“I don’t want to leave you.” Ember’s voice was thick, whether with desire or regret Alistair couldn’t tell. “But I must return to my chamber and ready for travel. We leave at dawn.”
Alistair rose and kissed Ember once more. “Of course. We will speak more of this when you return.”
Ember nodded and lifted his hand to her lips. “I am unworthy of your steadfast love.”
After she’d kissed his palm, Ember stole from the room. Alistair stood quietly. He could still taste her, smell her. Alistair wanted to hold on to this night forever.
“Well done, Lord Hart.”
Where Alistair would have sworn only shadows had been, Bosque stood.
“How long have you been here?” Alistair stared at the tall man.
“I am often here when I am not needed elsewhere.” Bosque smiled at him. “You must be very pleased, having won your prize.”
Alistair risked speaking in anger, realizing that Bosque had witnessed the entirety of his meeting with Ember. “You should have made yourself known. These were private moments.”
Still smiling, Bosque shook his head. “It is unwise to keep secrets from me, Alistair. Our aims are so intertwined.”
When Alistair didn’t reply, Bosque said, “Will you truly begrudge my interest in your happiness?”
The initial shock of Bosque’s appearance fading, Alistair quelled his objections. “I would be grateful if you didn’t make a habit of spying on me.”
“I wasn’t hiding from you,” Bosque answered. “You were the one too occupied with his own thoughts to notice I was in the room.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Alistair said drily.
“It is,” Bosque replied. “I am glad for your new arrangement with Lady Morrow. Upon her return, you must discover what you can about this journey she makes to the Mackenzie stronghold.”
“Does it concern you?” Alistair asked. “A single word from you would have prevented their trip.”
“To stop them is not my desire,” Bosque told him. “I’ve often reaped greater rewards by assisting my adversaries instead of hindering them. The closer they are to their goal, the more likely they’ll reveal their intentions.”
Alistair glanced at the door, his happiness compromised by the implications of Bosque’s words. “You think Ember is your adversary?”
“No,” Bosque answered. “I’m not certain what your Lady Morrow is to me yet. My concern is with another woman.”
“Cian?” Alistair went rigid. “My lord, I know Cian has been reluctant to embrace you, but she is Lady Eira’s own blood.”
“That is why she may be a threat,” Bosque said. “Cian holds Eira back, encourages her to question me. She seeks to impede our work.”
“Are you certain Cian wishes to undermine you?” Alistair asked. “She has a cautious spirit. I doubt her hesitation regarding the changes in Conatus are anything more than a reflection of that trait.”
“I hope you’re right,” Bosque answered. “Learn what you can from Ember.”
“Your will, Lord Mar.” Alistair inclined his head, starting toward the door.
“Before you seek your bed—”
Alistair turned, wondering if Bosque ever slept. “Yes?”
Bosque walked toward the rift, gazing at it with what appeared to be longing. “It’s good that you have what you want, but I spoke in truth when I said I haven’t yet discerned what Ember’s place will be among us. Don’t let your heart run ahead of your instincts.”
THAT THE CHILD HAD TO die made Alistair uneasy, but he understood the necessity of it. He’d been relieved that Hamish had taken it upon himself to select the boy out of the six children, two girls and four boys all between one and three years of age, that had been stolen from the village. Alistair didn’t know that he would have had the stomach for it. At least the toddler’s death had been as kind as it could be. After the boy had been lulled to sleep by one of the cleric’s tonics, Hamish had smothered the slumbering child.
Though the day’s work was hardly pleasant, Alistair was grateful for it. The import of this task kept his mind from wandering to the previous night and his rancor over having finally won Ember’s love only to have her ride away from him for several days.
While Alistair watched, Hamish set about draining all the blood from the boy’s corpse. The young wolf beside Alistair sniffed the air, licking its muzzle at the scent of fresh blood.
“That’s not for you.” Alistair crouched beside the wolf, and it turned to lick his cheeks, making Alistair laugh.
Lord Mar stood near the sarcophagus, opposite Hamish.
“Will it hurt the wolf?” Alistair asked Bosque.
“The change will be confusing and no doubt unpleasant,” Bosque answered. “But if Hamish is successful, no harm will come to the beast.”
Alistair frowned, looking into the juvenile wolf’s golden eyes. He held out his arm so the wolf could chew at the thick leather gauntlet Alistair wore. This wolf had five brothers and sisters. If Hamish failed, the work would continue. But Alistair had grown deeply attached to the cubs—all of which had grown from yipping balls of fur into gangly pups. He would mourn the loss of any of them.
Watching Alistair with the wolf, Bosque said, “Don’t fear for your children, Alistair. Hamish will not fail. Will you, Hamish?”
Hamish grunted in reply, swapping a bowl brimming with blood for an empty one.
Knight and cleric had gone together seeking Bosque’s advice. Alistair’s work with the wolf cubs couldn’t have been more edifying. That Bosque had described them as Alistair’s children uncannily echoed the feelings that Alistair harbored for the wolves. He spent each day with them. He fed them, played with them, let them huddle around him when they tired of their wrestling and drifted to sleep.
Hamish’s endeavors offered an opposite result. Despite his tireless studies and innovations with the trials, Hamish could not manifest a viable form of Alistair’s vision. With each new attempt came new failures. Alistair and Hamish consulted, found fresh inspirations, and strove to complete their work again. And again they failed.
When Alistair decided Hamish teetered on the edge of madness because of his frustrations, the knight brought Hamish to Lord Mar. Bosque accompanied them to the catacombs to observe their work.
“I see the problem,” Bosque told them within minutes of examining Hamish’s notes and the outcomes of his trials.
“You do?” Hamish tugged at his ruddy, gray-streaked hair. From the look of it, Hamish hadn’t picked up a comb in weeks.
Nodding, Bosque said, “Two bodies cannot exist in same space. Each will struggle against the other for dominance until they are both destroyed. That’s what’s happened here.”
A strangling whine poured out of Hamish’s throat. “Then we attempt all in vain. Why did you not tell us that Alistair’s creation has always been an impossibility?”
“Because it is not,” Bosque told him. “You’re simply viewing the world in too limited a way.”
Since Hamish’s eyes were bulging dangerously at the suggestion that his thinking was limited, Alistair quickly said, “What do you mean, Lord Mar?”
“You’ve been trying to force wolf and man into a single being in this world,” Bosque answered. “When your very ability to manifest this creature requires the aid of two worlds.”
“But we have your blood,” Hamish spluttered.
“You’re not using it correctly.”
Alistair put his hand on Hamish’s shoulder, restraining a further outburst.
“You only think of my blood for its value in letting the beasts restore their health,” Bosque continued. “But you forget the other purpose it serves.”
“The gate,” Alistair said quietly.
Bosque smiled at him. “Of course. Consider the blood oath that all who follow Eira must take. Blood binds us together, strengthens the channel that flows between my world and yours.”
Hamish’s white-faced disbelief began to wane as fascina
tion overtook him. “Bodies between worlds?”
“Yes.” Bosque picked up a piece of parchment, gazing at the monstrous images Hamish had drawn. “The wolf in one, the man in the other.”
“How can a creature be thus divided?” Hamish asked, a fever burning in his eyes. He grasped a blank parchment and quill. “Would it not be driven mad to exist in two planes?”
“Only the body is divided,” Bosque answered. “Mind and spirit are always present in the body that lives in the active plane.”
“The active plane?” Alistair frowned.
“The worlds where men and beasts are born, live, and die,” Bosque explained. “Where we carve our wills into the fabric of existence.”
Setting Hamish’s bizarre sketches aside, Bosque said, “Your wolves will be created to serve you here, in this world. But the body that waits, a hollow vessel until filled with mind and spirit once again, must bide its time in an empty plane.”
“Such places exist?” Hamish scribbled notes as Bosque spoke.
“Lord Hart has visited one such place several times.”
“I have?” Alistair looked at Bosque in surprise.
Bosque laughed. “When you rode the shadow steed or traveled in the mist alongside me. The space between, which speeds the journey, is an empty plane. And that is the place you must invoke to bring your vision to life.”
Hamish dropped his quill as his fingers trembled. “Can I accomplish this task?”
“I would not have sent you to Lord Hart had I any doubt that you could. The premise isn’t difficult,” Bosque told Hamish. “In the magics you’ve practiced, you could take from the earth but only if you gave in return. Now you will take what you need but keep it.”
His bushy eyebrows hunching together, Hamish said, “Forgive me, my lord. I do not understand.”
“How did you weave your portals?” Bosque asked. “Recite the principles to me.”
“The old magic of Conatus was based in the elements of earth,” Hamish answered, regret creeping into his words. “The doors could be woven by pulling various threads of those elements together, honoring the connections that bind the whole world together, like the roots of a single great tree.”
Alistair ground his teeth as an unwanted memory of the sacred cedar flashed into his mind. The tree had been a living symbol of that magic before it had been altered to serve Bosque.
“To complete your work, you will again be pulling threads,” Bosque told Hamish. “But instead of using threads from the earth, you will unravel the threads of life. You will take the essence of a creature’s being and bind it to the body of another.”
“Bind the wolf to the man?” Hamish spoke in awe. “But the bodies remain separate.”
Bosque nodded, smiling in approval at the cleric. “The receiving vessel must be empty—the spirit gone and the blood drained. The wolf lives, its essence possessing the body.”
“Why the blood?” Alistair asked.
“Blood binds, as I’ve already said,” Bosque answered. “The emptied body will have to be infused with my blood to gain entry to the empty plane.”
Turning his gaze on Hamish, Bosque asked, “Do you understand?”
Hamish nodded eagerly.
“Then let us see to it.” Bosque led them from the room that reeked of death to the main chamber of the catacombs.
Now they stood around the sarcophagus, waiting for the child’s body to give up the last of its blood.
“There,” Hamish said, setting a third brimming bowl to the side. Taking a long, hollowed needle that was thin as a hair at its point and wide as a man’s hand at its base, Hamish pierced the center of the boy’s chest with its tip. With careful taps he hammered the slender spike into the child’s heart. Keeping the needle in place with one hand, Hamish set a funnel over the base and looked at Bosque.
Holding his hand over the funnel, Bosque used a dagger to open a deep gash in his palm. His blood welled, dripping into the funnel. Bosque allowed his blood to run freely for about a minute before he closed his hand.
“That will be enough,” he told them, looking at Alistair. “Now the wolf.”
Alistair nodded, though his jaw was clenched. He moved around the sarcophagus to stand beside Hamish; the wolf followed.
Going to one knee beside the young wolf, Alistair said in a firm voice, “Be still.”
The wolf watched him, ears perked up in curiosity. Alistair reached around the wolf, looping his arms around its back and chest. The wolf’s tail began to wag in anticipation of a wrestling match.
Alistair looked at Hamish and nodded. The cleric’s motions were somewhat familiar, like the dance that wove a door, but altered. Hamish moved more slowly than a weaving cleric would. His arms swept through the air in deliberate motions, as if he were gathering objects invisible to the rest of them.
Clasped in Alistair’s arms, the wolf growled and then began to whine. Steeling himself, Alistair tightened his hold on the beast as it began to struggle. Its whining became more urgent. Alistair made soothing sounds, hoping to calm the wolf. He knew it didn’t help that his pulse was flying, which the wolf could surely feel.
The wolf stopped squirming but continued to whine, the sound of its distress growing softer, but more plaintive. Alistair bent his head, thinking that if he laid his cheek against the wolf’s shoulders, it might soothe the beast. But as he did so, the animal in his arms began to glow. The wolf’s gray fur glimmered, becoming molten silver.
“Let the beast go,” Hamish said, sweat pouring down his face. “The wolf must take possession of the empty body that awaits it.”
Alistair released the cub, and it rose into the air. Where fur, flesh, and bone had been now was a creature of pure light, as if the moon had given birth to a wolf. While Hamish filled the air with a steady stream of chanting, the wolf cub floated away from Alistair to hover over the sarcophagus. It began to descend, and when its gleaming paws met with the dead child’s cold skin, the wolf vanished.
Hamish dropped his hands and bent over, coughing and gasping for breath. Alistair leapt up and went to the sarcophagus. The child’s eyes widened before it opened its mouth and began to wail in fear. Alistair gave a low cry when he noticed the boy’s golden irises. The boy turned at the sound, his frightened gaze finding Alistair standing beside him.
Holding his breath, Alistair stretched his arms out to the crying child. Without hesitation, the boy crawled into his embrace.
PERCHED AT THE JUNCTION of Loch Duich and Loch Aish, the Mackenzie castle called Eilean Donan kept watch over land and sea. Cian, Father Michael, and Ember rode in silence, their mounts’ hooves clopping on the stone bridge that joined the mainland to the castle’s small isle.
The journey from Tearmunn amounted to less than a half day’s ride, but for Ember the trip wore on and on. While the horse she rode upon was a sensible palfrey with a smooth gait, Ember missed Caber’s lively spirit. Her companions traveled in silence, not deigning to speak of their errand to the western lord’s castle nor of any other matters that burdened Ember’s thoughts.
At several points on the road, Ember had looked at Father Michael with the intention of telling him about Alistair’s proposal, seeking his advice as to how she should proceed. But Ember found that she struggled to bring any words from her throat. She didn’t question the result of her meeting with Alistair in the great hall the night before, but speaking the words aloud made them real in a way Ember wasn’t prepared to face. She had played upon Alistair’s affections and earned the result she desired, but now Ember wasn’t sure she knew what that would mean.
Mackenzie’s stable hands awaited the riders inside the castle gate. When they had dismounted, one of Mackenzie’s warriors escorted them to Eilean Donan’s main hall. The somber gray stone of the keep enclosed corridors lined with dark wood, giving the castle an air of solemnity.
The hall into which they were led would have been dwarfed by Tearmunn’s great hall, yet the room was filled to bursting with people. Ember saw
quickly that not only were a handful of clan chiefs in attendance, but they had also brought large contingents of their warriors. Searching the crowd for her father, Ember couldn’t find him or Lord Mackenzie. But among the clansmen, three figures stood out to her, all wearing dress that identified them as hailing from the kingdoms of the east.
Two of them were men, each wearing a steel helm with a spike at the crown of the head and a train of chain mail that covered his neck and shoulders. Their long, colorful robes offered only glimpses of the plate mail gauntlets and greaves beneath. Their female companion wore a flowing gray gown that fit more loosely than the European fashion. Her hair, neck, and shoulders were covered by a pale blue headscarf.
Beside Ember, Cian murmured, “They have come. I dared not hope it was true.”
“Who are they?” Ember asked.
“The men are Mamluks,” Cian answered. “The woman is a cleric; they secreted her to us at great risk to themselves.”
“We aren’t here to meet my father, are we?” Ember asked.
“Your father is here, and we will discuss Agnes with him,” Cian told her. “But that meeting provided the excuse for our real reasons to journey here.”
Father Michael had already pushed his way through the crowd to greet the strangers. The priest and the woman embraced, and Father Michael beckoned to Cian and Ember.
“Lady Ember Morrow and Lady Cian.” Father Michael presented the two women. “Please meet Lord Kurjii and Lord Tamur, of the Krak des Chevaliers Guard, and their most revered cleric, Lady Rebekah.”
Kurjii and Tamur offered crisp bows. The knights reminded Ember of falcons, with their clear, sharp eyes and the talonlike sabers belted at their waists. The sight of the wicked, curving blades, so like Barrow’s sword, made Ember’s chest pinch. Rebekah’s hair was dark brown shot through with threads of silver, her face deeply lined, and Ember guessed she was only a few years younger than Father Michael.
Ember curtsied, and Cian returned their bow.
“It’s an honor,” Cian said to Kurjii and Tamur. “Your reputations in the field proceed you.”
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