Bridei cuffed him in the head in annoyance. “What? What is so funny?”
Domech could only shake his head and gesture towards the two disheveled woman, so Bridei ignored him. He sighed as he turned back to Lair. What on earth had possessed her to poison Nessa?
“Lair, you will be sent to Dánada for three moons. I will spare your life, but you still must be punished. Poison is not to be lightly used, and certainly never for petty revenge.”
Lair’s eyes opened wide with horror. “But I only used a tiny bit. Just enough to make her sick for a while! I wasn’t going tokillher!”
“Youwere about to kill the horse thief yourself!” Sten argued, stepping out of the crowd. “You will pay for this injustice, Bridei! A King that favors a stranger over his own people, overmydaughter, is no King at all!”
“You know the laws governing the use of poisons. They have been in place for nearly a century; long before my time. The laws apply even toyourdaughter.”
“But the laws don’t apply to a horse thief?”
Bridei ignored him. “Namet.”
And just like that, Lair was taken away in tears. With a backward glare, Sten followed.
“Do you have to send her away?” Nessa asked, biting her lip but releasing it at the sting of a cut from Lair’s punch. “I think she just really likes you. She probably didn’t actually mean to kill me.”
Bridei looked incredulous. “She poisoned you! Gods, I will never understand women.”
He looked over at Domech, who was still snorting in an effort not to laugh. “Shut up!Whatis wrong with you?”
Nessa noticed with a sudden shock that they were standing within sight of the doorway to the well. It was the first time since the day she’d arrived that she’d been so close. Her heart started beating faster as she looked around, taking in every detail of her surroundings. Everyone was distracted, arguing one side or another, and no one was really paying any attention to her. If she ran as fast as she could, she might just make it before they caught up to her. Her thoughts raced as a surge of adrenaline hit her bloodstream. She would be leaving Angus behind…but what if hewasdead? There was nothing she could do. She might stay here forever and never find him. But on the other side, there was Gram, and Nathan. If there was even the slightest possibility she could get back to them…if the door to her time was still open somehow…
This was the chance she had been waiting for. She couldn’t let herself think about it. With one last look at the still arguing crowd, she turned and ran for all she was worth. Within seconds, she heard shouts and the pounding of footsteps behind her. She didn’t have long. She stretched her legs, moving faster than she ever had in her life. She reached the doorway to the well and skidded down the damp, slippery steps, nearly falling on her ass twice. She glanced over her shoulder. Bridei was already at the doorway. It was now or never. She jumped feet first into the dark, murky hole, and—nothing happened. Desperate, she dunked her whole body in, feeling around frantically for a door, a hole, anything, trying to touch every stone—still, there wasnothing. Nothing but stone and the small opening in the wall where the water came into the cistern.
Defeated, she finally stood up in the waist-deep water and slowly turned around. Bridei was standing on the small stone landing, arms crossed, watching her with an expression of curious concern. Behind him on the stairs were Domech and Veda, with still more on-lookers farther up.
“What sort of fascination do you have with the well, lass?” Bridei asked, his eyes narrowing. “If you needed to make a sacrifice to the goddess, you could have just asked.”
“I—I’m sorry.”Trapped. She was truly trapped here. Before, there had been the dim but shining light of possibility. But the door, or whatever it had been, was closed. Or maybe it only ever went one way. Or there was a secret that only Angus knew because he had studied all of those countless documents in the big old trunk at Gram’s. Maybe there were even magic words or something; words that she would never in a million years be able to guess.
Bridei held out his hand. “Come out of there. The water is cold.”
She nodded, reaching up and folding her fingers into his. The moment their skin touched, hers damp and chilled, his solid and warm, she felt a little jolt, and her stomach once more filled with a thousand butterflies. He pulled her onto the landing, and as she looked up at him, she had the oddest sensation that she was coming from her past, and looking into her future. He held her gaze for a moment too long. She reached up and stroked his cheek, and his eyes closed, his lips parting softly even as every muscle in his powerful body seemed to tighten.
I think I’m stuck here, with you, Bridei.
It was in that instant that everything changed…shifted. Until a moment ago, she’d been living with a foot in each world, future and present. She had been putting all of her energy into finding Angus and getting home. She had accepted that Angus was probably dead, but she had been holding out hope that she would still be able to go through the doorway on her own. But it hadn’t happened. What were the odds of her figuring out how the thing worked by herself? Probably not worth betting on. She wasn’t at all good at math. A little more of her reality sifted into this side of the hourglass. And for the first time, she looked at Bridei as more than a King from a storybook. More than a beautiful, dangerous man that fascinated her. She looked at him as a human being, living his life right here and now, just as she would have to do now that all possibility of going home was gone. In that moment, he was just a man.
Bridei sighed in exasperation as he headed back to the broch, leaving Nessa in the care of the women so that he could at least think, even though his body was still humming just from the touch of her hand on his. He needed release. He neededsomething. And he had just sent his only consort away, all the way to the fortress of Dánada. Lair’s job had been to take care of his physical needs so that he could concentrate on more important things, like political maneuverings and battle plans. It would take time to find another…time he didn’t have right now. Lair’s father, Sten, was not happy with him as it was, and Bridei had begun to suspect the man wanted to rise above his station. He tolerated him, but only because Sten had been close to his own father. All of this…and now tonight he would have to sit through the feast of the Seven Goddesses when he was in no mood for revelry. It was a holiday he couldn’t ignore, because it was far too important to his people. They needed such celebrations to know their lives were good and that their King kept them safe and well-fed. The music and dancing would spill from the hall and out into the night as even the warriors in the encampment beyond the city walls would come partake. He had best go and prepare himself, for it would be a long, long night.
Nessakept her back against the stones of the arched doorway, taking in the chaotic scene before her. The great hall was filled with people and music and the delicious scent of roasted meat, and her eyes could hardly settle on one thing before being distracted by another. All of the heavy iron chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were lit with stout tallow candles, and a crackling fire burned brightly in the hearth at the center of the room. A few people stood around it, roasting some sort of meat on the ends of sticks, while others ate from shallow wooden bowls. Musicians occupied one area of the room against the rounded wall, playing wildly on various drums and wooden flutes and something that was perhaps a very early version of the bagpipes. The doors to the hall stood wide open, and the crowd spilled out into the night, where dozens of bonfires burned throughout the village and into the distance.
There was dancing, too. Not the demure country dancing that one would associate with the modern-day Scottish Highlands. No, this was a primitive, sensual, unabashed dancing, with thrusting hips and wandering hands. Nessa watched, mesmerized, while the beat of the drums echoed in her chest so strongly that it felt as if she had a second heart.
Ru trotted into the room and lay down by the hearth, watching her. Sten leaned against the wall, also watching her. She knew he wanted her gone after her confrontation with Lair, but she wouldn’t let him bother her tonight. She was stuck here, for better or for worse, and this moment somehow felt like the beginning of her new life. Everything looked different, now that she had no choice but to make this place her home. If they let her stay, of course. She could only hope they would, because she had nowhere else to go. She could work in the gardens to earn her keep, and maybe someone would let her stay in their house until…until what? She decided not to think that far ahead. Things maybe wouldn’t be so bad here. In fact, now that shehadto stay, she was feeling slightly…better. More settled, as if her mind and heart were no longer divided between two places. She hadn’t yet mourned for the life she had lost, and reality would certainly come barreling down on her in the first quiet moment alone. But right now, she was willing to put that moment off a little longer.
She wandered slowly through the crowd, aimlessly at first. The whole atmosphere felt a little magical, with the firelight and the music and the palpable energy of the joy of life all around her. It was all making her feel so…alive, in a way she never had in her previous reality. And so very guilty.
What right did she have to be enjoying herself even a tiny bit when Gram and Nathan were home worrying about her? And yet this was the bold and shameless enjoyment of being alive that she had always remembered in a long-overlooked corner of her mind, like a fragment of a past existence that wouldn’t quite come into focus. It spoke to her soul in a language she had long forgotten. In a language that perhaps the entire modern world had forgotten.
As she passed by a huge barrel, someone handed her a carved wooden mug. She lifted it to her nose, taking in a whiff of fermented grain. Ale? She took a sip. It was smooth and slightly bubbly and tasted of wheat and some sort of berry. She drank some more, wanting to have what everyone else in the room seemed to have: the freedom to lose themselves in music and dancing and pleasure. She wassotired of fear and sorrow and guilt. Maybe she could lay down her burden for just one night. She could always pick it back up again in the morning. When Veda spotted her and tugged insistently at her arm, she was more than willing to join in the dancing. There didn’t seem to be any organized steps, just moving to the complex, pounding drum beats.
After a while, she tossed her hands up over her head and rolled her hips, breathless, laughing with Veda, and feeling just a little bit like the goddess she had claimednotto be. When the crowd happened to part in front of her, her eyes fell on Bridei, seated in a huge, heavily carved wooden chair at one side of the room. A sort of throne, she supposed. The seat of power. There were people all around him—most of them women—but his eyes were locked onher. Her heart picked up pace, too fast now for even the drums to keep up. The music faded, and the movement of the people all around her seemed to slow. For a moment she wondered if the ale had been too strong for her, but no…if she was honest, this sort of thing happened to her every time she looked at the King. It was just intensified by the wild and almost erotic atmosphere in the hall that night.
A gentle touch on her arm startled her and she spun around to look up at the face of a man. He wasn’t someone she had seen before, but he was quite handsome, and dressed in rich fabrics accentuated with the glitter of gold ornaments. He leaned closer so that she could hear him over the loud music and laughter.
