The man’s frightened eyes slid away, but Máelodor thrilled to the result of his dark powers. “You learn fast. Well, since you’re such a quick study, I’ll answer the question you dare not ask.” He glanced back at the diary’s burned binding. The pages blistered and cracked, but protected by the same spells keeping it indecipherable to any but the Nine. “You leave for Ireland, and the order of the Sisters of High Danu.”
Crushing darkness. Muscles screaming. A mind in flames. And always the fanged jaws. The reptilian eye. A coiled presence at the very edges of his consciousness.
Dropping deeper and deeper into the black abyss, he reached for the woman, his hands coming away with naught but ocean, the glancing dart and glint of fish. He’d been fooled into believing she would be here waiting. Instead, he found only the pain of distant shredded memory. Useless against his current suffering.
Light speared the ocean’s murk, descending even to the drowning depths where he drifted frozen and blind. The slithering presence retreated. Turned its searching slitted gaze elsewhere.
He was alone.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was completely alone.
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 ewer 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 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 only moments. 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 blankets. 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.
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.”
In the weak glow of the moon, he studied himself as he might a stranger. Beginning with details such as his heavy, calloused hands, a mole just below his collarbone, the tip of his left ring finger missing.
When no feature stoked a memory, he moved outward in ever more general circles. The strength of his body, his lean, powerful build. Long legs. Strong arms. Was he soldier? Sailor? Irish peasant? What life would result in such work-hardened toughness?
He came last to what most intrigued and most disgusted—the web of scars lacing his body. What horrible accident had caused these? Or had they been the result of an accident at all? Perhaps the disfigurement had been deliberate. What battles had he waged to earn such wounds? Or what crimes had he committed to bring about such punishment? Was it something he hadn’t done? And did the architect of these injuries still hunt him?
He squeezed his eyes shut, pounding a fist against his forehead in frustration. Trying to knock even the slimmest of images from a mind blank as sand washed clean upon a beach.
Nothing.
So if pushing to remember brought naught but a headache, begin with the only image that did remain.
The woman.
Long after she’d left him, he still pictured her—slender as a willow withy, she moved with a lithesome grace no amount of modest garb could disguise. Her dark hair parted demurely and tucked beneath a snowy kerchief, vibrant blue eyes, upturned pert little nose, mouth a tad wide for her face, and the soft, rounded chin complete with a dimple that appeared when she laughed.
He knew this face. He’d seen it in his dreams. And yet, she looked upon him as a stranger.
Why? Why lie about knowing him? Or was he simply imagining things? Was he so starved for a past he’d grasp at any straw no matter how feeble?
The questions spun endlessly, but brought no answers. Only more questions. His hot, dry gaze traveled over the tangled scars of his arms. The long, angry slashes marring his torso. Repulsed, he closed his eyes.
No, the woman Sabrina was the key to unlocking his forgotten past. Among all his uncertainties, he knew that much with rare conviction. But what door would she open? And did he really want to know what lay behind it?
“Powea raga korgh. Krea raga brya.”
Reaching out with her mind, Sabrina projected calm. Tranquillity. Health. Muscles relaxing. Chest clearing. It took only a few moments before the spell eased the consumptive coughs tearing at the frail priestess. Slowed her breathing to a peaceful, steady rhythm.
Satisfied, Sabrina broke the gossamer connection. Drew the blanket up to Sister Moira’s chin. It would be hours before the old woman’s congested lungs began to labor again. Until then, she would sleep.
She was the last on Sabrina’s list. Sister Netta slept, her spiked fever slowly cooling. And Sister Clea needed only to be pointed back to bed should she rise disoriented, asking for her brother, Paul. A fisherman lost at sea some fifty years ago. Yet in her delirium Clea remained twelve years old, the decades since nothing more than a dream to her clouded mind.
Would it be the same for the man they’d pulled from the ocean? They’d given him back his life. But not his memories. Those remained lost. For days? Weeks? Forever? It was impossible to predict and so she’d explained to him, his face graying with her every word, a bleak desperation crowding the corners of his black eyes.
He’d fought to remain calm in her presence, but his tension had crackled the air like a storm, his fear thrumming the space between them. It made her ache for him as the helplessness of others always made her hurt. She loathed being in a position where nothing could be done. She needed to be doing. Fixing. Making it better. And this man’s sickness was s
omething she could not mend. Not even with all her Other gifts.
Her thoughts brought her back to his door. Or rightly the door to one of the stillrooms. Out of the way of the aged sisters. Separate from the few patients recovering in the main hospital.
She pressed her ear to the heavy wood, but no sound emanated from the room beyond. Did he sleep quietly? Or did he lie tossing and wakeful, fighting his fragile brain’s betrayal? Undoing all her good work by worrying when he should be resting?
Turning the key, she cracked open the door.
A sliver of gray light from the high window bathed his cot. Created stark contrast in the rawboned angles of his face and the hollows of his eyes. Glinted blue amid his black hair, and silvered the crisscross slash of innumerable scars.
Old and new. Ancient, faded lines and angry, puckered blemishes. It was as if someone had acted out every cruel and vicious impulse upon his body. His chest had borne the worst of it—a web of violence marring the broad, hard-packed muscles—but no part of him had been spared.
Once upon a time he had been a target of a brutal killing intent. So why hadn’t he died? Surely that many injuries should have proved fatal. One more question she could ask, but he couldn’t answer.
He shifted, his hand coming up as if warding off a blow. His face grimaced in pain, his jaw hardening, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath. “Mae gormod ohonynt. Tynnwch nol. Gwarchoda Tywysog Hywel. Amddiffyna’r tywysog.”
Odd. Not English. Nor Gaelic. A language unknown to her. She inched closer, unable to leave. Relock the door. Pretend she hadn’t let curiosity draw her to his bedside. If she stayed, she might hear more. Hints of his past. Perhaps in sleep, he would remember. And she could relate all she learned in the morning. Jar a single memory loose, allowing the rest to spill forth. As a healer she’d been taught that all creatures deserved assistance. She would only be fulfilling her calling.
Not even Sister Brigh could quibble with that.
Fully justified, she sat down. Clasped her hands. Patience personified.
She was good at being silent. Waiting. Becoming invisible. It had always been thus, even when she was a child. As the baby of the family, she’d used that talent to her advantage. Her brothers would forget her presence in their private games or personal conversations. Her parents would forget she hadn’t been sent to bed, but remained curled in a hidden corner with a book. Nurse would forget she even existed, too taken up with the nursery maid’s gossip to worry overmuch about a silent child who demanded little attention. Especially in comparison to her harum-scarum older brothers.
He rolled over, arm over his face, neck taut and working. “Dwi’n dy garu di.”
She mentally snapped her fingers. Welsh. She recognized the word for “love.” She’d had a governess who’d come from Cardiff. Eres Jones-Abercrombie had been a sour stick of a woman with a sharp tongue and a quick hand. Sabrina had never been happier than when the woman had departed Belfoyle for a posting with Lord Markham’s household.
So he was Welsh. And he loved someone. Somewhere out there someone missed him. Grieved for him. All the more reason to stay and learn as much as she could.
He jerked, his hand fisting on air. Deep lines biting into his cheeks. The muscles of his arms strained against an invisible foe. “The diary. Now.”
English this time. Clipped in speech, almost a growl, but with a lilt held over from the Welsh of earlier. Authority rested in that uncompromising demand. This was a man who expected people to obey him. A ship’s captain washed overboard? A victim of military mutiny? But a diary? A spy after enemy secrets? A wronged husband? That might fit with the word for love. Perhaps he had suffered a betrayal. The evidence written in his wife’s diary.
Her imagination spun scenarios. Each one more lurid. More exiting. She wished for a pen and her journal before the varied conjectures escaped her.
“As you will.” Sorrow edged those words, spoken so softly she barely heard them except she’d inched closer and had almost bent her ear to his mouth.
She held her breath. Waited, but nothing more.
Suddenly, he flailed, catching her chin with the back of his hand. Sent stars reeling across her vision. Came awake with eyes bleary and distracted. “Don’t leave. Come back.” His voice held such longing she wished with all her heart she were this woman he wanted so desperately.
“It’s all right,” she answered, wiggling her jaw, “you’re safe now. Just a dream.”
He focused, coming more awake. Sat up with a grimace. “I thought . . . but . . .”
“You called to someone. A lover? A wife?” she urged, thinking she’d jolt him into a recollection while his mind still held the ghost of her memory.
He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “But it’s you. Yours is the face I dreamt.”
“But I’m not. I’m—”
“Sabrina.” His black eyes devoured her. “You are called Sabrina. I remember you.”
This time the longing prickled along her own skin, and—healer’s oath be damned—she caught up her skirts and fled.
“Rise and shine, slugabed. The sisters are calling us to breakfast.”
Sabrina cracked open her eyes on a dawn filtered through a misty drizzle that added dampness to an already miserable, chilly morning.
“Go way. Tired.” Rolling over, she stuffed her head under her pillow. Pretended she hadn’t heard her friend’s overly cheerful summons. Jane enjoyed annoying Sabrina far too much and had done so ever since they’d met.
Her pillow was yanked away. “Sister Brigh will be in here with the ice water if you’re not quick.”
Sabrina shivered, but even that threat didn’t pull her out of bed. She’d worked in the infirmary until two in the morning. Used the following hours to complete her unfinished journal entry. By the time she’d closed the book, she’d a fierce headache and a heart heavy as lead.
So much of what she’d forgotten about those days returned beneath her pen. Her initial shock and terror. The screaming and cursing that followed. Her mother’s wretched, furious weeping and the servants’ quiet treachery as they slunk like rats abandoning a sinking ship from a house and a family labeled cursed. Sabrina hadn’t known it could get worse until it did.
Her mother’s grief quickly gave way to a vacant, staring sorrow that ended in a grave beside her husband. Sabrina’s brother Aidan—the new Earl of Kilronan—retreated into surly silence behind the closed doors of her father’s study. And, Brendan, the brother she’d loved with slavish devotion, simply vanished without a word of explanation. No one knew where, though everyone hinted at why.
After that, the Sisters of High Danu became a place of safety. A refuge.
A home.
She’d been content. Never contemplated a life beyond the community of bandraoi. Not until this last endless season when change flourished everywhere but here. Aidan’s unexpected marriage. Her childhood friend and neighbor Elisabeth Fitzgerald’s letter announcing her recent betrothal. Even Jane would be leaving Sabrina behind when she was elevated to full priestess at the next festival. Only Sabrina remained in frustrating limbo.
Dissatisfaction crept beneath her guard and set up shop. Unshakable. Uncomfortable.
“Are you even listening to me?” Jane scolded.
Sabrina pulled the blankets over her head. “Tell them I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick.”
“Then tell them I’m dead. I don’t care. I need sleep.”
“You’ve slept for hours.”
“And I’d like to continue doing so if you’d be so kind,” she grumbled.
She disliked Jane in her perky, mothery mode. Especially since she could survive on a few snatched catnaps and didn’t understand why Sabrina couldn’t do the same.
“Can I borrow a clean pair of stockings? Mine have a great hole in the toe.” Jane had given up on Sabrina and directed her conversation to the third occupant of their chamber, privacy not being high on the sisters’ list of must-haves.
“Only if I can borrow an extra petticoat,” Teresa bargained. “I almost froze in the library yesterday. Sister Ursula refuses to light a fire until icicles are hanging from my nose.”
“Try the kitchens. It’s hot as a bloody oven in there.”
“Jane! Your language.”
“Well it is. I almost fainted the day before yesterday.”
What Sabrina wouldn’t give for her lost bedchamber at Belfoyle. Sweet privacy. Space to toss her things about. Quiet when she needed it.
She clamped her pillow back over her head to drown out the others’ morning chatter; banging drawers, requests for assistance in buttoning or unbuttoning; the clink of pitchers and basins, the thump of sturdy boots across the floor. And always the relentless conversation. It seeped around the edges of her pillow, muffled but intelligible.
Jane’s excited voice penetrated like a cannon salvo. “Did you ever find out who the man is they brought in yesterday?”
The final reason for her exhaustion dragged at Sabrina like an anchor—the man.
She’d wished for change—any change—and been rewarded with a mysterious, glowering stranger who watched her as though he could pull the very thoughts from her head. No more wishes for her.
Unable to erase his intense, endless black gaze, she’d tossed and turned for hours.
“I heard he can’t remember anything,” Jane continued with relish.
Sabrina began to suffocate under her blankets. And a few escaping feathers made her nose itch.
“I think he’s here to murder us all in our beds,” Teresa speculated. “I slept with a kitchen knife under my pillow, just in case.”
Sabrina flung back the covers. Gulped in a chilly breath of air just as Jane shot back, “You would.”
She was right. Teresa thought every outsider held sinister intentions.
“Have you seen him?” Jane plopped on the end of Sabrina’s bed with a friendly bounce. Already dressed, she talked while shoving her hair up under her prim white kerchief. A crime. Sabrina’s own brown tangle was only improved by concealment, but Jane’s floating mass of auburn waves deserved to be admired.
Lord of Shadows Page 3