Naked but for the plaid wrapped round them, her charges lay tightly entwined in intimate embrace. The maid’s tresses spilled bright across the man’s broad chest, and although she couldn’t tell for sure because of the tartan covering them, it appeared the girl had flung one leg across her slumbering lover.
The man’s arms cradled her, holding her close, and the expression on his sleeping face left no doubt that the girl had finally claimed his heart.
Her own heart tripping wildly, Devorgilla rubbed her hands together. She leaned a bit forward, peering even deeper now, trying to see past them.
She needed to know the rest.
She started chanting again, just a few special words this time, and — lo, her powers still humming — the sleeping couple and their plaid faded away, slowly replaced by tall stone walls, dark and forbidding.
Her little friend sat on a tree stump not far away, his deep russet coat gleaming in a patch of moonlight, his bright yellow eyes fixed on a certain window arch.
The crone’s heart swelled and she cackled her relief, more pleased than was good for her that the little dog fox had found his way safely to the blighted glen.
And she could tell from the direction of his stare that his task would soon be completed.
As if he sensed her, the fox blinked and lifted a paw in greeting. But before she could nod benevolently back at him, a great swirl of dark mist whirled across the water, blotting her view.
“Did I not warn you not to meddle, woman?”
“Gah!” Devorgilla jumped, nearly toppling over the cliff edge.
“Shall I take your fool wits if you do not make use of them?” The familiar voice roared in her ears, deep, rumbling, and thunderous.
And then he was there, glaring at her from the mist-cloud hovering somewhere between her and the sea. He raised an arm to point a bony finger at her, his long white hair and beard lifting on the wind.
“Go back to your pallet!” he scolded, the mist-cloud tingeing darker with his fury. “Seek your sleep before you vex me beyond my patience.”
He wagged his finger, suddenly looking so grudging beneath his angry, down-drawn brows that Devorgilla threw back her own whitened head and cackled.
Then she caught herself and braced her hands on her hips, eyeing him with all the dignity of her kind.
He glowered back at her, his jaw set with equal stubbornness.
“Their trials are nigh at an end.” He put back his shoulders, his chest seeming to swell on the words. “Soon they will know only gladness. Your interfering mischief is not needed.”
Devorgilla hooted again. “Can it be that you cannot suffer a crone casting stronger magic than your own?”
Silence answered her.
The ill limmer and his mist cloud were gone.
But his annoyance lingered, crackling in the air around her, and she pulled her cloak tight and turned to begin the slow trek back across the moors to her bed.
And as she trudged along, she hummed a merry tune she hadn’t recalled in ages.
This e’en, she’d enjoyed her encounter with the he-goat.
She paused to draw her hood up over her head and tie its fastening string. Then she hobbled onward, a persistent little smile twitching her lips.
The fool man had looked rather fine in his bluster.
Rather fine, indeed.
Chapter Eighteen
Have you seen any mist snakes of late?”
Valdar’s deep voice boomed in the candlelit gilt of Dare’s family chapel. Beard jigging and eyes fierce, he stood in front of the richly hung altar, his legs spread in a warlike stance. He held his well-honed Norseman’s axe, Blood Drinker, clutched in his hand, its blade flashing.
