Arran ignored the question. Carrying Jenna up the steps, he yelled over his shoulder, “Fetch the healer! And send my mother and Ingrid to Jenna’s room immediately!”
Not waiting to see if he was obeyed, he shouldered the doors open, hurried across the entrance hall, and then took the steps two at a time. At the top, he ran along the corridor of the guest wing and kicked open the door to Jenna’s room.
Ingrid looked up from where she was fluffing the pillows on the bed. “Oh, my lord!” she cried, putting a hand to her chest. “Ye startled me—” She cut off as she spotted Jenna, her eyes going wide. “My lady! What happened?”
Arran laid Jenna on the bed, then tucked her under the blankets, pulling them tightly around her.
“Get a fire going and bring extra blankets,” he snapped at Ingrid. “She’s freezing!”
Ingrid jumped to obey and in only moments he heard the snap and hiss of flames behind him. He dragged a chair over to Jenna’s bedside and sat, pressing a hand against her forehead. It was still icy cold.
Ingrid hurried over, bearing extra blankets she had taken from achest, and threw them over Jenna. The girl’s face was almost as pale as Jenna’s.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
Arran shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor outside and then his mother burst in accompanied by Martha, one of the keep’s healers. She was a no-nonsense matronly woman with dark hair tied in a plaited coil at the back of her head who had tended to Arran’s scrapes and broken bones ever since he was a boy. He was still a little afraid of her even now.
Martha took one look at Jenna laid out in the bed and snapped, “Everyone, get out of the way! Let me see my patient.”
Arran left Jenna’s side reluctantly, moving to stand beside his mother. Rosaline had an anxious expression on her face, and she was chewing on her bottom lip.
“What happened?” she asked in a low, worried voice.
“I don’t know,” Arran replied with a shake of his head. “She just… collapsed.”
His stomach roiled with anxiety as he watched Martha inspect Jenna. The healer pressed her fingers against Jenna’s pulse points, hissing at the icy touch of her skin, peeled back her eyelids to look into her eyes, gently probed Jenna’s head with her fingertips, and pried Jenna’s mouth open to look at her tongue. Next she peeled back the blankets and ran her hands down Jenna’s arms and legs before gently feeling her abdomen and then lastly pressing her ear against Jenna’s chest to listen to her heart.
Finally, she pulled the blankets back and straightened. “There’s nothing wrong with her as far as I can tell,” she pronounced, turning to Arran. “No signs of injury or disease. Whatever has caused this malady is something internal, something beyond my ken.”
“That’s it?” Arran snapped. “That’s all ye can say? Why willnae she wake? What can be done to help her?”
Martha met Arran’s furious gaze with a stern one of her own. “She is a MacFinnan spellweaver,” she said softly. “And she touches powers far beyond yer ken or mine. There is something of that going on inside her, and neither ye nor I can do anything about it. She will either wake or she willnae. Keep her warm. That’s all we can do.”
She squeezed Arran on the shoulder.She will either wake or she willnae. The words cut through him like daggers.
“Leave me,” he said into the sudden, heavy silence.
“My son, Jenna must not be left alone. Perhaps I should—” began Rosaline.
Arran spun on the three women. “I said leave!Iwill stay with her.”
Martha looked as though she was about to argue, but perhaps sensing the storm within Arran, she wisely did not. “Come get me immediately if there is any change.”
Arran nodded tightly and watched as they left the room. When the door closed behind them, he lowered himself into the chair by the bed and leaned forward, brushing a stray strand of hair out of Jenna’s face. She looked peaceful, like she was only sleeping, but for the ice that had gathered in her lashes.
He wrapped his fingers around hers, ignoring the icy touch of her flesh. Her hand felt small and delicate in his big, ungainly paw.
“Come back, lass,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”
Chapter Eight
Jenna stood backfrom the bed while the medical staff rushed, shouting instructions and counting the beat while the doctor performed CPR.
And all the while there was the long, continuous beep of the heart monitor, and everything that meant.
But the doctors still worked, refusing to give up, even though Jenna knew it was pointless. Couldn’t they see that her mother was gone? Couldn’t they see that the spark that gave her life had fled?
