She didn’t return his grin, refusing to be swayed by his humor. “You see me as vulnerable.”
“You’re wrong, Bridget. I see you as irreplaceable,” he whispered.
As she broke to run past him, he lifted her from her feet and swung her over his shoulder, carrying her as he had so long ago on that night he’d first met her. The night he’d first saved her from Torquil and the Beast inside the MacDowylt laird.
“Put me down!” she ordered, her feet kicking wildly as she pounded her fists against his back. “You’ve no right to do this!”
He had every right. She just didn’t accept it.
With one hand securely on the sword’s hilt, he allowed her feet to drop to the ground. The weapon was in his possession now, and no matter what she tried, he had no intention of relinquishing it to her again.
“You canna do this. It is my responsibility, my calling, to put an end to this monster.”
He held her back with one hand, almost without thought, his attention fully fixed upon the weapon in his grasp and the buzzing that filled his ears. Like the approach of angry bees disturbed from their nest, the sound grew, building in intensity and applying pressure inside his ears. At the same time, his fingers began to pulse with a stinging burn as if he’d wrapped his hand around those same bees.
As if from far in the distance, Bridget asked, “Hall? What’s wrong with you? What’s happening?”
Between the noise in his head and the paralyzing pain crawling up his arm and into his chest, he couldn’t begin to find the words to answer.
As if a giant fist tightened around him, his lungs labored to suck in the air he needed for his next breath. A cacophony of clanking, cracking dissonance pounded at him, building to a deafening crescendo designed to burst his eardrums.
It was the sword, rebelling against him, fighting him for dominance, and the sword was clearly winning. He was powerless to do anything to stop it.
“Hall!”
Even hearing the desperation in Bridget’s voice, he could do nothing. She grasped his hand, peeling his fingers one by one from his deathlike grip on the hilt of the weapon.
When the sword hit the ground with a dullthudhe shuddered and bent forward, gasping, filling his lungs with air as desperately as a drowning man might.
“I told you, did I no? I warned you to stay away from it. Sit,” she encouraged, one arm around his shoulders. “Rest for a moment to recover yerself.”
With his legs refusing to support him, it was easy to follow her suggestion. He dropped to the ground, legs crossed, his head in his hands, until he heard Bridget moving away from him. He looked up in time to see her reaching down to recover the blade from the forest floor.
“No!”
She straightened, holding the sword in front of her, and the air between them shimmered as if the sword itself were a light source of immense power.
“I am the one to wield the sword,” she said calmly. “I, and I alone. You must accept this.”
He wanted to deny it, to jump to his feet and sweep the weapon from her grasp. But there was no denying what he saw with his own two eyes.
The light that shimmered in the air coalesced around Bridget. The markings on her face, which had begun to fade, glowed a bright luminescent blue. Like candles behind the stained glass in a cathedral he’d seen on a trip to York, the light flickered and danced just behind her skin.
He couldn’t deny what he recognized as truth.
“It’s the markings you wear. The weapon has chosen you as the one Pure Soul of an Ancient Warrior. You’re right. You alone can wield the victorious blow with the sword.”
“I tried to tell you. It is my destiny,” she said quietly, replacing the sword in the saddle sheath before approaching him with her hand outstretched. “Are you better now?”
He nodded, still struggling to accept what he couldn’t control as he rose to his feet. “I am.”
“Does this alter your plans?”
Mightily. If he were to have his way, he’d call everything off and demand that they ride for safety as quickly as possible. The problem with that solution was that with Fenrir loose in the world, there would be no safety to be found anywhere.
“It only changes which of us will be waiting outside the gates when the Beast leaves the castle. You’ll need these.” He walked quickly to his horse and removed the scrolls from his pack to hand to Bridget, who’d followed behind him. “You’ve but to touch Torquil with the blade to drive the Beast from his body. Once you’ve done that, it will have no choice but to return to the scrolls. We’ll secure them with the jewels, and our task will be accomplished. No one needs to get hurt if we’re all mindful of the parts we need to play.”
She nodded, taking the scrolls in one hand as she walked toward her own mount. She stopped a few paces before she reached the animal to turn back to him. “I willna fail in my calling this time. I will do what I should have done when I first laid eyes on the sword. By the Seven, I swear it.”
