“I do not possess any answers either,” she said.
“So you experienced it too? I did not bump my head and dream it all?”
“Nay you did not. We were in that tower for many days, probably weeks.” Her cheeks turned bright pink.
He hoped she remembered their lovemaking the way he did.
“Did you see the old man?”
“Nay, I did not. And I have no explanation for the man or your arm, or any of what we just saw back there. But I have trusted the raven thus far and I will continue to trust it. We must ride to my home and there we will try to figure out what has happened to us.”
Magnus nodded and waited for her to mount her horse then mounted his. He followed her slow trot as his mind blazed with questions. His world had shifted much in the past few weeks in a wonderfully positive way and he now felt that a part of that had been ripped from him—from them. Was it possible the whole thing had been as she had said before, an enchantment? Did they still feel the same way about one another or was that as false as the warmth in the tower?
* * *
Focusing on the raven’s path allowed Elspeth to put aside the ache that had settled into her heart. Thankfully Magnus was behind her and so would not see the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. Her body felt hollow, as if her soul’s well had been full to brimming and suddenly emptied. And she couldn’t find the words to express to him what weighed so heavily upon her, but they needed to talk about it.
That morning when she’d awoken, she’d found him sitting up in bed staring into the fire. When she asked him if he was unwell, he didn’t even respond to her, rather dressed and went belowstairs. From there everything became murky. When he’d started talking about an old man, she thought he might be going a little mad in the head, but then they went outside and the place changed as if they’d never been there to begin with. She had no answers and had no way to find them. She was lost on this path with no guide except the fat raven that hovered above and slightly ahead of them, gliding as if it did not have a care in the world.
Elspeth drew in a deep breath trying to fill her lungs with clean pure air and expel the doubt resting in her heart. She discretely wiped the tears from her eyes and looked back at Magnus. His head was bent low and his gaze cast downward. He looked miserable. Was it possible they had been bewitched? The hopeful part of her envisioned this bereft feeling a natural result of the enchantment being lifted. What was she thinking? Now she sounded mad in the head. Perhaps they had fallen off their horses and bumped their heads. The thought made her chuckle.
“You find something amusing?”
She moved to the side and waited until he was alongside and grinned at him. “I just had a thought of both of us being knocked out and sharing the same dream, then getting up as if nothing had happened and moving along on our merry way.”
The sides of his mouth curled a little, then spread. He was magnificent when he smiled. The ache in her heart dissipated in that moment. As if one happy look from him could be all the healing she would ever need.
“When you put it like that, this whole business is a bit unbelievable.”
“Perhaps we should not tell anyone, for they may put us both in padded cells,” she said and laughed a little harder.
Magnus chuckled. “I want the cell with the window so I can watch the seasons change,” he said which sent her into more fits of laughter.
She thanked God there was no one on the road for they would have probably run the other way if they saw them there laughing like children on the road with a cart full of provisions that they had most certainly eaten from but was now full.
“Can we agree on one thing?” he asked quietly.
A knot formed in her belly. She was not ready to lose any part of him or the moments they had shared in the tower. But it was not fair to silence his voice either. He had a right to say whatever he wanted even if it crushed her soul.
“Aye, what is that?” she tried not to sound bitter, but the trepidation was almost overwhelming.
“What we did, what we had back there—”
She held her breath as he searched for the words.
“That was real wasn’t it?”
The uncertainty in his voice and in his expression was more than she could handle and the tears that she thought were held at bay surfaced and spilled once again onto her cheeks. Before she could say anything, raw pain washed over his face.
She had to reassure him quickly. “Aye, Magnus. ’Twas real.”
He locked gazes with her as he dismounted. He reached for her and drew her into his arms holding her in an embrace from which she never wanted to be released. He had felt just as bereft as she.
“I do not know how I could carry on if only I had experienced all those moments with you,” he said and kissed her hair.
She leaned back and cupped his face with her hands. “We did share every moment together whether they actually happened or it was only in our minds, ’twas real.”
She thought about the obvious physical way to find out, but thought better than to bring that up whilst they were in the middle of what was normally a busy roadway.
