Books by Maggie Shayne (275 page)

Nathanial had given me thirty minutes. No more time for dawdling. I left my haven, my bedroom, grabbing a cloak on the way. The dark blue velvet one that hung by the door, because it reminded me of that one I’d worn long ago. The one left to me by my mother. I pulled it snug around me as I tapped down the stairs. Swathed in those soft, warm folds, I felt protected. Safe.

But I wasn’t. I was far from safe. And there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I left on foot, by the Coast Road, and I knew Arianna must be watching me. She knew me too well to have believed my lie. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she not follow me. Or that I lose her if she did. I wouldn’t have her jumping between Nathanial’s blade and mine, and dying in my place.

I walked quickly and with purpose, but not so quickly that I didn’t take time to
feel.
The sea wind in my face, tugging at my hair. The tiring sun, already relaxing on the western horizon, warm on my skin, bright in my eyes.

When I’d gone around a bend in the road, I turned sharply left, cutting down the steep cliff’s face. There was one instant when Arianna could have seen me change direction, but only an instant. And I hoped the road’s curve hid me from her sharp eyes for long enough.

Pebbles clattered away beneath my feet, and I slipped, gripped a sharp rock, scraped the skin of my palm, but held on. Digging in with fingers and the toes of my shoes, I managed to keep from falling, and slowly inched my way to where this steep face melded with the path I’d taken so many times. Here, the going eased. When I reached my boat, I took it, hoping Arianna would never think to check. And then, keeping close to shore, I paddled back the way I’d come. Avoiding rocks, bounding on waves as they tumbled toward shore, but unable to go out further, for fear Arianna would spot me from above. I moved past the point where our house stood high above, and in the other direction, until the cliff’s sheer face eased again, shallowed, melted. There I rowed toward shore.

My feet got wet when I stepped out, and a wave rolled in at the same time, but I barely noticed. Too busy looking for a place to hide my craft. I dragged it into some brush, laid some loose branches and weeds over it, and brushed off my hands, satisfied that at least it didn’t leap out and shout my presence to anyone who happened to pass this way. A trained eye would still spot it, but not unless they happened to be looking. And if I’d done everything right, Arianna would have no reason to be looking for me here.

That done, I stood still, ocean at my right, and the woods to my left. The woods where I would meet Nathanial. My hand touched the hilt of my blade, closed around it, and remained there. I glanced out at the whispering trees. They glowed with soft green-yellow auras as the sun sank behind them. Like magick, a brief, luminous magick, that faded away, and the light with it.

And I felt its loss. No light now. Nothing. Just me, and the woods, and the darkness, and out there somewhere, Nathanial Dearborne, and his bloodstained blade.

He didn’t intend to fall asleep. And when he woke, head thick and eyes foggy, he had the oddest sensation that it hadn’t been sleep. Not really. It had been something else. Something foreign, and malignant. Its remnants made him shudder as if something slimy had slipped over his spine. He felt soiled.

He got up, didn’t even remember sitting down, but he apparently had. And then he remembered his conversation with his father, and the reason he hadn’t left when Nathanial had gone upstairs to nap.

He didn’t trust him.

But now, there was more.

There was an old man on a gallows, the rising sun painting his bony face, a light of malicious glee in his pale eyes as his hand caressed the lever. There was a girl more afraid than any he’d ever seen before, and yet so brave she shamed everyone else there. There was a warmth, an intense, magnetic
warmth
that seemed to melt from her eyes into his when she looked up at him.

“
Believe me, mistress, I’d help you if I could
.”

“
‘They’d only kill you as well, did you try.”“

He felt it. Felt
her.
All of her. Her innocence, her power, her allure. Her beauty, not just the way she looked but the beauty inside her. He felt it flowing through him like warm honey, cleansing everything ugly from his soul. Filling every empty spot there was in him.

“
I willna forget you.”“

“
‘If there is memory in death, Duncan, I shall remember you always.”“

He remembered that moment. He’d been wearing loose black robes, and Nathanial had, too. He’d fallen in love with her, with Raven, right then. With that look, that intense moment of feeling, all of it magnified a thousand times by the imminent presence of the Reaper.

And then he heard it again. That sound. The creaking, the slam, the horrible snap of a slender neck when it reached the end of a rope. It sickened Duncan, and his face contorted in remembered anguish as the memory played out in his mind. And then he was there, beneath the gallows. Holding her, his tears wetting her hair. Her body so soft, so small in his arms. Innocence. Utter innocence snuffed out without a thought. And Nathanial…

In his mind he looked up at the man. Nathanial looked back. Smiling.

“God, no…” The words were a rasp, a whisper, as Duncan shook the memories away, blinked the past from his eyes and turned to face the stairs the way Raven had faced those of the gallows. Fists clenched at his sides, he strode up them.

“It’s time, Nathanial,” he muttered as he moved upward. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to call the man “Father.” Not now. “And you’ll tell me the truth. For once in your life, you’ll tell me the truth.”

At the top he turned toward Nathanial’s room, stepped up to its closed door, and gripped the knob, not bothering to knock.

But when he twisted, he felt resistance. “Unlock this door and let me in. We need to talk.
Now.”

There was not so much as a breath in answer. Duncan’s stomach clenched. “Nathanial?”

Nothing.

His heart tripped, and he thought of Raven, and for once, he wasn’t worrying about her hurting his black-hearted
father.
He was worried about Nathanial hurting her. Stepping backward, he slammed his shoulder into the door, then stumbled through when it split and fell beneath the force of the blow.

“You’ll grow stronger than you were before.”
Raven’s voice whispered through his mind. He managed to keep his footing, barely, but the splintered wood on the floor shocked him. He
was
stronger.

He turned, then, toward the bed. It was perfectly made, not a rumple, not a wrinkle. Beyond it the window stood open, its curtains billowing inward like ghosts.

“My God, he’s gone after Raven…”

Duncan raced to the window. Hands braced on its sill, he looked out, but his father was nowhere in sight. Not only that, but the sheer drop, and the distance to the ground loomed huge. No way out but to jump. “Quite a feat for a weak, dying old man, isn’t it?” he asked himself, and then his shoulders sagged. He’d done it, hadn’t he? Given Nathanial the benefit of the doubt in spite of what Raven had said. And now Arianna’s warning rang over and over again in his mind.
It could cost Raven her life.

God, he’d been a fool.

He remembered the gallows. Then the cliffs. He couldn’t lose her again. He
wouldn’t
.

“Duncan! Duncan, are you here?”

He spun around at the sound of Arianna’s voice and called back to her. “Here. I’m coming.” Then he ran down the stairs to greet her.

“Where is he?” She didn’t bother with preamble, and he could see she was breathless, wide-eyed, pale with worry.

“I don’t know. He did something to me, made me sleep, and slipped away. I’m afraid he’s gone after Raven.”

“She had a call a half hour ago,” Arianna said, turning in a slow circle, pushing one hand through her blond locks. “She told me it was you, that you wanted her to meet you somewhere.”

He shook his head. “I didna call her.”

She glanced at him sharply, even as he bit his tongue, but didn’t remark on his speech.

“Nathanial, then,” Arianna said after a moment. “I thought as much. She’s gone to meet him.” Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back. “But I don’t know where. I tried to follow, but she gave me the slip. Damn her for being so protective of those she loves.”

“Why would she go to fight him?” Duncan asked desperately. “I believed her, not him. And she promised she wouldn’t.”

“Oh, don’t kid yourself, Duncan. Nathanial knows exactly how to get Raven to dance to whatever tune he plays. All he had to do was threaten one of us.” She tilted her head. “Probably you, since I was safe at her side when the bastard called.“

Duncan felt a crushing sensation in his chest. “She’d face him down to protect me?”

“She’d die for you, Duncan. Just as you would have for her…
did
for her… once.”

He brushed past her, yanked the door wide. “We have to find her.”

Her hand on his shoulder brought him up short, but he didn’t turn. She spoke to his back. “I don’t think she can beat him. Prepare yourself, Duncan. By the time we get to her… it may be too—”‘

“Don’t even think it.”

I waited, paced, and grew restless. When the sun had descended fully beyond the western horizon to sleep in some distant place far beyond the trees, I shivered. The air cooled all at once, and gooseflesh rose on my arms and the back of my neck.

An owl hooted three times, and I turned my head quickly toward the sound. The people of Old Sanctuary would have said it was an omen, a warning of death. Accurate. There
would
be a death tonight. The only question was, would it be mine? Or Nathanial’s?

A chill worked up my spine, settling right between my shoulder blades, as if someone’s eyes were on me. I looked behind me, but there was only the sea. Waves rolling gently over the stony beach, pausing there like a breath held in anticipation, and then receding in a slow-motion sigh.

Swallowing my fear, I turned to face the forest again. I stiffened my resolve, drew my blade, and walked forward. One step, then another, and another. I reached the edge of the woods and paused there, sensing the presence of my enemy. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was near, and likely had been ever since I’d arrived.

My fingers tightened on the hilt of my blade, and I stepped through the first line of trees and into the darker area beyond. “Where are you?” I called out.

“Waiting,” he answered, and his hoarse voice had little substance. Like the voice of a ghost. He must be weakening. No, it wouldn’t do to underestimate him. Perhaps that was only what he wanted me to think.

I moved forward a few more steps, which took me beyond the clusters of trees on this side and into a small clearing. Pines towered all around me, a circle made by nature. Standing in a half crouch on a carpet of grass, I moved my fingers on the hilt and scanned the shadows that loomed amid the trees.

I didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him. Instead,
I felt
him; the crushing impact of his aged body when he hurled himself at me from behind. The red-hot trail his blade left as it arched across my back.

I hit the ground hard, face first, but rolled fast and sprang to my feet again. He’d knocked the wind out of me, taken me by surprise, and sliced my flesh. I pulsed with pain, felt the blood dampening my blouse, soaking through it, to stain the cloak.

Facing him, I reached to the ties at my neck and pulled, then tossed the cloak aside. “You had the advantage, Nathanial,” I told him, careful to keep the pain from my voice. “And wasted it.”

“Too eager to see my enemy bleed, I suppose.”

“No more than I am.” I lunged and swept my dagger’s tip across his soft belly, drawing away just as quickly and avoiding his return thrust. We battled, fought, nicked and cut each other, but neither scored a killing blow.

We circled each other, both of us breathless, then lunged again, slashing and stabbing in a tangle of blades and limbs and then drawing back again.

I was tiring, panting.

He danced forward, I danced back, into the thickest cluster of trees. Then I focused on the pines. Their scent, the stringy, sticky bark, the needles that whispered their secrets all around me with every breath of a breeze that passed through them. In effect, I vanished. Melded with the pine trees and, in silence, thought of Trees Speaking and all he’d taught me.

When Nathanial pursued me, he slowed, stilled. His eyes darting this way and that as he searched for me. Then narrowing as he understood.

“You’re very good,” he whispered. Then thrust his dagger into the trunk of the tree nearest him.
“Very
good. But you can’t keep your focus long. I’ll find you, Raven.”

Not long, he was right. But long enough.

My feet are roots, sinking deep into the rich, black earth
.

I curled my toes. I wouldn’t move. Not yet. To move would break the enchantment. I’d wait until he turned his back to me. It would give me the advantage I needed if I hoped to survive.

My body is still and strong, and my skin is like bark. The blood in my veins is pine sap, sticky and smelling of the very spirit of Earth herself.

Nathanial came closer, jabbed another tree.

My arms are limbs. Each nerve ending a fine needle, quivering, sighing on the breeze.

I could feel my heart pounding, hear it in my ears as Nathanial came still nearer, stabbing his blade into first one trunk and then another, until he reached the one right beside me. So loud, that beat in my chest. So strong with fear as I stood motionless, praying he wouldn’t hear it.
It’s the pulse of life through my trunk. It’s the thrum of the spirit in me.
I told myself anything to keep the image alive, the image I projected, the only thing between Nathanial’s blade and my heart right now.

He came closer, lifted his blade, tilted its tip up and spasmodically clenched his fist on the hilt.

Just as he thrust it at me, I let the image dissolve and dodged to the side. He missed me cleanly, but stood grinning at me all the same. “You can’t outwit me, Raven,” he said. “Never that. I’m too old, too clever to be fooled by your tricks.”

I couldn’t even argue it. “So I see. Then I suppose my only hope is to outfight you.”

“We both know you cannot.”

“We’ll see.” I lurched, swinging my blade, and when he dodged the blow, I leaped and kicked him hard in the belly. A loud grunt gusted from him as he doubled over. By the time he got his breath and straightened again, I was racing through the trees, taking an uphill course. If I could tire the old man, I might stand a chance of beating him. Maybe. If he were as desperate for a heart as he’d claimed, he should be weak. He should lack stamina.

He’d shown no signs of it so far, though. And if he’d lied…

I wouldn’t think of that now.

He gave chase. I knew when I paused for a breath and heard him crashing through the pines, branches snapping, needles raining to the ground in his wake like minuscule raindrops, whispering down.

Higher, then. And I ran on.

And then the trees parted before me, opening all at once onto a sheer drop to the sea. Planting my feet, I nearly overbalanced. My arms whirled backward twice, then I went still, blinking at the vista spread out below my feet. Endless space, and below it, jagged rocks winking and blinking up at me as the waves covered and uncovered them. White froth.

“Oh, now, this
is
amusing.”

I turned slowly, faced Nathanial. He stood in a powerful crouch, and if his face was flushed, it was with excitement, not exhaustion. His eyes gleamed. He wasn’t tired. If anything he was thriving on this battle. “You made a grave mistake, didn’t you, Raven?”

Grimly I knew Arianna had been right. I didn’t have the skills to beat him. I’d never beaten him. And if I fought him now, he would kill me. And then perhaps he’d kill Duncan.

But if I didn’t…

He’d promised he would go after Duncan anyway.

I couldn’t die here. I had to survive, even if it meant running from this fight. At least that way I would be alive to warn Duncan, to protect him, or try to. Goddess, I should have listened to Arianna in the first place. She’d
told
me I couldn’t beat him.

I looked to the left, to the right. In the distance I saw two forms coming toward me. Far below, they moved along a path leading up to these cliffs. And as I stared down at them, focused my vision, I saw the woman’s soft blond hair riffling in the breeze, and then the dark locks of the man beside her. Arianna… and Duncan. As if sensing my eyes on them, they both looked up. Duncan pointed, and I saw his lips move. It was likely he called my name, though he was too far away for me to hear him. Then the two ran. They’d be here soon.

I met Nathanial’s eyes again. Cold.

“Yes,” he said, having seen my thoughts in my eyes. “But by the time they arrive, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be gone. And know this as you die, Raven. I will take Duncan’s heart, too, once you’re out of the way. Your friend can’t protect him forever.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. He was lying. I saw it there clearly. He wouldn’t take Duncan’s heart unless he had to. And he wouldn’t even attempt it while Arianna was nearby. He feared her.

But there was no time to work this out in my mind any further, because he leaped at me. His blade drove directly at my midsection, and though I moved to block the thrust, I moved too late. Hot steel sank deep into my belly. Burning pain, terrible pain. I cried out, but all that emerged was a gurgling sound and a mouthful of blood.

He jerked the blade out again. Then he reached for me. And I knew he would hold me and carve into my chest, rip out my heart, end it all now. I took a single step backward as he reached for me. And there was nothing there. Air. I fell into its breath. In silence I plummeted. No sound at all. Not until the impact.

Duncan ran. His lungs worked in a way he’d never felt them work before. Efficiently. Powerfully. The beat of his heart seemed like an engine. Unstoppable, strong. His legs pushed his body to speeds greater than he could have reached before. But he didn’t marvel at these changes. Only noted them and felt grateful, because it meant he could reach Raven faster.

He could still see her, facing his father—or the man he’d called his father—on the cliffs. Nathanial moved closer, until Raven seemed trapped.

“We’re not going to make it in time,” Duncan rasped.

“We have to.” Arianna’s voice was a monotone of utter determination.

Then Nathanial drove forward, and Raven went stiff. Duncan could see her eyes widen, see her lips move, and the scarlet that bubbled from them. She looked down, then toward him. And Nathanial jerked his blade from her belly.

“No!” Duncan screamed with a voice that rolled like thunder, like the words of the gods themselves; his command broke the silent pause on that cliff. “Dammit, Nathanial, leave her alone!”

But it was as if no one heard. Nathanial reached out. Raven stepped back and into oblivion. She didn’t even cry out. Just fell.
Just fell.
He could hear her clothes snapping like flags in the wind, see her hair fluttering. He screamed her name in anguish. His head felt as if it were exploding, splitting, when her body hit the rocks below. A shock went through him. Pain, horror, devastation…

And memory. The clear, vivid memory of all of this happening before.

His heart filled with long-repressed emotions, unbearable emotions he realized had been there all along. Condensed, perhaps, and bottled up somewhere. But the bottle had shattered and the feelings swelled until he didn’t think he could contain them. And then he was running, clambering, half climbing, half falling, sending a shower of rocks down the cliffs before him, hearing their plunking sounds as they hit the water. Sliding, skinning his hands and chin and every other part of him, tearing his clothes, he made his way to the bottom.

And then he paused on the shore and searched the unforgiving waves for her.

There.

She lay faceup, half submerged. Her head and one shoulder and arm were sprawled on a sloped rock. The rest of her body submerged, broken, as the waves tugged at it, so steadily and greedily that she’d be swept out to sea soon.

He moved as if entranced. Sloshing into the water, walking out deeper, deeper, then swimming. He’d kicked free of his shoes at some point. He wasn’t certain when. But he reached that rock and pulled himself up onto its slick surface. And then he gathered her broken body into his arms.

Limp. So limp, so shattered. A porcelain doll smashed and tossed aside.

“No,” he whispered. “No, not now. God, Raven, not now.”

Her hair, long, dripping with seawater that streamed over her face and shoulders. He gently smoothed it, stroked her face with his hand as his tears came. Burning hot, like acid on his cheeks, they flowed. They fell, and mingled with the water on her lips.

He clung tighter, pulling her full against him, rocking her slowly and weeping without control, without shame. So tightly, he held her body pressed to his, her lifeless head heavy on his shoulder. The enormity of it crushed down on him all at once. To have loved her this much, this damn much, so much it was every part of him, every cell, every breath, his soul, his life… all his lives… How could he not have known? How could he not have
felt
this? And now, now when he finally
did
feel it, and know it and recognize it for what it was, and remember it… she was gone. She was gone. Oh, God, she was gone!

He kissed her face, her hair, as sobs rose up and tore at his chest, threatening to split him in two. Now he understood how she’d felt all those years ago, when she’d held his lifeless, broken body on these rocks. Now he understood what she’d faced… all those years alone. God, they stretched out before him like a desert, where every grain of sand was a shard of glass, and which he had to cross barefoot without a sip of water.

“I willna,” he whispered. “I canna do it, Raven. I dinna know how you did, but I canna. I canna go on without you, lass.”

She had, though. Her strength must be an awesome thing, to enable her to survive with this kind of pain. Three hundred years. Three centuries, she’d dealt with it.

“An’ when you found me again, what did I do? God, Raven, what did I do to you? I trusted
him,
believed
him.“”
He let her head fall backward, staring down at her face, so pale and still and lovely. “How that must have hurt you. How could I hurt you like that? You… you, Raven, my soul, my heart. How many times will I lose you this way? How many times?”

Still. So still. So dead. He closed his eyes and held her, loving her with everything in him, and another memory came to him. He was standing there, holding her in his arms for the first time. Beneath a gallows as he sawed at the filthy rope with a pilfered blade. And held her, and cried for the woman he didn’t even know.

But he had. He’d known her then, somehow. Some way. His soul had recognized hers. His heart had known hers, and he’d loved her. He’d loved her from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.

“I told you I wasna the man you remembered, Raven. But I am. I’m Duncan Wallace, an’ I was born in 1675 in the land of the Scots, the land of my father an‘ his before him. I’m the man who loved you all those lifetimes ago, an“ I love you still, Raven St. James. I love you still.”