by Sasha Lord
If she didn’t try to escape now, she would be dead by tomorrow morning.
Taking care to move quietly, she placed the key in the lock and opened it with a loud click. She froze, her heart beating madly, certain that Robert would hear her, but his steps continued unabated. Sighing with relief, she pushed the door open a crack and slipped out.
A satchel lay conspicuously near to the door, presumably filled with bread and cheese for tomorrow’s final meal. She hesitated only briefly before taking it and slinging it over her shoulder.
Triu-cair scurried around the corner and leapt upon her shoulder. He pointed his nose toward Robert’s horse tethered to a tree. It was a fine-boned gelding with a wise brow, clearly built for endurance. A full bedroll and set of travel bags hung off the saddle and the bridle was already placed upon his head.
Kassandra glanced at the dark castle rising high in the moonlight behind her. A lifetime was ending. To leave now would be to admit she had been wrong. Her dreams . . . Cadedryn . . . all were over.
To her left, she saw a tall pile of logs, her funeral pyre. Soon the moon would sink and the sun would rise. Then they would come for her.
She looked up at Cadedryn’s window, her heart splintering into thousands of tiny fragments. Despite everything, she still loved him.
We must go.
She nodded, hearing Robert turn on his heel and commence his pacing back toward her. She took a deep breath, then raced on light feet toward the gelding. He welcomed her with a soft nicker, which Kassandra quickly muffled. After tying up her skirts, she gripped the cantle and swung up on his back. She reined him around and took one last look at Cadedryn’s window. For a brief second she hesitated. Her heart skipped a beat.
Then she set the gelding cantering down the hill away from Aberdour Castle.
Kassandra galloped through the valley, then to the top of the far hillside. At the peak, she spun to face the castle. Anger warred with her pain. Her heart felt heavy and sluggish, as if her blood no longer wanted to beat through her veins. Without Cadedryn, life held no joy. Each day stretched before her full of sadness and despair.
She dashed a tear from her cheek. She must not wallow in self-pity. He had betrayed her. She had stayed true, protecting him even at the risk of her own life, but he had failed her. She would find her own way to the coast. She knew east from west and would journey using the stars and moon. If she kept off the roads and traveled only by night, she could find her way without any assistance.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck rose as she became aware of a rider coming across the double moat. Not so soon! How could they have already discovered her escape? She should have had until morning!
She spun her gelding around and kicked his sides, sending him racing across the moor. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see the horse and rider turn toward the village, but instead, they headed toward her and began galloping hard. She gasped in terror, stunned at the horse and rider’s intense burst of speed.
“Run!” she shouted to her gelding as she pushed him to greater effort. She was a fearless competitor who rarely lost a race. This time, she could not lose. Leaning across her gelding’s neck, she bent into the wind, her brilliant hair tangling with the horse’s mane and tears of anger blinding her vision. Why chase her? Why not let her go back from whence she had come?
Triu-cair clung to her clothes as the threesome swept through the grasses and headed toward the shelter of the forest. “Run!” she cried again, as she heard the other horse gaining upon them. “We can lose them in the trees!”
They thundered down the valley, the gelding losing the race stride for stride. Kassandra pummeled his sides and flung her hands high upon his neck, giving him every bit of encouragement, but the other horse surged past them, then angled abruptly, cutting them off.
The gelding skidded to a stop, tossing his head in the air and whinnying. His tail swished and he pinned his ears flat against his head, then reared, striking with his front hooves. The other horse sprang upward, rising on his hind legs and crashing his powerful chest into the gelding’s shoulder, forcing the gelding back onto his four legs and blocking his ability to run toward the forest.
Kassandra screamed, hauling on the gelding’s reins, intent upon running him in the other direction, but her pursuer reached across and ripped the reins from her hands.
“Cease!” he shouted. “You will kill us both!”
Kassandra’s head snapped up and she glared at the man. “Cadedryn! Why do you pursue me? Do you hate me so much?”
“No, I—”
She kicked his shin, then leapt from her horse and started running on foot toward the trees.
“Kassandra!” Cadedryn shouted as he jumped from his stallion and gave chase. “Stop for one moment!”
Tears streamed down her face as she ran. “I hate you,” she cried, stumbling briefly before regaining her stride. “You betrayed me.”
He ran after her. “Let me explain—”
She spun around and reached for a rock, flinging it at his head. “I want no explanations!” she wailed.
“You did not defend me. You are a spineless, ambition-driven bastard who crumbles under the first test of our love. I hate you!”
He ducked the rock and warily approached her, his hands outstretched. “I love you,” he replied softly. “I never abandoned you.”
“Yes, you did! In the great hall, you let them take me without so much as a word in my defense. You stood in court and denounced everything about me!”
“They threatened to kill you, Kassandra. Speaking aloud would only have sealed your fate more firmly, and I knew that if we did not expose Morgana and David’s plot, we would never be free of their malevolence.”
“You believed the awful things they said about me.”
He took another step closer, pleading with her to listen. “Never. I never would believe that your heart was anything but pure.”
Kassandra wiped away her tears, her eyes narrowed in doubt. “In the church, in front of the bishop, you branded me a witch. You told him about my dreams.”
“I had to. I had to make Morgana and David think that they had won so their defenses would be down and they would admit to their deeds. It was not sufficient that I believe you; I needed the bishop to know that you were innocent. And now David and Morgana have admitted their guilt. Both lie dead, David by my hand, Morgana by her own.”
Kassandra crumpled to the ground, burying her head in her hands. “You want me gone so you can wed Corine.”
He kneeled next to her, gathering her in his embrace. “No. Corine is going to marry Curtis. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“I am not who you want,” Kassandra cried, trying to push his arms away. “You want some highborn woman with mild manners and . . . and who knows how to embroider!”
“I want you,” he answered, holding her firmly. “I want someone who can ride across the moor in the starlight. A woman who is as beautiful across a campfire as she is across an elegant table. I want someone who loves me so deeply that she dreams about me. I want you, Kassandra.”
She stared into his eyes as Cadedryn remained on one knee in front of her. “I know it has been a long night and you have been sorely tested, but I ask you, do you still dream of me?”
Kassandra hesitated. She stared at his face bathed in moonlight. Triu-cair’s warm body pressed against her legs, but he offered her no words of wisdom. It was her choice. She had completed her duty. Cadedryn was safe. She was safe. She could go home and try to forget everything.
But Cadedryn knew not only the color of her hair, but also the truth about her life. There were no more secrets between them, no more plots swirling this way and that. She could ride away and return to the safety of her forest, or she could stay with him, in this land that didn’t always make sense to her.
And she could love him. She smiled.
He smiled back.
“You are my dream. We are meant to be together,” she
murmured, touching his cheek.
“Then you will stay with me? You will marry me?”
“What of your title?”
“I wrote to the king when we first arrived and just recently received word back. He has already agreed to our marriage. He is pleased that I support the union of Curtis McCafferty and Corine Fergus and have formed an unbreakable alliance with both of them. For now, the Highlands are secure. But even if it were not true and the king had refused my petition, I would still marry you.”
“And risk losing your title?”
“You are far more important to me.”
She kneeled with him and brushed her lips across his. “For the second time, yes,” she whispered. “I will marry you.”
Epilogue
A thin strand of fog snaked through the trees and encircled his feet, then spread along the ground in an ever-thickening blanket. His heart began to race as he recognized the fog of his dreams. Kassandra had led him here. She had reached across the boundaries of sleep to find him, just as he now hungered to find her.
He blinked, not sure what to do. “Kassandra?” he asked hesitantly. He sensed a vibration coming from the trees, but as he tried to walk forward, the mist tickled his calves, holding him back. He struggled to keep his footing, suddenly aware that she was toying with him.
He gripped a tree branch and peered through the mist. He felt her. He knew she watched him.
You cannot come here. Strangers are forbidden.
“I am not a stranger,” he called out. “I am . . .” He paused as his brows drew together and he fell to his knees in confusion. “What am I?” he questioned the forest. “Am I a laird? Am I a swordsman? An earl?” He stroked the trunk of a tree in a sensual caress. “A lover?”
Who are you? Who do you want to be?
“I am Dagda, and I have come to claim my Danu.” He rose and stepped boldly into the forest, striding through the thick mist and pushing aside the heavy branches until he beheld her smiling face.
He gathered her in his arms as his heart raced and blood rushed through his body. “It’s you,” he whispered. “I found you! You knew all along, but I had to learn.”
“Why have you come?” Kassandra questioned as she clung to his wide shoulders.
He held her in front of him and looked at her with his deep green eyes. “Because I love you.”
She stared at him as the dream mist wrapped them in a loving embrace. She touched his face, her fingers trembling with longing. “I want you . . .”
“We are meant to be together. You know that deep in your soul. You have dreamed it and now I have dreamed it. Let me love you, now and forever.”
“I cannot leave my forest. You cannot leave your castle.”
“I will come to your forest in my dreams if you live with me in my castle while we are awake. You complete my kingdom. You are my countess. We must love each other. My father knew the truth. He saw the way. He loved my mother and found happiness within her arms. I once thought he was the fool, but now I know he showed me the path. You are my heart. I love you. I want to be with you.”
“I love you. I have always loved you. We are soul mates, bound together by ties that transcend time and place.”
Cadedryn looked up at the weasel perched upon a tree branch, grinning down at them. Cadedryn nodded, then beheld the red-haired babe held within Kassandra’s arms. He pulled them both close, and buried his face in Kassandra’s flame-colored tresses.
The mist swept around them, carrying them deep into the dream world. Although their sleeping bodies lay resting in the master bedchamber of Aberdour, their souls floated free. The moon shone through the window, calm and serene, but within their mutual dream, the stars flickered like thousands of dancing fire faeries.
Danu and Dagda. Mother earth and her battle king.
Kassandra and Cadedryn, the Earl and Countess of Aberdour.