Thane took three steps back, then surged into the door. The hinges popped. One screw came loose and hung limply.
The lock clicked, the knob twisted, and there was the guard.
Thane threw a punch right into his chin and he dropped like a stone.
With one glance down the empty corridor, Thane headed further into the building and to a set of back stairs. The metal steps—made for the help to use when delivering papers or tea, and for cleaning crews—clanged lightly as Thane swept up to the next floor.
She had to be right above him. He’d recognized the room on the screen where she’d sat on the chair. It was one of Nathair’s guest rooms, all carpets and velvet and brass. The other wings were more modern and sleek. Nathair liked decor that reminded him of his golden youth when Grandfather, in all but name, ruled Scotland and no one was strong enough to question the Campbells. Back then, the Dionadair had been quiet and in its infancy.
Peering through the window of the stairs’ door, he saw a long hallway with red carpet and two guards standing outside the third door down. Aini was in there. He knew it. His heart could feel her there, being proud, strong, fierce. His body thrummed, wanting her, longing for the sound of her voice, the feel of her warm skin and soft mouth.
Thane went back down the stairs and slipped into the tiny wash room that the help used. He hated that term. The help. It was just like Nathair to use a term that gave none of their employees individual recognition for their labor. The cabinets under the wash room’s sink held an aluminum tray with a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner, some scrub brushes, bleach, rubber gloves, and toilet paper. Heading into the first stall, Thane found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Nathair had fought the bad habit since Thane was a child. Nathair didn’t like the addiction he had to the nicotine. He always said it was no good to have a substance making his decisions for him. But Nathair had been sneaking smokes in wash rooms as long as Thane could remember.
He snatched the lighter, smiled, and began rolling up a piece of the aluminum foil. Combined with some of the other items under the sink, he could easily create a nasty something to toss at the guards, giving him time to rush them.
When he finished his contraption, he rubbed his hand knowing well it would be burned during this move. But a burn was nothing to what Aini was suffering at the hands of that Jack Shaw.
Running quietly up the stairs and praying no one knew he’d escaped his room, he shoved the stair door open with a hip. He lit the glove portion of the explosive contraption, and threw it at the first guard who noticed him.
The glove exploded with a bang that made Thane nearly deaf. He grabbed the guard who wasn’t holding his ears, flipped him toward Aini’s door, and slammed the guard’s head into the wood. The man fell to Thane’s feet as Thane twisted to dodge a punch from the other guard. He let the man throw another strike, but this time when the man’s fist came at him, Thane pushed the punch to the side, then bumped the man’s elbow and wrapped the guard in his own arm, choking him.
“You’re going to give me that gun,” Thane said, his mouth right near the guard’s, “and unlock that door, or you’re going to say Fare thee well to your stones, pal.” Thane kneed the man in the groin to push the point.
“Mr. Shaw is in there.”
“Open the door.”
The man fumbled with his belt with his free hand. Shouts came from the stairwell, beyond the closed door. More of Nathair’s men were coming. Thane shoved the guard to the ground with all the force he had in him, then jumped on him for the gun. The newly arrived men pulled Thane off the guard.
“Aini. I’m here. Be strong.” Could she hear him?
The men dragged him down the way he’d come.
“Thane.” It was her.
“I hear you!”
“I won’t give up. Don’t give in!”
The pain behind her words broke his heart into pieces. The strength in her voice welded them back together.
They dragged Thane back to his room for what felt like the thousandth time. They threw him onto the floor.
“And now we’ll have to do some damage,” one of the men said. “It’s a shame.”
A fist came down on Thane’s side before he could shake himself out of the moment when Aini was shouting, and this moment in the here and now. He felt a rib bend nearly to the point of breaking. He shifted to protect it and tried to get his feet under him. A foot landed in his gut and he blew out a gust of breath, spittle, and curses. Pressing against the bed, he worked his way to his knees. And took a mouthful of knuckles. Blood warmed his tongue and slowly pain rose to his lips.
He jerked himself up and his feet found the floor properly. With a quick thrust, he kneed the man in front of him. Three more sets of fists came at him and he fell again, curling himself up to keep the damage to his head at a minimum.
They hauled him onto the bed like a sack of very sad tatties. Pain sat on him like a heavy blanket, covering every bit of flesh. Nothing was broken. These men knew how to beat without breaking. Nathair had instructed them well. Jack had trained them.
The biggest of the group jabbed a needle into Thane’s arm, and sleep took him down like a prize boxer.
Chapter 8
The Crumbling Labyrinth
Bran would’ve loved this cave if it wasn’t today, the worst day, a day he had to tell everyone an amazing person, a leader, their leader, was dead. His whole body felt raw.
They’d spent the last hours fleeing Edinburgh’s city limits and gathering everyone they could to Gilmerton Cove. The place had an entrance below a pub in the small town of Gilmerton, but also another secret entrance on a nobleman’s property. With eight rooms carved out of sandstone and its off-the-beaten path location, it was a quiet hideaway, perfect for planning a revolution.
Watches had been set up and weapons relocated. Bran had filled the elders in on how the plan went awry in the upper floors of the old Parliament building, but he still hadn’t told anyone the worst of what he’d seen.
Aini, bleeding and pale, on the ground at Nathair’s headquarters.
No one else had seen it. There had been too much going on and most had already fled or were inside or outside that area during the operation. She’d just been another fallen soldier. As soon as Myles and Neve and Vera had finished their immediate tasks of patching those who were fighting death themselves, they’d be on him and asking. Where was their Seer?
Neve had a handful of fresh bandages. She was headed toward the makeshift infirmary in a room to the left, but stopped to talk, her voice strung tight with fear. “Did you know a blacksmith built this place? There are stories that, later on, the Covenanters used it to hold meetings and maybe even the Hellfire Club met here. You know that sick group with the rituals and all that? Some say there is a now-crumbled passageway all the way to the Templers’ 15th century Rosslyn Chapel from this very room. Eh, have you seen Aini yet? I’d feel a load better if I could clap eyes on her.”
Feeling the strain of the terrible news, Bran put a hand against the table the long-ago blacksmith had carved into being. Patient as ever, Neve shifted her load of white linen and pushed her braid over her shoulder. The torches set in the hideaway’s walls as well as the dirt on the lassie’s face made Bran feel as if they were cave people from long, long ago, just starting the arduous journey toward civilization.
Bran removed his sling and the two unspent grenades. Rough benches lined the rock walls and he sat on one, breathing in the dark scents of the earth around them. “I saw her in the back courtyard of Nathair’s building. Neve…” He lowered his voice. “It’s not good.”
Neve set the bandages down beside him and touched his arm.
Myles bounded up, fists bunched and dried blood on his forehead. “What’s up?”
It was time to tell them all. “Vera!” Bran raised a hand to get her attention. She helped an injured man onto a cot carried by Dodie and another big lad, then hurried over.
“I need to tell you something.” Bran’s voic
e sounded far away. “Something big. You should sit down.”
He stood and offered all of them the bench. How was he going to do this? Not only had they lost their Heir, they’d lost the Seer too. Invisible talons of grief clawed across Bran’s chest and he sucked a breath.
“First, I want you to think about how we were able to leave the building. That man I fought with, he shooed me off like a fly. They wanted us gone and didn’t try to hurt us. It’s worth considering. What is Nathair’s aim? Will you talk to the elders about it, Vera?”
She swallowed, nodded, and eyed him expectantly. The woman knew he had more to tell.
Bran’s shoulders fell and he closed his eyes briefly. “In the courtyard, I saw Aini fall.”
Neve shot up. “What do you mean?”
Vera had Myles’s arm in her grip, eyes wild.
Bran fought the burn in his heart and told him what he’d seen—the way she’d run at whoever stood in the alcove, how she’d looked over her shoulder, how she’d said something before he was driven off by gunfire.
“They shot her. She is…she is dead. I saw her bleeding out myself.”
Closing his eyes, he let the chaos rise over his head.
Vera shrieked and ran off to find someone whose name was lost in Myles’s swearing and Neve’s questions.
“But you don’t actually know for sure.” Neve took Bran by the hands. Hers were ice cold. “Maybe it was someone else. It was dark. Why would she rush Nathair’s men?”
Myles pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids. Tears leaked from the corners. “Because she thought she could save Thane. She couldn’t accept that our plan failed.”
Neve’s hands fell to her sides and she stared at the cave’s uneven rock floor. Her head moved side to side as if she was silently saying No over and over again. Myles took her in his arms like a good man and held her tightly.
The question now was Did Thane know about Aini’s death and if so did that change anything for him? He was still the Heir. The lad loved Scotland. He’d rise up from the ashes of this grief, wouldn’t he?
Vera climbed onto a table at the back of the cave’s main room. “Gather around, rebels!”
Bran put a hand on Myles and Neve and steered them that way, whispering nonsense at them, hoping it would somehow help.
When Bran lost the girl he’d thought of as his sister—a wild red head a bit older who lived at the orphanage with him—nonsensical but kind words from the nuns had actually smoothed the horror of her death. It’d been like having a soft cocoon in which to mourn. It didn’t take the pain away, but it was good to know the easy boundary was there when he or if he needed it.
“Rebels.” Vera’s voice echoed off the walls and all was silent except for the occasional drip of water from the ceiling. “We failed today. Not forever. Just today. But we lost in a way I…I never thought we’d lose.” She took a shuddering breath. “There is no time for reflection and proper mourning. We must act now and keep on until we break the shackles of Nathair and John’s reign. I won’t hide the truth from you. You’ll know soon enough anyway.”
A man in a torn, blue jacket traded confused looks with a woman holding what Bran guessed was her teenage son firmly to her side. The boy was a good head taller than her but had the slimness of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old lad. He glanced over his shoulder at Bran with inquisitive gray eyes.
Something inside Bran shattered.
Pain swelled over his ribcage and up his throat until he wasn’t sure he was still standing. The boy’s eyes reminded him so much of Thane. Thane had lost his love. He’d lost her while in his evil father’s grips. He’d lost her in the middle of a war started by terrible people, a war he would have to fight with a broken heart. Bran put his head in his hands and wept for his friend, not even caring that everyone around surely heard him.
“Och, pal. I do pray for you, lad,” Bran whispered to a distant Thane, a best friend he would do his best to deserve. “Please know somehow we’re thinking of you and we’re going to get you out of there. Away from him. Away from that bastard father of yours.”
In his mind’s eye, Bran saw Aini’s smile when she looked at Thane, back at Callum’s. Bran relived Aini’s fear, anger, and sadness when she’d learned what Thane had done to the fiddler. Memory pushed the image of her standing proud in the library to the front of his thoughts, then dashed the colors into fragments. They collected again and created the replica of her blood pooling around her small frame on the blackened cobblestones.
Shaking the thoughts away, he focused on what Vera was saying.
“Our Seer gave her life for this rebellion and we will do the same. We will give our lives!”
Not a dry eye in the place, the crowd raised their crossed thumbs above their heads—even the Campbells and their kin—and shouted assent.
“We strike again at dusk. Prepare yourselves to bleed for your country!”
Dusk? So soon. Bran blew his nose on a snochterdichter and straightened his shirt. He had work to do. He would not fail Thane this time.
The room buzzed with a dark energy, a vicious zing ready to strike at the heart of the enemy. Bran found Myles and Neve and squeezed them once.
“Vera will want to meet with us.” He noticed the elders, Menzies, Hawes, and two bearded Highlanders grouping around the table where she’d made the announcement. “Come on.”
“Last night sucked hard.” Myles sniffed. “Today is going to suck some more.”
“You’ve got that right.” Neve took her hair out of her braid and tore her fingers through the thick locks. Her eyes were puffy and still wet. “I can’t believe it. I would’ve thought I’d feel it if a friend died.”
Bran knew what she meant. It should feel like you’ve lost a limb, but it doesn’t, and somehow that’s worse.
Myles took Neve’s hand in his as they moved through the crowd. “Same here. But I guess not. I’m going to miss that bossy little sweetheart.” His last word crumbled on its way out of his mouth and he staggered a little.
Neve propelled him forward. “We will mourn her. I demand it. Even if we have to go to war tonight, we will have a funeral for my friend. Nothing will keep that from happening. I’ll have my own wee rebellion if the elders or Vera or those Campbells—”
“What are you angry about, aside from the obvious?” Hawes loaded a gun and tucked it back into its holster.
“Before we head out again,” Neve said, her voice a little shrill like she was very near to breaking like Bran had, “we must have a funeral for Aini. Here. Now.”
Menzies set his hands on the table, open and stained by gunpowder. “We don’t have a body.”
Myles flinched. “It doesn’t matter. She deserves a moment of remembrance.”
“Even if that moment loses us the rebellion?” Vera put her hands on her hips. “I’m devastated, but you know they are already assembling their answer to our attack and—”
“Ignoring our passion for the ones whose fate led us here will lose us the rebellion,” Bran said.
Vera dropped her chin to her chest. “I agree.” She eyed Menzies, then the rest. “What are your thoughts?”
The men and women nodded and traded grim glances.
It was decided. The rebels would host a funeral for their Seer in a cave. Bran prayed this damp place wouldn’t prove to be a tomb for the rest of them.
The rebels’ numbers grew and the cave filled. Everyone had found candles somehow and the walls were alive with shadows and watery, yellow light. Never in a million years would Bran have guessed he’d find himself in a Dionadair cave, mourning the fabled Seer. And in the role of best friend to the Heir. He shook his head and rested his hands on the back of his sticky neck. What an absolute mess this all was. King John was going to rout the lot of them, Nathair too, and paint the country with rebel blood. It wasn’t a possibility. It was a surety. With Thane under Nathair’s thumb and the forces divided into so many factions, King John would be shooting fish in a barrel. The French wou
ldn’t know who to help or why. Even if they did show. The people of Scotland would be confused, unsure. That was no potion for rebellion. The rebels needed decisive moves and clear objectives. Confidence and fervor.
Neve and Myles had talked to Lewis, Aini’s father. He was on his way here. They’d begged him to stay where he was, to keep up his intel work. He was safer far, far from here. But the good man would hear none of it and he was most likely not an hour away if he wasn’t already in the hands of Nathair’s corbies.
Vera and the rest had set up a chair and piled it high with rowan branches. The berries, just beginning to turn, were bright as blood. She placed a large, flat rock in front of the chair, then sliced her hand open with a knife. Using her blood, she wrote Aini’s name and title on the stone. Dramatic Dionadair.
No one was going to speak. Bran supposed it was meant to be a silent ritual of remembrance.
One by one, Dionadair, converted Campbells and their kin, and those recently inducted into the rebels’ forces streamed by the makeshift altar. Each touched the black-red letters of Aini’s name. Their lips moved in prayer and blessing.
Bran trailed Neve and Myles to the spot.
Neve rested her palm on Aini’s name. “You showed me who I am, Aini. You tugged me out of my vanilla life and led me into one with all the flavors of life. I will never regret our choices. I will always remember you. I will see you again someday, friend.” Neve’s tears latched onto Bran’s heart and jerked at it painfully.
Neve glanced at Myles, who stepped forward. He put a fist on Aini’s name. “No one can boss like you, sweetheart. I really hope you are able to haunt the hell out of Nathair right now. Scare the piss out of him for me.”
“Myles.” Neve almost smiled, then wiped her face with her sleeve.
It was Bran’s turn. He swallowed, looked at the man waiting behind him in line. “Aini. I will do all I can to help our Thane. You know I will. Bless you, love. I hope you find peace.” He pressed a thumb against the flaking letters, then kissed it.
The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy Page 50