The Edinburgh Seer: Edinburgh Seer Book One

by Alisha Klapheke

  “No reason to die from contagion in the meantime.”

  Myles smeared a hand over his face, and Thane chuckled, though sadness darkened his smile.

  At the back of the room, two men in overalls played cards on a wooden crate.

  “I can’t believe we slept so long,” Aini said.

  “We needed it.” Neve nibbled her piece of bread. “You may be part of a legend, but you’re still human.” She smiled weakly, and Aini tried to return one but failed.

  Glad that she didn’t feel trapped in the room, Aini breathed in and out slowly. The ceiling was high, and the wide entrance to the tunnel leading to the barn gave the illusion of an easy departure if necessary. But she did feel trapped in the situation.

  Her best guess on the Waymark Wall’s location was the ruins of St. Andrews. It was on the coast. She’d been there with Father once and remembered a green lawn similar to the one in the knife’s vision. It was near Edinburgh, where the first Dionadair had hidden the knife. It made sense. If they made it to St. Andrews, she’d have to feel around the structure’s walls, searching for a vision in front of everyone. She’d be all but admitting to the Dionadair that she really was this legendary Seer they were so excited about. There’d be no turning back after that. She’d be the Seer. Forever. Never again simply Lewis MacGregor’s daughter. Not the upstanding manager of the most successful boutique candy lab in Europe. She could never go back to her old life.

  Thane put a hand over hers to still it. She’d completely unraveled her dress’s hem. His beautiful mouth parted and his eyebrows furrowed together, but he didn’t add words to his gesture. Maybe there weren’t words for this kind of thing.

  Thane’s watch was close to touching her, and she pulled back out of habit. She sighed internally. She’d already touched the watch and seen nothing. It didn’t hold any memories. Even if it did, wasn’t it about time she gave up avoiding who she really was?

  She relaxed under his hand and took simple pleasure in the way his bare arm brushed hers, the way the gold hairs on his skin disappeared under his sweater’s rolled sleeves, the movement of his iron muscles and sharp tendons, the fact that this strong arm was here to help her.

  After handing out the supplies, Myles stared at the floor, his eyes unfocused.

  “I’m sorry Vera said what she did.” Aini hoped she wasn’t pressing a bruise by bringing up his mother.

  He shrugged. “I can’t really get ticked off when it’s the truth. My mother is not a nice person.”

  Neve reached a hand out and touched his knee briefly. “Even when you were little?”

  “Nah.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his extremely wrinkled pants. “She shoved me off on nannies and servants. Said she never planned on having children.”

  Thane looked Myles up and down, a serious look on his face.

  Myles moved his weight from foot to foot. “The nannies were fine.”

  Aini paused, not knowing what to say or if there’s anything anyone could say to address that sort of twisted pain.

  “May I ask about your father? Did she lose him and that’s why…” She probably should’ve kept her mouth shut.

  Myles rubbed the back of his neck. “He left right after I was born. Mom claims it’s because of what I did to her waistline.” He looked at Aini with a smile that wasn’t happy but was better than the vacant look he’d worn a second before. “But my math tutor—God bless the patience of that guy—said it had more to do with a new blonde in town.”

  Neve made a Scottish kind of hmm noise. Thane nodded.

  One of the men playing cards slapped the table and laughed as Vera and Owen entered the sleeping quarters. Vera wore a ridiculously tight dress in the same brown as her heavily lined eyes and more lipstick than anyone should ever even think about.

  Walking over to Aini and the others, Owen slid on another out-of-style tweed jacket and clasped his hands together. “Dodie has the truck running. Are you ready, Seer?”

  The reverence in his tone made Aini’s stomach hurt, but she stood. “Yes, but I don’t think we should travel with a huge group.”

  Owen frowned. “But if the Campbells trail you and realize what you’re doing—”

  “All the more reason to keep our party small. Just send…” Aini took a second to think: who was the least flamboyant of the group? Definitely not Vera. “Maybe Dodie. He’s quiet, but big, in case it comes to a fight.”

  Thane agreed.

  Owen glanced at Vera, who frowned but nodded. “Aye, then,” Owen said.

  Vera looked at Aini’s shaking hands. “Sure you aren’t scared, Seer?”

  Aini pushed past Vera. “Not any more than I should be, Threader.”

  The woman laughed. “Maybe so. Maybe so.”

  Thane leaned his head against the truck window. The glass cooled his temple but not his mood swings. He’d gone from shocked, to enraged, been mired down into guilt, and rushed head long into hope, only to burn up in cynical self-doubt again. In the seat in front of him, Dodie—silent and thick-skulled—turned the truck’s steering wheel as they entered the town of St. Andrews. Thane knew these streets well, the slope and rise of them under the inky blue sky and between the whitewashed buildings. When it wasn’t summer holiday, he took classes at the university as part of his feigned life as Thane Moray.

  Beside Dodie, Aini cracked her window. The sound of sea birds and mildly frustrated traffic poured in through the space, and wind threw strands of hair like black ink across her soft, round cheek. Could he somehow escape his clan and be with her? If he were any other Campbell, maybe.

  Myles leaned over. “Staring at her like she’s an experiment gone wrong ain’t going to win you any points.”

  Thane jerked. Then he closed his eyes. Forget points. When it came to any possibility of a relationship with Aini, he needed a whole new game.

  “I can give you some tips, you know,” Myles said. “There’s this one move called the rub-behind-the-head that gets them every time.”

  Thane opened one eye to see Myles raising an arm so that his excuse for a bicep stuck out like a kid’s bicycle tire.

  “Best if you stop that,” Thane said. “I don’t want to jump you in front of the girls.”

  On the other side of Myles, Neve snorted. “Thane.”

  Thane straightened, going hot around the collar. “Sorry, Neve. I didn’t know you were listening.”

  He’d thought she’d been asleep. Not that it was late. Just that they were all still exhausted. It was after eight, though the sun hadn’t set yet, this being a Scottish summer.

  Ahead, the crumbling ruins of the former cathedral and castle reached toward the heavy-bellied clouds. Windows—empty of glass, but full of the darkening sky—decorated what used to be the cathedral’s nave. Part wrought iron, part stone, a wall surrounded the worn architecture and the scattering of tombstones. Like a king’s mantle thrown on an old man, a groomed lawn draped the decrepit grounds. The ruins grew even more hunched as they approached the flinty North Sea until they were indistinguishable from the rocky cliffs above the black sand.

  Dodie parked along the street near an overgrown garden crowded with tree boughs cloaked in thick leaves. They all climbed out, except for Dodie, who stayed behind to keep watch.

  “I’ll join you if need be,” he said.

  Aini regarded Dodie with an appraising eye. She was probably wondering the same thing Thane was. What exactly would he do if there was anything to worry about? If anyone headed toward the group at the ruins, he wasn’t the type to handle it with clever distraction. He’d most likely bash heads.

  The briny air stuck to Thane’s skin as they made their way down the curving street to the ruins. A ticket office sat in front, looking closed.

  A small car zipped past while another vehicle parked up the street, across from a pub and not in Dodie’s line of sight. The parked car spit out two kingsmen in black jackets and Campbell kilts. Thane whispered a curse.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

&
nbsp; ST. ANDREWS

  THE KINGSMEN DROPPED OUT of sight, hidden because of the street’s curve.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get in the way you’d like, Aini.” Thane cleaned the wet and salty condensation off his glasses with the edge of his sweater.

  She raised a pretty eyebrow, her plummy lips pinched. “None of this is how I’d like it to be,” she said, but she kept heading toward the dark ticket window like her body acted from rule-following muscle memory.

  He leapt the ruins’s fence and held a hand to her over the metal bars. “Just come this way.”

  Aini evaluated the top railing, the bottom, then examined his hand. She waved it off politely and climbed the fence, landing pertly at his side.

  He couldn’t fight a grin. “Don’t look so cocky. You’re not proving anything I didn’t already know about you.”

  “You knew I could climb fences?”

  “I’ve learned you’re quite good at breaking rules when the situation demands it.”

  She made a noise.

  Myles pointed and laughed. “You made that Scottish noise.”

  Neve put a boot on the lowest railing, it slipped, and she caught herself on the fence.

  “Allow me, milady,” Myles said. He got down on all fours. “Mount up.”

  “Really?” She took a pure beamer, her cheeks going bright red.

  “Go on,” Myles urged.

  With a laugh, Neve stood on his back. Her foot pulled at his shirt and she almost fell, kicking the lad smartly in the ribs. Finally, she made it over with a hand from Thane and Aini. Still laughing, she apologized to Myles.

  “No need to be sorry,” Myles said. “Sometimes you have to show your mount who’s boss.”

  He backed into the street and took off at a run. With a whoop, he jumped and did an awkward, painful looking shoulder roll to land at Thane’s feet.

  Thane pulled at his own collar, covering his face a little just in case. But it seemed the kingsmen had vanished. He grabbed Myles by the back of the shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Hurry, pal.”

  “You sure are more concerned about getting in trouble today.”

  “It’s about time,” Aini said, Neve at her side.

  Thane strode toward the stone arch that led to the inner courtyard.

  Myles began singing. “Tails tied to trees too tall, goals gone, gore growing go…” That stupid band he loved gave Thane the worst headaches.

  “Shut it, Myles.” Neve hurried past him.

  “Just come on,” Thane snapped, gently shoving Myles, the last of them, behind the arch and out of view. His nerves were raw as the sea’s biting wind. “Tell us what we can do to help, Aini.”

  She was already crouched at the base of the stones, running a hand over the weather-beaten, vanilla-and-smoke colored rocks.

  “Look for a spiral carved into the stone,” she said. “It may be very faint.” Mumbling to herself, she stood and dragged her palms over the wall and up over her head as far as she could reach.

  “Should I lift you?” he asked, part of him forgetting all about kingsmen and prophecies and thinking only of her little waist and nice—

  She turned, her cheeks red from either wind or shyness, he wasn’t sure. “I’ll finish looking where I’m able, then maybe…yes.”

  “All right.”

  Myles and Neve moved on to what remained of the cathedral wall near the cemetery. She said something to him and he hunkered down like an old man, making her laugh.

  Thane wasn’t seeing anything like a marking. Just stones and old walkways and empty windows. “Want me to lift you now?” he asked Aini.

  “I suppose. Although wouldn’t Angus Bethune stick with somewhat easily accessible spots?”

  “You think getting into and out of Edinburgh’s locked-up vaults was easy, do you?” The minute he brought it up, he regretted it, thinking of Rodric’s attack. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails burned into his palms like brands.

  “I’m sorry,” Aini apologized. “It wasn’t easy. And it’s not your fault that person attacked me. You saved me from being hurt worse.”

  He sighed forcefully, so weary of all of this, strung so tightly he felt he might explode. “Let me lift you just a bit. To my height, at least. Then you can move on to where you see fit.”

  With her nod, he bent, one hand to the fine, soft grass. She climbed onto his shoulders, one leanly muscled leg on either side of his head. Her little boots were muddier than anything she’d ever worn.

  As she sat on his shoulders, her legs warmed his neck and chest. She reached and touched the wall, her stomach tensed against the crown of his head. If Thane hadn’t been concerned about the kingsmen, and wondering if he should come clean with Aini, this would’ve been a fine day.

  “Am I hurting you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  A minute later, she tapped his shoulder. “I’ll get down now.”

  As he lowered her to the ground and they untangled themselves, she looked at her hands.

  “What if this is all a big mistake?” she asked quietly. The wind blew over her head and lifted strands of her hair.

  He took her fingers in his. “All we can do is our best. Look for the Waymark Wall here. If we don’t find it, look at another spot. When you feel you’ve searched all you can, then decide what to do next.”

  A sudden smile rose on her face like a sunrise. “Why, Thane. I think you just made a to-do list.”

  He laughed. “Aye. I think I did. You see the effect you have on me, hen?”

  Aini leaned close, her shampoo and candy scent tempting. Her gaze brushed over his lips and he felt it like a touch. Her breath dusted his chin. Her small white teeth drew him nearer. What would her mouth taste like right now?

  “Thane,” she whispered with that mouth. “I—”

  “Hey you all!” Myles called out.

  Thane gritted his teeth. Aini broke away to see what the colonial was pointing to.

  “Look at this!” Myles waved a hand.

  Across the lawn, a metal railing and stairs led to a narrow opening in the ground. The stairs were slick and rounded from use over centuries. It looked like the entrance to a tomb.

  Aini crossed her arms over her stomach. She seemed nervous. “What is it?”

  Neve craned her neck to look into the tunnel. “It’s a countermine.” Her loose shirt whipped around her. “Protestants holed up here and defended themselves from Catholics in the sixteenth century. They dug these tunnels to intercept and demolish their enemies’ mines—the ones dug to get into the place.”

  The railing cooled Thane’s fingers as he entered the tunnel’s damp mouth. After two steps, his boot slipped. He grabbed hold of the metal with both hands.

  Aini shook her head. “I don’t really want to go down there.”

  Neve sucked a breath. “I’m not claustrophobic and I still don’t want to go down there. But they did open these up around 1800, so that’s perfect timing for Angus Bethune to make his mark.”

  “Good thing you know so much, Neve,” Thane said, looking back into the courtyard.

  A flash of black and blue and green showed past the largest remaining section of the ruins. His heart leapt and practically hit his chin. Was it the kingsmen?

  “You can do this, Aini,” he said quickly. They needed to get out of sight. “We’ll be right beside you. Just for a quick peek, aye?”

  She inhaled and nodded, going in.

  Continuing deeper into the dark tunnel, the rock remained like ice. Myles made a comment about snogging in slippery places.

  “Do you know what people say of men who brag about their prowess?” Thane asked as Aini ran her fingers along the wall.

  Myles took on an innocent look. “That those men are named Myles Smith and the bragging is as just as the day is long?”

  Neve frowned over her shoulder. “That’s a Mylesland answer.”

  “You know you want to visit, Neve.”

  “For what purpose?” Neve gripped
the railing and looked up at the weak light on the ceiling of the tunnel.

  The sea threw a gust of salty breath down the place as Thane tried to see the entrance.

  “Mylesland has a fantastic library. Full of historical volumes.”

  Neve laughed. “Then I might consider the invitation.”

  “Of course the history is slightly skewed toward promoting licentious behavior. Only true libertines win in Mylesland.”

  “Libertines aren’t necessarily licentious,” Aini said. “They’re simply fond of freedoms we can only dream about.”

  “Can you imagine having the freedoms the Dionadair want?” Thane asked, talking more to himself than anyone else.

  “I thought you hated them,” Myles said, nudging his way between Thane and Aini.

  Thane swallowed. “I…I’m not sure how I feel actually.” The lines between his real feelings and those he was using to maintain his role as spy were growing too wrinkled to smooth out.

  Myles clapped hands over his mouth. “Seriously? Thane has no grouchy, superior answer?”

  A growl rumbled in Thane’s throat.

  Neve eyed him. “You are a rebel of sorts like they are, Thane. In the market, you stole those drinks because that man cheated Aini the week before.”

  Thane lifted one shoulder. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It does,” Aini said, pausing to look at a rough spot in the wall below the railing. “You break the law, but only when you think it leads to justice. Or to help friends.” She was thinking of Bran. If she only knew…

  “But you hate the Dionadair.” Myles clucked his tongue and ran two hands over the opposite wall, searching for carvings. “If they aim for justice for Scots—freedom to marry who they wish without permission, freedom to wear clan tartans even if they aren’t Campbells, freedom to vote on taxation—why don’t you love them as much as I’m beginning to?”

  “I love them.” Neve raised her chin.

  Aini raised her eyebrows. “Neve, the rebel. I never thought I’d see the day.”