“You have no idea,” he repeated slowly, adding emphasis to each word. “Yer promise was to find the man, aye? To find him and aid him in reaching Christiana. If you’ve no idea where he is, that does no sound to me as though you kept yer promise. It sounds to me as if you failed in yer oath.”
“It only sounds that way because you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.”
She made no attempt to hide her irritation with him. The thickheaded Northman was missing the whole point of her having come to him in the first place. If it were as simple as merely locating someone and sending a messenger, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. If it were that simple, she wouldn’t have to live in dread of Danu’s discovery of her actions.
“Then perhaps you’ll be so kind as to enlighten—” His eyes narrowed in that annoyingly suspicious way he had. “Or is this the ‘tiniest issue’ you mentioned earlier?”
Perhaps he was a tad quicker than she’d given him credit for.
“Exactly.”
“Out with it, Elf,” he all but growled. “With yer powers, how could you fail in finding the man? What’s gone wrong this time?”
She resented his implication, but arguing was more difficult when he was so close to being absolutely on target.
“I didn’t fail in finding him. There was little challengein that and I located him easily enough.” Her hand fluttered into the air as if with a mind of its own and she drew it to her side, clenching her fingers into fists. “It was only when I set the Magic to pull him back through time that everything got a little...messy.”
Time travel was tricky. Like any unpracticed Magic, it required the utmost of concentration to accomplish. The guilt burning through her fingers as she’d sent the Magic out into the ether had distracted her. The goddess, Danu, had allowed her into the Mortal world with her Magic intact only for the purpose of dealing with her daughter’s disappearance, and nothing more. But she’d disobeyed Danu’s edict by using the Magic to help Christiana. There would be a price to pay for her disobedience, she had no doubt.
“What in the name of Freya were you thinking, woman? You’ve drawn another innocent through time? And if that alone wasn’t bad enough, you lost him? Have we no enough troubles what with the threat of Torquil’s revenge hanging over our heads? Now we’ve some poor soul wandering around lost in a time not his own.”
“I didn’t say he was lost,” she denied, though in truth, that was exactly what she was saying. “It’s more a matter of his being misplaced. Temporarily, of course.”
No point in explaining to this one the intricacies of working with Magic. No point at all in trying totell him how the Magic fought you, always seeking its own end. “My intent was to—”
The door to Malcolm’s solar burst open and Bridget stormed out. The men who’d witnessed her confrontation with Malcolm followed more slowly, as if they had no desire to cross her path at the moment.
Malcolm emerged last, rubbing his brow. “Unpleasant, that,” he muttered, glancing toward the bodies disappearing down the hallway. “But at least I’ve one less odious task on my hands now.”
“About that.” Patrick caught Syrie’s arm and pulled her toward the doorway. “I’d no be counting my hands empty just yet if I were you. The Elf here has a little something she needs to tell you.”
OceanofPDF.com
Six
GLEAMS LIKE Ajewel in the sun, does she?” Halldor muttered. “My arse!”
Chase bit back a grin at his new friend’s irritation. That whole sun description thing was of course dependent upon the sun actually shining. If he’d needed anything to convince him he was in Scotland rather than Montana, the weather here was doing its best to accommodate, alternating between plain overcast gray and cold gray drizzle.
Definitely not the semi-arid, sunny landscape he’d ridden through only days before.
“How are your feet holding up?” Halldor asked.
Chase shrugged. “They hurt like hell.”
Thanks to the inopportune moment the Faeries had chosen for zapping him through time, not only had he ended up without clothing, he also had no shoes. From his big leather bag, Halldor had produced a couple of thick, furry skins and a length of fine cord for Chase to secure them around his feet. They provided protection and warmth but weren’t sturdy enough for the two days of walking he’d justput in. He was pretty sure he’d worn a hole in the bottom of one of them.
“A bother it is that I parted with my spare animal before we met. Should we stop for a rest?”
Though Halldor attempted nonchalance, keeping his eyes fixed to the road ahead of them, Chase could hear the concern in his friend’s voice. The man had more than earned Chase’s admiration over the past two days. Not once had he pursued any of what he had to see as strange questions that Chase asked. Only once had he remarked on Chase’s past, and that was simply to comment on the tattoo emblazoned on Chase’s upper arm. Halldor had laughed and joked, had accepted him without question, and had done everything in his power to help Chase. He even walked his own horse behind them, matching Chase step for step when he easily could have ridden.
“No. Let’s keep going. It’ll be fine.”
It would be, too. Of all the skills he’d gained during his tours in Afghanistan, endurance was high on the list.
Halldor nodded and pointed down the trail. “It’s not what I’d call gleaming by any stretch, but does that not look like a white tower off there in the distance?”
It did indeed.
