It was as I had thought. She had seen the river’s course. I was, in an odd sense, glad to be done with some of the deception. Ididn’t care for it, even though I’d have to be on guard for the rest of the trip now. “The king’s daughter Mary is ill,” I said, bracing for Katreine to scramble up and away from me, throw something at me, try to run, or even scream. She did none of those things. Her lips pressed into a tight line, and her eyes narrowed. She was unusually calm, showing a restraint that, in my experience, was normally reserved for people far older than she.
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“Ye’re skills reached the king’s ears, and he is desperate to cure Mary’s illness, so she will agree to wed.” The cave felt suddenly stifling to me, so I yanked off my plaid. When I looked at Katreine again, I found her studying me with the same scrutiny as before, as if she were looking for something.
“So,” she said, dropping to a kneeling position. “Ye were taking me to the king? Ye came in search of me, then?”
I managed a nod, even as I frowned because my vision suddenly blurred. Something was wrong. I blinked several times, but it did not help, and a buzzing started in my ears. I struggled to focus on her, but she danced in my line of sight, though I was certain she did not move. “Katreine,” I said, my tongue thick. “I think my wound is infected.”
She moved toward me, yanked up my tunic, and pulled down my bandage. Yet I barely felt her touch. A numbness was creeping through my body.
“’Tis nae,” she said, and her words sounded sharp.
Then she stood and stepped back, running a hand through her hair, and paced before me as sweat rolled down my back. I was on fire and shockingly dizzy as I tried to follow her back and forth. She stopped and looked down at me. “How did ye possibly ken where to find me and that ye had the right woman?”
“My special skill is tracking, lass,” I said, sure I had slurred the last word. Somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm was going off.
“And what made ye think ye had the healer the king sought?” she asked.
I motioned toward her face and shoulder, but by the gods, it took effort. My arm was as heavy as a log. “Ye have verra unusual eyes, and ye have the marking on yer shoulder, which the king knew about.”
She jerked back, as if I’d struck her, and then her face twisted into a glare. As I looked at her, anger now set on her face and her hands balled into fists, realization struck. “Ye’ve drugged me,” I muttered, barely managing to get the words out and struggling to keep my eyes open.
“That’s right,” she said, her smile thin. “Just be glad I did nae give ye enough to kill ye, ye lying sack of dung.”
As darkness closed in, I realized I had gravely underestimated her.
Chapter Eleven – Katreine
I turned to flee the moment James slumped forward, but when I reached my horse, I stopped and looked back at him. Sadness hit me. He had lied to me. Of course, I’d lied to him, too, so I supposed I could not judge him too harshly, though admitting this didn’t lessen the sting of his betrayal. I stared at him for a long moment, thinking of the powder I’d mixed into his wine when I’d gone to fetch it. I knew I’d not give him too much, but he was so still, and my mind began to spin with doubt. I wanted him out long enough for me to be well away from him, not dead. I was not a murderer.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I stepped back toward him and knelt. The motion made my wounds scream, but I could ill afford to take anything to dull the pain. I needed my mind sharp. I was going to have a hard enough time finding my way to the Dark Woods on my own. I leaned forward, catching a whiff of his scent of fire and earth. He was a liar, but a liar who smelled good. “Damn ye,” I whispered, pressing my fingers to his neck. His pulse was steady, if shallow. His warm skin under my fingers conjured the memory of his strong, sure hands on my body as he’d cared for me.
He wasn’t a bad man. I knew it instinctively. No man who had cared for me as he had lacked honor, yet he had been willing to lie to me. I suspected he stood to gain by delivering me to the king. Had my past taught me nothing? I shook my head at myself in disgust, even as my chest tightened. I traced James’s strong jawline, the curl of his dark locks against his tanned neck, and the wide, powerful span of his shoulders.
I barely knew this man, yet he already had the power to hurt me. I had already begun to trust him, to let him in, despitemyself. I stared at his muscular arms and imagined them around me for one breath. He represented everything I could not have—stability, protection, love, bairns of my own. Then I had a flash of me standing over his body, passed on from this life with age, and I shuddered.
These thoughts and feelings of vulnerability were why I avoided letting a man close. This pretty man had addled my brain in too short a time. I pushed away what was not mine to have and shrugged off James’s plaid, leaving it on the cave floor beside his unconscious form. The last thing I needed was anything of his weighing me down. I snatched my cloak from where it had been drying, gathered my things, stuffed them into my satchel, and hurried to my horse. The animal snorted and stamped, sensing my distress. Outside, the storm raged, thunder crashing overhead and rain driving in sheets across the landscape. Not ideal for escape, but perhaps it would work in my favor, making it harder to track me.
I led the horse out of the cave, glancing back only once at James’s still form. Regret twisted in my chest. “Move, ye great lummox,” I muttered to the horse as I mounted, my injuries screaming in protest. The saddle was a special kind of torture, but I gritted my teeth and dug my heels into the animal’s flanks. We plunged into the darkness, the storm swallowing us and forcing me to pull the reins to slow the horse to a walk.
Rain lashed my face, cold and stinging. My cloak, still damp, offered little protection. Within moments, I was soaked through, my hair plastered to my skull, water running in rivulets down my neck and back. The horse fought against the mud with each stride, but our progress was slow.
As I rode, tree limbs caught my skirt, and the moss hanging from the trees struck my face with surprising force. I ducked and weaved, but I couldn’t avoid everything. One branch caught myhood, nearly yanking me from the saddle before I jerked free, my heart in my throat.
I had no idea where I was going. North meant away from the king, away from Edinburgh, but in this darkness, with the storm distorting everything, I couldn’t tell north from east. I squinted through the rain, searching for landmarks, for anything familiar, yet the world had become a swirling mass of shadow and water.
“Come on,” I urged the horse, leaning forward to speak into his ear. “Just a bit farther, aye?”
The animal responded with renewed effort, his powerful muscles bunching beneath me as he pushed through the mud. We splashed through a stream I hadn’t noticed until we were in it, the water rising to the horse’s knees, cold spray soaking my boots and the lower half of my skirts.
The path I thought led north curved back on itself, and I realized with a sinking heart that I was lost. The trees all looked the same in the darkness. My poor sense of direction had always been a weakness, but now it might get me killed. If I couldn’t find my way, I’d be too easy for James to find, and he’d take me to the king, where I feared I’d encounter someone from my past. Then I had no doubt I’d be hanged as a witch. The thought sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with the rain. I didn’t want to live forever, but I hadn’t yet given up hope of someday having a normal, curse-free life, and being hanged wasn’t the way to that.
“We need to get out of here,” I told the horse, turning him as best I could in the narrow space.
Suddenly, the ground dropped without warning, and the horse went down hard. I was thrown over his head, flying for a sickening moment before landing with a jarring thud on my hands and knees in the mud.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. Pain lanced through my arms and shot up my legs. I crouched there, gasping, rainpelting my back and mud seeping through my clothes. For several heartbeats, I could do nothing but breathe.
