CHAPTER ONE
Castle MacKinnon, November 1298
“Ava, dae ye really think a woman who claims tae be able to see intae the future will help ye seduce a man?”
Ava halted in the middle of the castle corridor. She turned abruptly to face her little sister, swinging the burning torch around with her as she moved. Lyla, startled, jumped away from her.
“Careful, sister! I ken ye are a warrior but dae me the favor of nae giving me the wounds yer other opponents bear.”
“I’m sorry,” Ava muttered hurriedly, “but ye ken we dinnae have time fer this argument now. Me mind is made up. Ye can either stay here or come with me, but I am going, Lyla.”
Lyla sighed, her dark blonde hair becoming a curtain as it fell across her face. Ava pushed back the wisps of her own blondehair, that had fallen out of the customary braid she wore. Tonight, she would not be distracted by fear or the serious nature of her sister’s conversation.
I have a mission tae accomplish.
“I am going,” Ava whispered. She turned, carrying the burning torch high as she slipped down a narrow spiral staircase with Lyla hurrying behind her. More than once her little sister nearly slipped on the stones. The cold air was so strong that night that even inside the castle there was moisture and growing frost on the stone steps. When they reached the bottom, Ava tiptoed toward the kitchens and the servants’ stairwell, knowing it was the best way out of the castle when they didn’t want to be glimpsed by the guards. By the doorway, she latched the burning torch onto an iron hook in the wall, knowing she couldn’t take it with them.
A guard would spot the burning fire from a mile away and come to investigate.
“I dinnae ken about this,” Lyla muttered seriously again.
Ava gave her no answer. Halting by the door for a second, she checked beneath her thick woolen cloak. She carried a dirk at her right hip, her customary basilard at her left hip, all latched into a belt. Ordinarily, she would have liked to have taken her crossbow with her when walking the clan lands alone, but tonight, she had to travel fast, and the crossbow with the bolts would have only weighed her down.
“This castle holds shadows fer us now, I ken that,” Lyla whispered hurriedly as Ava checked her weapons. “But dae ye honestly think ye will find answers by talking tae a mad woman?”
“And ye think a seer is a mad woman, dae ye? Sister, I dinnae pretend tae understand all the secrets of this world. I dinnae ken how it works, what magic and mystery lies beneath the veil of what I can see. Maybe she does,” Ava added, fiercely, but quietly. “If she can help me at all, then I need tae take this chance.”
“Aye, aye, I ken.” Lyla sighed once again as Ava reached for the door.
“Now come, before we are seen.” Ava slipped the key into the door that she had stolen from the castle steward’s chamber earlier that day and slipped it into the lock. It clunked rather heavily, making the two of them halt and look around. When no sound followed, Ava opened the door.
The moment they both stepped outside, they shivered. The wind was bitterly cold, the clouds heavy with snow, threatening to open their icy treasure any second now, adding to the already rich covering of white snow on the ground. The moon, a mere crescent in the sky, was only just visible peeking through those heavy clouds.
“Lovely night, isnae it?” Lyla whispered to Ava with irony in her tone.
“Charming,” Ava agreed. She pressed her lips into the fur lining of her cloak and walked forward through the grounds, with the shorter Lyla racing to keep up with her.
As they crossed through the snowy courtyard toward the curtain wall, Lyla hopped between clumps of snow as Ava walked purposefully, her hand constantly gripping the hilt of her basilard beneath her cloak.
“Dae ye think –”
“Shh,” Ava pleaded. “We dinnae want a guard tae hear us now.”
As if he had been summoned by her words, Ava saw movement atop the nearest curtain wall. She reached for Lyla’s shoulder and pushed her down beneath the well in the middle of the courtyard, out of use thanks to the thick layer of ice which had formed at the bottom. Lyla yelped in surprise, forcing Ava to dart down too.
She held her finger to her lips, warning Lyla not to make another sound.If we’re discovered Faither will be fumin’.”
The guard’s loud footsteps on the curtain wall had stopped, suggesting he had heard Lyla’s noise and had whipped around, staring into the courtyard to investigate. Ava didn’t dare sneak a peek, but waited, holding her breath, until she heard his footsteps again. Peering around the edge of the well, she looked to his place atop the wall. He had returned to his patrol, no longer looking their way.
Ava grabbed Lyla’s hand and ran with her. Her younger sister, much slenderer and not so athletic in build, struggled to keep up as Ava ran to the nearest door. They pressed themselves against the stone wall as Ava pressed a second key, she had taken into a door hidden in the stone wall.
It was a secret door, barely used by any. If the rumors were to be believed, the guards had this door installed years ago to bring in their mistresses and wives at night when no one was looking. Ava wasn’t sure if she believed the tales, though she knew men’s appetites would warrant it.
She shuddered at the thought of men’s appetites when it came to the bedchamber and opened the door, inching it carefully across the snow on the ground to stay as quiet as possible.
As they slipped through, the snow was now thick on the ground thanks to the skeletal branches of the trees above, though their journey became suddenly darker.
Ava followed a path through the forest she knew all too well, for it had been her training ground for years for hunting and fighting. Lyla, on the other hand, gripped to the back of her cloak, following every step she took.
