Chapter Fourteen #2
“Yes, I know,” Elise murmured, stroking her neck. “Something’s off. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise. Just a little farther.”
She dismounted before the tree line, leading the horse quietly into the shadows beneath the branches. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in broken shards, dappling the mossy ground. Birds chirped—then fell suddenly silent.
Elise froze.
Her magic surged so violently that she slapped a hand to her chest, pulse suddenly hammering. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “What is that?”
The sense of wrongness was thicker here.
It slithered along her senses, like the touch of an icicle.
She let the reins fall, creeping forward until she reached the edge of the trees.
Ahead stretched the familiar dip of the coastline, the curve of the bay, the rocks where she’d stood with Jamie just a few short days ago.
Nothing looked different. But everything felt different.
She reached out, fingertips brushing the rough bark of an old pine, and leaned around the trunk to get a better look—
A hand touched her shoulder.
Elise yelped, spinning. Power ripped through her in a blinding rush, bursting from her like an explosion of white-hot lightning. It slammed into the figure behind her, sending him flying backward into the bracken.
Elise’s heart stopped as she recognized the pale-blond hair, the line of the jaw, the broad shoulders.
“Jamie!”
She scrambled over to him, flinging herself onto her knees at his side. Her eyes roved over his body. His eyes were closed. Oh God. No.
“Jamie! Are you all right? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. Jamie. Please!”
Her hands shook as she cupped his face, brushing dirt and leaves from his skin. His lashes fluttered against his cheek. His hair had fallen across his forehead, and she pushed it back with trembling fingers, horrified with herself.
His eyes opened slowly—those startling eyes she’d come to love so much.
“Ouch,” he whispered. “Remind me never to get on yer bad side.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “What the bloody hell were you thinking? You startled me…and I…” She shook her head, dismissing the excuses. “Are you all right? Did I…hurt you?”
He pushed himself into a sitting position. “A few bruises maybe.” His gaze found hers. “But no more than I deserve.”
“Why did you sneak up on me? I didn’t sense you at all. Everything’s so…so distorted here. My magic is so swamped I couldn’t feel anything else.”
He didn’t reply, just gazed at her. She wanted to touch him again, wanted to run the tips of her fingers down his jaw, wanted to feel the silkiness of his hair beneath her fingers.
With an effort, she rose and strode away a few paces, standing with her back to him. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
She heard him climb to his feet and take several steps towards her.
“Elise. Listen to me. Of course I should have followed ye. I couldnae let things stay the way they’ve been between us.
It was tearing me apart. It’s still tearing me apart.
” His voice faltered for a moment before he continued. “Elise, I have to tell ye how I feel—”
She whirled on him. “Don’t! Don’t say it! I don’t want to hear to it. Not right now.”
He swallowed hard. “All right. Then come back to the keep with me. Please.”
“I can’t. I have to finish what I started.”
“But there’s nothing here! We’ve already been through this!”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
She took a deep breath then lifted her chin and faced him squarely.
“I went to Phillp’s study. Have you noticed that he always has a bowl of water on his desk?
Well, I discovered that it’s not just a bowl of water.
It’s a scrying pool and he had a lock of your hair in the bottom of it.
More than that, he has a secret stash of books in his study. Books on magic.”
A puzzled frown marred his features. “What are ye talking about?”
“He was using the scrying bowl to spy on you. And I think—” she hesitated “—I think he’s the one who was passing information to the pirates.”
Jamie’s brows snapped together. “Impossible. Phillip would never betray me.”
“Are you so sure about that?” She shook her head before he could answer. “Look, I’m not here to argue about it. I’m here to find proof—that’s the reason I left the keep.” She met his gaze. “Do you trust me?”
“Ye know I do. With my life.”
“Then trust me now. There is something here; I can feel it. And I have to find out what it is.”
He said nothing for the longest time. She could almost see the thoughts turning behind his eyes, the disconnect between his desire to trust her and the evidence of his own eyes. But the trust won out. “All right,” he said finally. “Then I’m coming with ye.”
“But you’re needed at the keep.”
“Damn the keep! Damn the envoy and the king!” He stepped closer and looked down at her. “If ye are right, and there is something here, do ye think I would let ye face it alone? Ye know me better than that, Elise. No arguing for once.”
A wave of gratitude washed through her and it was all she could do not to fling her arms around him.
But she only nodded. “All right. Come on then.”
Leaving the horses concealed in the trees, they crept to the edge of the thicket and peered out. The same scene as before met Elise’s eyes. Empty beach. Empty sea. But it was lies. All lies. The sense of wrong was so heavy here she could hardly pull breath to her lungs.
“What are we looking for?” Jamie asked. “It looks no different than it did the other day.”
Elise didn’t answer. She no longer trusted what was in front of her. Screwing her eyes closed, she pressed her palm flat against the ground. Slowly, keeping tight control, she began trickling her power into the ground, sending her senses probing outwards, searching.
Jamie crouched beside her, his breath warm against her cheek. “Elise?”
“Wait.”
It was a slow process, and Elise felt like a blind woman trying to find her way through a maze as she slowly probed her way out onto the beach.
Finally, after an interminable amount of time that might have been hours or only seconds, her questing magic felt something. A shimmering wall of power stretched like a curtain over the bay—thin enough for her to miss the first time but strong enough to hide something massive.
She gasped. What she sensed was illusion. A glamour, dark and powerful.
With a thumping heart, she pressed her other hand to the ground, drawing more power, deeper and deeper, until her fingertips tingled painfully, as though she’d touched an electric current.
And then—
“I see it,” she whispered.
She pushed her magic outward, letting go her restraint and allowing it to flow out of her like a river of magma. It slammed into the shimmering curtain of the glamour and a crack split through the illusion like a jagged tear in glass.
Jamie inhaled sharply. “Elise—”
She pushed harder. Light burst across the shore. The glamor shattered.
And the world changed.
Elise opened her eyes and saw that where the empty bay had been only moments ago, an entire hidden inlet had been revealed.
And it was filled with ships.
Dozens of them. War galleys, longships, sleek raiders painted with symbols she didn’t recognize. Men moved across the decks and up and down the beach, unaware their concealment had just been ripped open.
Jamie stood slowly, his face whitening with shock. “By all the gods…”
She leapt to her feet. Her legs felt shaky and her breath burned in her chest as she gazed with wide eyes at what she’d revealed.
“My God. It’s him,” Jamie whispered, his voice laced with outrage and fury. “It’s always been him.”
Elise didn’t understand what he meant. Looking closer, she saw that several of the ships were outfitted like the pirate ships she’d seen when they went after the Sea Star.
But most weren’t. Most were sleek galleys fitted with canon ports, pristine sails, and equipment in too good a condition to belong to a ragtag pirate fleet.
Something that had been bugging her since their encounter with the pirate ships suddenly came into focus.
“That’s not a pirate fleet at all,” she breathed.
“No,” Jamie agreed. “It isnae. It’s the king’s fleet.”
*
Jamie stared out at the scene before him, hardly daring to believe the evidence of his own eyes.
A whole fleet. Dozens of ships with Scottish banners furled tight against their masts. War galleys. Transports. Enough men to take every island from Islay to Barra.
The world tilted under his feet.
The king of Scotland. Phillip MacClelland. Elise was right. He’d been working for the king all along.
The betrayal punched the breath from his lungs. For a long moment he couldn’t speak—could barely think—only feel the fury climbing in him like a storm.
Elise turned to him, her face pale and drawn. “Jamie… what are we going to do?”
He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. “What we should have done from the start. We fight. We ride back to the keep. We take Phillip and the envoy prisoner. We rouse the fleet and strike now—while those bastards still think their trick holds.”
Elise nodded tightly. Her skin was pale, but she didn’t look afraid. She looked determined.
Behind them, the horses stamped suddenly, hooves shifting in the pine needles. A branch snapped.
Jamie whirled, hand going to the hilt of his sword as the undergrowth rustled—then parted to reveal armed men surrounding them, steel glinting in the morning light.
Jamie let out a slow, vicious breath, eyes darting, taking in his enemies.
They were surrounded by at least twenty of the envoy’s guards, all heavily armed, spread in a circle, blocking all escape that way.
They were snared like rabbits in a trap.
He heard slow hoofbeats and two men came riding through the trees. Jamie bristled at the sight of them. Phillip MacClelland and Sir Ewan Bruce. They pulled to a halt in front of him and Elise.
“Ye should have stayed at the keep,” Phillip said in a voice that sounded like he was scolding a naughty child. “I did try to warn ye.”
Jamie drew his sword in a whoosh of steel. Cold fury boiled in his veins. “I’ll kill ye for this,” he growled. “Ye treacherous snake.”
Phillip only smiled. “My king prefers the word patriot.”
“Why?” Jamie demanded. “Why would ye do this?” He couldn’t keep the hurt from his voice. He’d trusted this man. Trusted him. And now…now he’d sold him and his people like cattle. The depth of such a betrayal left him breathless.
“Because we need the Kingdom of the Isles,” Phillip replied. “As a bulwark between Scotland and the growing power of Ulster.”
“We? Ye say ‘we’ as though ye and James of Scotland are united. But ye are a man of Islay!”
“Was a man of Islay,” Phillip corrected. “But then yer father sent me to the royal court and my eyes were opened.” His gaze flicked momentarily to Elise. “Do ye know how I got these scars?” he said, indicating the burn marks on his face.
Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “An accident when ye were a child, I was told.”
Phillip barked a sardonic laugh. “An accident? Hardly. The people of yer precious Islay tried to burn me for practicing ‘witchery.’” His tone turned bitter as he pointed at Elise.
“They welcome the MacFinnan spellweaver as a savior, yet when they discovered one of their own studying the same magic, they reacted with fear and loathing. It was only yer father’s intervention that saved my life.
So forgive me, my laird, if I feel little affinity with the people of Islay. ”
Jamie shook his head. “I dinna understand.”
“But King James did. He saw my worth. And he allowed me to study without fear of retribution. At the royal court I discovered many things, including where my true loyalty lay.”
“So ye returned here as a spy? Ye were working for him the whole time?”
“Loyalty has its price, my laird, and King James paid my price many times over.”
“Why such deceit?” Jamie asked, trying to catch up with all of this. He felt like he’d been dropped into another land where he didn’t understand the language or the rules. “Why fake all these pirate attacks? If King James wants the Isles so badly, why not just invade us?”
Phillip raised an eyebrow. “I taught ye better than that, Jamie. Think about it. If the king of Scotland marched an army onto these shores, the Kingdom of Ulster would intervene. There would be war and no one wants that. Better to create a crisis. A threat. Something that would push ye towards alliance with King James.”
“Alliance?” Jamie barked. “Ye mean surrender.”
Phillip shrugged. “When we sign the marriage contract, these lands become bound to the Scottish Crown. Peacefully. Bloodlessly.”
Something inside Jamie snapped. With a howl of incandescent rage, he hurled himself at Phillip, swinging his sword two-handed. But he never made it.
Phillip flung up his hand and Jamie’s blade met a wall of shimmering force that threw him backward. Instantly, Elise’s magic answered in a blazing surge, slamming into Phillip’s power and shredding it like parchment.
In response, chaos erupted around them.
The envoy shouted orders. Steel flashed. Guards advanced, swords drawn. Elise sent a wave of power through the trees, splintering branches and knocking two men from their feet. Jamie saw the strain on her face. She was already exhausted from breaking the glamour.
He set himself in front of her, sword clasped before him. His eyes flicked from side to side, trying to track all the advancing guards at once. There were too many. Even with Elise’s power, they couldn’t hope to best them all.
“Run!” he shouted.
They sprinted for the horses. Two guards blocked their path, but Jamie knocked one aside and Elise blasted the other with raw, wild magic that sent him crashing into the underbrush.
They reached the horses. Ignoring Elise’s dapple, Jamie vaulted onto Tempest, hauling Elise up after him. The big stallion was faster and stronger and what they needed right now was speed.
Glancing behind, Jamie saw Phillip raise his hands again, light gathering in his palms.
“Yah,” Jamie roared.
He kicked Tempest into a desperate gallop just as magic cracked through the air behind them. Trees exploded with sparks. A blast of force sent dirt flying around the horse’s hooves.
But they made it out.
The forest whipped past as they plunged into its depths, branches clawing at their cloaks. Guards shouted behind them but the path narrowed, and Tempest, born and bred on Islay’s rough terrain, leaped over roots and rocks with sure-footed speed.
Behind him Elise muttered something and a silent shockwave of power rippled out behind them.
“That bastard isn’t the only one who can conjure a glamour,” she said. “I’ve laid a false trail. It should give us time to get clear.”
Jamie nodded tightly, not trusting himself to speak. Together, they fled south.