The box was empty.
FURY FILLEDCHASEso completely, nothing remained but the bright, blistering need to cut Torquil into a million tiny pieces.
He launched himself across the room, but his prey was faster. Torquil danced away, Christiana held in front of him like a shield. A shield whose head lolled to the side while coughs wracked her body.
“You came for this?” Torquil taunted, dragging her head back by a handful of hair, revealing a swollen red welt on the side of her face.
“No,” Chase answered, his vision tunneling on the man in front of him. “I came for you.”
Torquil laughed and continued to move away, placing the table between the two of them. Chasekept his back to the door, the only means of escape from the tower.
Apopandpoofsounded to his left as the fire leapt to the bags of herbs piled there. Flames shot into the air, reaching the edges of the tapestries covering the walls—but Chase’s quarry was more important.
“Think fast, warrior,” Torquil shouted, shoving Christiana toward the fire as he lunged for the opening to the stairs leading up to the top of the tower.
Chase dove to grab Christiana, reaching her as the flames licked up the sleeve of her gown. She scrabbled away from him, breathlessly pleading for him to stop, to wait.
There was no time to stop and wait. The whole damn place would be a blazing fire pit in a matter of minutes. He pulled her close and rolled over her to smother the flames eating away at her gown. Then he scooped her up in his arms and ran for the door and fresh air. Let that evil bastard Torquil burn.
“WHERE, WHERE, WHEREare you?” Torquil demanded, his back against the door of Christiana’s tower bed-chamber.
That the beast should desert him now was simply wrong.
“I would have given you free rein,” he railed, rushing to the window to gasp in great gulps of fresh air. “I would have allowed you to destroy them both, as you did the minstrel.”
Perhaps that was why the beast slumbered. His thirst for blood already had been well slaked today.
Below his feet, smoke slithered up between the floorboards.
If ever he had needed the Magic to work for him, now was that time. If ever he had needed to marshal every scrap of his concentration, now was that time.
His gaze landed on the clay pot at the end of the mantel. The clay pot holding the elixir that was the means to his sister’s Visions.
Perhaps it would work for him as well.
He lifted it from the mantel and tossed the stopper to floor. Tilting back his head, he drained the contents of the bottle and threw it toward the fireplace.
Now was the time.
CHAOS HAD ERUPTEDin the courtyard, with people scrambling everywhere to move their possessions as far from the burning tower as possible. The entire company of soldiers busily raced from the well to their barracks, wetting down what they could to prevent the fire’s spread.
Chase came to a halt in the middle of that bedlam and allowed Christiana’s feet to touch the ground. He held her close as she coughed the smoke from her lungs, murmuring reassurances, but never once taking his eyes from the doorway they’d come out.
Whether her bastard brother met his end on Chase’s sword or burned alive, Chase didn’t care. All that mattered was that his life ended this day.
He waited, watching, until flames licked up along the wooden supports of the tower’s outer walls and shot from the highest window at the top. Waited and watched as the roof gave way and crashed in. Waited and watched, until he was sure nothing and no one could have survived the inferno.
“I see you found your lady in time.”
Halldor stood calmly at his side, blood soaking the right side of his shirt.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Artur and I resolved our feud.” He shrugged, wincing at the motion. “While it’s on my mind, little brother, I’d thank you again for the amulet of protection you gifted me. Fortuitous, indeed.”
Christiana lifted a hand toward Hall, then let it drop to her side. “I’ve nothing left to help with the healing. All my herbs are gone, but perhaps we can locate some whisky in the kitchens to clean the wound before you seek yer rest.”
“There will be no rest for us here, my lady. We must leave this place before we’re confronted by Torquil.”
