He struggled against the claustrophobic crush of water, but the seeping drugged cold of the sea made every movement excruciating. And then impossible.
The woman’s smile urged him deeper.
Water filled his lungs. His body surrendered. Death came like a lover.
He answered her smile. And stepping through the curtain between them, embraced her at last.
“Sabrina! Where have you gotten yourself? Answer, or so help me—”
Normally such a threat would have shot Lady Sabrina Douglas from her hiding place like a bullet from a gun. Not so today. Today was different. It was the sixteenth of the month. Seven years ago on this date, her world had been turned upside down, and nothing had ever been the same since.
It wasn’t like her to spend time reminiscing about the past. The head of the sisters of High Danu said it was useless spinning what-ifs in your head. One could lose one’s self in the infinite possibilities of action and consequence until reality grew dangerously frayed. Madness lay in second-guessing.
But today, Sabrina courted madness. She’d forced herself to remember all that had occurred on that long-ago November day from beginning to end. Let it flow from her brain to her journal in a mad scrawl. And at Sister Brigh’s first shout was only as far along as noon.
“You ungrateful, undisciplined hooligan, come out this moment.”
When Sister Brigh scolded, Sabrina felt more like a disobedient ten-year-old than the woman of twenty-two she was. But then Sister Brigh considered anyone younger than herself to be a recalcitrant child, which included almost the entire bandraoi community. The woman was a hundred if she was a day. Only Sister Ainnir rivaled her in age. The two like mossy twin holdovers from centuries past.
“Sabrina Douglas! I know you can hear me!”
Sister Brigh by far the mossier. And the louder.
Sabrina sighed, closing her journal on the pen marking her place.
November sixteenth, 1808, would have to wait.
November sixteenth, 1815, was calling.
The priestess’s clamoring faded as she left the barn. Turned her search to the nearby outbuildings—creamery, laundry, gardener’s shed. The convent was large. It would take the head of novices ages to check everywhere.
Sabrina rose from her hiding place behind the stacked straw bales and grain bins, dusting the grime from her skirts. Straightening her apron and the kerchief covering her hair before slipping back into the bustle of the order’s life. And right into Sister Brigh’s ambush.
“Gotcha.” Her talons sank through the heavy wool of Sabrina’s sleeve. Squeezed with enough force to bring hot tears to her eyes. “Ard-siúr’s had me searching for you this hour and more. And here you are, hiding as if there weren’t honest work to be done.” She snatched the journal away. “Are you scribbling in that silly book again? You’ve been warned more than once about frittering away your time unwisely.”
Sabrina stiffened, giving Sister Brigh her best quelling look. “I wasn’t frittering. And I wasn’t hiding.”
It passed unnoticed. “Hmph. Come along. You’ve kept Ard-siúr waiting long enough.”
As they passed through the sheltered cloister, a group gathered at the front gates. Voices raised in surprise and confusion, drawing even the determined Sister Brigh’s eye from her purpose.
Sabrina craned her neck to peer over the crowd. “What’s happening?”
Sister Brigh responded with a scornful huff. “No doubt a lot of stuff and nonsense. Wouldn’t have happened in my day, you can be sure of that.”
Her day being sometime during the last ice age. Sister Brigh dressed in furs and sporting a club, no doubt.
She tightened her hold on Sabrina. Doubled her pace. Up the steps. Throwing the door wide with barely a word. Slamming it closed with a whisper equally as effective.
The old priestess’s sanity might be in doubt, but her magic was irrefutable.
The temperature plummeted once they stepped inside and out of the bleak afternoon sun. Frost hung in the passage leading to Ard-siúr’s office, causing Sabrina’s nervous breath to cloud the chilly air. The cold seeped through her heavy stockings and the double layer of petticoats she’d donned beneath her gown.
It wasn’t even winter yet and already she longed for spring. Spring and a release from scratchy underclothes and chilblains and runny noses and afternoon dusk and drafty passages. At this moment, she’d sell her soul for warmth and light and, well . . . something different.
So little varied within the order that any change, even the gradual shifting of seasons, seemed an adventure. But perhaps that was only because the genuine change she longed for still eluded her and would continue to do so if Sister Brigh had her grumpy way.
As they were shown through the antechamber to Ard-siúr’s office, Sister Anne waved a cheery hello. Received a bulldog scowl from Sister Brigh. A wan smile from Sabrina.
Compared to the chilly atmosphere of the outside corridor, Ard-siúr’s office seemed an absolute tropical paradise. A small stove put out heat enough to keep the tiny room comfortably cozy, and thick rugs on the floor and bright wall hangings cheered the stark color-draining stone. Add to that Ard-siúr’s cluttered desk, complete with purring cat and the slow tick of a tall-case clock in a far corner, and Sabrina’s taut nerves began to relax.
The atmosphere seemed to have the opposite effect on Sister Brigh. Her eyes darted around the room with fuming disapproval as she drew up in a quivering pose of long sufferance, only now releasing her death grip on Sabrina’s arm.
Ard-siúr put up a restraining hand while she finished her thought, her pen scribbling across the page, her lip caught girlishly between her teeth as she worked.
The head of the Sisters of High Danu seemed as eternal as the ancient standing stones guarding a nearby clifftop meadow. Tall. Broad. A face weathered by years, yet eyes that remained clear and bright and full of humor. Her powers as a bandraoi and sorceress seemed to rival those of the Fey, as did her air of regal self-containment. But Sabrina knew it took every ounce of her gifts, both innate and learned, to preside over an order of Other while concealing their true nature from a distrustful Duinedon world.
To all beyond the walls of the order’s demesne, they were merely a reclusive house of contemplative religious women. It fell to Ard-siúr to see it remained that way. An unenviable task. Though, come to think of it, there was one who envied it very much.
Sister Brigh breathed heavily though her nose like a kettle letting off steam.
Finally, Ard-siúr placed her pen in its tray. Scattered sand across the page. Shook it clean. Folded it. And cast her penetrating gaze upon the pair standing silently before her.
“Thank you, Sister Brigh, for locating Sabrina.”
Her acknowledgment clearly meant as a signal for the head of novices to depart.
Instead Sister Brigh barreled ahead with a list of grievances. They rolled off her tongue as if she’d prepared them ahead of time: “Three times in three days, Ard-siúr. Three times I’ve caught her with her head in the clouds when she should be working. That or she’s scribbling in that diary of hers. You can’t keep brushing it under the rug. It only encourages her to feel she’s above the rules. The lord’s daughter she once was rather than the aspiring bandraoi priestess she’s supposed to be.”
The sarcastic emphasis Sister Brigh placed on “aspiring” had Sabrina bristling, but one look from Ard-siúr and she subsided without argument.
“Is this true, Sabrina? Do you feel above the rules? That your family’s station in life entitles you to special consideration?”
“No, ma’am, of course not, but—”
Sister Brigh slammed the journal on Ard-siúr’s desk, sending the cat leaping for cover with a hiss. “Sabrina’s lack of devotion and her failure to abide by our way of living undermine her candidacy. And I, for one, believe she would be better off leaving the order and returning to her family.”
Ard-siúr turned her gaze upon Sabrina at last. “Sister B
righ brings up serious charges. Could it be that you aren’t as committed to a life among us as you think? That you begin to yearn for the life you might have led but for tragic circumstance?”
Sabrina blinked. Had Ard-siúr brought that up on purpose? Did she know what Sabrina had been writing in her diary? Or had the mention been mere coincidence? Always difficult to know with the head of their order. She seemed to have a canny knack for discerning all manner of things. Especially the bits one didn’t want known.
Perhaps forcing her mind back to that long-ago November day hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She’d dredged up memories long buried. Forgotten how much they hurt.
“I’m more than ready to take up my full duties as bandraoi.” She shot an offended glance Sister Brigh’s way. “And I didn’t mean to make you wait, Ard-siúr. I was trying . . . you see, I needed . . . it happened today seven years ago, Ard-siúr. And I felt as if I needed to remember it clearly before it slipped away.”
Ard-siúr gave a slow nod. “Ah yes, your father’s death.”
“His murder,” she clarified. “It was seven years ago today the Amhas-draoi attacked and killed my father, ma’am.”
“And for good reason, if half the stories are true,” Sister Brigh mumbled. “Ard-siúr, even if it’s not enough for you that Sabrina shirks her duties and carries on as if she were queen of the manor, you must see that her presence brings the order unwanted attention. Never in our history was one of our priestesses interrogated by the Amhas-draoi.”
“It’s not my fault they wanted to speak with me. I didn’t tell them anything.”
“Keeping secrets from the very brotherhood sworn to protect us? Worse and worse.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.”
“Enough.” Ard-siúr lifted a hand.
Momentum behind her, Sister Brigh barreled on. “A father working the demon arts. A fugitive brother running from the Amhas-draoi. The family of Douglas is cursed. And the sooner you’re gone from here, the better for the order.”
Sabrina turned a hot gaze on the elderly nun.
“I said enough.” The whip crack of Ard-siúr’s voice finally silenced Sister Brigh, though she remained red faced and glaring with suppressed fury. “This is neither the time nor place. If you have valid arguments to make, bring them to me at another meeting and we can discuss it further.”
Turning her attention to Sabrina, Ard-siúr smiled. “My dear, I requested your presence merely to deliver a letter that’s come for you by messenger.”
How did one simple sentence drop the bottom out of her stomach and create an immediate need to draw nonexistent covers over her head? In her experience, letters never boded well. Like holding an unexploded bomb in your hand.
The door burst open on the flustered face of Sister Anne. “Ard-siúr, Sabrina’s needed in the infirmary right away. A man’s been brought in. Found half-drowned on the beach below the village.”
“May I go?” Sabrina cast beseeching eyes in Ard-siúr’s direction.
Sister Brigh looked as though she chewed nails, but the head of the order dismissed Sabrina with an imperious wave of her hand. “Go. Sister Ainnir needs your skills. The letter will await your return.”
Plucking up her skirts, Sabrina dashed from the room in Sister Anne’s wake. She could kiss the unlucky fisherman who’d rescued her. Saved in the nick of time.
It was only fair to return the favor.
Tremors shuddered through him, chattering his teeth, turning fingers numb and jittery. Even his skull ached as if his brain had rattled itself loose. He tried swallowing, but his throat felt scraped raw, his tongue swollen and useless. He tried opening his eyes. Squinted against a piercing glare as if he stood within the sun. Golden yellow. Blinding. Sending new shocks of pain through his sloshy, scattered mind.
Slowly his sight acclimated. His surroundings coalescing into a cell-like room lined with cupboards, a low shelf running the perimeter. A sink with a pump. His pallet jammed into one corner. Beside him sat a small bench holding a pitcher and basin and three stoppered bottles. A cane-backed chair drawn up close. Sunlight streamed in from a high window, and a three-legged brazier had been placed in the middle of the room, giving off a thin stream of smoke and just enough heat to keep him from freezing.
He burrowed deeper into the blankets in a vain attempt to get warm. A vainer attempt to figure out where he was. How he’d come to be here.
He remembered endless black. Crushing pressure. Cold so intense it tore him apart one frozen inch at a time. But when he sought the reasons for these sensations, he came up against a barrier. A wall beyond which lay a vast emptiness.
He pushed harder, but the barrenness extended outward in all directions. Any attempt to concentrate only made his head hurt worse. Still he struggled, panic quickly replacing confusion, until the shudders wracking his body had less to do with cold and more to do with sheer terror. The only memory he managed to squeeze from a brain scrambled as an egg was a woman’s face, though her identity eluded him.
If he rose. Walked around. Perhaps that would help. He fought to stand. Lasted five seconds. The room dipped and whirled like a ship caught in a storm, his stomach rebelling with a gut-knifing retch that left him doubled over and heaving.
Collapsing back onto the lumpy mattress, he stared up at the crumbling plaster ceiling, gripping the thin wool of his blanket. Clenching his teeth against a moan of pure animal fear.
Someone would come. They would tell him what had happened. Why he was here.
Who he was.
The latch lifted, the door swinging open on a figure shrouded by the dim light of the corridor beyond. Stepping into the room, she paused.
And he caught his breath on a startled oath.
Vivid blue eyes. Dark brown hair escaping its kerchief to frame a narrow face. And a figure that managed to defy her shapeless gray gown.
Here stood the woman. His one and only memory.
She was called—he blanked.
“Please. What’s your name?” he croaked, praying she wouldn’t be insulted he couldn’t remember.
Instead she smiled, turning her solemn face into something iridescent, and, crossing to sit beside him, placed the tray she carried on the bench. “I’m Sabrina. But, actually, I was rather hoping you could tell me your name.”
Oh gods, she didn’t know him. She couldn’t fill in the holes. The truth kicked his last hopes out from under him. He was alone. On his own. And he hadn’t a damned idea who he was.
She stared, head tilted, expectant, eager.
He shook his head, hating to disappoint. Hating the sick, horrible dread pressing him with a weight as crushing as the oblivion that preceded it. “I don’t remember.”
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgement
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Earl of Darkness Page 28