She froze. A hand circled her neck from behind, squeezing just enough to immobilize her. Cold steel pressed against her throat. Her pulse thundered beneath the blade.
A voice breathed close to her ear, “Clever little healer.”
Footprints led Kayden and Rua right to the glen where he had brought Lilliana before.
“Why did she return here?” he wondered aloud.
He jumped down from his horse, searching the ground critically. There were more than one horse’s hoofprints in the mud.
He heard a snort and turned to Rua. “Find the horse,” he ordered.
The dog ran off, and soon, he barked. Kayden followed the sound to find the dog standing next to Gemini.
The horse was peacefully grazing and did not seem to be harmed in any way, but there was no sign of his rider.
“Where did she go?” he murmured, looking around.
He walked towards the stream and bumped into Nigel’s body. He inhaled in surprise, kneeling down to check on the guard. He seemed unresponsive, and Kayden’s worry grew.
He looked from Gemini to Nigel. “Is there a chance that she didnae find him? Is that why she’s disappeared? Did she perhaps go to search for some herb to rouse him?”
Rua huffed, his tongue lolling as he also looked around, as if searching for Lilliana. Suddenly, he stilled and growled low in his throat as he looked east.
Kayden rose to his feet, his ears straining for any sound. He heard a scuffling and then a muffled cry, and took off at a run towards a clearing. He opened his mouth to shout for Lilliana, then closed it again. He did not know what he would find and did not want to alert anyone to his presence if there was an enemy.
Rua padded at his side, keeping pace with him, so he knew he was headed in the right direction. He skidded to a halt when he came into a clearing and spotted a silhouette.
“Lilly?” he said.
The silhouette moved, and he realized that it was two people, one behind the other. He could hear their labored breathing.
“Lilly, are ye alright?” he asked softly.
A bitter laugh rent the air, and he froze. “Ye ask thesassenachif she is well, but have nay words for me?”
Rua barked in recognition, confirming to Kayden that he was not mistaken.
His body went tight with readiness, hand drifting towards the dirk at his belt. His breath fogged faintly in the cooling air. Then a figure emerged from the shadows, slow and unhurried, as though the clearing belonged to her and not to him.
A woman.
Not cloaked like a traveler. Not dressed like a villager. The cut of her gown was familiar in a way that struck him hard. She had donned a Highland woman’s dress, practical and dark, meant to blend into night and mud. Her hair was bound beneath a hood.
She stopped several yards away, just beyond the reach of the reeds, watching him.
Kayden took one step forward. “Who are ye?”
The woman did not answer at first. She tilted her head slightly, as though listening to him. Then, slowly, she reached up and pushed back her hood, knife still pointing at Lillian’s throat.
The world narrowed to a single point.
Sorcha.
Kayden’s blood turned to ice so fast that his limbs grew heavy. His mind rejected it before it could accept it, as if the name itself were a lie, as if his eyes were traitors.
But the curve of her cheek, the shape of her mouth, the fierce set of her jaw… it could not have been an illusion.
His sister’s face looked older than it should. Sharper. Hollowed in places that grief had carved out. Her eyes, once bright with laughter, were dark now, burned down to embers.
