Shana Abe Read online

  There could be no denial of what had happened. She had said something—already she couldn’t remember what—and he had latched on to her words and transmuted them into churning desire. He had taken her with him.

  It had been too abrupt, too stunning. It had been too much like that moment on the stairs in the village of Trayleigh, when he had touched just her chin and she had felt her entire body go aflame, awake in a way she had never known before.

  What to make of it? She had no idea. She had seen looks like his aplenty from men in London, had even begun to notice them all the way back in Gatting, and none of those others had involved her as completely as his did. None of them had invoked the chimera so strongly.

  None of them made her feel so … alive.

  The oatcake was flaky and dry, the bland flavor of it coming back to her in slow degrees. Another thing she thought she had seen the last of.

  Marcus Kincardine, all in all, had proven to be nothing like what she had expected. He was talking to a cluster of his men now, all with serious demeanors, each of them as acutely aware of her as she was of them. Marcus had his back to her; he was saying something to a brown-haired man who looked vaguely familiar. Probably one of Hanoch’s minions.

  The wizard Balthazar stood slightly apart from the others, holding on to the magnificently tooled silver bridle of his stallion. He gave her a stately nod.

  Avalon had noticed right away that this man had a different aspect; it had not been his foreign clothing or his earrings that set him apart, but rather his bearing. The chimera had whispered the right word for him as soon as he came close: wizard.

  It was a laughable thought, one fantasy being identifying another. Yet even if such a creature were only fantasy, surely this man embodied it in full. His wholeness seemed so right, it shone from his eyes. Avalon knew that he alone had accepted her as she was, without judgment, without forethought. Just her. She almost wanted to talk to him, to discover his secrets, but he was the friend of her enemy. So she could not afford it.

  They rode on, for two long days.

  No one spoke on the ride. The only sounds were from the horses, snorting and whickering, and the steady push of their hooves in the leaves and peat. Birds stilled as they passed, a few flying up in a mad rush to the sky, living shapes that soared and scattered.

  Avalon knew the moment they crossed back into Scotland. She knew it even before they did. The air changed, the light changed, everything changed.

  Marcus, behind her, might have felt it at almost the same time. He straightened in the saddle. From him emanated a single word:

  Home.

  No, she thought, not my home.

  But if not here, then where? Not Scotland, not Gatting, not London. Not even Trayleigh, not anymore. Her life had been broken down into so many fragments that she no longer felt any allegiance to anyone or anything.

  Only the chimera seemed glad to be back in Scotland. Avalon felt it shift within her, benign now, but so much stronger than it had been before.…

  It had been born here in this country, the product of fierce Highland tempers and her own will to survive. Before she was brought here, as a young girl, the beast had been nothing but a voice to her, a guide, a different eye. It had taken Hanoch to strike the beast into existence from the sparks of her mind. It had taken Hanoch to show her how black black could be.

  That night the party camped under a relentlessly star-filled sky. Here the wind had already embraced the coming winter, growing harder and sharper, heavy with the promise of a bitter, cold rain. Beneath the gown and tartan, a blanket, and a pitiful excuse for a tent, Avalon shivered alone on the ground, arms tucked in and curled close to her body. Her dreams became a tangled confusion of memory and imagination, until at last she could sort out the scene being played.

  Uncle Hanoch had been so angry. Yes, how could she have forgotten it, that moment in the circle of dirt.…

  “She’s naught but a weak female,” said Uncle in disgust. “Look at her.”

  She sat up slowly, pushing herself up from the ground, and resisted the urge to place a hand over her eyes to stop the world from reeling.

  “Ye let yer concentration drop.” The other man—the instructor—scowled down at her. “I told ye to concentrate!”

  She climbed to her feet in front of both men in the ring of dirt, not bothering to brush the dust from the fall off her tartan.

  “Do it again!” barked Uncle.

  The instructor didn’t wait for her to regain her balance. He moved in with a rapid feint to her right, prompting her to skitter in the other direction, hands out, trying to ward off the attack she knew was coming.

  Her eyes were teary from the rising dust around them; the blur impeded her vision. So, although she knew her instructor was about to cut her off with a sweep of his foot to her knees, she could not see it at all. Her breathing was ragged, almost weepy.

  She made the mistake of moving one hand up to brush across her eyes, trying to clear the tears.

  Down! screamed the monster-beast in her head. Roll!

  She did as it told her to, instinctive, ducking the blow coming from the man, hitting the dirt with her body curled, using her meager weight to carry her over and up, a full tumble before she sprang back to her feet and whirled around to face the man, now behind her.

  The beast let her feel the grudging approval of Uncle, who stood watching with his lips pressed to a thin line, saying nothing.

  She hated the line of his mouth, it was all he ever showed her: a sign of constant dissatisfaction from this man whom everyone but she was allowed to call “laird.”

  Her instructor had not relented at her surprising move. He came toward her again in half steps, both hands held out an equal distance in front of him, giving her no hint of which one would be the one to fell her again.

  A fall of hair, locks of silver brilliance, had escaped from the tight knot on the back of her head, and the strands teased her now, blowing up in front of her with a slight puff of wind. She shook her head to clear her vision.

  Left! shouted the beast, but this time it was too late, and the instructor’s hand caught her across the face, an open slap, sending her spinning down to the dirt again.

  “Ach,” said the laird in disgust. “A warrior maiden, indeed.”

  Avalon, eyes closed, head bowed, listened to him rant at the instructor.

  “She’s never going to be the one. She’s a disgrace!”

  “Give her some time, Hanoch. She’s young yet.”

  “Time!” The laird’s voice was booming, incredibly loud in the silence of the courtyard in front of the cottage. “Time! She’s had three years already! How much more time does she need?”

  “Battle skills are not simple, Hanoch. Ye know this. And she’s only a child.”

  She raised her head at this and watched the men argue from her vantage point on the ground. The escaped locks of hair had drifted down past her shoulder to lay coiled in the dirt, a ring of brightness against the dun.

  “She won’t be a child forever, MacLochlan,” said Uncle Hanoch. “Soon enough she’ll be of an age to marry my son, and ye know she must meet the standards of the curse! I entrusted ye to bring me the legend come to life, and ye give me this?”

  The instructor threw her a look and Avalon met it with defiance, the first trace of it she had dared show in a long while.

  “She’ll get better,” the instructor stated, and she didn’t need the keen ears of the beast to pick up the doubt in his voice.

  The laird walked over to where she was, still on her hands and knees, and glared down at her, his lips pressed even thinner in distaste.

  “Avalon d’Farouche. Ye are a disgrace to yer clan.”

  She pushed back on her hands and spat out the words that had been swelling up in her for the past three years:

  “I am not of your clan!”

  Uncle Hanoch’s eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline; his red beard bristled.

  “What did ye say?” he aske
d in a ghastly voice.

  Avalon came fully to her feet, and the monster-beast in her now was cowering, cringing, running around in circles inside her head.

  Fury! wailed the chimera, Oh, horrible fury, mistake, mistake, take it back—

  Quiet! Avalon shouted at it soundlessly. She had waited so long for this moment, and it was too late to take it back. She knew that.

  “I am not of your clan.” She spoke with as much dignity as she could muster. She said it as she thought her father might have, back when he was alive.

  Uncle Hanoch’s skin grew very pale beneath his beard, making his wild red hair seem suddenly garish in the afternoon sunlight.

  The beast let out a howl of fear that only she could hear, rolled over to expose its stomach, total submission, and she knew that perhaps even this would not satisfy Uncle now.

  He loomed above her, blocking out the whole sun.

  “Your curse is stupid!” Avalon cried, and couldn’t believe that it was her own voice coming out, her own words that would surely prompt him to kill her. His eyes bulged, his hands clenched into tight fists. One blow would finish her, but maybe it wouldn’t even be so bad, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much, and then she could leave this place, see her mother and father and Ona.…

  “Stupid!” she yelled again, resigning herself to death. “It isn’t real! Only little babies believe in curses!”

  Ona had told her that, long, long ago, back when Avalon had had a nursemaid, and a castle as her home, and people all around her who cared for her. Not like now. Not like this, living in a tiny cottage, no nursemaids, no playmates, no companions of any kind, save the instructor.

  “Lass, hold yer tongue.” It was the instructor, shouldering between her and the laird, a new threat, and a diversion.

  “No, I won’t!”

  It was as if she had been waiting three years for this moment—ever since she’d been brought here—to be in the circle of dirt with these two men, both of them giants against the sky, huge and terrifying. What they wanted of her, what they expected of her, was incomprehensible.

  “It’s just a story!” she taunted, reckless with the power of saying at last what she thought. “It never really happened! And I won’t pretend it’s true, and I won’t ever get married, not for you or for anyone but especially not for a made-up story!”

  The words she had been biting back for so long now tasted wonderfully wicked on her lips, dangerous and utterly unstoppable: “I will never marry him! I vow it now—I will never marry your son!”

  Avalon took a breath and felt the world go hushed around her, the final echo of her true thoughts at last fading away into the trees. She felt defeated suddenly, her outburst having drained what spirit she had left. She didn’t belong here, she hated it here, she wanted—more than anything!—to be able to leave, and the pain in her was so acute that even the beast was quelled by it.

  “I want to go home,” she said now, quieter, pleading. “Please … let me go home.”

  There was a long moment of silence, as if even the birds and the streams had frozen in fear for her, of what wrath would surely follow her words. At last the stillness was broken by the indrawn hiss of air from Hanoch.

  “Well, this is the thanks I get.” He shoved the instructor easily out of the way, and the instructor let him do it, folding back into the background of the woods and the mountains, leaving Avalon alone with her nemesis.

  Hanoch was white with rage.

  “After I save ye from the raid that killed yer father and bring ye here to my home, my people—after I take ye in, Avalon d’Farouche, for the sake of yer father, and my son. After all this, and ye whine and snivel at me, and ye mock the very thing that spared yer life!”

  “Curses aren’t real,” she whispered, and was too terrified even to wipe her eyes anymore. Her hair was entangled with her lashes, stinging, a curtain of blonde between him and her.

  “Real?” he roared, stepping toward her. She flinched as his hands came down on her shoulders but didn’t try to run away. She knew that would not get her anywhere. Uncle had posted his guards all over.

  “Real?” he shouted again, picking her up easily, lifting her as he would a cloth doll, her feet dangling in the air. “I’ll show ye real, my lass! I’ll show ye the realness of a day and a night in the pantry, how’s that?”

  Her lips moved but no sounds came out. He wouldn’t have heard her anyway, because he was taking her back into the little cottage. He was taking her to that dreaded place.

  She began to struggle as he entered the kitchen and passed the pinched face of the cook, who hurried out of the room. Uncle controlled her easily, holding her up with only one hand, using the other to pry open the pantry door.

  “Ye think about what’s real now in there, ungrateful child!”

  She was tossed in, came up hard against the back wall of the cramped space and slid down to the floor, a hand pressed over her mouth.

  Uncle stood still in the doorway, looked down on her with that familiar thin line again creasing his face. “Ye will marry my son. Whatever else ye want or think is nothing compared to that, selfish lass, and don’t forget it again!”

  He took a step back, began to shut the door, inviting the thick blackness to creep closer.

  “Ye’ll stay in there until tomorrow morning, when ye are ready to apologize for insulting the clan. Ye’ll not come out before.”

  The door slammed shut, immersing her in darkness.

  Avalon hunched in the corner, closing her eyes, keeping her hand in place to press back the sobs that wanted to come out.

  I will never marry him! I will never marry him! I will never marry him.…

  In her mind, the all-seeing chimera, bitter legacy of Uncle’s not real curse, laid its head down on its feet and began to weep for her.

  She was having a nightmare.

  Marcus heard the first, tiny hitches in her breathing, the sound of her hands moving restlessly against her blanket.

  He was closest to her, so when he raised his head to check on her, he had a clear view even past the makeshift shelter they had set up for her of a spare tartan and sticks. From here he could just see her face past the edge of the cloth.

  Lady Avalon was fitful in her sleep, turning her head to the side, breathing in that terrible, uneven way that somehow brought a hard lump to his throat. It was surprisingly awful, listening to her, hearing the verge of tears brought on by whatever it was she saw in her dreams.

  He got up slowly, pushing his own blanket back, unsure of what to do. If he woke her, chances were better than good he would get no thanks for his trouble. But if he left her alone, how could he sleep with the poignancy of her unshed tears taunting him?

  So instead he just looked at her. The starlit shadow of the half-tent threw a soft netherworld glow on her, a fragile soul astray. Her smooth brow was marred by a frown, her lips were downturned, then parted.

  Marcus thought somewhat helplessly about how beautiful she was, this promised bride of his, and how damned hard it was going to be to get her to accept him. Perhaps she never would.

  The thought filled him with a curious despair. She was a fey creature, strong but delicate, warrior but woman, a faerie herself snared in the contradictions of her life. She was almost beyond his understanding. Yet she tossed and turned in her sleeping torment, and right then Marcus felt more kinship with her than he would have thought possible.

  He knew about nightmares. Aye, he knew all about them. Her dream would pass, and the unshed tears would pass, and she would face tomorrow with the same stubborn defiance she had been showing him so far. He had to admire that, he supposed.

  But right now, how much closer he felt to her, lost in her netherworld. Even the lovely Lady Avalon, it seemed, was human, and had demons of her own to face.

  How much he would give to fight those demons for her.

  In time she relaxed, releasing her struggles, her face clearing, her breathing becoming even and uninterrupted again. But Marcus found th
at he could not regain his own sleep.

  The next morning they both mounted up and began the ride as if the night had been just another like the rest. Avalon sat in front of him on his stallion in stoic silence, watching the landscape change, the mountains growing taller, the trees growing thicker and more piney.

  Marcus would periodically take his arm from around her waist, switching hands on the reins. He would then settle the other one around her with complete familiarity, as if it were something he had done all his life. And wasn’t it odd how it felt that way to her, as well.

  They would reach Sauveur Castle within days, Avalon guessed. She wasn’t quite certain, since she had never been to the castle that belong to the laird of the clan. Hanoch had not trusted the circumstances enough to take her there. He had known the Picts were bought, Avalon realized. He must have known all along. It would explain so much.

  It would explain why, for example, he had lived half his time in that forsaken little village with her and a few of his most trusted people, taking a cottage when he could have had a castle all the time. The village had always belonged to the Kincardines, but it was an out-skirt town, and the neighboring lands had belonged to their sworn ally. In case of attack, there had been a place to run.

  Hanoch had never been unaware of danger. He would go back and forth to Sauveur, maintaining the facade of his regular life, but she had always remained in that village. How she had dreaded his visits.

  Yet his scheme had served to hide her well, she supposed. It had taken six years before news of her survival leaked south to England, and another year for the English king to get her away from Hanoch. She had been presumed dead in the raid that killed her father and so many others. Her body was thought to have been burned in the castle, and Avalon had not known any of this until after she came back to England.

  She had always assumed that everyone knew she lived in the little village in the Highlands, and that it was fine with them. Hanoch had let her believe this. But all along it had been only the Kincardines who knew she was still alive.