When the Holder only shrugged again, he flexed his jaw and struggled against clenching his hands. A horrible suspicion was beginning to unravel in his mind and he didn’t want it to take shape.
Dungal Tarnach cleared his throat. “This man is weary of living as you do,” he said, voicing Ronan’s dread. “He is one who hopes to turn the minds of your other men once you are no more.”
“Bah!” Ronan slashed the air with his hand. “The others would string him up on the nearest gibbet.”
“Perhaps.” The Holder fingered his beard, considering. “But he might meet with success, convincing them that without you, Dare’s darkness can be lifted.”
Ronan snorted.
Dungal Tarnach stepped closer, gripping Ronan’s arm. “He has sought to treat with us — the Holders — vowing to throw open your gates and let us search Dare for the Raven Stone. In return, he asks that we help him eliminate any of your men who might resist him. Once that is done —”
“He means to live off our riches and expects you to take your Raven Stone and vanish from our bounds,” Ronan finished for him, sure that was the way of it.
Not surprisingly, the Holder nodded.
And although he’d been so certain, the confirmation chilled Ronan’s blood.
He paced away, then swung around before he’d gone three paces. “You haven’t told me his name. Who is he?”
“I cannot speak his name.” Dungal Tarnach lifted his hands, showing his palms. “Letting it touch my tongue would diminish my own power. I — and all my kind — have suffered enough each time we speak of your thieving forebear. I will not foul my breath on this man.
“But” — he raised an arm, pointing across the clearing — “I will show him to you.”
Ronan followed the Holder’s outstretched arm, his heart slamming against his ribs when he saw his foe standing at the edge of the narrow track to the jetty.
Encircled by a flickering bluish glow, he stared right back at Ronan, his eyes blank and unseeing.
His identity was unmistakable.
“Christ God!” Ronan cried, staring.
And then the image vanished, leaving only the glimmering blue haze against the trees.
When that, too, faded, Ronan whirled around to face the Holder.
“I canna believe it!” He ran a hand through his hair, vaguely noting that his fingers shook. “No’ him. I’d have trusted him with my life — and have!”
“Men are turned by many things.” The Holder looked down at the well again, his shoulders seeming to dip a bit. “Greed and wealth, always. Love and hate can be powerful motivators. Or, as with your ill-famed forebear, simply a raging thirst for power.”
“I still canna believe it,” Ronan repeated, shaking his head.
His stomach roiled and he felt sick inside, as if he’d been walking along a cliff edge and someone he trusted had just strode up to him and kicked him over the edge.
He started pacing again, then froze, a new thought stopping him in his tracks.
“Why did you tell me this?” He shot a glance at the Holder. “Would it not have served you better to keep silent?”
Dungal Tarnach was still peering down at the Blue Well. When he finally looked up, he sighed.
“Nae, it wouldn’t have served me to keep this from you,” he said, his voice sounding old, tired. “Nor would it have done us any good to have agreed to your man’s terms — though he knows nothing yet of our refusal.”
“Say you?”
The Holder nodded. “We deemed it wise to bide for time, telling him we’d give him our answer on the next full of the moon.”
“You wished to warn me first?” Ronan spoke the obvious.
Again, the Holder inclined his head.
