Ciaran sat rigid, sword half-drawn, the morning quiet again save for the rush of the swollen river. He swallowed hard. Fever, he told himself, a relapse, as Claire had predicted. Or some daft wanderer sent to toy with him. His jaw clenched as another thought cut sharp—had Claire known the woman? Had she contrived this, set the crone upon him with her riddles and nonsense, meant to scare him into keeping her close? The suspicion flared hot for an instant, but just as swiftly it sputtered out. He could not explain what he’d just witnessed—the impossible—the woman winking and then vanishing as if swallowed whole by the mist. No trick of Claire’s could account for that.
The encounter left him shaken, his palms damp on the reins, his breath ragged. He drew hard at the leather, forcing his horse into motion, craving distance, wanting the security of walls and men about him. He dug his heels into the destrier’s flanks, wheeling the beast so sharply it snorted and tossed its head. The path blurred beneath them as he pressed for home, but the woman’s image and her words followed, dogging every stride, sinking deeper into his bones.
Ye thought ye lost her once already.
Hold fast to her.
***
Tucked against the outer wall beyond the kitchen garden sat the place everyone simply calledthe washing corner. A pair of broad tubs, blackened with age and ringed white from lye, were set on low trestles. Beside them sat a stack of buckets and a paddle used for pounding stubborn dirt from linen.
A shallow ditch channeled runoff away from the tubs toward the midden, but the ground underfoot was damp most of the time anyway, patched with moss instead of gravel. Ropes had been strung between rough posts sunk into the earth, so that clean sheets and shirts could flap in the breeze, though on heavy wash days, more garments and cloths were spread wide across the thorn hedge that bordered the kitchen’s herb plot.
Today, as any wash day, the corner steamed with kettles set over firepits, women hauling water from the well, and working briskly over their chore. It wasn’t pretty, was damp and often loud with chatter and the slap of cloth against washboards, and the washerwomen often looked like drowned rats—Mairi’swords, not Claires—but it was as much a part of Caeravorn as was the glowing and pounding of the smithy’s forge or the heat and scent of the bakehouse.
Claire and the washerwomen paused around the boiling kettles when Ciaran came tearing into the yard on his big black horse. At that exact moment, Claire held one of Ciaran’s washed and wrung tunics in her hands, about to throw it over the drying line.
He noticed her almost immediately and leapt off his horse, crossing the yard toward her.
Tunic in hand, she paused, concern rising swiftly for the way he was bearing down on her, for how pale and grim his expression was. Something in his eyes—something wild and unsettled—made her heart lurch into her throat.
“Come with me,” he said, teeth gritted.
Before she could ask what or why, his hand clamped around her arm.
She blinked, flustered. “What—now? Ciaran!”
But he was already tugging her away, his grip iron, his stride long and furious. The women exchanged wide-eyed looks all around her, and Evir lurched forward, helpfully plucking the clean tunic from Claire’s hand.
Claire stumbled to keep pace, her pulse racing as he hauled her across the yard and outside the man-size side gate, where she and Ivy had gone often, taking walks along the cliff.
“Ciaran, what on earth—?” she tried again.
He stopped so abruptly she almost slammed into him. He spun, and the look in his eyes dried her words to dust. He wasn’t angry—or wasn’t only angry. He was rattled, pale, as if something terrible had happened.
“Ciaran?” She questioned, truly alarmed now. “My God, what’s happened?”
“I dinna even ken how to explain it.” His voice came low, strained, and his nostrils flared as he met her gaze with a frightening intensity. “What did ye say to me last week?”
Claire stared. “What do you mean?” She’d said a lot of things to him last week.
“About crossing paths? Ye said you kent me—before coming to Caeravorn.”
“I—” She faltered, heat rushing to her face. Though she was unnerved by how deeply troubled he seemed, and in truth, was a little bit afraid, she answered evenly rather than questioning him more about what the hell had happened. “I thought I saw you once. After my car accident. I was... seriously injured, half-conscious. I thought you...were there. I thought you held me.”
Something flickered in his eyes—violent, disbelieving. “When?” he demanded hoarsely. “What did this happen?”
Her lips trembled, somehow understanding what he was asking. The words came out in a whisper. “In my time,” she repeated and then clarified, “in the twenty-first century.”
He heard this, scowled, and paced a jagged line a few feet away before turning back, a caged animal searching for escape. His jaw worked, his breath harsh. Behind him, the firth smashed against the rocks with relentless force, as storm-tossed and unsettled as the man himself.
Claire had never seen him like this. He was always so certain, so controlled, so untouched by everything around him. “Ciaran, why are you—what happened?”
“That’s the devil of it,” he muttered, half to himself. “I dinna ken what happened—or if it happened at all.”
She lifted her hands, holding them palm down, a silent instruction to relax. “Okay. Let’s start at the... beginning. Where are you coming from? Where were you?”
He seethed, snapping a furious look at her, as if in censure over her treating him like a simpleton, who might only be able to relate what happened in small bits.
