There could be no denying it.
A dark-cloaked figure standing outside Dare’s walls gave a great, gusty sigh, well pleased he’d lingered long enough to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
It hadn’t been easy for one of his years to work a spell powerful enough to send not only feasting goods but an entire, brimming bathing tub sailing out a tower window.
The task had cost him greatly.
But he’d managed, and his immense satisfaction even stirred the midnight boughs of Glen Dare’s dark pines and silent alders. The proud hills, so loved by Clan MacRuari, pretended not to hear, turning disapproving ears to the gloating wind.
And in the empty trough of the moon-washed glen, the late-night waters of the burn swirled and frothed, roiling with a cold deeper and more biting than the ancients e’er intended.
Ancients so old, their names had long been lost.
Save a venerable, persistent few.
Hewas one such, and he stepped out of the cloaking mist now, drawing as near to Castle Dare’s walls as was prudent. He hadn’t reached his sage and hoary age by being foolish. His earlier feat had taxed him, the powerful jolt of Maldred’s saining spells still strong after so many centuries.
More debilitating than he or any of his followers would have believed, the pain sat deep in his bones, slowing his gait and dulling his senses.
Tiring eyes already red and burning from exertion.
Not that it mattered.
The buffoons and drolls who called Dare their own would soon pay for their vices. Naught but soot and ash would be left to them, their sojourn with the treasure of others ended by their own unwitting hand.
The figure almost smiled.
At long last the MacRuaris possessed a prize they’d fight to keep.
The old man, because his heart was soft. And the younger, their only true threat, because he desired the girl.
If that one lost his heart as well, the possibilities for leverage were endless.
He need only bide his time.
This time the figure did smile.
Reveling in it, he lifted a bony long-fingered hand and adjusted the cowl of his robes. The night was chill and wet, the racing wind not good for one of his indeterminate years. And despite his many powers, he’d yet to master a spell against the elements.
Though that, too, would soon be possible.
As would . . . anything.
Once the Raven Stone was his again.
For the now, he angled his head to peer through the gloom until his gaze found the dark bulk of Dare’s tower. As arrogant as the race, it soared high above the castle’s machicolated walls. Mist — in great part, his mist — curled around its impassive stones while the craftily narrow windows were shuttered and black against the night.
All, that was, but one.
It, too, was tightly closed, but faint yellow light gleamed through the shutter slats.
Focusing on those narrow slivers of soft, flickering light, the figure felt his heart begin to thud with anticipation. He breathed deep, his sharp sense of smell letting him catch a whiff of attar of roses even here.
That, and the stronger musk of man.
Clearly, they were still together.
More than pleased by the implication, the figure didn’t even blink when a wind gust snatched his hood from his fingers and blew his long, white-maned hair across his face, the whipping strands stinging his eyes.
