Heart of the Flame Read online

  "You must have seen something. She was spying on me in the graveyard and ran this way not a moment ago. You must have heard her footsteps at the very least?"

  "Nay, sir. 'Twasn't no one come through here in a fortnight, save the both of us. I saw nothing, I assure you."

  Kenrick swore under his breath. He was not imagining things, surely. A woman had been there. Watching him. With stealthy strides, he approached the open doorway to the chapel, the only place she could have gone. "Show yourself. You have nothing to fear," he said, stepping into the vaulted chamber. "Come out now. I wish only to talk to you."

  The barest shift of sound came from a toppled cabinet to his right. The door to the piece hung askew on its hinges. Too small to hide but a child, yet it afforded the sole spot of concealment in all of the chapel. From the darkened wedge of space at the top, Kenrick saw the glint of a wary stare watching him as he approached.

  "Who are you?" he asked, coming to stand there. He wished not to frighten the chit, but he wanted answers. Needed them. "What do you know of this place?"

  When no reply came, he reached out with his booted foot and began to move aside the broken door of the cabinet to reveal its cowering occupant. There was a whine, then a fearful, animal growl as he bent down to peer inside.

  "Jesu Criste."

  It was not his stealthy observer after all.

  A small red fox glared at him with hackles raised and teeth bared, trapped between the unyielding back of the cabinet enclosure and the dagger-wielding man who blocked its easy escape. The instant Kenrick withdrew, the little beast dashed out and fled the chapel for the safety of the outlying moors. Kenrick turned and watched it go, letting out his anxiety in a long, heavy sigh.

  Where had she gone?

  Whoever the woman was, she had managed to vanish.

  Into thin air, he was tempted to think, as he scanned his surroundings and saw no trace of the lovely intruder.

  "I wager it don't take long for the animals to come nosing about when there's no one here to shoo them off," said the graybeard from the village. He clucked his tongue as he ambled forward to where Kenrick stood. "Nothing of worth in this place for anyone now, man or beast. They burnt it all, save the stone of the keep and chapel. Sorrow is all that dwells here."

  Maybe so, Kenrick thought, unable to argue that the destruction of the place had been as thorough as it had been brutal. But there was something else lurking here, too. Something beyond the death and cinder, and far more elusive than an errant forest scavenger hoping to root out its next meal from amongst the ruins. That particular something had a riot of long, rich red hair, and the most beautiful face Kenrick had ever beheld.

  And as sure as he had seen her, wherever she'd run to, he was certain she hadn't gone far.

  Chapter 2

  By nightfall, the worst of the rain had passed. The air outside was damp and briny, bringing a chill into the vacant stone tower as Kenrick ascended to the private chambers abovestairs. He was alone now. The old villager had departed hours before, perfectly willing to leave Kenrick to continue his perusal of the manor without him.

  Kenrick's torch flame wobbled in the draft that followed him up the spiraling stairwell, throwing long, eerie shadows against the curving walls. Were he inclined toward a belief in such things, he might have been tempted to think the place haunted, so vivid were his memories of the lives that had once inhabited this modest keep. He reached the top of the stairs and paused, assailed anew with recollected sights and sounds of Rand and his young family as they had been when they lived there.

  Laughter echoed in his ears. Bright smiles and loving looks shared between mother and child, husband and wife, filled his vision as he strode into the empty family chambers on the second story.

  A small table had been overturned near the entryway to the solar; Kenrick righted it with reverent care, striving to make no sound lest he disturb the sacred stillness of the place. Elspeth's favorite chair stood near the shuttered window, next to it a frame and stand that held her needlework, neatly set aside as though its maker were shortly to return. The torchlight spilled over the design as Kenrick neared, illuminating the pastoral design in charred, half-completion. The piece would never be finished now.

  He turned away, and his eye was then drawn to the large bed that dominated the other side of the chamber. Empty, unmade, standing as it likely was in those black moments of panic when the keep was overtaken by the raiders. Rand must have vaulted from his sleep in an instant to meet the intruders. The sooty remains of his boots stood near the fireplace, but his sword and dagger were both gone from their sheaths, which lay atop the charred bed as though tossed there in haste and forgotten. Elspeth likely had only a few moments to dress herself and fetch little Tod before the place was overcome with smoke and blood and death.

  How terrified they all must have been.

  God willing, they hadn't suffered long.

  Kenrick suddenly felt much an intruder himself, standing in the room where his friends would have been--indeed, should have been this very moment--sleeping peacefully in each others' arms.

  The scent of old smoke was cloying, heavy in the room. He turned back toward the shuttered window and pulled the latch to permit a cleansing draft. The night breeze sailed in, crisp and cool.

  Kenrick leaned into the wind, clearing his head as he breathed of the brisk, sea-tossed air. The urge to hurl his rage into the quiet darkness was too strong, even for his own rigid sense of control. Grief and anger tore from his throat like a lash.

  He roared a violent curse, the bitter sound ringing in his ears as he sent his cry of fury careening into the night.

  * * *

  Down near the edge of the woods, a pair of green eyes, dimmed by fatigue and heavy with an unwilling sleep, snapped open. The pained roar that lanced the darkness jolted her awake where she had collapsed some time before.

  How long had she been asleep?

  Easily hours, for it was blackest evening now, and deathly still, save for the anguished howl that yet reverberated in the canopy of trees above her head.

  Twigs and conifer needles jabbed her cheek where it rested on the ground. The tang of loamy earth mingled with the heavy odor of pungent herbs clinging to her skin and clothing. The rank smell offended her nostrils, but it was all she could do to lift her head a fraction off the cold, damp ground and peer around blearily at her surroundings.

  She had collapsed just within the cover of the copse--yes, she remembered that now.

  She had been running. Her feet had been too heavy to move any farther, all of her strength, feeble as it was, spent. The details were scattered in her mind; imprecise, elusive.

  She had been fleeing from someone. The knight's face was but a flash of recollection: golden-haired, his features were bold, his blue eyes haunted, suspicious. Those piercing eyes had taken hold of her like a physical grasp. Her hiding place had been found out, she nearly captured at the keep that stood abandoned across the way.

  Not abandoned...decimated, whispered a memory that was struggling to surface. With the thought came more images of violence.

  Smoke and blood.

  Screams.

  A child wailing in his mother's arms.

  With a groan, she squeezed her eyes closed and pushed the visions away. There was little sense in them anyway, naught but a jumble of confusion lurking in a far corner of her mind. Consciousness itself had become a slippery thing. Days slid into night, and night into day; she could scarcely discern either anymore. It was getting harder and harder for her to hold onto wakefulness, nearly impossible to maintain focus even when her eyes were open.

  Pain.

  That was all she knew for certain. She was in constant pain now, a spreading fire that ate at her body as it slowly sapped her of her will and her senses.

  There was a chill in the air where she lay, yet her body burned as though afire. Heat seared her from within, but no sweat rose to cool her brow. And she was so very thirsty. Her mouth felt as parche
d as sand, her tongue thick with need of water.

  Blinking away the lulling pull of another slide into darkness, she forced her arms to lift her from the ground. Her limbs quaked, shuddering weakly as she hoisted her slight weight and dragged herself to a sitting position on the ground. The effort left her breathless, her temples pounding with the sluggish beat of her pulse.

  Above her head, the tender spring leaves of oak and ash trees glistened in the starlight. Barely unfurled from their winter slumber, they quivered in the evening breeze. Raindrops from a recent shower clung to their cupped folds. Summoning what she felt might be the last of her strength, she slowly got to her feet and reached for the precious droplets. She sipped from the leaves like a crude forest beast, feeding hungrily, but it was not enough.

  Not nearly enough to quench the thirst that raged in her.

  She had to find more water. She had to douse the fire that was consuming her. Rasping a breath through parched lips, she swiveled her head and looked out across the expanse of night-dark terrain that surrounded her. Something snagged her attention, making her grow quite still where she stood, watching, listening.

  The wind howled, but above the raw scrape of branches and the soughing shift of tall meadow grasses was another sound.

  Water.

  Great rushing waves of it, rolling not far from where she was.

  Feebly, she took a few steps, cocking her head toward the welcoming roar of the tide. The night breeze was cool outside the cover of the woods. It snatched the hem of her mantle and sent it rippling out behind her like a sail.

  Above her, thin tendrils of clouds scuttled across the darkened sky, coal-gray on black. Like fingers of smoke, reaching for her...closing around her throat. Choking her.

  Materializing from out of the murky edge of recall, a punishing hand seized her in a death grip. She struggled to breathe, her fingers grasping at the unrelenting vise clamped onto her neck.

  Dying...she was dying....

  "No," she whispered, clutching at her temples and fighting the madness that seemed to pull at her from all directions.

  She remembered struggling, desperately striving to free herself from strong, punishing hands. She had managed--somehow--but only for a moment. Only until a flash of metal danced before her eyes, a blink of light amid the smoke. Then fired erupted in her breast. Searing hot, bright as a thunderbolt. She could not see, could not think. Darkness had descended quickly, thicker than any roiling cloud of ash and soot.

  He meant to kill her, but she had gotten away. Barely.

  She stumbled into the meadow now, her hands flung out and dragging through the spring rushes that stood nearly waist-high. The air was crisp as it buffeted her, but in her mind she gasped as though engulfed in a sea of ash. Smoke was thick in her eyes as the memories crowded in. She was there again, in the keep on the hill.

  Death was with her now as it had been that night. It pursued her with every hitching, awkward step she took, chasing her with the same force of the night wind. Before long, she knew, it would catch her. She did not fear her eventual end, but neither would she yield to it easily. Determined to fight to the last, she urged her legs to carry her swiftly, her ear tuned to the soothing song of the sea.

  Water, she thought, the word like a balm on her tongue. Water would cool the fire that was consuming her body and slowly eating away at her wits. She needed only to reach the nearby shore and she would be safe.

  Hearing the roar of the surf, she ran faster. She was getting closer. The tall reeds of the meadow gradually gave way to scrubby, rock-strewn grass and moss. Soon it would be sand beneath her feet, then the gentle lap of the waves. She must be almost there.

  Impaired by her haste and the delirium that seized her senses, she tripped on one of the jagged stones underfoot. She went down hard on the ground. Her breath was gone from her lungs in a whoosh as she struck hard earth, and a stab of intense pain wracked her left shoulder. Something warm and sticky oozed down her sleeve and onto her bodice.

  Blood, she realized in a dulled state of wonderment.

  Her end was nearer now than ever. The knowledge stunned her as she lay there, listening to her heart labor in her breast. So this was death? She mused over the idea, resigning herself to the coming darkness that robbed her of all further thought.

  Chapter 3

  A scuttle of movement in the starlit distance caught Kenrick's eye. He lifted his head and peered into the night beyond the tower keep's window, studying the erratic path of someone walking quite near the ledge of the cliffs.

  Nay, he corrected; not walking, but running. Recklessly traipsing along the treacherous drop that gave Greycliff Castle its name. The figure wore a light-colored cloak that obscured its owner's shape. The wide hem snagged in the violent wind that blew up from the sea, its edges flying out like wings of pale, tattered wool. Kenrick had seen that ragged garment not a few hours before--wrapped about the slight frame of the woman from the cemetery grounds.

  "What the devil is she doing out there?" he murmured, confusion twining with an overriding sense of foreboding.

  She was running dangerously close to the cliff--almost as though she meant to run toward the water that crashed far below.

  Was she mad?

  Evidently, for she was going to dash herself over the ledge as he watched. Insane or despondent, he could not be sure, but he could not stand by and do nothing. Honor compelled him to intervene and disallow death to visit this place so soon after it had taken his friends.

  Kenrick backed away from the window, uncertain what he meant to do even though his feet were already moving him toward the door. He would never reach her in time. She was running as though in a blind delirium; one faulty step near the cliff would spell a swift, terrible demise.

  No sooner had he considered the grim possibility did the woman suddenly lurch and crumble in a heap on the ground. She lost her footing and down she went, prone and lifeless but a few precarious paces from the ledge.

  "God's blood!" he swore, pivoting on his boot heel and heading for the tower stairs in a dead run.

  His spurs bit into the smooth stone of the spiraling steps as he descended three at a time, urgency pounding in his temples. He crossed the sooty, scarred wood planks of the floor at ground level, torch flames undulating in their cressets as he passed. The keep's iron-banded door creaked sharply as he threw it open and leaped the short set of stairs to the yard outside. Damp sea air spat a fine mist on the night breeze. Kenrick swiped at the irritating sheen that salted his eyes, his gaze trained on the shapeless bulk lying lifeless across the field. She had not moved at all since he had seen her from the tower window.

  Kenrick broke into a run. Bolting the distance of the grassy expanse of land, he reached the woman in mere moments. She lay face-down on the rock-strewn ground near the cliff's edge, still as the tomb. Far below, the sea roared, spewing great plumes of white as the waves crashed into the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff. The woman had been but a hairbreadth from disaster when she collapsed.

  Not that she was spared death in escaping a certain tumble into the tide.

  Expecting to find her cold, Kenrick touched the young woman's arm and was surprised to feel warmth against his fingertips. She was burning up. Heat radiated through the multiple layers of her homespun clothing. Her damp hair hung limply over her face, long russet strands littered with twigs and dirt. He lifted a sodden tendril to expose the pale, hollowed slope of her cheek. The scent of strong herbs clung to her as it had when he first spied her earlier that day.

  Pungent, almost putrid, the smell of her wafted up on a gust of salt spray. Kenrick took his hand away from her flaming brow and turned his head into a draft of crisp fresh air.

  Whoever she was, the woman was filthy and ragged--and unless he missed his guess, she was clutched in the lethal grip of an intense, raging fever.

  Gingerly, he grasped her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. The oath he hissed was black and grim with understanding.

  T
he chit bore a collar of bruises around her neck and a deep, bleeding wound at her shoulder. It reeked of infection and the useless herbal poultice that bulged under the bodice of her gown. She had lost a great deal of blood, more in recent hours, for the injury was wet and spreading even as Kenrick stared down at her. For certes she was dying, but when he leaned in close he caught the shallow but steady rasp of her breath.

  There seemed little to do for her, save to make her comfortable in her final hours. He eyed her pale, begrimed face and shabby clothes. She looked as though she had been living in the wild for weeks. For what was not the first time, he wondered what this woman was about that she would be skulking around Greycliff Castle like a wraith.

  Perhaps she had known Rand and Elspeth. Perhaps mindless with fever, she had wandered there by chance--as she had been staggering about near the cliff tonight.

  He would have no answers at all should the woman perish of her wound. He was hardly a trained healer to mend her, but even his crude battlefield skills would be better than none at all. Very carefully, Kenrick gathered her into his arms. Limp and lifeless, sodden to her bones, she was a fragile thing that he held as gingerly as he would a bird with a broken wing. To his dismay, the feather-light chit in his arms smelled more a sow's sickly castoff. Settling her against his chest despite her soil and stench, he carried her away from the promontory ledge of the sea cliffs and across the wide field to the castle.

  He brought her into the hall, where he had earlier lit a fire in the brazier. The warm glow illuminated the long chamber, which Kenrick had commandeered as a stable for his horse since the outbuildings were charred beyond use. Now it would serve as infirmary as well. Retrieving a rolled blanket from his saddle tack, Kenrick tossed the thick swatch of wool to the floor near the fire and spread it out with his foot. He eased the woman down, arranging her on her back and cushioning her head with his leather gauntlets.