Mystic Warrior (17 page)

Those were distant memories, old pains from childhood, bitterness from adolescence. He'd grown cocky and arrogant once he realized he didn't need Dylys to have what he wanted. By then he'd learned that, despite his handicap, he was stronger than everyone else he knew.

And then he'd killed Luther, and in her grief and fury, Dylys had done her best to divest him of his strengths. He'd been banished from paradise and left to survive on his own. No one—not his friends, not Lis,
no one
—had come after him to hear his side of the story, to share his anguish. Not that explaining would have changed what he had done.

Time had not healed his emotional wounds, but the futility of war had eventually stripped him of much of his arrogance. Last night . . . miraculously, he'd almost been his old powerful self, only . . . better. Not a lot better, but just enough to make him crave that kind of accuracy and control again. If there was any hope that he could learn to direct the power as he had not been able to before his banishment . . .

He still wouldn't . . . couldn't . . . return to an entire island of people who despised him. He heard Lissandra moving about and contemplated lying here, waiting to see if she'd touch him again, but that was the arrogant ass thinking. Or his reproductive organs.

Just the memory of their kiss last night had him rising up on his elbow. He searched for a glimpse of her through the stripes of morning light shining through the drafty walls of the shed.

She was already dressed—in a garment that wasn't quite what he recalled. He rubbed his temple and tried to gather his scattered wits. He distinctly remembered her wearing the loose white tunic gown of Aelynn last night. And she'd packed a less-than-stylish gray gown, the kind that required corsets and petticoats and lengths of muslin or lace to fill the bodice.

What she wore now seemed to combine the two in some unfathomable manner that flattered her high breasts and slender figure. He recognized the gray fabric from the French gown, but unlike the earlier version, it displayed the sway of her hips beneath the cloth, and he had to rub his breeches to push his unruly organ out of sight.

“How did you do that?” he mumbled, rising into a sitting position. Amazingly, although his shoulder still ached, last night's headache had dissipated. He could remember spending days of his childhood curled up in agony after a particularly difficult feat. His Healing abilities had never extended to his head.

Startled, Lis stopped whatever infernal puttering she was about and turned to stare at him. “Do what?”

He gestured vaguely at her gown. “Create a gown from nothing.”

She glanced down at the high bodice snugly outlining the shape of her breasts and shrugged. “This is similar to gowns that Chantal wears. I thought it might be more comfortable than that bulky mass of fabric, while being less distinctive than my tunic.”

Murdoch snorted. “You will have men crawling on their hands and knees with their tongues dragging the ground should you walk about in that. It's little more than underwear.”

He thought he caught her startled reaction before she dismissed his comment with the imperial authority she wielded so well.

“I've created a wrap to go over my shoulders. I don't think it's any more revealing than Chantal's gowns.”

He wanted to tell her that Ian's wife wore gowns from Paris, a completely different world from the villages through which they traveled, but he didn't wish to dilute her pleasure in her accomplishment.

“Do you have any idea where we're going?” He changed the subject rather than argue. He would cover her with a cloak when men were about and enjoy the view when they weren't.

He was waiting to hear her say they were returning to Aelynn, as she'd said earlier. His sudden impossible longing for home caught him by surprise.

“England, I think, to join Trystan in Ian's home.”

Disappointment swamped him, even though he had known he would have to argue over any other answer. If there were gods, they laughed at him. England was where he had lost track of the sacred Chalice of Plenty—the chalice that was both his punishment and a lure of power.

Ian and Lis believed that returning the holy relic to Aelynn would restore the island to its rightful order. Murdoch had spent years chasing the chalice, alienating his friends, nearly destroying an entire village, hoping the relic would save the larger world, or at least France, but in the end, he'd lost all awareness of its existence, as if the gods had decided he was unworthy to possess it.

Did Lis know that? Ian would surely have told her.

“Trystan isn't likely to welcome me,” he warned. He had no friends left. Not since he'd killed her father, at least.

He'd killed her father.
The memory stabbed him with the agony of a knife. His overexertion yesterday must have breached a wall he'd shut between himself and Aelynn. Or opened one between him and Lis. His grief and loss were almost palpable, even after all these years. Luther had been arrogant and obstinate, but a good man, in his own way. He'd been the only father Murdoch had ever known.

His sadness and guilt had been tempered by anger for so long that with the shield of resentment gone he was left stripped and more vulnerable than he liked. But hiding his pain from the world was second nature to him now. He stared blandly back at her.

“Trystan was once your friend,” she said, watching his reaction with caution. “He will take us in if I ask him to. I know you almost destroyed Mariel's home and Trystan's ship with Greek fire when you thought they'd misappropriated the chalice, but I don't think Ian or his wife have any reason to turn you away, and it's their home.”

“You believe in the bluebird of happiness, don't you? The valiant Trystan would never stoop to
misappropriating
the chalice. I believed it had come for me, and I wanted it back.”

Leaving her to mull that over, Murdoch gathered up the shirt he'd left on her bed last night, and walked out of the shed and down the hill to where he sensed there was a stream. The unsettling emotions pouring through the newly opened barrier in his mind needed to be walled off again before they crippled him.

He washed, but the shirt he carried was too bloody to bear. The sun was hot enough that the linen should dry rapidly, so he wet the cloth in the spring and beat it against some rocks.

When he returned to the cowshed, stripped to the waist, Lissandra was waiting there with a clean muslin shirt that wasn't his own. She handed it to him, then gathered up the horse's harness, preparing to leave.

Startled by the offering, he didn't know how to react. “Sit down,” he ordered, glowering at her. “You haven't had a bite to eat. I'm capable of catching rabbits and even cooking them.”

Only after reestablishing his authority did he examine the shirt she'd given him. She'd obviously created it from the acres of fabric in the muslin petticoat she'd cut apart. Her generosity was overwhelming in the face of his surliness. “How did you make these garments so swiftly?”

“You use swords. I use needles. I've found mending more useful.” Unmoved by his snappish manner, Lis waited for him to try on the shirt.

He slipped the soft fabric over his head and admired the way it fit the breadth of his shoulders and gave his sword arm ease of movement. The intimacy of her gift disturbed him in a manner he didn't know how to handle.

“Very useful,” he agreed, smoothing the muslin over his chest, not ready to meet her eyes. “I can't remember the last time someone made something just for me.” That wasn't a lie. Even the villagers had given him hand-me-downs.

“I made a shirt for you once before, but you left before I could give it to you.” She abruptly broke off the dead branch of a shrub, apparently for firewood, since she threw it on a bare spot of earth.

Left—
which time? When he'd sailed off to make his fortune, or when Dylys had mentally stripped him of his powers and banished him? He suspected the first. Lis had been too furious with him on the second occasion.

He couldn't hide what he was from her any longer. He'd killed her father, and still she'd come after him. Even after he'd revealed his weakness last night, she believed in him. If the only way he could have her was to be the Oracle she thought she needed, he had nothing to lose in trying.

Taking a deep breath, he offered up his soul. “Can you Heal me?”

Lissandra knew she'd planted the notion that she could cure him. She should be ashamed of herself, but Murdoch, the all-powerful warrior, looked so amazingly earnest and concerned. . . . Her pulse raced faster at his courage in asking. She simply stood there and admired the vulnerable man waiting for her answer.

A hank of his long mink brown hair hung damply across his sun-bronzed forehead, emphasizing his razor-sharp cheekbones and unshaven jaw. He'd pulled the rest of his hair into a knot at his nape so it fell down the back of the shirt she'd sewn for him. The flimsy fabric revealed his muscular strength.

She'd always seen Murdoch LeDroit as invincible, the hero of all her dreams, the powerful man who would rescue her from herself. By admitting that he was flawed, he became more . . .
real
. . . somehow. And more self-assured than any man she knew.

But no matter how brave he was, Murdoch was still wounded in so many ways she didn't dare count them. She could tend his visible injuries, but she feared she didn't possess the knowledge to heal his mind or his spirit.

“I am not my mother,” she replied softly. “I cannot act as judge in place of the gods or wish you dead for what you have done. My duty is to Heal.”

Murdoch's long lashes swept briefly downward as if he gave prayers of thanks, then lifted to reveal the startling indigo of his eyes. Against his dark coloring, the luminous effect was astonishing. She'd never before seen his eyes reflect the color of Aelynn's clear blue harbor. Usually, they resembled the sky on a stormy midnight.

“It seems the gods have tried to kill me and thus far, I have defeated them,” he said. “Perhaps you will be more successful in Healing than killing me.” A familiar insou ciant grin crossed his face, returning him to the youth he'd once been.

“I'm thinking your arrogance would prevent you from realizing you were dead if you didn't wish to be,” she countered. “But if there is some means of helping you control your unpredictable energies and their after-effects, then I must try. Still, you must know my Healing is often Empathic. If I'm to help, I must
feel
what you're feeling. You cannot block me out.”

“You don't really want to know what I'm feeling right now,” he boasted with a lustful leer that she knew was sheer mischief. When Murdoch really wanted her, he didn't waste time with leers.

“Then you'd better work on feeling things that I
do
want to know about,” she retorted. She returned to gathering wood. “If you are going to hunt rabbits, you might wish to remove your clean shirt.”

He chuckled. Sardonic Murdoch actually
chuckled
. She must be hearing things.

When he returned later with his catch, he was back to the brisk, efficient warrior who revealed nothing of his inner turmoil. That she knew he was in turmoil spoke only of their long-standing familiarity and little of his willingness to share his thoughts.

They ate silently and quickly in the early-morning fog. When it came time to harness the horse, Murdoch took over the duty, leaving her to remove all evidence of their campsite.

“How is your head?” she asked, standing beside the cart.

“I'll live. We need to be on the road. I don't know if our mysterious Aelynner will bring others in pursuit, and I'd rather not find out.” Holding the reins, he waited impatiently.

She climbed up on the seat beside him. “You used strengths last night that I didn't know you possessed. I can't tell if that was the cause of your headache or not.”

“Define
strengths
,” he demanded curtly, guiding the horse down the overgrown path.

“You have always been an expert swordsman and capable of defeating anyone in all physical exercises, but you have never been focused enough to direct lightning or wind against a specific target. Last night, you matched a Weathermaker's ability.”

He snorted in dismissal. “Calling down lightning on Aelynn is a worthless skill, and in this world, it would have me burned for witchcraft. I see no point in crippling myself by practicing it.”

She raised her eyes to the heavens for patience. “The gods gave you gifts for a good reason. Unfortunately, your idea of a good reason seems to be saving the Other World instead of Aelynn.”

“Which is why I cannot go home.”

“Precisely.” She ignored his taciturnity. “You seem to believe everyone ought to think like you, and they don't. It has always annoyed you, and I cannot see that that has changed.”

“Because they are wrong, and I am right,” he said with his usual confidence.

She mentally swatted him.

He ducked as if the blow were physical, then shot her an aggrieved glare. “Why did you do that?”

“I'm thinking I ought to let my spirit guide out more often,” she grumbled. “All my life I have listened to others tell me what is right and how to think. I'm tired of it.”

He shook the reins. “Keep the damnable creature under control while you practice independence. I don't need another headache. Explain why you are really here if I'm so unsuitable for your precious island.”

There was the crux of the problem she'd been avoiding. “I'd hoped for a miracle,” she grumbled. “But I see that I was asking for too much.”