On another rickety platform miles above the ground, Carmen sighed. “Well, that’s another one down. I wonder how many of these we’ll have to search before we find the bell tower.”
Jamie gave a muffled whimper. Angus turned around to glare at him, but when he saw his brother’s ashen face and shifty eyes, he changed his mind. Jamie still cradled his injured arm in his other hand. He still shook in every limb the way he did near the standing stones.
Carmen intervened before Angus could say anything. “It’s getting late, and there’s food in the kitchen. Let’s go downstairs and rest for a while before we take this any further.”
Callum’s head shot up at the mention of food. The others brightened up, too, but no one jumped for joy at the prospect of knocking off for a break. This castle weighed them all down.
“Awricht,” Angus agreed. “We’ll go down. I don’ guess the hag will send the wraiths after us in here.”
They trooped down to the lowest level, and Carmen showed them the cauldrons of stew and the loaves of fresh baked bread in the kitchen.
She set to work serving it up and slicing the bread. “When I came in here the first time, I didn’t touch any of this. I had some crazy idea it would turn me to stone or something like that. I must have read too many fairy tales when I was a kid. I’m hungry enough now I would eat it even if I thought it would turn me to stone.”
Jamie sat down on a stool by the fire and drank his soup out of the bowl with his one good hand. Fergus, Callum, and Ewan sat around the table. They ate and chatted with Carmen the way they hadn’t in weeks.
Only Angus stood back. He leaned against the door frame and watched them at their ease. He didn’t touch the food, not because he thought it would turn him to stone and not because he wasn’t hungry.
He always enjoyed domestic scenes like this back home. Now he couldn’t participate in them anymore. A creeping sensation snuck all over him. This was his kitchen. This was his castle. The ghosts who prepared this food were his servants.
He couldn’t eat in that kitchen. He belonged somewhere else. He was the King. He couldn’t eat with the servants, not even when they were his own brothers.
Carmen looked up, and their eyes met. She questioned him with her gaze. She wanted to feed him the way she fed the others, but he kept outside their sphere. He waited until she finished serving the others before he drifted away.
He passed through a wide open portico beyond the kitchen to the gardens outside. Herbs and flowering shrubs bloomed between the vegetable beds. Magic kept it all growing and lush. He strolled between the lavender hedges. The sky changed colors to dusky pastels over the high courtyard walls. Night was coming, and the company had nowhere to sleep or spend the night.
Footsteps came up behind him, and he turned to confront Carmen. She held out a crude wooden bowl steaming with fragrant soup. “Have some. You don’t have to eat it with the others. You can have it out here.”
He glanced down at the food. How poignant that she of all people should understand.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find any other bowl besides this one. It will just have to do for now.”
He took it out of her hands. “Thank ye. It’s perfect.”
He sat down on a stone wall around the herb borders and started sipping the broth. Carmen placed three thick slices of brown bread in his hand and sat down next to him. “It really is a beautiful castle if it wasn’t so enchanted.”
He ran his wrist across his mouth. “Ye mun’ stop allus talk about me bein’ King. I an’t King, and I ne’er was one.”
Her eyes flashed to his face. “I know, but you will be. You must know it yourself. You act so different now.”
He humphed. “Yeh. Me brother’s dead. That’s the difference.”
“You changed before that. You changed when you stood before the Throne. You know you’re King. That’s why you couldn’t eat in the kitchen with the others. You don’t have to explain. I understand.”
He dunked a slice of bread in his soup. “I’ll ne’er stopped bein’ just auld me. I’ll allus want this soup and this bread and this bowl.”
She shook her head again, but she didn’t argue.
No soup ever tasted as good as that, and the rough brown bread satisfied him in ways he couldn’t imagine. Even if he became King, he would always want this. He never wanted to outgrow it or look down on it.
She wasn’t watching him. She gazed all around her at the garden and the distant walls beyond. A smile touched her lips. This castle didn’t strike dread into her heart. She liked it. She admired it and appreciated it in ways Angus and his brothers couldn’t.
He finished eating and put his bowl aside to take her hand. “Ye belang here, lass. I didn’t like tae see ye out in the forest, fighting wraiths and braving danger, but ye belang here as I do.”
She looked away. “Don’t say that. I can’t stay here, and you know it.”
“There mun’ be a way.”
“What does the book say about it? What does the book say about the Phoenix Queen?”
“Naught it says about any Queen, but it tells of a thistle out in the fields, growing rough and alone, that the King mun’ find in order to gain his Throne.”
She laughed out loud. “And you’re calling me a thistle? That’s some compliment, Mister. I’ll have to write that one down.”
He frowned. “Why do ye jest about it? Ye mun’ realize I cinnae tak’ any ordinary Queen. Ye’re the ainly one as fits the description.”
She wouldn’t stop laughing at him. “I’m sorry, but you can’t start thinking about me as your Queen. I won’t be here, and anyway, I don’t belong here. This is a nice castle and everything, but I got transported to the wrong time. After we break the curse, I have to go back to my own world. Even you must understand that.”
“I dinnae want tae let ye go. I would raither keep ye here, e’en if’t means I ne’er gain the Throne.”
She pressed his hand. “I feel the same way about you, but it’s impossible. I’ve been thinking about this ever since we…. ever since that night before we came across the river. I would give anything to stay with you, but it would never happen. If you don’t take the Throne and send me back, we’ll both be destroyed. Your brothers and Ewan will be destroyed before your eyes, just like Robbie was.”
He pulled her into his arms and murmured into her face. “Do ye really ha’e tae go back?”
She leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes. “You know I do.”
He couldn’t contain the emotions rising out of his soul. He kissed her and closed her in his embrace. She lay against his chest, and her delicate lips collapsed under pressure from his mouth.
He couldn’t imagine giving her up any more than he could imagine facing this castle without Robbie by his side. Some things were just too horrible to imagine. She couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t let her. He would find a way to defeat the witch so he could keep her with him.
He rolled her sideways so she fell into his cradling arms. He bent over her to kiss her. The sky grew another shade darker. Ewan’s laughter roiled out of the kitchen somewhere beyond the portico.
Angus swam up from kissing her to find her wide eyes regarding him. He trailed his lips off her mouth. “Is there nowhere we ken spend the nicht?”
“There are lots of empty bedrooms on this lower floor. As long as we’re sure the wraiths won’t attack, we should be safe sleeping in separate rooms.”
He stood her on her feet and took her hand. “Show me.”
She conducted him through the grand Dining Hall and along several deserted corridors to passages lined on both sides with doors. She opened one after another on stately bedrooms furnished in the richest style.
After the fourth or fifth room, he stopped her from going any further. “This’ll do.”
Her eyes widened, but he led her by the hand into the room and shut the door. He pulled her to the bed and laid down on it. He opened his arms. “Come ‘ere, lass.”
She burst into that brilliant smile that shot straight through his insides. She stretched out next to him and put her arms around his waist. She snuggled close to his heart, and her black hair covered his shirt.
He hugged her close and kissed her hair. He brought her here to enjoy the delights of her body in comfort and private, but now that he got her here, he felt differently. He didn’t want to summon the energy for all that. He only wanted to hold her while it lasted, to pretend she and Ross got it all wrong about her going home when the curse lifted.
He brushed her hair back from her face, and she leaned back to kiss him. He could imagine she was his Queen and this was their Royal bedchamber, forever and ever. She didn’t belong to any other time or place. She didn’t get transported here by accident or design to help him break this curse.
When he gazed into her eyes, he could see all eternity spread out to the distant horizon. He was all the Kings who ever sat on the Phoenix Throne, and she was all the Queens who ever stood by them and succored them and supported them. She was every Queen who ever wrapped the King’s heart in her delicious being and filled his heart and soul to overflowing with love and hope and peace.
He wanted to cry all over again, not from grief and despair, but from joy that he found her. She was his by right, and he would never give her up. Some trick of magic would come along and override the Law binding her to her own time.
Her clear eyes read the same thing when she returned his gaze. Her body told him so. She belonged here. Those clothes she wore disappeared, and costly gowns covered her curving form. He ran his hand over her hip, and the long skirts rustled over her legs. Her bodice heaved against his chest. He buried his eyes in her neck, and her silken presence covered him over.
Chapter 18
Carmen woke up the next morning to clear sunlight streaming through the high windows. The golden beams fell on the carpets and curtains and across the bed where Angus still slept. His hair spread over the pillow, and the soft linen sheets covered his bare chest.
Carmen swung her legs out of bed without waking him. She still wore her clothes from last night. After the ardor of their first encounter, their passion softened into deep, heartfelt connection between his heart and hers. They lay entwined in each other’s arms all night, kissing and gazing into each other’s eyes. That was enough for now.
She crossed to the window and looked out on the green landscape and all the terrain she crossed since meeting up with this motley band of misfits. The black firs swayed in the wind bordering the forest. The river spread its silver ribbon between small hills and depressions. The towering mountains dominated the horizon far away.
Carmen never admired any countryside more than this, but she couldn’t let herself get attached to it. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to wake up to this view every morning.
She came back to the bed to stare down at Angus’s sleeping form. Today was the day. They would find the witch today and break the curse. She understood that to the depths of her bones. The sun wouldn’t go down on this day before she wound up back in modern day America.
Now she admitted to herself for the first time, to the bottom of her heart, that she loved Angus. Leaving him behind in the distant past couldn’t change that. She loved him, and she wouldn’t stop loving him when he wasn’t around anymore—or she wasn’t around, whichever it really was.
She never loved anybody this much. She did her best not to love him, but it happened anyway. She shared his trials and his tragedies, and she wanted to keep sharing them. She wanted to see him on his Throne. She never cared about being Queen. She would serve him and support him as King, even if she had to do it as his lowest servant.
She hated to wake Angus up at a time like this. He went so long without rest. He needed sleep, and she wouldn’t rob him of that for her own purpose. She longed to take him in her arms and kiss him one last time. Would she get another chance to say good-bye, or would Fate snatch her away from him the way it snatched away Robbie? Would Angus break down in tears when he lost her?
She didn’t want to leave him, but she was ready. She knew what she had to do, and she would do it. She read the same certainty in his eyes last night. He knew what was coming. His heart ached at losing her, but he knew it had to be.
She would have stood there admiring him a lot longer if a shout hadn’t echoed down the passage outside. Ewan pounded on the door. “Angus! Wak’ up, mon. The sun’s awa’, and so are we.”
Angus’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up in bed. Carmen opened the door, and Ewan barged right in. “Are ye still slumberin’, mon? Ye should be roustin’ us out instead o’ the other way ‘round.”
Angus scratched his head. “So ye’re up. Do ye want congratulations on that?”
Ewan spun away toward the door. “Breakfast’s on, mon. Came down tae the kitchen an’ let’s get on wi’ it.”
Carmen looked back and forth between the open door and the bed. Angus sighed. “Weel, it’s another day, an’t it?”
He got to his feet and slipped into his shirt. He tucked the tails into his kilt and tightened his belt and straightened his sporran into the right place. He kept his eyes on Carmen the whole time, but he didn’t say anything, not even when he kissed her and they started down the hall toward the kitchen. There was nothing to say. Maybe there would never be anything more to say again, ever.
This time, he sat at the table with the others. They all shared a steaming pot of porridge sizzling on the fire. Carmen sat at Angus’s side and licked the back of her spoon. “Why do you think the ghosts keep all this food around? Do you suppose they’re waiting for someone to come and break the curse?”
Angus laughed, and even Jamie jumped at the sound of that laugh. It rang off the walls and down the empty halls. That laugh called all the ghosts to come out and show themselves to their lord and master. “Ye’ve been readin’ too many stories, lass. The witch froze them in place. They mun’ do whate’er they were doin’ when she cast her curse. The cooks mun’ keep on cookin’, the gardeners mun’ keep on gardenin’, and so forth, unto eternity.”
“Wheesht, Angus,” Callum snorted. “That’s the biggest fairy story o’ them all. Unto eternity—pah! Whoe’er heard o’ any such thing?
“Then how do ye explain it?” Angus asked. “Andrew Cameron an’t been alive in a hundred years or mare, and this castle ha’e been sittin’ here in the same condition all’at time. Ye tell me it just sprang up like this when we showed up? I dinnae think so. It’s been like this since the witch put Andrew under the curse. I’ll wager ye any money ye like on that.”
“Do you have any idea why she put him under a curse?” Carmen asked.
Angus shrugged. “Who ken understand why the witch does what the witch does? I dinnae try to guess her motives, but from what I’ve seen so far and what I’ve read in that book, I’d say she works for same other power, just the way Gahkra works for her. She’s a pawn. Something bigger controls this whole land, I reckon, and she’s part o’ that.”
Carmen studied him. “What makes you think that?”
“Just a sense I feel in me bones, lik’. There’s allus Laws beyond number in that book, and if the King dinnae follow each one tae the letter, the whole system mun’ fall about his ears. I wonder the kingdom survives a’tall.”
“Weel, it dinnae survive, does it?” Ewan chimed in.
“We cinnae ken what betides before we came here. Perhaps Andrew committed some other crime we’ll ne’er ken about, and if ye really wanna ken, I dinnae care. We’re ‘ere now, and we’ll do that what we came ‘ere tae do, or me name’s not Angus Cameron.”
The others nodded, but Carmen fell silent. What kind of force was this witch? If she came to punish Andrew or any other Cameron for breaking the Law, how could this bunch break her curse? Ross seemed to think they could break it, so maybe that was written in the Fire Trilogy, too.
Where was Ross? Would they see him again? Would Ross show up at the very moment they needed him to break the witch’s po
wer?
Carmen didn’t understand all these competing powers. Gahkra worked for the witch, but she helped Angus find the secret to breaking the curse. The witch tried to kill Angus, but she only formed another part of the same overarching pattern. What about Ross? Was he good or evil? Was he here to help the party, or hinder them?
Jamie took another bite of his porridge. “I could get used tae this kinda life. I don’t mind showing up tae breakfast all made, and the bed folded down fer me and e’ery detail attended tae.”
“Ye lazy bawbag!” Ewan spluttered. “Allus thinkin’ wi’ yer stomach.”
Jamie cocked his head the other way. “How come we ne’er ken Angus was a King before? That’s what I wanna ken. If our family belanged on this Throne allus years, how came no one e’er kenned ought about it? How came Faither ne’er said? How came he’s been scrapin’ tae the other Camerons instead o’ them scraping tae him?”
“Ye want summat to scrape tae ye?” Fergus shot back. “I’ll scrape yer mouth out, young fud banger.”
The two brothers lunged out of their seats to thump each other with their fists when Angus boomed out, “That’s enough out o’ both o’ ye. Sit ye down, Jamie, and hold yer tongue.”
“Your father never knew he belonged to the Throne,” Carmen told him. “No one ever knew. That must have been part of the curse. Besides, it seems like most people don’t even know the Throne exists. We haven’t seen a single person out there for as far as the eye can see. The whole countryside is under a curse, not just the castle. Anyway, who does the Throne rule? If I had to guess, I’d say this whole country exists somewhere separate from ordinary reality. Your family must have been banished under the curse to wander and live among regular people and never return to this country until the curse lifted.”
Angus regarded her with his head on one side. “I ne’er thought o’ that, but ye’re richt, o’ course. No one ever heard o’ the Phoenix Throne. It mun’ dwell in this country, and we entered this country to find this castle.”
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