by Amber Scott
“Breanne.” He blinked at her with surprise. “When did you arrive?” He let go of her knees as though they’d not been touched at all.
“But a moment ago. You greeted me, Heremon. Do you not remember?”
He looked past her and tilted his head as though listening to the wind.
“The storm last night,” he said.
“Yes, it has passed already. The sun shines clear with not a single cloud.”
He looked back at her, his forehead wrinkled with trouble. “I’ve promised you a lesson, haven’t I?”
Not again. She nodded patiently. His graying red beard was a tangled unkempt mess and helped distract from the fraying, torn blue cloak he preferred. Distraction seemed his nature of late and still he had managed to become the wisest, oldest Druid priest in all of Ireland, well, leastwise the north of it.
“We are scheduled to review my Grimoire, my most recent attempt to free Finn, and you were to give me five new herbals.” She left out her least favorite, gathering, hoping he’d forget, and refused to feel bad for taking advantage of his daze.
“Yes, yes. We haven’t much time, though.” His voice faded with each word. “We will meet again tonight at the spring. The moon is waxing to fullness. The end of it nears.”
Breanne scowled, not only because he seemed about to cut their lesson short, but because his words weren’t making much sense.
“The end of the moon? Not near at all, Heremon. For if the lunar cycle has a fortnight to wane….”
“What’s this? Are you still here, then? Off with you. We mustn’t tarry.” He shooed her with his hands, standing briskly.
Breanne’s frown deepened. Heremon was truly out of sorts. With last night’s failed experiment and a week since the last lesson, which she was hardly able to sneak away for with of all her mother’s nuptial arrangements, she couldn’t help feeling keenly disappointed.
She stood, ready to argue for at least an hour of his time. She needed it. With all the husband discussion and wedding plans and changing friendships in her life, the one thing that kept her levelheaded was her Ovate training.
Breanne took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Heremon blew out his candles and tossed each into his deerskin bag, dropping one in his haste.
“Heremon, I can see you have important things to attend to and I can’t relay how truly appreciative I am of all your time and wisdom, but I beg of you, please allow me my lesson,” she said, trying to sound at once imploring and firm.
He didn’t reply as he scooped up the fallen candle, shoved it inside and cinched the drawstring.
“At least tell me of the herbals,” she said, her hands wringing, voice trembling. Breanne bit her lip. She was not going to tear up.
Tears would seem weak, desperate even, and though she was weak with desperation, such displays would not build Heremon’s confidence in her. The tolerance of a woman learning anything, let alone studying the old ways, lessened with every passing year and she considered it her duty to never appear unsuitable because of an inability to control her emotions.
Heremon walked past her, his gaze on the mossy ground, head tilted. His mouth moved silently.
“I will write down the herbals and study them for our meeting tonight,” she said to his back, following after him.
He didn’t answer her, didn’t even glance up and acknowledge her. Breanne stopped and let him go. A single tear slid down her cheek and she clenched her hands into little fists.
“That was fast,” Finn said.
Breanne swung around and pinned him with her eyes.
“What?” he said, a licked paw hanging mid-air.
“He left.” She threw her hands up. “Simply rescheduled our lesson, gathered his ceremonials, and walked away as though I wasn’t standing right here in front of him. In all my days and nights, I have never seen a person act so strange. Not a soul.” She threw her hands again, letting them fall hard and heavy against her gown.
“The man is old, Breanne. His mind likely went soft and I assure you he was never quite right,” Finn sounded unconcerned.
She might’ve stamped the grassy dirt, but to what good?
“I feel something terrible may have happened,” Breanne said. “Or will. If you’d seen him, you’d not be sitting there as though you haven’t a care in all the world. You’d be after him and frightened.” Breanne’s voice rose with each word, but the cat wouldn’t stop looking so damned unaffected or take her seriously.
Finn blinked. “You feel?”
“Heremon had a prediction and is now wandering about, talking to himself, as though he didn’t see me or hear me.”
“When will you meet again?”
“He said tonight, but I am not sure he knew what he was saying. I will not be surprised if I come tonight, assuming I am able to sneak away with all the clansmen underfoot, only to find the forest empty.”
“The grove is never empty,” Finn said, his gaze fixed in the air rather than on her, tail swishing arrogantly.
Breanne blew a stray hair from her brow. “You know that I mean--Heremon not present. I canno’ believe he knew what he was saying, not with the way he said it. Had you not wandered, you’d have seen with your own eyes.”
“And I didn’t. Can we return to the keep now? I’m hungry.”
Breanne turned around and eyed the barely discernable path Heremon left by.
“No,” she said.
She jutted her chin upward and trounced after the old sage, telling herself that something was very wrong and he needed her. And if she happened to secure a quick tutorial on the five herbals, secrets that would potentially--finally--unlock her own potential, all the better.
The idea quickened her pulse. Her long formed hope to practice true magick had recently taken on a desperate feel. Instead of sheer excitement over dreams of the magickal and wondrous accomplishments, the threat of an uncertain future loomed like a hungry wolf in a dark corner where light used to shine.
Heremon’s path wove in and around pine and the occasional blessed oak tree, deeper into the forest, toward the coast. Her worry grew as her irritation with Finn dissipated. She wished she’d grabbed the cat. She could have snatched him up and under her arm without a scratch in seconds. If she had, she’d now be happily arguing with him instead of fighting to keep prickling fear at bay.
She’d not taken this path before. She knew where Heremon lived, in theory, knew the lay of the land she’d been born to and explored through to adult years. So there really was no reason to be frightened. And she had her sheathed boline dagger strapped to her thigh as well as the confidence to use it lethally if necessary.
Thinking of the blade and imagining lifting her skirt, retrieving it, and slashing through whomever or whatever happened upon her in the dense foliage, worsened the quiver in her veins. She stopped her careful tracks and palmed the sharp weapon, paying no mind to her fingers’ slight tremble. The action helped a bit, as did a long deeply indrawn breath and prayer to Morrigan.
Continuing after the trail of winding footprints and sunken moss spots that mapped Heremon’s path, Breanne’s fingers traced the carved pattern on the dagger’s handle. The side she felt held a pointy-tailed, horny dragon. A lion adorned the other side, but she needed the dragon, which represented the Otherworld, magick, to her. Mayhap its ever-elusive magick, a protection better than any man, would aid her.
The copse of pines and birch gave way and glimpses of ocean took the place of sky in the gaps between them. Breanne slowed her pace and realized how hard she was breathing. She paused at the edge of trees and caught her breath, scanning the open area for a dwelling. When she found none she stepped further, feeling exposed but alone, and followed the remaining marks Heremon left behind.
“Are you lost?” a whisper said.
Breanne swung about, weapon ready, shards of panic snapping through her. To the left, the right, her eyes shot. Nothing. Nothing more than the trees and grass and sounds of spring humming met her searching gaze.
A deep chuckle carried upward from her ankle and immediately Breanne’s fear changed to anger. “Finn! You scared me, you evil thing.”
A deeper, purring chuckle with no apology. “I couldn’t resist after watching you sneaking along with that ridiculous excuse for protection held like your life depended on it. Truly, Bree, if you’d seen yourself….” His chuckle broke into coughing guffaws.
Breanne could kick him, she really could, if not for the fact that he was stuck as a creature more helpless than she. And if she weren’t so nice a person as she was. Even so, the idea was worth fantasizing, however briefly and unrealistically as she could. Breanne dropped to the ground and wiped her sweaty brow, the boline forgotten.
“I swear I dream of the day that I will no longer be the source of your twisted amusem—.“
“Shh. Did you hear that?” Finn said, suddenly recovered and his ears pricked low.
Breanne frowned, listening. The distant rush and crush of waves below the cliff, the chirp of birds and crickets, leaves rustling behind, no more. Her eyes narrowed on Finn. Paying no mind to her skepticism, he crept forward, nearing the cliff.
Breanne watched and crouched lower herself, unwilling to move and risk the noise of her gown and limbs alerting someone or overbearing whatever the cat’s ears had picked up.
Finn inched closer to the perilously sharp, rocky edge. Breanne breathed shallowly and strained her senses to detect something, anything within the sunny, spring day around her.
He looked back at her then pranced sideways, arching his back. The hair along his spine stood up as he hissed at the cliff’s edge.
Breanne crawled as close to him as she could, without allowing the deathtrap waters to reach her line of sight, on her belly.
“What?” she whispered. “What do you see?” She couldn’t bring herself to look over the sharp edge.
He hissed again and she slammed her head to the ground, heart pumping, and ready to retreat back to the woods fast. She closed her eyes. Something touched her hair. She screamed out the last stitch of air in her lungs and blindly raced back to the woods.
Finn’s chortle of laughter brought her to a stony halt. She should have known. Not bothering to turn back around, she stormed through the brush and returned the way she had come. If she didn’t move fast, she might end up living out that kicking fantasy despite the threat of tumbling over the edge and plummeting into the bleak waters after him.
Although, he would be tumbling first.
Chapter Two
The flames scalded. He could feel them lick over his face, crawl over his skin, sear his very soul. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. They were burning him alive. Through the blue-orange flames Ashlon made out their laughing faces. They were dancing.
A flash of cold wet him, dowsing the flames down. Their faces changed. They saw him. They saw that he still lived and one vicious man came forward. It was Jacques. Jacques was alive.
Ashlon rejoiced, certain his old friend simply had not known what he’d done, who Ashlon was. But Jacques’s smile was twisted, contorted with ugly intention. Ashlon shook his head, trying to speak, but his jaw and lips and tongue failed him. All he could do was plead with Jacques with his eyes to stop this madness.
“Quiet now,” Jacques said and wiped his face with his cold hand. Jacques’s face went blurry as his voice drew nearer. “Don’t struggle. Relax. You’re safe here.”
His friend’s face vanished and in its place, Ashlon looked into the kindest green eyes. Even so, the eyes belonged to a stranger. He should reach for his sword. He couldn’t move, so weak he feared trying to. But those crinkling eyes reassured him along with the brittle voice.
“Rest now.”
Ashlon let the nightmare leave him and his eyelids drooped shut. The continued cool pressing and wiping soothed him like a baby in its mother’s arms. He succumbed to feverish fatigue.
* * * *
“I must say, I thought you’d come straight away, dancing and bubbling with joy this morning, Bree. Did you not see Quinlan just this morning?” Rose McRoarty pedaled the spindle as she spoke.
“Aye, we spoke in the hall, but not regarding anything worth bubbling or dancing, Rose,” Breanne said and kept her gaze on her embroidery.
None of the women around her yet noticed she’d made not a single worthwhile stitch, so preoccupied was she with this morning’s events. Leave it to Rose to unwittingly add to her worries. She’d completely forgotten about Quinlan’s waiting for her, or their awkward exchange, so rapt in thought, planning methods to escape into the night in seven or so hours.
Rose’s delicate red brows arched, probably both in surprise and suspicion. As Breanne’s best friend and single confidante, she knew of the decade long infatuation Breanne had had with Quinlan who was also Rose’s brother. Ten years she’d loved him. In all those ten years since the two had come to live within the keep, orphaned, Rose had patiently listened to her best friend vie and long for her older brother and never interfering on either party’s behalf. No easy feat.
Today, she no doubt knew of Quinlan’s attempt to begin officially courting her, might’ve even suggested what kind of flowers he should gather. And so she had reason to raise those beautiful brows that Breanne now peripherally saw, and silently cursed. Breanne found herself stuck.
“Oh,” Rose said after a moment of consideration.
Breanne could only hope that she’d yet to see and question Quinlan concerning the success or disaster of his morning’s best intentions. Mayhap, she’d be smiled on and he’d not tell Rose at all, give up easily and allow their long friendship (minus her long-standing obsession, of course) to resume as though nothing had gone amiss.
“Did you not see him this morn?” Rose asked.
Dratted persistent thing that she was, Rose would ask for more from one, eventually both, of them, until the whole sordid truth surfaced. Well, not easily, Breanne decided and looked up from her piteous knots to hold her best friend’s gaze as steadily as she possibly could. A steady gaze seemed the best way to convince Rose of the lie about to spit to life.
“Only for a moment,” she said. “Long enough for a quick good morn greeting. He appeared to be in quite a hurry and so I left him and attended to, er, Finn. He desperately needed a bath.” A bath? A BATH? Felines bathe themselves, remember? But she nodded and returned to her embroidery. If she unknotted the last stitches and began again, the small wren might look less like wet horse droppings.
When she looked away, she didn’t miss the pure disbelief flit to life and death in Rose’s cerulean eyes. Breanne didn’t know when the lies had started. Weeks, months mayhap? They weren’t really her fault and in fact protected Rose in the end.
No one could know about her training with Heremon aside from Ula and Niall. The first few years of her study she didn’t have to lie, simply told part truths. She was learning to be a healer. But, when she’d begun acting as a healer and concern from her uncle, the abbot, had risen, secrecy had been decided upon. Strict secrecy.
While most things Druid were incorporated into religion, what she studied was not. By some standards, it could be misconstrued and considered witchcraft, heresy, and devil worship. Breanne made the choice between stopping altogether and absolute concealment to the point of denial easily.
And regarding lies of Quinlan, well, what else could she do? At least that’s what she told herself when pangs of hurt shot through her heart.
The truth about Quinlan seemed more harmful than any lie could be. And how could she begin to explain such a dramatic change of heart to the one woman on the whole of Ireland who loved Quinlan? She wished fervently she could, too, in the way she did the very second before his lips locked onto hers.
But, she didn’t.
She didn’t know what she felt any longer. Breanne didn’t want to call it revulsion, despite it being the closest descriptor to the sick stomach turn his lips and tongue and bulge churned up in her.
“Did he stink so terribly?�
�� Rose asked with a touch of sarcasm.
“Who?” Breanne frowned. “Oh, Finn, you mean. Of course.” Damnation. She was appalling at this. “Yes. He rolled in carcass, I believe. All night, he smelled so foul that I swore I would wash him clean first and foremost that very morning--this very morning.” Thankfully, Finn had yet to return to the keep and her side, so he couldn’t be offended which he’d doubtless seek vengeance for.
Rose laughed deeply, making Breanne feel both relieved to see her friend did not see through her fabrication and guilty by the lies. “I’ll wager that was not simple. Such a big feisty thing, he is.” Her cheeks and eyes were bright with cheer.
“Aye. He is and never more than this morning. I took him by the scruff and lowered him straight in. He kicked and yowled,” she detailed, enjoying the chortles of laughter as well as the attention it drew. Rose could light a dark room with her joy.
“And not a scratch on you. I’ll say you’ve missed your calling, Bree.”
Breanne looked back to her cloth and needle, still smiling. The words rang through her with a painful truth she didn’t want anyone seeing. Had she missed her calling? Heremon’s strange behavior circled back into her thoughts, again consuming them.
Her mother’s gentle hand on her shoulder startled her. “It’s good to see you smiling,” Ula said, not to her but to Rose.
Breanne furrowed her brow. As she began to ask why Rose wouldn’t be smiling, her mother’s expression stopped her. It held a seriousness that unsettled her. She half knew what words were coming.
“Niall and I would like a word before you bathe for the evening meal, Breanne.” Ula stroked and cupped Breanne’s cheek warmly, then walked away as demurely and quietly as she had come.
Breanne wasn’t sure she could withstand any other emotional struggle today, but neither saw a way clear of it. A husband. She dissected the feel and parts of the word, turning it over in her mind.