Warrior Reborn (15 page)

Unexpectedly, a movement within the camp stood out. A glow of red spiked from the canopy of green, like a ruby tumbling through sluggish waters.

What had the Tinklers got their hands on? Some new trinket they’d likely stolen from an unsuspecting host somewhere along the way, he’d guess.

It intrigued him, and at any other time it might bear further scrutiny. But not on this night. He had too many miles to cover, and after a day spent pushing his mind to its limits, he could already feel his energy flagging.

With a flap of his enormous wings he turned west, following the trail he knew all too well.

All sorts of small creatures made their way across his lands this night, but none of them the human prey he sought. He came across Ulfr’s party camped in a small clearing near a stream, their fires burning brightly. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Torquil lowered his head against the wind and flapped his wings, covering great swaths of ground. Ahead on the right was the wagon his men had abandoned. He circled, dropping lower to inspect the scene more closely. The wagon lay on its side, one wheel clearly broken. From what he could see, only one barrel of flour had been lost, its contents spread all around. The others appeared to be fine. His sister and her witch would have to make do with those because he had no intention of sending more.

Not much farther to go, now. He could already see the glow up ahead.

He couldn’t fly any closer. The dome of color covering Orabilis’s home prevented his approach. Not the soft fuzzy green blanket that masked the Tinklers’ encampment, but a hard, emerald green shell dominated here, with random sparks of color shooting out into the sky. Sparks that could, and had in the past, singed his feathers.

It was the damned rowan trees ringing her property like a chain of sentinels on guard.

He’d known he’d see nothing there, but from here, he’d begin his search, spreading out in ever-widening circles, covering all the distance a mortal on horseback might have covered in the day since Ulfr had last laid eyes on Christiana and Chase.

If they were anywhere but inside that ring of emerald, he would know it. He would find them.

He would find them and make them pay for their disloyalty.

A
GREAT WHOMP
of wings overhead had Brie scanning the dark sky above her. There was no moon, but she possessed the excellent night vision of a born hunter.

High above her, an enormous bird circled against the backdrop of clouds. If only she had her bow she could easily pick it from the sky. A creature that size could feed the Tinkler families she traveled with for a good two days.

But her bow was neatly stored in her room at Castle MacGahan, and her sights were set on larger prey. Tonight she foraged for information to help her in her quest for revenge. Tonight she tracked Torquil MacDowylt. Once she had a feel for his routine and habits, then she could formulate a plan to make him pay.

She pulled the cloak she’d borrowed from Eleyne closer around her face. It was too short by far, but in her experience men didn’t waste time looking at a woman’s feet. It was her face she wished to hide. If she slumped down a bit and kept her face to the shadows, she stood a chance of being mistaken for one of the old women who lived here at Tordenet.

If she were careful enough, she just might manage to avoid contact with everyone.

Though the iron gates had been shut for the night, the small wooden entrance to the massive castle wall had been left open. She could thank the small but steady stream of women from the castle out to the Tinklers’ wagons for that. Women everywhere loved an opportunity to inspect the Tinkler wares, even if their laird did not approve.

She crossed the empty courtyard and made her way up the main staircase, expecting at any moment to be challenged as to her intent.

But not even when she slipped into the dark entry hall inside did she see anyone. Her luck was holding! And luck, as her da had been fond of saying, could often save a man. Or, in her case, a woman.

If the little kitchen maid had told her true, the stairs toward the back of the great hall should lead her where she needed to go. The young woman had been adamant in her claims that though the lord and master of Tordenet slept in the laird’s chambers on the second floor, he spent all his days in this tower.

If this was where he spent the better part of his time, this would be where she would learn the most about him.

Brie’s feet slowed as she reached the heavy wooden door at the top of the narrow staircase. What if Torquil MacDowylt had not yet retired to his chambers? What if she walked in on him? It would be the end of her schemes before they’d even begun.

No! No more
what if
s. She was here and she would go through with it.

The door opened easily, allowing her entrance into a tiny room illuminated only by dying embers in its small fireplace. This hardly looked to be a place for the great Torquil MacDowylt to spend his days. Castle MacGahan had storage rooms larger than this. This room, with its solitary chair, presented itself more as a guard’s outpost than a room a laird would use.

Brie turned in a tight circle, scanning the walls until she spotted a narrow door. A door with a slit of light splashing out where the wood didn’t quite meet the stone floor.

Her breath caught in her chest. A light that bright could mean he was in there. She crossed to the door
and positioned her ear against the wood. Holding her breath, she listened for any sound coming from the other side. Nothing. Perhaps with his great wealth, MacDowylt thought nothing of leaving a fireplace burning in an unoccupied room.

Only one way to know.

Squaring her shoulders, she leaned against the door, pushing it ever so slightly open. A space large enough for nothing more to enter than her fingers. She waited, breath held, for the sound of boots against stone.

Not a single noise met her straining ears.

Another push and she slipped inside.

This room, many times larger than the one before it, was more like what she had imagined the laird of the MacDowylt might occupy. A great table, strewn with papers and a jeweled wooden chest, sat directly across from the door, an enormous candle burning brightly on either end. Two more candles blazed on the stone shelf behind the table, illuminating the bound manuscripts stacked there.

She stepped slowly across the empty floor, curious as to what might occupy the days of the beast of Tordenet.

Like many elder sons, Torquil appeared to have been well educated. Scrolls and manuscripts littered his table. One, apparently more special and obviously older than the others, lay neatly rolled in the wooden box next to the most fantastic sword she’d ever seen.

Her fingers itched to lift the weapon, to feel its heft balanced in her palm.

She resisted, though it took great self-control, satisfying herself with a stroke of her finger down the length of the engraved blade. The symbols there were unlike any she’d seen before, though they seemed similar to those on the unrolled scroll lying next to the box. Not numbers, not any letters she knew of, these were entirely foreign markings.

Only with a great force of willpower was she able to step away from the intense lure emanating from the box. She wasn’t here to steal from the laird, she reminded herself. Only to kill him. She might travel with Tinklers, but she was not one.

The thought had barely formed before a wave of guilt washed over her. Nothing she’d experienced of the Tinklers supported the rumors she’d heard her whole life. They’d been nothing but kind to her, and they’d certainly done nothing to make her think they were thieves. If anything, the minstrels were more likely to fit that mold than the Tinklers.

Another step back from the table and the pull of the sword weakened enough to allow Brie to collect her thoughts.

She was here for information, not treasures. Information that could help her determine the best way, the best time, the best place to gut the beast who’d murdered her father.

She turned her attention upward, to the tall ceiling
and the unshuttered window high on the wall. Her eyes trailed down, to the landing under the window and the four stone stairs leading down to the floor where, on a pallet of pillows, lay the naked body of the fearsome laird of the MacDowylt.

Her breath sucked in between her teeth as if some other being were responsible for the action. Or perhaps it was only the natural result of her heart pounding so hard within her chest, likely trying to push the contents of her stomach back down where they belonged.

She waited, heart pounding loudly enough to wake the dead, expecting at any moment he would open his eyes and cry out for his guards to take her away.

Instead, he lay unmoving, eyes closed, as if he were the very dead she feared awakening.

Panic bubbled in her chest as the sounds of breathing assailed her ears . . . until she recognized that the breathing was her own.

Fool!

She was warrior born, not some dewy-eyed milkmaid to scurry away at the first sign of danger. Repeating that in her mind, she approached the body for a closer inspection.

What was wrong with him? It was as if he were a carving of a man, not actually the man himself.

And a beautiful carving, at that.

She’d seen him from a distance, on the landing of his great staircase, possessively surveying his
courtyard. Up close, so close she could reach out and touch him, he was the very definition of beauty. Golden hair flowed out around his head, highlighted by two pure white streaks, one leading back from each temple like stripes on some exotic animal. Taut muscles shaped the skin of his arms, his legs, his torso, forming a perfect ripple along his chest, leading her eyes down to his—

Brie jerked her gaze back to his chest, her thoughts in turmoil. His manhood was not for her investigation, no matter how handsome he might be.

She needed to know if he slept, or if someone had already done her work for her. Did his heart beat still?

She could wonder, or she could be certain.

Against her better judgment, her hand stretched forward, hovering over his chest. Would his skin be warm with life or as cold as the statue he resembled?

As if she’d been snared in some invisible web, she waited, unmoving, transfixed by the man in front of her. He was beyond handsome. He was magnificent. He was perfection.

Pain radiating up her arm brought her to her senses and she shook her head in an effort to rid herself of whatever it was that had held her back. For how long she’d remained there, she couldn’t say, only that it had been long enough that her arm ached from the strain of holding it out.

Her will once again her own, she dipped her
hand, allowing her fingers to rest lightly on the perfect stretch of muscled skin.

Not beauty, not perfection, but pure evil incarnate waited under her touch.

Brie jerked her hand away, her fingertips burning as if she’d placed them in the flames of the fireplace.

Panic drove her steps backward until she stumbled and fell to sit, her legs stretched out in front of her, her back against a tapestry-covered screen.

Could some powerful Magic surround the laird? Powerful enough to confuse her purpose and steal her strength of will? Something certainly had and, given more time, she might devise a way around such intense feelings. But such time was not a luxury available to her at the moment.

A noise, like the beat and rustle of a great pair of wings, sounded from the open window, sending her scuttling on hands and knees to hide behind the screen.

Brie huddled on a tiny seat, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes as if the self-imposed dark might aid her in regaining her courage.

Some semblance of calm returned and she leaned her forehead against the wood of the screen, realizing as she did she could see through the tiny slit between the pieces of wood.

An owl, the largest she’d ever seen so close, perched on the sill of the opening, his head cocked first to one side and then the other as if he scanned the room for intruders.

For her.

Another wave of panic washed over her and she fought the overwhelming need to step from behind the screen and surrender herself. She held her breath, terrified when she heard a great gasp for air that the sound might be coming from her.

Not from her, she realized, but from the laird, sucking in air as if he’d been holding his breath as well, but for much, much longer.

Her eyes tracked back up to the empty window. Where the owl had gone, she had no idea, nor did she have time to spend in wondering.

Torquil MacDowylt had risen to his feet.

He placed a hand to his chest, cocking his head from side to side, much as the owl had, before striding to the table where he slowly and with great care worked the open scroll into a tight roll and placed it inside the wooden box.

With the box under his arm, he crossed to the great fireplace, only feet away from her hiding spot.

Brie concentrated on maintaining her silence, picturing herself in the trees on a hunt, invisible to her prey.

His hand moved from one stone to another below the mantel until at last he pulled one stone free and shoved the box into the opening, before returning the stone to cover any trace of the hiding place.

Again he paused, his head swiveling back and forth, before he turned to cross back to his resting
spot. Rather than lying back down, he lifted his clothing, one piece at a time, shook each one, and quickly dressed. With one last look around the room, he lifted a hand and all the candles were extinguished at once as if snuffed out by a chorus of maids in unison.

Magic! She’d suspected it before, but what she’d just seen was proof. She’d heard her father’s stories of the MacDowylt having descended from his people’s ancient gods, but she’d never believed them.

She didn’t move, not even when she heard the laird cross the room and shut the door behind him. She waited on her little stool, realizing only after her legs began to cramp and she at last stood, that the stool was in fact a pot, apparently used as the laird’s own private privy.