Chapter Seven
Cailean stared at her, unsure if he’d heard her correctly. A curse?
Rose had gone pale, and there was a thin sheen of sweat across her forehead. Whatever she’d sensed, it had affected her badly. Beneath his grip, he could feel her shaking. That alarmed him more than anything. What could be so bad that it would scare a MacFinnan spellweaver like this?
“Lass?” he said. “Rose. Look at me.”
She licked her lips, sucked a breath through her nostrils before her blue eyes found his. “I felt it earlier when I examined Drew. I went deeper than before, and something didn’t like that. It attacked me.”
She pulled her right hand out of his grip and showed him her hand, where the puckered burn scar sat.
Cailean blinked, unease sliding down his spine. “Are ye saying Drew did that to ye?”
She shook her head. “Not Drew. The corruption inside him.” She waved her hand at the cove and its multitude of dead fish. “The same corruption that did this. It isn’t a sickness that is taking your people, Cailean. It’s magic. Dark magic.”
Cailean released her and staggered back a few paces. The beach beneath his feet felt suddenly like quicksand, and he was sinking, sinking, sinking…
He clenched his fists, closed his eyes. A curse. Dark magic. Anger flashed through him. Damn all the gods! How dare they?
He opened his eyes. “What is this magic?” he growled.
Rose wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know yet.
But it’s not native to this island. It feels alien somehow.
It’s out of sync with everything else, slowly choking the islands like a vine around a tree.
That’s what happened here, I think. The curse overwhelmed the bay’s life force and killed everything. ”
Cailean swallowed. “Is that what’s going to happen to Barra?”
Rose met his gaze. Her eyes flashed, and he saw a glint of the power of the MacFinnan spellweavers. “No,” she said, lifting her chin. “It isn’t. Because we are going to stop it.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. That’s why I’m here, remember?”
“Lass, ye were brought here to cure a sickness. Now there is no sickness—”
“No. I was brought here to help a people in need,” she cut in. “Regardless of what that help entails. I intend to discover what this curse is and end it.” Her words were fierce, her expression defiant.
“Ye… ye would do that?”
“Of course.” She looked a little puzzled by the question. “I’m a MacFinnan spellweaver. It’s what we do.”
No, he thought. It’s what you do, Rose MacFinnan.
He stepped closer, so close she had to crane her head back to look up at him. The breeze whispered around them, and the waves lapped at his boots, but Cailean barely noticed. He stared down into her bottomless eyes.
“Thank ye, lass,” he said softly.
Her lips parted, and a soft breath hissed through them. “I…”
She trailed off, staring up at him. In that moment, Cailean felt something shift inside him. He could not have named what it was, only that it felt… good.
Rose cleared her throat, stepped back. “Um. We’d better get back to Dun Mallach. I’m going to need a map of the island, and markers, and a list of everyone who has fallen ill.”
“Aye. I’ll send out riders to survey every settlement.”
She nodded, then turned and began walking away. But she’d not gone more than three steps when she stumbled, almost pitching her face-first into the sand and dead fish. Cailean darted forward, got his hands around her waist and steadied her.
Her skin was waxy pale and there was a thin covering of sweat across her forehead. She was pushing herself too hard, he realized. She was exhausted. Her hands shook a little.
“I’m fine,” she protested. “Honestly.”
“Ye are a poor liar, Rose MacFinnan,” he replied. “And I would thank ye to temper that MacFinnan stubbornness and let me help ye.”
She shot him a flat look but clamped her lips shut and didn’t protest as he helped her up the sand dunes to where the horses were waiting.
“Thanks, but I’m okay now,” she said, pushing away from his aid. “The confrontation with the curse just knocked the stuffing out of me a little. I’ll be fine from here.”
He studied her. There were dark circles around her eyes, and she looked fit to drop.
“Ye are in no fit state to ride,” he announced. “Ye will ride with me.”
Before she could protest, he got his arms around her waist and hoisted her up into Arrow’s saddle.
She yelped. “Wait! What are you doing?”
He swung up behind her, settling himself into the saddle. Reaching around her, he gathered up Arrow’s reins.
“Dinna worry about Snip. She will follow us.”
He nudged Arrow’s ribs and sent the gelding off at a canter back towards the southern road, Snip following behind. Rose gripped the saddle horn but not before she was pushed backwards in the saddle so she was pressed right up against him.
The warmth of her body seeped into him, and that something he’d felt on the beach uncoiled in his belly again. He didn’t know what it was.
But he knew he liked it.
*
Rose didn’t speak much on the way home. Her mind was awhirl with everything she’d discovered at North Cove.
She glanced down at the burn on her palm.
It no longer hurt and would probably heal without a scar, but even so, it was a reminder of all that was wrong here.
Since the incident with Drew, she had suspected she was dealing with something other than an ordinary epidemic.
North Cove had only confirmed that.
She breathed deeply, trying to calm her racing heart as they cantered back towards Dun Mallach at a faster pace than on their way out this morning.
Rose made no complaint about the pace. Nor did she complain that Cailean had taken it upon himself to have her ride with him without so much as a by-your-leave.
In truth, she was glad of it. She felt exhausted and wrung out, and there was something reassuring about the cage of Cailean’s strong arms around her. He seemed as strong and solid as granite, and after the disquieting things she’d discovered at North Cove, that was exactly what she needed.
She had never sensed such malevolent magic as she had in the waters of the cove.
During her work as a spellweaver, she had occasionally come across old magic, created for a dark purpose.
But these were usually just weak curses set by someone with rudimentary gifts who wanted petty revenge for a perceived hurt. None of them ever held any real power.
But this…
This went deeper, further than anything she’d sensed before, and it was no third-rate village hedge witch who had set this. No, whoever or whatever had created this curse was powerful. Very powerful.
“Ye are quiet, lass,” Cailean said softly.
Rose blinked, coming out of her reverie. She was leaning back against Cailean’s warm chest, and she could feel his voice rumbling through his body.
“Am I? Sorry, I was just… thinking.”
“Thinking? A dangerous pursuit, I’m told.”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong.”
She bit her lip and then turned her head to look at him. His eyes, focused on the path ahead, flicked to her, and she could see that he was troubled, despite his light-hearted words. Who wouldn’t be troubled after what they’d seen?
She kept herself busy by studying the landscape as they rode, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might give a clue as to what was going on here.
The villages were emptier than they had been on the way out, with most folks busy out in the fields or on the water.
She spotted fishing boats on the waves and groups of children shrieking and laughing as they played on the beaches, in the water as often as out of it.
A pang of anxiety went through her. What would happen to those children, those fishermen, those women working the fields if she couldn’t find a way to stop this curse-wrought sickness?
In her mind’s eye she saw this place deserted, the beaches windswept and silent, the villages empty and forlorn. A shiver slid down her spine.
No, she told herself. I won’t let that happen. I swore I’d find a way to help these people, and that’s what I will do. Somehow.
She was glad when they arrived back at Dun Mallach.
Cailean guided Arrow into the courtyard where he pulled him to a halt. Two stable hands came running to take hold of his and Snip’s bridles as Cailean swung effortlessly down.
Then, before she could swing her leg over the saddle, he reached up, put his hands on her waist, and lifted her to the ground as if she weighed nothing at all.
Rose harrumphed as he set her on her feet. “Will you stop doing that? I’m not a sack of turnips.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Are ye sure? Ye ride like one.”
She didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, she made do with a glare.
“Come,” he said, ignoring her ire. “I have something to show ye.”
Rose followed him into the keep. Once inside, he led her along the wide, echoing passage that ran the length of the interior. They passed doors and rooms she’d not yet seen, some open and some closed, until Cailean came to a halt in a small, round antechamber with three doors leading off it.
Reaching beneath his tunic, he pulled out a key on a string, and unlocked one of the doors. Within, Rose found a small, neat room with a single wooden desk and two chairs.
Cailean looked around the room, his dark eyes scanning the well-kept space.
“I havenae been in this room for a long time,” he said, almost to himself. “This was my father’s study. He used to spend hours in here studying languages and history.” He smiled wryly. “And, I think, to escape the demands of the clan.”
Rose examined the space. There were several bookcases filled with rolled parchments, a number of quills laid out neatly on the desk along with an inkpot.
A huge leather-bound book stood open on a stand, which she guessed was a Bible.
The place spoke of scholarship and learning, and although Cailean might not have been here in a while, somebody still obviously kept the place scrupulously clean.