Sabrina escaped without answering. Jostled her blind way through a crowd of women in the passage. Disregarded Jane’s shouted halloo across the cloister. Ignored Sister Brigh’s outraged mutter as she bumped into her upon the dormitory stairs.
Only stopped to catch her breath in the blessed momentary privacy of her bedchamber. Shuddering. Her back pressed against the door panels. Stupid tears burning her eyes.
For seven years she’d assumed Brendan was dead. How else to account for his lack of letters or visits or any word at all. But could the Amhas-draoi be telling the truth? Could Brendan still live? Could he be the blackhearted villain they claimed he was?
Ard-siúr certainly seemed to believe it.
So, what if he did contact her?
Where did her true loyalty reside?
If asked to make a choice between her old family and her new, whom would she betray?
Daigh scanned the room he’d been brought to with a searching eye. Desk. Case clock. A pairing of old cane-backed chairs. A long, low table upon which stood decanters, a scattering of various stones, shards of quartz, a bowl of dried petals. Thick Turkey carpets covered the flagged floor. Wall tapestries moved in the incessant breeze through poorly chinked mortar. He found himself transfixed by stags and hounds in regal red and gold. Stylized sea creatures amid a woolen sea of blues and greens. Flowers and leaves needled in exquisite detail so that one’s eye couldn’t help but follow the woven floral design across the cloth. A rendering of gray-veiled attendants following a curtained litter toward an open tomb. He scowled, focusing on a lone attendant standing with outstretched hands and eyes cast up toward a single star.
“You’ve recovered far faster than we expected, considering the shape you were in upon your arrival.”
He drew his attention back from the puzzled tangle of his own impenetrable thoughts. Stood body braced and shoulders back. Met the triple spear-point stares of the trio of gray-gowned bandraoi with a sharp, assenting jerk of his head.
“After discussing your health with Sister Ainnir, we’ve decided a busy mind and body may bring about your full recovery. Therefore, as you no longer require medical attention, I am putting you in Sister Liotha’s charge.” Ard-siúr motioned toward the tallest of the women. Flat nosed. Wind-burned cheeks. Hands broad and tough as leather. And a no-nonsense manner reminding him of Griffid. That skeptical, show-me air . . .
He staggered against the snatch of an image. His knees weak as water as he clutched at the slippery pieces of memory sliding through his mind.
Griffid?
The grizzled soldier returned to him, gap-toothed and grinning. His face as clear as the cluster of women in front of him. His temples thundered, a snarling pressure knotting his spine as he fought to concentrate. To battle his way through the shimmering stained-glass wash of color bursting across his vision.
“Are you unwell?” A touch upon his forehead. A hand upon his sleeve. And Griffid vanished. Lost in the endless well where Daigh’s past swam but rarely surfaced.
He steadied himself, shaking off the proffered aid. Refusing to let these women see his weakness. His anguish. They saw too much as it was. Picked him apart like a flock of vultures. Yet despite all their probing, soul-searing stares, they could offer him no hint about his lost past. Of that, they were as uncertain as he. Time, they assured. Time and freedom would restore him.
But as he followed Sister Liotha to his new duties, a vague, unsettling notion clawed at his consciousness. He could count on neither time nor freedom. Both waned with every passing day. And why that was, like all else, he could not remember.
Sabrina crumpled the letter, flinging it away with a satisfying toss. She’d have to pick it up later—before Jane found and read it—but for now, it felt good to take out her frustrations on a scrap of paper that couldn’t fight back.
Aidan requested her immediate presence in Dublin. Again. This was the fifth such letter she’d received in the space of two months. He couched his command in conciliating language, but the essence remained the same. While he understood her desire to withdraw from Society following the tumultuous aftermath of their father’s death, he could no longer allow her to hide herself away from the world.
He talked of unity. Purpose. The Douglases against the world. Like they were a family. But you needed more than shared blood to be a family. And their father’s murder had shattered those familial ties. Aidan couldn’t just glue them back together with sticking plaster and false optimism. Pretend the last years hadn’t happened.
The Sisters of High Danu were her only family now.
Even Sister Brigh, though Sabrina hated to admit it.
That was the conclusion she’d come to after hours of soul-searching. She was sticking with it.
She wouldn’t go to Dublin. Period. She didn’t care how many letters Aidan penned.
Her eldest brother had never understood her devotion to the cloistered bandraoi life. He’d always been far more comfortable among the bustle and confusion of the city. Could slide into the skin of a Duinedon without difficulty. And had rarely, if ever, showed any interest in his Other inheritance besides the most basic of household magics.
Not Sabrina. She’d always sensed her Other blood was written upon her face, clear as day. Always felt like a fish on dry land when called upon to pretend otherwise. She recalled with discomfort the stilted conversations of afternoon social calls and the wallflower shyness of parties. The fluttering, simpering young women with nothing on their minds besides making advantageous marriages. As the proper wife of a proper peer, when would she ever get the chance to use her powers? She’d be relegated to a life half lived. The best parts of her left behind, unwanted and forgotten.
Her endeavors to become a bandraoi might not be progressing as she’d envisioned. But it was a life she understood. Her previous existence seemed, with every passing year, a dream belonging to some other Lady Sabrina Douglas. Certainly not to her.
The tower bells rang the hour. Time to report to Sister Ainnir and her duties.
Lately, the daily routine of the infirmary and hospital had become, well . . . routine. Assisting those suffering from accidents and illness. Short forays to the neighboring farmsteads and villages when a healer or midwife was needed.
The stranger’s disturbing arrival had shaken her from the rut for a few days, but with Daigh’s removal to new quarters, she’d lost even that frisson of anticipation when her stomach went jittery and her breathing quickened.
It was just as well.
She’d become far too aware of him waiting at the end of the long, low-ceilinged passage. The impatient way he prowled his quarters. His aura of command, shaken by circumstance yet there in the arrogant set of his jaw. The ruthless intensity chained in the depths of his forever gaze.
Daigh MacLir. The name Ard-siúr had chosen for him. Like pulling an identity from a hat. But it suited him. Hard. Sharp.
She rolled the name on her tongue. “Daigh. Daigh MacLir.”
Shaking off the quiver that skittered up her spine, she rose to retrieve the balled letter. No, Sabrina. No. Daigh was off-limits. Out of bounds. A treacherous obstacle placed upon her path. She offered a prayer to the gods for strength.
Sister Brigh called him dangerous. Sabrina wouldn’t go that far. But power did ripple off him like smoke. She’d felt it immediately. She might not know who he was. But she knew what he was.
Other.
Like her.
Tossing Aidan’s summons on the fire, she watched the edges blacken and curl to ash.
A merging of Fey and human. A product of both worlds.
And like her, belonging to neither.
She moved with clever nimbleness like a shy forest creature who perceived predators in every shadow. Not timid. No. More as if each dawn were a gift that couldn’t be taken for granted. Each twilight a lucky success. But beneath that quick furtiveness, he sensed a courage untested. A strength belied by the willowy grace of her stance.
Her dark hair
, struggling to remain confined beneath her kerchief. The inquisitive tilt of her head as she hastened down the path, the way her body leaned toward him as if he held all her attention. Her blue eyes alight with gemstone brilliance.
He’d asked about her in the days since he’d been released to Sister Liotha. Subtle inquiries. Leading conversations. There were always those who enjoyed relaying information no matter who posed the questions.
Lady Sabrina Douglas.
Daughter and sister to the earls of Kilronan
A member of the order since coming to the sisters seven years ago at the age of fifteen.
An Other with a rare empathic gift for healing and an aspiring priestess to High Danu.
With each piece added to the puzzle, he sought to understand the strange, unshakeable connection between them. The sense that Sabrina Douglas had been part of his past. Remained important to his future.
“Here we are.” She lifted her head to the cold, salty air. Inhaled with a lung-filling breath. Cast her eyes out across the cove’s narrow beach to the choppy pewter sea beyond, a wistfulness to her features.
He’d been surprised when she’d actually sought him out that morning. Volunteered to lead him to the spot where he’d been found. He’d accepted. Not only hoping a sight of the place might jog his memory. But because it had been a perfect chance to glean more about her in innocent conversation. More difficult to do than he’d imagined, as his every gambit had been met by her clever turn of topic. By the time they’d reached the well-worn path down to the beach, he felt he knew less about this woman than he did when they’d started out.
Purposeful evasion or simply a woman unfamiliar with attention’s center?
She pushed the kerchief back off her head, hair spilling free from its pins in a riot of mahogany curls. “There were awful storms a week ago. Could your ship have foundered? Could you have been washed overboard?”
He clamped down on the sudden desire her unconscious gesture released. “Could have been, but no memory of it comes to me.” He shrugged, unable to look away as she repaired the damage. Pinned her hair and hid it away.
“I have dreams of drowning,” he said. “Water closing over my head. Fighting for air.” Speaking it aloud sent icy panic knifing through him.
“Dreams are sometimes helpful. Any others?”
He hesitated. Ran a hand across his forehead, his gaze turned inward on the stark images burning up through him. “Destruction. Heartbreak. A man’s hatred. A woman’s weeping.”
“And, well, uh . . . sometimes dreams are merely dreams,” she stammered, her distress clear in the tremble of her voice and her horrified expression.
His absorption broken, he knelt, plucking a barnacle-encrusted stave from between two rocks. One of at least half a dozen scattered across the pebbly shoreline. “So I was just one piece of a steady stream of flotsam.” Chucked the rotten wood far out into the water.
“This cove provides a livelihood for the villagers. They search it daily. Broken lumber for their houses and barns. Barrels of cargo lost to storms they can use or sell.”
Lifting her skirts, she stepped out onto a flat shelf of stone, waves lapping against the crumbing edge. “What they find here can sometimes spell the difference between survival or starvation.”
“And the bodies?” His question came sharper than intended as he strove to ignore the wind pressing her skirts close against her legs, outlining long, sleek limbs. The enticing junction between. “What is their fate?”
“We send them on to Annwn with the proper rites and prayers,” she answered simply, bending to catch up a few pebbles. Tossed them one by one into the foam.
“No doubt after they’ve been robbed of anything valuable.” He cast his own long gaze out across the water to billowing sails hull-up on the horizon. “And what of those not willing to part with their possessions?”
A guilty light darkened her eyes. “Desperation can make a savage of any man.”
Shadows blotting out the sun. Angry conversation. Crude laughter. The cold press of a knife slashing his skin. Blood, hot and flowing over his chest. Leaking onto the pebbled beach.
Rage burst against his skull. Flared along his limbs. “Had I strength to resist, they would have murdered me, wouldn’t they?”
She winced, her face going pale. She stumbled, one foot coming down hard in the surf. She righted herself with a muttered oath. Dragged her sopping hem clear of the water before meeting his gaze again, though a frown now marred the brightness of her eyes. “We prevent what violence we can, but sometimes we’re too late.”
Clamping down on the flare of brain-seething emotion, he strode the length of the cove. Pushed aside bare overhanging branches. Splashed the frozen shallows. Scattered feeding terns that scurried out of his way.
He’d remembered. A flare of a moment. But where lurked one memory, others must remain.
The knife. The blood. If his mind didn’t play him false, the scavengers had sought to kill him. He rubbed absently at a spot above his heart. A tingle answering his touch.
Wheeling around, he caught Sabrina’s frightened look before it vanished behind a calm mask.
“So what kept them from murdering me?” he asked, his voice bleak against his tongue.
She chewed the edge of one fingernail. Raked him with an appraising eye, her brows scrunched in thought. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
He watched her. She felt his gaze in a pricking between her shoulder blades. His presence like the churn of heavy air before a storm. She crossed the courtyard on her way from the dormitory to the library. Steps quick as she threaded puddles. Skirts pulled up to keep them from dragging through the mud. Yet she sensed him lurking in the stable’s shadows, pausing only as she passed.
She slanted her gaze in his direction. Coat discarded. Sleeves rolled back, revealing the slash of scarring. Harsh midnight visage like some ancient effigy. The shovel in his hands gripped with grim executioner familiarity.
Anguish. Grief. And heartbreaking loneliness. The surge of his emotions hit her like a series of crushing body blows. And as happened at the seashore, the air seemed to shimmer around Daigh, and in place of his coarse homespun, she could have sworn she caught the glint of armor, the luxury of a fur-lined cloak, and a scabbard hanging low upon his hip.
She blinked, and the image vanished as suddenly as it had come. Only a queer fluttering in her stomach remained, accompanied by a sweep of heat that flushed her skin. Made November’s damp chill resemble sultry June.
He caught her eyes on him. Offered her a nod of acknowledgment.
“Did you only attend to your duties with as much eagerness,” Sister Brigh snipped, passing Sabrina like an agitated crow. All beady eyes and ruffled black skirts.
She cast an embarrassed smile in Daigh’s direction, but he’d resumed his work and did not look her way again.
Still, long after she’d left him, the strange, swooping plunge of her insides troubled her. His haunted stare lingered in her mind’s eye. His desperation wrenched her soul.
She was his last hope. She alone could save him. She knew this as strongly as if someone had etched it upon her heart.
But how? And from what?
The kitchen’s low banked fire cast a warm glow over the stone floor and up the whitewashed walls. Rain pattered against the high windows, and a smell of baking hung sweet and doughy in the air.
Up to her elbows in dishwater, Jane pushed a bedraggled strand of hair from her face with an elbow. “Why do you suppose Kilronan wants you to join him? I would have hardly called him a doting brother.”
Sabrina forked a piece of cold ham onto a plate. Added some boiled potatoes. “He’s not. Or he hasn’t been until now. I place the blame squarely at the feet of that woman he married. She’s probably decided she wants an unpaid companion and thinks I’m the perfect candidate.”
“Would Kilronan allow his only sister to be bullied about by his wife?” Jane asked.
“Would he marry a penniless nob
ody with a murky past and doubtful morals? Had you asked me that last year, I’d have said never. But then here we are, so I can’t say I know what my brother is capable of.”
Some pickles. A roll. Sabrina had missed lunch and dinner today. Sister Ainnir had finally forced her to leave the infirmary to grab a late meal.
“Naught will change in ten minutes, Sabrina,” she’d said as she pushed her out of the ward.
A dollop of mustard. A bit of leftover tart. Sabrina nibbled a corner. Apple. Her favorite. Make that two tarts. She turned her attention back to Jane. “Which is why I refuse to go to Dublin. The next thing I know Aidan will have me locked in a room until I marry some horrid, smelly man with a fortune obtained in the sheep bladder industry.”
“Can’t imagine there’d be much money to be had in sheep’s bladders,” Jane commented, “though I did know a gentleman in Belfast who’d made all his money from kippered herring. Smelled perpetually of dead fish.” She placed the saucepan in the drying rack. Began scrubbing an enormous blackened pot. By the looks of the pile still soaking in the sink, she’d be here all night.
“What did you do that has you chained to the scullery so late? Aren’t there usually more of you to do the washing up?”
Sabrina didn’t envy her friend her duties in the Glenlorgan kitchens even if Sister Evangeline was by far the jolliest of the bandraoi, with a rosy, cherubic face and an enormous round belly. In fact, she bore a marked resemblance to the Prince Regent in a dress. Frightening thought.
“Usually there are more to help,” Jane explained, “but Sister Miriam is sick with a head cold, Prudence is suffering her monthlies, and Charlotte is visiting her sister in Cork who’s just had a baby, so I volunteered. I don’t mind. I like the time alone to think.”
No more needed to be said. Solitude was a precious commodity in Glenlorgan. Sabrina had the quiet hours of night duty in the infirmary. Jane had her after dinner washing-up. One lived here long enough, one learned to carve out a small oasis of quiet. That, or one followed Sister Bertha’s dubious example and went stone deaf. Drastic, but effective.
Lord of Shadows Page 5