’t really her anymore, just a young girl weeping over a friend. The girl’s lips quivered as rivulets of sorrow and pain and guilt ran down her cheeks unchecked. No one tried to pull her from the body.

Sarah’s throat constricted as she realized that she had just referred to her friend as “the body.” But looking at Edith’s pale face now, there was no denying that there was no life, no soul left in this vessel: She was already gone.

Desperate, Sarah started screaming for help, though she knew it was useless. “Get someone, get the doctor! Edith, please. Please come back!” Nothing. No light returned to her eyes.

Pulling her quivering, bloodstained hands back, Sarah tentatively touched Edith’s cheek with shaking fingers. Her skin was cold. When she pulled back, she realized that she’d left a smudge of blood on Edith’s alabaster cheek.

Choking on a horrified sob, she held the back of her wrist against her lips to keep herself from screaming as she stumbled away. In the back of her mind, she registered the sounds of sobbing, her own horror and sorrow mingling with that of the others in a terrible song of agony that she imagined would forever haunt her dreams.

Now that there was room, some of the men moved in to hover over Edith’s body, discussing what arrangements needed to be made in hushed tones.

Sarah shook her head, blocking them out. “I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly, eyes trained on Edith’s still form, though her friend could no longer hear her. If she had listened to Edith and hadn’t chased him, hadn’t ducked . . . Sarah swallowed, backing towards the staircase and cradling her bloodstained hands against her chest.

“Sarah? I heard screaming.” She turned to find Damien staring at the terrible scene. He looked tired and had dressed in a haphazard fashion, shirt un-tucked and half-buttoned, his usually perfect hair tousled and sticking up on one side. His cheek was still creased from his pillow, and the mark curved as his bleary eyes widened when he caught sight of Edith’s gray face. “Is that . . .?”

Sarah blinked at his horrified expression. He’d heard screaming? Had that been her, or had she imagined that?

When he saw the state she was in, his eyes registered alarm and he gripped her arm as he took in the blood dripping from her fingers. “What happened? Were you hurt?”

She had never heard him sound so angry, or as close to angry as the sweet man could be, but Sarah had no idea how to answer the protective concern in his eyes. Her mouth moved as she worked up an answer, but all she managed was a strangled sound. Wordlessly, she was enveloped in his warm embrace, arms wrapping around her. Sarah couldn’t remember ever being held so tightly, as though she would disappear if he let go.

Shaking, she held her bloody palms between them, sure she was ruining his pristine white shirt. But Damien hardly seemed to mind as he stroked the back of her head, crooning softly into her hair, unintelligible words that reached her aching heart. His tenderness and the comfort she felt from him was too much in that moment, and Sarah felt something crack inside of her—internal walls pressing in until she could no longer draw breath in Damien’s tight embrace. She was suffocating!  

She had to get away from here, from the stench of blood and sorrow that clung to her hair, her skin. She struggled free, though Damien grabbed her wrist to stop her, face twisting in concern. The front of his shirt was smeared with Edith’s blood.

With a final glance at what remained of the woman who had taken her under her wing, Sarah did the only thing she could do in that moment.

She broke away from Damien, ignoring his calls, and ran like death was chasing her. And in a sad way, it was.              

~Chapter 26~

She stumbled blindly through the dark forest, wind stinging her cheeks where the trails of tears and blood had dried. Dusk had quickly turned to night in the woods, and whatever modicum light remained was obscured by the heavy canopy of trees and gnarled branches, eclipsing the woods in near-darkness. Sparse moonlight found its way into the open spaces, giving the snow-capped trees a ghostly glow.

Sarah swatted branches out of her path, sending a powdery shower of snow behind her retreating form. Thorns and fallen twigs grabbed at the hem of her dress, and she yanked her skirt free, ripping the fabric. She stood, huffing in place.

Before, she had been focused on getting out of the castle and away from the reality of death. But now that the initial panic and hysteria had lessened some, her head began to clear in the cold night air. Was she lost? Nothing looked familiar in this disorienting darkness, and she spun around, eyes nervously sweeping the forest. From this distance, the tallest towers of the castle could still be seen through the sparse breaks in the branches.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she shivered as the adrenaline from her run ebbed. Her dress did nothing to stave off the freezing temperatures in the dense forest that received little warmth from the sun. The foolishness of her actions was not lost on her, but she couldn’t spend another moment there, with the smell of her friend’s death lingering. She had used some snow to rub as much of Edith’s blood from her hands as she could, but it wasn’t enough.

Sniffing back her tears, Sarah shuffled onward with no real destination in mind, but the pain in her chest lessened the further she got from the castle looming just over her shoulder. If she kept sight of it, she could find her way back. Not that she wanted to.

Something cracked dully, echoing through the woods. Instinctively, she jumped behind a gnarled pine, breathing heavily as she strained her ears for any noise past the rapid thumping of her own pulse. The sound came again a moment later, and then again, evenly timed, a swift
thwack
. Slowly, Sarah pushed away from the tree and took a few tentative steps up the hill toward the sound of an axe slicing through wood. But civilization meant possible shelter . . .

She continued on hesitantly, nerves shot, jumping each time the axe came down, until the forest was abruptly behind her and she reached the top of the rise. She took in the outline of the small cabin, the thin cloud of smoke puffing up from the chimney, and the dark form beside the house. A piece of wood was tossed onto the growing pile stacked against the side of the small home.

When the man turned to place another log on the chopping block, his face was illuminated by the lantern’s glow. Sarah let out the breath she had been holding, wondering if she had meant to come here all along. Maybe she hadn’t consciously gone this way, but she knew that even after everything, this was where she needed to be. Maybe Someone else had thought that, too.

Her teeth had begun to chatter, and she pulled her arms tighter to warm herself, pushing her forearms painfully into her stomach. Still, she was hesitant to approach him in the dark while he wielded that axe. Not that he would ever use it on her, but she felt too anxious and jittery to think rationally.

Will glanced up abruptly, examining the line of the forest as if sensing her presence. He squinted past the small circle of light into the darkness. “Who’s there?” he called. His grip seemed to tighten on his weapon.

Swallowing, Sarah stepped out of the shadows slowly, giving him plenty of space until he could see that she was just a girl. She bit the inside of her cheek as the shaking intensified—fear and exhaustion were taking their toll on her nerves. She choked back tears at the comforting sound of his voice, but couldn’t help wondering if she should have come at all after their disagreement.

Stopping outside the circle of light, she contemplated bolting for the forest again and then immediately shook her head, her mind feeling heavy and muddled. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

“Sarah,” he breathed in surprise, taking a step forward at the quavering note in her voice. “Are you all right?”

Her arms pulled tighter, protecting herself from the cold and the images that pressed in. “Um, I just—there was—” How could she explain what had happened? Why had she thought he would want to hear any of it? She unconsciously retreated a step in her insecurity.

Will laid the axe on top of the stack of wood and shot her a wry glance. “I won’t use it, if that’s your concern.” He grabbed the lantern from the woodpile and held it up to better see her. His indigo eyes widened as he took in her appearance. He seemed momentarily frozen and then was instantly before her, concern etched into every line of his face. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Damien’s exact words, yet coming from Will they felt different somehow. Tears clogged her throat, and it pained her to speak. “It’s not my blood.” Her voice wavered, and she bit her lip to keep the tears in check.

Without another word, Will whipped off his cloak and threw it over her shoulders, and she clutched it with brittle fingers. Picking up the lantern from the ground, he put a hand to her back and ushered her inside. The warmth of the small cabin nearly made her sigh with relief.

Setting the lantern down, he took her ice-cold hands in his own. He frowned, but when his eyes met hers, they were bright with worry as they searched her face. She waited for the questions and reprimands, but he surprised her by silently leading her to the fire. Sarah sat heavily on the floor, her legs quivering when her weight was off them. Will went to the bed and snagged the heavy knitted quilt, removing the cloak and draping the blanket around her. She wanted to thank him, but the words stuck in her throat.

He left only long enough to truck in a pail of snow. Then he removed the pot of delicious smelling stew that hung over the flames using the hook suspended beside the fireplace. He hung the snow-filled pail from the rod jetting out over the flames and left it to melt.

They were both silent as she stared unseeing at the flames, though out of the corner of her eye, she caught the worried glances he sent her way every few seconds. With blood marking her face and hands as she shivered uncontrollably, she must look like a frightened escapee from a mental hospital. But he made no comment.

Pulling the pail from the fire, Will knelt before her and dipped a cloth in the water. He grasped her chin and gently wiped the smeared blood from her face. Sarah watched him as he worked, the part of her that wasn’t numb slightly awed by the fact that he was taking care of her like this after everything that had passed between them. What would the townsfolk say if they could see the large, quiet blacksmith with calloused hands caring for her with such tenderness? His face was concentrated on his task, but the way the muscle in his cheek twitched made her wonder if he, too, wasn’t totally unaffected by their nearness.

Will dropped his soft hold on her face and draped the cloth over the side of the pale, and Sarah wondered at the disappointment she felt, which turned to a spark of surprise when he took her small hands in his own, placing them in the warm water. It felt like needles on her freezing skin, and she sucked in a breath as slivers of pain shot through her hands.

“Shhh,” he murmured, stroking her wrist with his thumb. Her skin adjusted to the temperature, and she began to relax under Will’s surprisingly gentle touch. His work-roughed hands were strong and comforting as he used soft strokes to wipe the crusted blood from her hands and wrists. That same muscle in his cheek spasmed under his skin as he clenched his jaw.

“I . . . can do it,” Sarah managed in a wavering voice. He didn’t need to take care of her, and his feather-light touch only served to remind her of what she had pushed away.

He drew one of her hands from the water, examining her palm as if he had never seen a human hand before. “You don’t always have to be strong, you know,” he said softly. A finger traced the cuts she hadn’t realized she’d received in the forest. For a few minutes, her blood had mingled with Edith’s on her hands. The thought saddened her.

Will’s fingers stilled, inquisitive eyes meeting hers. “What happened? You’re half-frozen and covered in blood. You can hardly expect me to remain ignorant.” His eyes narrowed, darkening to a near-black color she recognized. “Did someone do this to you?”

Though she had never really doubted that he cared for her, Sarah felt a faint thrill at the fact that he hadn’t written her off. Then reality pressed in.

Throat tightening, she whispered in a small, shaky voice, “My friend at the castle, Edith, was murdered tonight.”   

His eyes widened with surprise and sadness. “What happened?” He gave her hand a gentle pulse with his own. His tenderness was more than she could handle, especially when she had no right to it.

She rushed on breathlessly, tears spilling freely over her lids, some of her words choked out by sobs. “We were just there together. I should have listened and gone back. I shouldn’t have followed him! She would be alive if I hadn’t gone after him.” She pulled her hand from his gentle hold and buried her face in her knees, sobbing. She felt like an idiot for acting so hysterical in front of him, but she couldn’t stop the pain from spilling over—there had been so much blood.

A second later, she heard Will shift positions. His arm wrapped around her shoulders and he pulled her against his side. Sarah tried to shove him away with weak arms, but he held her firmly, seeming to know what she needed before she did. Of course he did; he had experienced this kind of grief when his parents died, and he did not need an inconsolable imp crying on his shoulder.

But Sarah collapsed into his embrace, anyway, sobbing into the safety of his shoulder. Sorrow came out of her in waves, and when she thought she had no more tears to cry, she glanced down at her torn hem, which reminded her of what she had been running from. Then the tears started afresh. Eventually, the sobbing lessened, and she was left shivering and silent in his embrace.

Will pressed his lips to her hair, and she imagined that his eyes were closed tightly in remembrance of his own pain. “It does get easier,” he murmured

She nodded mechanically. Tears spent, her head returned to her, and her face heated when she thought of how she had thrown herself into his arms. “Sorry,” she whispered, pulling back, too ashamed of her actions to meet his gaze.

He released her, albeit reluctantly. “You have nothing to feel sorry about.” His voice was low and soothing.

Guilty sorrow tightened her chest. She looked up at him. He was watching her closely, eyes searching her face. “But it’s my fault,” she whispered brokenly.

His expression softened with empathy. “How could it be your fault?”

Biting her lip, she whispered, “Because the arrow was meant for me.”

Sarah knew she wasn’t making sense, but she felt too shell-shocked to make much sense of anything, especially when she herself was still trying to piece together what had happened.

A large hand came up to cup her cheek, gently turning her head to face him. Will’s eyes were bright with the fire that burned just below the surface. Jaw tight, he said, “Who tried to harm you?”

She hesitated, knowing her next words would come as a blow to him. “It was the Shadow. He tried to shoot me.”

He pulled back as if she had slapped him. Disbelief etched his features. “
What
?”

Swallowing, she hurried on. “Edith and I heard one of the servants screaming downstairs, and I saw the Shadow”—she stumbled over the name—“running up the stairs. Edith called out for me to stop.” She pulled the quilt tighter about her, staring at the ground in shame. “I thought it was you and followed, and then he turned on me with his bow and I knew it was someone else. I chased him for a while, but I lost him. Then your friend, Terrance, found me and brought me back to Edith.” Her voice had dropped as the story went on, and it was barely audible when she whispered, “I’d avoided the arrow, but it hit her instead.”

When she looked up, Will’s expression was mostly blank. The only things that gave him away were the twitching muscle in his cheek and the way his chest rose and fell rapidly. “So this man impersonated me and tried to kill you, but shot your friend instead?” Now he looked torn between hugging her to his chest and ramming his tightened fist into the unknown man’s nose.

“I don’t think he meant to hurt me, though,” Sarah amended, then immediately questioned why she was defending the man who had murdered Edith.

Maybe because he had appeared as frightened and surprised as she.

Will looked disbelieving in her theory, but it seemed clearer to her now.

She scooted closer to him, as if her nearness might convince him. “No, honestly. I couldn’t see his face, but he was shaking so badly that I think he was startled into releasing the arrow. He didn’t intend to harm anyone.”

Will rose abruptly and strode to the fireplace, flexing his hand as though to exorcise the desire to use it. He picked up two flat bowls from the hearth and ladled the thick stew into them. He sat down again, so close that their shoulders touched. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Intentional or not, the fool should never have done something so stupid” and handed her one of the bowls. “It’s still warm, and you need to eat something.”