“And tell the digger to make another grave,” Amadi added. “After I tell all this to the provost, you’ll have to put me in it.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-eight
Raindrops cut icy flecks of life into Deirdre’s wind-numbed face. Billowing clouds blanketed the sky save for a few rents that poured city-sized sun-beams onto the Highlands.
Deirdre was laughing as she galloped down the Highridge Road. To either side, the mountains dropped into deep valleys. Some dells were criss-crossed with stone walls and speckled with Highland sheep. Ravens there were too, clouds of them flapping through the dark sky or filling the few trees like a harvest of noisy, black-feathered fruit.
Topping the next ridge, Deirdre looked down the road to the watchtowers guarding the entrance to Glengorm: one of her clan’s fortified homesteads.
As she galloped, sunlight swept across the road and glinted on her armor. The guards cheered as she tore through the open gates.
Down into the glen she flew, barely noticing the fortified houses or the wooden barricades meant to keep livestock in and lycanthropes out. At the bottom of the glen lay a narrow lake. A small stone fort stood on a jetty that extended into the gray water.
Deirdre did not rein in her mare until she was in the fort’s stable yard. Her clansmen in the stalls shouted joyously. Others appeared at the windows.
Deirdre swung down and threw her reins to the nearest boy. “Treat her well,” she said through a wry smile. “She’s had a bit of a run.”
The men within earshot laughed at her understatement.
She raised a fist and yelled, “The White Fox has escaped to Dral! Confusion to the Lornish Crown!” The men echoed her cry at near deafening volume.
She led another cheer and then hurried into the fort and up three flights of narrow wooden stairs. When she pushed the door open, Kyran was pacing by the window.
His limp was less pronounced now, but still he favored his left leg, probably would for the rest of his life. His long hair hung across his shoulders in a golden curtain.
Her wry smile renewed itself. “Only half a year ago Paladin Garwyn nearly cut that limb off.” She nodded to his bandaged right leg. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be troubling it so.”
Kyran turned around, his brown eyes alight with expectation. “Great Soul,” he said, sinking to his left knee.
She closed the door and went to him. His freshly shaven face turned up toward her. The scar below his ear was little more than a red line now. “My cousin?” he asked. “Did he make it safely to Dral?”
Deirdre suppressed a laugh. “Always so serious, Kyran. The White Fox runs in feral woods tonight. A fist of rangers met us at the river. If they can avoid the lycanthropes, they shall reach Kerreac in less than a fortnight.”
Relief drew Kyran’s thin lips into a dimpled smile. He took her hand and bent over it. “I swear on Bridget’s name that you have my undying love.”
His touch made Deirdre’s head feel as light as smoke.
There was nothing to indicate it, but she knew that he had meant “you” to be plural, to include her goddess. Her hands trembled as she turned his chin up. “And you shall have ours.”
He stood and pressed his lips to hers. Her heart throbbed to an irregular rhythm. She felt as if she were having an aura.
She had thought of this for so long, known how forbidden it was. “From the first,” he whispered, “I loved you always.”
Laughing, she pulled him closer and stopped his words with her tongue.
She could tell by his kiss that this time he had meant the word “you” to be singular; his love was for her only.
His arms closed around her.
“Do you love me still?” she murmured into his neck. “Love me only?”
“Yes.” His voice the briefest susurration by her ear. “I loved you always; I love you still.”
Her face tingled with warmth as she pulled back far enough to kiss him again.
Slowly the world tilted so that they lay facing each other. The room dimmed. Her hands trembled badly. His face lost its bristles and became as smooth as a boy’s. His long golden hair, flowing all about them, darkened until it was as black as her own. Her hands clenched as an ecstatic warmth flushed down her back. Silently, she prayed she would not fall into a seizure now.
Her lover’s eyes lightened from dark brown to deep green. They were not Kyran’s eyes.