But no matter how chaotic those weeks had been, nothing compared to what had happened this morning. One minute, they were taking a pleasant walk, discussing the wedding and the renovations the castle needed; the next, they were besieged by arrows shot by a most unexpected foe, Ayaan.
One minute, he was trying to kill them; the next, he was confessing his feelings for her and how he hated that Jonathan and Darragh had thwarted him. Never mind that he had plenty of time when she was learning under him.
He had had all the time in the world, but he had wasted it primarily because he had thought that the men in her life would force her to marry him. His ideas were laughable at best, but she had hoped to defuse the situation. Perhaps one of the clansmen might have seen them and helped them take him down. But that plan had gone awry as soon as Ayaan loosed an arrow in their direction, and Darragh had instinctively shielded her, taking an arrow to his shoulder.
If she needed more proof that Ayaan did not love her, then this was it, because what kind of lover was reckless enough to try to attack the one he claimed to love, for goodness’ sake.
While she had tried to recover from the shock and move to help Darragh, he was already breaking off the shaft of the arrow and was rushing towards Ayaan, who was trying to loose another arrow. A moment too late, and Darragh would have died. A few minutes of a scuffle and an awkward swordfight had ended with Ayaan on the ground, blood pooling beneath him.
She was trying to come to terms with the fact that her mentor was now dead when she grew aware of Darragh’s gasps. She looked up to find him hunched over, gasping for air, his face turning green with pain.
Panic set in, and Ayaan was quickly forgotten. She ran towards Darragh, but she only managed to catch his head before he hit the ground with a loud thud.
She called for him several times, trying to rouse him, but he would not open his eyes. Looking at the position of the arrow, there was only one answer: the arrow was poisoned.
As much as Ayaan was a renowned healer, very few were aware of his interest in poisons. She had peeped in on him on several occasions as he made notes in a large book in his healing room when she had studied with him where he tested several poisons on rats and rabbits, carefully watching their struggle, studying the effect the poison had on them with a gleeful, almost cold smile on his face. It was the smile of someone who had their hypothesis confirmed; it was the smile of someone who enjoyed the suffering of those vulnerable creatures.
That side of him had always scared her, and on one of the occasions when she had mustered the courage to ask him about some poisons, he had been quite passionate about the topic. She had commented on that passion, and he had dismissed it as simply his need to help people. According to him, the more he studied different poisons, the more easily he could identify them, thereby helping him save many lives.
That was a plausible answer to some, but she had gotten a glimpse into the dark, sadistic part of him, the part that enjoyed torturing the vulnerable. And try as she might, she could not forget it. But since she had seen no sign of that part in his manner, she left the matter to rest. Until today, when she was confronted with the proof that that part still existed.
If her suspicions were right, she needed to get Darragh inside fast and examine the arrow to identify the poison, even though she already had several guesses.
She rose to her feet and gave a shrill cry, running towards the castle, hoping that someone was around to help.
“Lass,” someone said, shaking her until she could focus through her tear-stained vision.
It was Cohen and Jenson. She had never been so happy to see them as she was at that moment.
“What is the matter?” Cohen asked in alarm.
Jenson looked around and behind her in the hope of finding the cause of her alarm.
“Where is Darragh?” he asked. “Ye left together, did ye nae?”
“Darragh,” she started in a broken sob. She was usually more composed. She was a healer, after all, who had tended to even more life-threatening injuries, but no one had prepared her for having to tend to a lover. “We were attacked… I… Ayaan…”
Words tumbled out of her mouth in a jumbled mess, but they seemed to pick up on words like “arrow,” “shot,” and “blood,” and took off at a dead run, leaving her to trail behind them.
They soon hauled Darragh between them, and in no time, they had him lying down on the hall’s table. Concerned clansmen were guided away while Jenson ran upstairs to get her medical bag, returning in record time. This was one of those few moments when she saw the serious, efficient side of him.
Quickly, she retrieved the alcohol and cleaned the edges of the wound, then she examined it, judging that the arrow had not gone far in—more reason for her to believe it was poisoned.
She motioned for Jenson and Cohen to hold him still. They nodded and held him down firmly, and she set to work pulling wooden splinters out of his wound, swallowing down her tears as he thrashed in pain.
Eventually, the arrow was out, and she examined the silver head. At least Ayaan had not thought to use barbed arrows, but that might be because he trusted that what he had coated the arrowheads with was far deadlier.
She grabbed the head, and while the scent was faint, the bitterness was too evident. She recognized it.
Aconite.
Her heart thudded with fear. Looking over at Darragh, seeing him still breathing, his chest moving gently despite how pale he looked, she hoped that the quantity used was not enough to kill him.
Knowing Ayaan as long as she had, she hadn’t thought it possible that he would succumb so low as to try to take a life when he was a healer.
Where was his moral code?
She was frantic with worry but she had to bury those feelings to ensure she didn’t lose Darragh to the whims of an evil man.
