She dropped the spoon into the pocket of her cloak. “Can you show me . . . where are the dungeons?”
He turned to her and there was unmistakable sympathy in his expression. Taking a broom, he pointed out a place on the tapestry with its handle.
“The entrance is in the side of the hill,” he said.
Near the barracks and what looks like a forge, she noted.
“I’m sorry about your father. But I think that both he and Gwyn would discourage you from remaining too long here, due to your . . . associations.”
“Is the entrance guarded?”
MacWallace followed her gaze back to the tapestry. “Usually, I believe, though the locked iron gate in the hillside makes guarding it unnecessary in my opinion, as do all the other citadel defences. Look,” he rested a hand on her shoulder again, “I have family in the west. The Laird of Rivermarch is my cousin. I could secure you safe dwelling in his lands, should you wish it.”
“Thank you. You are kind.” She grew hot, as if the silver spoon in her pocket were molten metal, its heat radiating through her skin.
“They aren’t empty words,” he said solemnly. “I assure you, if there is anything I can do for you and your family, I will. I’ll even let you have one of my silver spoons.”
She gaped at him. “I—”
“Ha!” He clapped his hand on her back. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ve more than I need and it seems your need it greater.”
Water tumbled over rocks beside the drooping leaves of a willow and she sat on the bank, staring at her shifting reflection in the water. She felt the power of the Air stone as if it were a mind whose thoughts were just out of hearing, as if it whispered in a language she did not fully understand. It sent trails of goosebumps up her arm as she focussed on it to the exclusion of the other two.
She remembered, all that time ago, Gaoth appearing to her from mere air and disappearing the same way. Yet she had been sure he was there before she saw him, hidden in the air. What if she could do the same? Become invisible? She felt a thrill of excitement as her reflection seemed to be fading. Then her hopes were dashed. Rippling water scattered her reflection away and revealed a face with black eyes staring at her from under the water. Ice grazed the skin of her neck, streaking down her spine.
Hello old friend, she thought. Lanngorm, she added, the name of the Fuathan coming to her now for the first time.
Lanngorm’s thoughts hissed through Kaetha’s mind – splashes as fish are snatched from the loch; the muffled chatter of fishermen; the silent depths of the loch where giant, sharp-toothed pike lurk, waiting to strike.
You’ve learned sly Annisith tricks, mind reader. Why did you return?
To rescue my father.
River weeds trailed in the water as Lanngorm’s face tilted. And to find your mother.
My mother’s dead, Kaetha informed her. I found her burial cairn.
“What are you doing here?” Tam came and sat beside her. When she looked down again, there was no sign of Lanngorm.
“Practising.”
“Good.”
“I went into my old home earlier. I met the laird. He’s a good man, I think.”
“You know you really shouldn’t be so quick to trust people.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It was strange,” she said as she pulled at blades of grass. “Going back.”
“We can never go back. Not really,” said Tam. It seemed to Kaetha that his gaze stretched into her soul then and, for once, she felt the edge of his thoughts, the barest breath of a whisper. It was like a distant groan of pain, the red of a gaping wound. And then his walls blocked her from him again and he was the Tam she knew. Frustrating, distant, mysterious Tam, whose scars held a secret story, whose true name she didn’t know.
“I should be getting back.” She got up. “Tam?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s something I’d like you to do.”
Kaetha lay on her straw mattress, staring at the dark ceiling of the cave, waiting for time to pass. The fire burned low, the smell of rabbit stew still lingering in the air. Mairi had been sleeping soundly, thanks to another dose of cadalus, but now made a small distressed sound, stirring in her sleep. Kaetha crept over to her and pulled her blanket up to cover her better.
“She’ll be alright,” said Gwyn. “It will take time. But she’ll be alright.”
“Thank you,” said Kaetha. “For looking after her. It means a lot.” She returned to her bed. Even if she had wanted to sleep, she could not now. Guilt gnawed within her at the knowledge of what she was planning. She had to break her promise to Mairi. She was always going to break it. Surely she would forgive her if she managed to survive, returning with Aedan. But what if she didn’t? At least she knew that Gwyn would take care of Mairi. She might still feel anger at her aunt for keeping the truth about her mother from her for all those years and for making Morwena hide the truth too but she knew that if anyone could be relied on to protect someone she cared about, it was Gwyn.
Finally, she heard Gwyn’s heavy breathing and got up, silently lacing her boots and putting on her cloak. The cadalus still had its effect on Mairi and Donnan hadn’t stirred for some time and now his eyes flickered beneath their lids as though he were deep in dreams.
