“Yes. No.” He left his hands cupping Sophia’s leg, letting its weight and solidity, the heat of life and the firm muscle of an active woman, be a reminder to him. She was still here; she was still well; the wound would heal. “The shades I fought were more human. They used weapons. Mostly. But enough of their nature came through even there. And it was cold.”
“One of them stabbed you, yes?” Sophia asked. “You mentioned that, I believe, and your shoulder—”
“Aye. Had it been only a man and a knife, I’d have been back in battle in two days, mayhap a week.” He rolled his shoulder back and forth, remembering. “And it was cold, the knife. Not like winter. Like…deep places, or darkness.”
Without words, he stopped.
“Darkness, yes,” said Sophia. She looked away for a moment, and a shiver passed through her body. “There wasn’t much life to them, nor to anything else in that dream.”
In the pause between words, slightly too long, and the way her hands now clasped each other, Cathal saw the effort her calm words took, and the work behind each smile. He wished he’d had the right to put an arm around her, or even to take her hands in his. Even without the right, he wished Alice weren’t watching, so that he might have done it regardless.
He didn’t. She was. The world turned on facts, not desire.
Facts, then, were where he turned, continuing the story. “Two of my men did touch the shades. Skin to skin. There comes a time for fists even in battle, more than once in a while. Baithin’s fist looked as your leg does, after. Tralin’s neck was worse. Darker.”
“Did it heal?” Alice asked.
“In time. He’ll bear the scar the rest of his days.” He looked down at Sophia’s leg again, sternly locking away any reaction he might have had as a man, ignoring the shapely outline and the golden-brown color and peering with an attempt at detachment at the wound the shade had left. “I said it wasn’t like winter, their cold, but the marks it leaves are.”
“I’ve heard of that a little,” said Sophia, leaning forward to investigate, “though I’ve never seen it before…but then, I never would have. Even London was warmer than here.”
“By some measure. This’ll be unpleasant. I’m sorry,” said Cathal, and he brushed a thumb over the red-and-purple skin. Muscles tensed beneath his hand, and Sophia hissed. “That’s good,” he said, “even if you don’t believe me.”
“No,” said Sophia, visibly making herself relax. “I do. I’ve read, you know, that if it hurts, that means I can still feel, yes? That the…injury…isn’t too deep?”
“Aye. It hadn’t looked that bad, but it’s best to be sure.”
“I had boots on, in the dream,” she said, her face taking on the look of contemplation that Cathal was coming to know well. “It’s a strange thing to think that what I was wearing in the dream could have spared me pain in the waking world.”
“These things were in the dream, and theycausedyou pain in the waking world,” Alice pointed out.
“Oh, yes. But they weren’t human, and I had assumed that. But then, not all my injuries came from them, did they?” Sophia turned her injured palm upward, her eyes lighting up in a way that Cathal would never have thought to see on anyone contemplating scratches on her own body. “So the question is, is it not, whether the shades were only parts of the dream, or different beings in it, as I was? And why the dream could hurt me, and where it came from.”
“Valerius. I’ve no proof, no,” Cathal said when Sophia started to object. “But who else would want to, who could manage it?”
“That’s certainly most likely. I’d suppose that my first attempt to cure Fergus established a connection between the two of us. The shades are another strong argument in that direction, unless they’re more common than I think.” She gave him a small smile. “I’ve an idea who my enemy is. Isn’t that the first step in winning a war?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Cathal released her leg and stood up. “He doesn’t have to be your enemy,” he said. His heart ached with every word he spoke and with each one he knew would follow, ached with regret for Fergus and thwarted vengeance, but Sophia had struck her bargain without knowing she’d be making herself a target thereby. Honor, even his battered version of it, demanded he rethink the terms now. “You can go home. I’ll give you the scales. You’ve done all I could ask of you.”
Color flooded Sophia’s face. “By God, sir…” A look between him and Alice, and she bit her lip, though she still stared up at him with blazing eyes. “I know you mean it kindly, but do you think I’d leave a man with his soul in the grasp of…of thatcreature? Especially after what I’ve seen? I may not go to war, but I try to have courage, and honor too, and if I have skills that can save a life or a spirit, I know my duty is to use them. What would I be if I turned and ran now?”
“Alive,” said Cathal. He wanted to kiss her again, to pull her close and know that bold spirit more fully. He wanted to shake her and tell her to be sensible and leave now. As with comfort, he had no right to do either, and he couldn’t deny her argument.
“Yes, but for what kind of life?”
“Not necessarily even that,” Alice put in, her own voice dry and detached. “Though it’s a good piece of oratory, Sophia, very inspirational. But if this wizard has a tie to you, why would he find it harder to come at your mind in France than he would here?”
“The sea might be a barrier,” Cathal said.
For that piece of speculation, he received an interested look from Sophia and a flat one from Alice. “But it might not,” she said, “and then we’d be well away from anyone who knows the man or his methods.Nota good idea. We’d also have to find our way down out of the mountains, and the roads are still half frozen.”
“I could carry you both. Easily.”
“Wonderful. Then, assuming we didn’t fall off a mile in the air, we’d just have to find a ship that could take us across the channel and hope it didn’t sink. Or you could take us personally and leave everyone here undefended and leaderless for a few days.” Alice shook her head. “Anything could be fatal. I hate to say it, but so far, all Valerius has done is give her bad dreams and a few minor injuries. If that doesn’t get worse, it’s better than risking travel, and if it does, we don’t want to be on the road when it happens.”
“And it doesn’t matter, regardless,” Sophia said, and then added more gently, “unless you want to go, Alice. You can.”
“No, nor do I want to. Everything you said applies to me, you know…unless you mean to suggest I can’t be of any help.” Alice made a face at Sophia, affectionate and determined at the same time. “And this place is still more interesting than home.”
