“A Highlander ne’er betrays his own,” Ronan panted, sickened by the sight of his own steel plunged deep into a kinsman’s breast.
He stared at his erstwhile friend, some detached part of his mind wondering why a shoulder cut bloomed so fatally red around the guardsman’s waist.
And then Sorley toppled face-first onto the rushes and he saw.
Gelis’ s — nae, Hector’ s —sgian dubhraged hilt-deep from the guardsman’s back.
The boy stood at the edge of the throng, staring round-eyed at the little blade’s horn handle.
“He j-jumped onto it,” he spluttered, shaking his head. “I was only holding it and h-he leaped backward and then whirled round. I didn’t mean —”
“To be sure, and you didn’t.”
Gelis.
Her face pale, but her eyes shining, she was suddenly at the lad’s side. She pulled him against her, stroking his hair and crooning. Shielding his eyes as Ronan did what he must, flipping his kinsman onto his back and then bracing his foot against the dead man’s chest to free his blade.
He tossed the sword aside and dropped to his knees, reaching to shut Sorley’s eyes, but before he could Gelis cried out and slumped to the rushes.
Ronan jumped back up, scooping her into his arms and clutching her against him, but she fell anyway, twirling and tumbling through icy darkness.
Down and down she fell, the loud buzzing in her ears blending with her scream and the distant sound of a man calling her name.
Then — as before — she slammed to a halt, this time landing on something hard and cold.
Stone, or tight-packed earth, it cradled rather than hurt her. But the darkness was suffocating. Impenetrable and cloying, it swirled around her like a great black shroud, pressing ever closer until she was sure her lungs would burst from lack of air.
Gelis.
The man called her name again, his voice deep and much louder now.
Then suddenly the blackness lightened and receded a bit, but she still found herself in a small, cramped place, airless and cold.
She shivered and drew up her knees, chilled by the spinning gray mist and the surety that this was a place forsaken and damned. Sculpted of stone and silent as the ages, its emptiness reached for her, clinging tight and grasping, as if she was its sole salvation.
Thenhewas there.
Kneeling as he’d been just before her fall, though — as before — his gold neck torque was missing, and his well-loved features seemed just a bit different — not quite those she knew so well, yet still achingly familiar.
The streaming raven hair was the same, thick, glossy, and skimming his shoulders, just as his eyes blazed with an inner heat, though she knew instinctively that the passion burning there was not for her.
This man wasn’t the Raven.
And his needs, though passionate, were . . . others.
A burning desire that went deeper than this world, calling to her from a great, great distance even though he knelt on bended knee before her, his outstretched arms so close she could have grasped his hands.
If she could have moved her own.
But she could only stare, her heart thumping wildly, and the icy gray mist holding her firmly in place, not letting her move or even cry out.
Heloomed closer then, kneeling directly before her, so close she could smell the cold, damp must of ancient earth and stone that clung to him.
Again, she shivered, his chill sweeping her, seeping deep into her bones.
His stare pierced her, seeming to search her soul as a large stone appeared in his hands. Gray, round, and absolutely ordinary, it nevertheless managed to glow and pulse, its heat singeing her.
“I beg you . . .” His voice rang in her ears.
