Grinding his teeth, Valteri tightened his grip on the letter. He looked at the messenger, his breathing ragged. “Tell William I’ll take care of his rebellion as requested, but I want him to find a permanent castellan for the hall and lands. I have no use for such. He was to pay me in coin, not land, and I expect gold.” The last thing he needed or wanted was a bunch of hysterical peasants and others running about, trying to tie him to something and set fire to it again because they thought him possessed.
Fuck that.
The messenger nodded furiously. “Aye, milord. I shall tell him forthwith.”
“Do that.” Valteri ground his teeth at his brother’s lunacy. What was the man thinking? He’d served him well. Given him unquestioning loyalty. Why then would William curse him so?
Make him a lord?
How dare he!
“Bloody bastard,” he snarled as he entered the tent, unsure of whom he intended the insult for, himself or William. Especially since it applied to them both from birth and bearing.
Give me lands…
He’d like to give his brother a slap to his face.
As if Will didn’t know those lands came with an idiot priest and other imbeciles who would decry his godless nature and a birth defect caused by his whoring mother’s sins.
Valteri ground his teeth at the bloody memories that tore through him of a childhood no one should suffer. He’d never again be bound to one place.
Bound to any person.
Not for anything or for anyone.
He reached for his sword.
“Who leads this army?”
Valteri whirled at the sound of his dream’s voice coming as a whisper in the corner.
No one was there.
Yet it had been real. Not in his mind.
Had it not?
“Mayhap I’m the one going mad, after all.” Who could blame him when old memories constantly assaulted him here?
Valteri loosened his hold on the sword and took a deep breath as he tried to put it from his mind. Though it was getting harder and harder to do so.
Ever since he’d landed at Hastings with William, he’d been haunted by the dream of a fair maiden coming for his soul.
Not that he had one. He was sure it’d been kicked out of him long ago by the monks who’d been hell-bent on saving it.
Still, he could feel her, even now, as if she were here beside him.
Grunting at the stupidity, he realized it was more than likely a warning of his imminent demise. Maybe she was the shadow of death finally come to take him from this rotten earth. His portent, as it were.
Good.
Because if it were true, then he would welcome the moment and the peace it brought with open arms.
CHAPTER1
“I curse you for what you’ve done! For your inability to feel pity or remorse, I curse you to know unfathomable pain. Without mercy! Without cessation! You will suffer as no creature haseversuffered!”
Ariel screamed in bitter agony. Those words twisted in her mind like a serpent, twining about her arms and legs, making them heavy. Unbearable. A foreign weight dragged her from the heavens in a violent whirlwind, down toward the mortal plane.
