He could feel her distress when she laid her palm on his brow. “I’m sorry, I…I could not control my reaction.”
He closed his eyes, welcoming her soothing touch. “I am trying to teach you in a day what a Guardian learns over years. You are progressing remarkably well.”
“But not well enough.”
He wasn’t sure if her soft words were thought or spoken aloud. “Perhaps tomorrow we will find a good summer storm to work with.” He tried to project confidence. “That will do most of the work for us.”
She didn’t believe that any more than he did, but she didn’t argue the point. The two of them were joined in fatalism. They had no choice but to try another major spell in the morning, this time at a much greater distance that the Zeeland attempt, and with no major storm available to build on.
Isabel knew the dangers—after all, she had nursed him through near-lethal brain fever when his first attempt failed. She had accepted the fact that they might die trying. In fact, she accepted it better than he.
When he fell into his bed, exhausted, he uttered a silent prayer. May God grant them success for the sake of Scotland—and if a life must be forfeit in the process, let it be his.
Chapter Five
He jerked to wakefulness, heart pounding as he picked up a distant note of changing weather. Clouds, rain, and wind were sweeping in from the Atlantic.
How long had he been asleep? Only a few hours, he guessed, since there was no sign of dawn. He lit a candle and scrambled into his clothing, then made his way through the silent house to Isabel’s room. As he opened the door, he said, “Isabel, chancy weather is approaching quickly from the west. Not a major storm, but enough to give us a better chance if we start work immediately.”
He swept back the bed curtains. His candle revealed Isabel blinking sleepily as she pushed herself to a sitting position. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder in a thick braid and she looked younger and more vulnerable than her daytime self.
He froze as he realized that she was dressed only in her night rail, and the lightweight fabric did little to disguise her softly curving body. Knees weakening, he stepped back, putting the heavy carved bedpost between them. Damn the successful effort to lower barriers between them, for now it was impossible to conceal his desire! Isabel would justly see him as a great randy brute.
She flushed scarlet as she read his reaction. Emotions reverberated between them like images in opposing mirrors, and the hair prickled on his arms at the sheer erotic tension in the room.
Recovering first, she yanked the blankets to her shoulders. “Very well, we shall begin. I will meet you in the stone circle.”
Grateful for the excuse to retreat, he ignited one of her candles with his, then bolted. He was a fool for allowing attraction to muddy the waters when all their attention must be fixed on their mutual goal.
He was bleakly aware that even with the changing weather, the odds did not favor them. Though he was recovering well from his earlier collapse, he was still far below his normal strength. Despite Isabel’s enormous power, she hadn’t the inborn talent for weather working. If he was unable to weave the spells well enough, they would fail.
Worse, though they had lowered the barriers between them enough for embarrassment, they were still woefully short of being fully capable of sharing energy. If he needed more than Isabel was ready to give, she might lash out at him instinctively, with disastrous results.
But try they must. The Armada was critically near Edinburgh, and if they didn’t act right away, it would be too late.
His mind still chasing itself, he stopped in the kitchen for a quick meal of bread and cheese, then picked his way down to the stone circle. It was a night fit for witches, the ley lines that intersected at the circle a glowing spider web of power. The wind was rising in fitful gusts, shaping and tearing clouds so that footing on the lane was uncertain. The sea beyond the bluff was lighter than the land, and he could hear the harsh beat of waves against the shore.
He felt a curious fatalism as he cleared his mind and began to lay the foundations of his spell. He would do his best; no man could do more. If he did not survive this last great working, may God defend Scotland and those he loved.
Silent as the wind, Isabel joined him, almost invisible in a dark cloak. She handed him a similar cloak. “Wear this. The night is chill and fair weather will not return soon.”
He accepted the cloak but said mildly, “A sorcerer should be able to rise above heat and cold.”
“Why waste energy suppressing discomfort when it can be used on your weather working?”
He smiled into the darkness. A practical sorceress. The contours of her face were barely discernible. He had thought her austerely beautiful from their first meeting, and the intimate knowledge he had gained during their work together had multiplied her beauty a thousand-fold. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I can be.”
Knowing he might not survive the night’s work, he made a formal courtier’s bow to her, the cloak flaring around him. “It has been a pleasure working with you, Isabel de Cortes.” Then he buried personal thoughts, grounded himself in the circle’s earth energy, and reached for the winds.
As his awareness spiraled upward, he saw that the North Atlantic was blanketed with a vast patchwork of choppy clouds and gusty rain. The Spanish ships were strewn along the Narrow Seas, the leading wave already approaching the Firth of Forth, the gateway to Edinburgh.
He started by sharpening the winds across Scotland, making it difficult for the Armada to sail up the Firth. But that was only a temporary measure to delay them while he constructed a tempest.
Piece by meticulous piece, he began to weave vicious winds, drowning rain, and lightning that could rip the sky and blaze through rigging. It must be so powerful, so well wrought, that it would continue onward even after his own strength failed. The storm must rage for days, sinking ships, driving others onto rocky shores and into the grip of deadly North Sea currents. The Armada must be destroyed to the point where it offered no threat—and may heaven have mercy on the souls of the sailors!
Already he was drawing heavily on Isabel’s deep reserves of power. Her bright awareness followed him as he spun the winds into a pattern that fed on itself. She helped him concentrate the rain from many thousands of square miles into a smaller, more lethal storm. And she soared with him when he forged the lightning.
