“I ken it, lad. I’ll have ye up as soon as ’tis safe. Now, thank ye, Janet,” the healer told her, but her tone made it clear it was a dismissal.
Ella pursed her lips, tempted to argue, but no servant would gainsay the healer. She nodded and left the room to let Calum be readied for the night.
Calum had spentmany restless nights since his injury. Nightmares came often, replaying scenes from the battle that had blinded him. In some, he failed to protect Iain and watched his friend die, bleeding into the ground around his body. In others, he, too, died, after losing an arm or a leg, or suffering a sword strike to his gut and watching his innards spill out. Those were the worst so far and never failed to wake him, shaking and sweating and cursing the darkness he lived in.
But now, a new terror seized him. He prayed he was dreaming, and that he would wake from this scene. He feared he was losing his mind.
Ella stood before him, her luminous beauty undimmed, strangely visible despite the unrelenting darkness surrounding her. She glided toward him like one of the fae she resembled, hair and dress floating around her as though stirred by an unseen breeze. His heart hurt to see her. He wanted her more than he could say. More than he would admit to anyone, even to himself. More than getting his eye back. As long as he could see her like this, he wouldn’t need it.
He knew that was wrong somehow. But watching her arm lift and her hand turn so her palm faced up, beckoning to him, he couldn’t remember what it might be. He held out a hand, reaching for her, but blood dripped from his fingers. He’d ruin her dress. He pulled back his hand, ashamed to sully her beauty in any way.
She frowned and turned to the side.
When she turned back, everything about her had faded, the color leached from her clothes, her hair, her smile. Her beautiful face looked tired, dry, and her hands rough, as though she’d spent a lifetime toiling. Was this Janet? Where was Ella?
Suddenly she changed again, and he saw Marjorie, the lass who’d nearly ensnared him in a marriage to save her reputation. Only now her dress stretched over her belly, grown enormous and ripe with the child she’d tried to hide from him. What was she doing with Ella? Or with Janet? He didn’t know what to make of this, but he didn’t like it.
Suddenly, she was Ella again, but she turned from him. Because he was blind? No, that wasn’t Ella, that was someone who looked like her who reached for him. Janet again? Were there really two women? This one looked like Ella, her beauty undimmed, but the hand that reached out to him was rough, her clothes homespun. Janet?
He said her name. Janet. She moved to him, raised her face to his and kissed him. Her lips were smooth and warm, enticing him. How could he want Janet? He loved Ella.
When he didn’t respond, she turned away, then turned back and was Ella again, face, hands, and clothing luminously beautiful, but disdainful, looking at him from the side of her eye as if not wanting to acknowledge him.
Janet wanted him, and Ella did not? What kind of nightmare was this?
He backed away from her, shaking his head, pushing with empty hands to keep her away. Ella? Or Janet?
A hand on his shoulder roused him. “Calum! Ye’re dreaming. Wake up. Calum, wake up!”
The lad charged with tending him was bent over him, hands on his shoulders, holding him down while he shouted at him. He recognized the lad’s voice.
“I’m awake.”
Immediately, the lad let go of him and stepped back. “Ye were having a bad dream. Ye started moving, tossing yer head from side to side. Mhairi willna be happy to hear about that.”
God’s bones, had he destroyed all the work she’d done, the care they’d taken to keep his head still, all his time lying in this damned bed, only to ruin his injured eye during a bad dream?
“Fetch her, lad.”
“I will.”
Calum heard him move away. The chamber door opened and closed.
He was alone. Blessedly, silently, peacefully alone. No one watching him. No one tending him. But for how long? Mhairi would come quickly, he knew. He took a deep breath, trying to soak in the peace. The sense of himself as he used to be, when he could see. Confident in himself and his abilities.
Would Janet come in Mhairi’s place? That thought brought the nightmare crashing back. He’d dreamed of Ella and Janet and Marjorie. Because Marjorie lied to him? Because he feared Ella was lying to him, too? Was that the message of his dream? Three women, or two, and their lies? He pursed his lips, his peace broken. Until these bandages came off, he would never know.
