Chapter 3 #2
Keane’s gaze followed the figure in the sights of his arrow, wondering who it could be.
Lilidbrugh was not a place where men were wont to come.
Most folks turned a blind eye to the ruins, seeing only what it had become.
As far as he knew, no one ever ventured there anymore.
It lay forgotten upon a remote piece of earth where mortal men dared not go, rumored now to be a place where faeries lay in wait to curse the unwary soul.
But someone was there…
Keane couldn’t make out the features, but the figure was slight, half swallowed by a bright blue cloak.
How dull-witted was that? To wear a rich coat, especially with the coming snows.
If the man had but cloaked himself in common colors, he might not seem worth the trouble of descending for the spoils, but by law, no peasant ever wore such a garb.
The fool might as well have waved huge sacks of gold.
At the moment, his target remained a good three hundred yards away.
Keane was not the greatest of archers, but he was not the worst. A lifetime of competing with his ruthless sisters had greatly honed his skills.
Inasmuch as Lael was a master with her blades, Cailin was an expert with her bow.
She could nail a mark from two hundred fifty yards.
Keane’s best effort was twenty yards’ shy of that.
He was far better with his sword. Still, with the downward trajectory, he could do it, although his target seemed far more pre-occupied with someone—or something—following behind…
so he waited to see who else would come.
No one did. The man was alone.
He waited for the perfect opportunity as the idiot scuttled along a half wall.
At last, when he flattened himself against a spot and went perfectly still, Keane’s eyes honed in on a small ruby purse in his hand—and he smiled, for the purse afforded Keane a perfect mark.
Whatever that purse held would be valuable enough for the man to carry naught else.
Cailin would call it an impossible shot, but Keane was not a man to back down from a challenge.
It was never his intent to harm the man, nor did he particularly intend to frighten him.
Very simply, he wanted him to stay put, so he set his sights on the purse and let the arrow fly.
There was little familiar about her surroundings but Lianae knew the place. More to the point, she knew the fear it inspired in the hearts of men.
Her breath came in soft pants as she stole across the bramble-covered ruins, tripping as she went and wincing when her cold, bare feet encountered jagged edges.
It was warm enough for the month of December.
Until now, the lack of shoes had merely been a nuisance, but now she longed for her shoes—not those frilly slippers she’d abandoned in the bathhouse, but her own sturdy leather boots.
Her feet hurt, and it was getting too dark to see, but she was nearly certain her feet were bleeding now as well.
It couldn’t be helped. Better that her feet should bleed than the rest of her.
Poor Elspeth.
Only now that she was alone, with no sign of pursuit, did she dare allow her anger to morph into grief.
The ache in her heart manifested as a lump in her throat, threatening to cut off her breath.
She swallowed past it, looking beyond the painful memories into the night’s shadows, studying her surroundings.
Abandoned.
Cursed.
These were the ruins of Lilidbrugh—the last known seat of the sons of Fidach.
Encroached upon by the woodlands, long, lean pillars encircled what appeared to be a long, forgotten courtyard.
Detritus fell about the crumbling bases like women’s fallen skirts.
Cobbled in places, the yard itself was oblong and in the center was a gaping hole—an open maw, waiting to be fed.
The sight of it gave Lianae a shudder, for it was here that folks supposedly brought their changelings to leave for the faeries.
She’d met a mother once who’d been so certain her bairn—who merely would not sleep through the night, and who suffered a constant malaise of the belly—was a changeling, that she’d abandoned her child here.
The next day, the child had surely vanished, but with no babe left in her place and the mother was disconsolate.
Lianae only hoped the wolves did not discover the poor babe, or that she did not fall into that deep, dark well.
Instead, she prayed some good woman had found the child and carried her home.
Swallowing the sun sooner than its sister peaks, Càrn Dearg rose before her, black and foreboding against a twilight sky.
Like quivering wraiths, the surrounding pinewoods slid into shadow, and the growing darkness left Lianae feeling colder than she’d felt only minutes before.
It was said that the weather in these parts was as fickle as a Highland lass, sweet and sunny one minute and raging the next.
She felt a storm brewing. She felt it down in her bones.
Shivering yet again, she resisted the urge to pinch her cloak together, far more concerned at the instant with finding a place to hide for the night.
Shadows were falling swiftly and the snows had begun.
Her gaze returned to the well. Not down that, for certain, although she was far more amenable to that possibility than she was over the prospect of ending with the Earl of Moray. His men were out there, likely not far.
Catching her breath, Lianae stood, waiting for the beat of her heart to still.
All the while shadows played havoc with the jagged edges of Lilidbrugh’s walls.
The stones themselves shone with a curious light—a trick of the pale white stone and a fresh dusting of snow, no doubt, but it was unnerving enough for her to reconsider the wisdom in coming to such a place.
She was not immune to superstition, after all, only more practical than most.
Faeries be damned.
Curses be damned.
She but needed to spend one night here—until the Earl’s men tired of searching.
And she was certain they would never dare enter these ruins.
Forsooth, but if men would not dare, they would never presume a mere lass would ever find the nerve.
But she was quickly losing what mettle she’d earned as the skies overhead darkened to the color of a bruise.
Swallowing her grief and a new wave of fear, Lianae found a bare spot along the wall and laid back her head, listening for telltale sounds, and trying to gauge whether anyone was near.
An ageless, abiding silence was her only response—a silence that lengthened and seemed to be swallowed by the White Lily herself.
Up on a half wall, a murder of crows sat, opening their fierce little beaks, but their squawks were silenced by a rising wind.
Even her own panting breath came silently, evidenced by a fine grey mist that hovered near her lips, but there was no sound to be heard.
Inching her way carefully along the wall, she surveyed the courtyard, one finger toying with the satin cord that held her purse cinched.
And then suddenly, without warning, the crows took flight. It was a bad sign.
Before she could shove away from the wall, to run, she heard a hiss and then a whack at her side. An arrow narrowly missed imbedding itself into the flesh below her thumb.
Flittering above her, the crows all beat the air with shining black wings, their shrieks now unleashed and Lianae’s gaze skidded to the blufftop, where she spied two men rushing down the steep path—one on horseback, the other making his way more slowly on foot.
She tried to run, but the arrow had found purchase in a fat stalk behind her silk purse.
Her heart stopped. “Oh, nay,” she cried, as she heard the men give shout.
She gave a little shriek of alarm, and tried again to free the purse to no avail.
The arrow had wrested itself so deeply into the petrified wood that she couldn’t budge it at all.
“Nay!” she cried again. Her cloak was caught as well.
It would be easy enough to shrug it off and run, but if she left without her cloak, she would freeze by morning, and if she left without the purse, she might as well go back home.
Home. Dear, God, where is that?
The contents of her purse would buy her freedom and news. It was meant to reunite her with her brothers. Cursing softly in her native tongue, she clasped the arrow shaft, tugging with all her might, wiggling desperately.
The men flying down the mountain were likely not the Earl’s, she realized, but that didn’t suit her much either.
She was no simpering English maid, but she was hardly prepared to deal with mean strangers.
With a final, fierce tug, she wrested the arrow free, renting a bit of Elspeth’s cloak.
The purse split as well, spilling the charm stones onto the snow. Her heart squeezed as they disappeared.
“Oh, nay!”
Hurrying to scoop up as many as she dared, she realized there were but seconds left to spare. Abandoning the ones that rolled beneath a bramble bush, she grabbed what she could and ran, hoping to come back later to retrieve the rest.
Behind her, she heard the clatter of hooves and to her dismay, she spied the rider close upon her heels—a black-haired, blue painted fiend galloping on a snow-white beast, churning up the ground beneath its hooves.
Lianae bolted across the courtyard, toward the well, uncertain what she meant to do, but at the instant, that well, seemed the far lesser of evils.