Page 38 of Alec

Chapter Ten

Rory meant to pass by the chatelaine’s bed chamber as quickly as he could, but Inga stepped out and nearly collided with him.

“I’m sorry.” She pressed her slim hand against her breast as she gazed up at him. “I need to have the maids light more torches in this passage.”

He would have agreed and continued on, but he saw the wetness on her cheeks, and the faint swelling of her eyelids. “Why did you weep, Chatelaine?”

His voice reached just above a whisper, and stone dust sifted down from the ceiling, reminding him to lower it.

“I spoke of something very sad to Miss Gibson,” she admitted as she raised her hand to wipe away the tears. “Rory, please don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

He had caught her wrist, and now eased it down by her side before releasing her. “You spoke of Tasgall. You never talk of him to anyone. Why now to her?”

“Unlike me, she’s falling in love with the right man.” Her pretty lips curved. “I forgot how skilled you are at finding out what others hide through their dreams.”

She was the only one who knew about the ability he had concealed from the clan and their vassals, which she had discovered accidentally a few months after she had come into the spell trap.

“If you’re lonely, Chatelaine,” Rory said, forcing out the words, “I suspect Farlan shall welcome you into his bed.”

“Our seneschal is very generous with his affections,” she said. “I only want one man, and he is now forever beyond my reach. Excuse me.”

He watched her go, but as he started on his way to the armory he heard her cry out and whirled around to run after her. In the next passage he found her collapsed on her side, her fingers stretching out toward him before a glassy frost engulfed them and made her go motionless.

“Chatelaine. Inga.” She did not respond to his voice, and when he lifted her in his arms she had grown as stiff as if she had been frozen. Ignoring the bits of shattered stone that rained over his head and shoulders, he ran with her to the infirmary, where he found Ben and Ulf sitting on either side of a cot where Elspeth lay unmoving. “Healer, help her.”

He spoke too loudly, and his voice caused three crocks on the worktable to shatter, spilling their contents.

“Fack me,” he muttered.

Ben came over and took Inga from him, carrying her to the nearest empty table. “She’s been frozen by a Fae enchantment. Did you see a white beetle near her, Rory?”

“A golach,” Ulf said.

He recalled the glimmer of something flying past his face as he’d knelt by the chatelaine. “Mayhap.” He had to pause to keep from speaking too loud, and then asked, “If I kill it, shall that revive her?”

“I don’t know. It’s better not to kill it.” The healer went and picked up a lidded bowl and handed it to him. “Go and see if you can catch the thing. We need to test it to see how it’s doing this to our ladies.”

Rory eyed the chatelaine. He didn’t want to leave her, but if it would help awaken her and Elspeth, he had to. “Keep close watch over her.”

He hurried back to the passage where she had fallen, sending maids and guards skittering out of his path as he did. When he ran he resembled an overly large bull on a rampage, he knew, but all he could think of was Inga’s pale, still face, and the stiffness of her slender body in his arms. Then he saw Ava slowly walking around the spot where the chatelaine had fallen, a torch in her hand.

“My lady, ’tis dangerous here,” he whispered. “You should leave at once.”

“I saw two white bugs fly out of this passage and through a window, and you running off with Inga when I came around the corner.” She handed him the torch and pointed to the floor. “Something froze the stone, too.”

Rory glanced down and saw thin, silvery marks like scratched streaks that glittered on the granite. Rather than touch them he bent and placed his hand over them. The nearness of his flesh made them take on a faint reddish glow.

“Fae magic.” He straightened and regarded Ava. “Which window did the golachs—the beetles—fly through, my lady?”

She led him around the corner and stopped at one of the arrow slits. “This one.”

Rory looked out and saw the line of caldrons where the laundress and her ladies attended to washing. Piles of unwashed garments and linens as well as large buckets of water stood heaped beside the vats, but no fires for boiling the water had been started. Since the weather had been clear and attending to the laundry usually took all day, there should have been a dozen still working.

“Where does the laundress and her girls work inside the stronghold?” Ava asked.

“The seventh tower.” He caught her arm. “If they’re frozen like Inga and Elspeth, we shall need more men to carry them to the infirmary."

She put her fingers to her lips and let out a loud, piercing whistle. When a pair of guards came running, she told them to gather a dozen others and meet them in the seventh tower. She then accompanied Rory there, where they found the door barricaded from the inside.