The hounds were coming.
I started awake, sitting up and gasping for breath. Was it real? Were they tracking us?
“What is it?” Marcus’s voice came softly through the morning from where he lay on the other side of Devyn.
“The hounds of Samhain.” I felt compelled to tell him what I had seen, what I knew to be reality. “The hounds are coming.”
Bronwyn’s voice came from the far side of the camp. “The hounds of Samhain are tracking you?”
“Yes,” I confirmed quietly. There was silence as the waking group absorbed the new threat.
“Devyn won’t make it to Carlisle,” Bronwyn mused aloud. “We need to get him help. Now.”
“Chester?” Gideon suggested.
“They may not have a druid in residence,” said Bronwyn dismissively, “and even if they do, there’s no guarantee they will help us. What about Conwy?”
“No,” Gideon said flatly, already starting to break camp. “Anglia and Gwynedd are never on the best of terms. York will interpret us taking their heir to the prince as an act of war. No.”
“Fine.” Bronwyn nodded curtly, agreeing with the tall warrior’s assessment as she kicked over the traces of the fire. “Dinas Brân then.”
“Dinas Brân?” Gideon arched a brow. “Didn’t the pup Griffin disown his father?”
“Yes.” Bronwyn’s lips thinned. “But Rhodri didn’t disown him, and there is always a druid there to tend him.”
“Dinas Brân it is then. But we have to go now,” Gideon urged. “The Griffin is slowing us down, and the hounds are following the magic. We’ll ride west with Marcus and the girl and once we’ve got some air between us, we’ll turn north and meet you.”
“This all plays rather neatly into your suggestion from the first,” Bronwyn said stonily.
Gideon swung around. The scar flexed as his handsome face tightened.
“I did not poison that blade,” he repeated. “I will meet you. I will see the Griffin to Carlisle. The hounds want the magic; what little the Griffin holds will not attract them. We have no chance if we all ride together. I can lead them away and… Dammit, Bronwyn, I will be there.”
The sickening feeling of being stalked by those awful creatures was a deadweight in my stomach. Marcus’s eyes sought and held mine. The hounds were coming for me, but the Mercians weren’t to know that, and as long as Marcus and I stayed together they didn’t need to know. Devyn’s best chance lay in my going as far in the opposite direction as possible. His cousin would take care of him. I knew Devyn wouldn’t be pleased to wake in his father’s home, but if that was what it took then that was where we had to go.
The thought of riding away made me feel like I was abandoning my only anchor. I had no family, no home. I only had Devin – or at least I hoped I still did. I didn’t belong in this world any more than I had belonged in the one we left behind. It didn’t matter where I was as long as I had him. But first he had to be alive. And if I had to leave him to ensure he lived, then that was what I would do.
Bronwyn laid her hand on my arm. “I will get him to safety, Cassandra, I promise, but you have to go now. We have to get Devyn to his father’s castle, where he can get proper help. There’s no time and we can’t afford the delay a fight would take.”
I whirled back to Gideon, his tall, broad shape a dark shadow under the trees.
“I want your vow.” The camp around us stilled at my words. I knew little enough about Briton society, but that they took vows seriously was certain; Devyn’s future here was threatened because of the vow he had broken by leaving for the city.
Gideon stepped towards me.
“I owe you no vow, city girl.”
“Then I’m not leaving with you, and if I don’t leave, Marcus can’t.”
“Can’t?” Gideon had spotted the can’t, not that Marcus wouldn’t leave without me.
“Can’t,” I repeated, raising my sleeve to show him the handfast cuff on my upper arm. “I told you before. As soon as you get any distance from me, he will be as incapacitated as Devyn.”
“What’s to stop me throwing you over a horse and making you come with us?” His dark smile glinted in the firelight.
“I will,” Bronwyn stated flatly. “Why the hesitation, Gideon? You just said you would meet us, so why not vow it?”
Gideon smirked. “It’s an uncertain world, Bronwyn. What makes you think I can deliver on such a promise?”
“Vow that you will do everything in your power –” I paused to think through the wording carefully; it had to be something he could deliver on but also something that couldn’t be twisted in such a way that it served him better than it did us “– to see us safely reunited with Devyn and Bronwyn and able to continue to Mercia.”
Gideon’s eyes bore into mine, unblinking, a muscle ticking on his jaw.
“I give my vow to no one, and ask for no one’s in return. If you want my help, it is yours. If you don’t, you are welcome to continue to bring the hounds to the Griffin.” Gideon raised a lazy brow. What choice did I have? His lip quirked as he inclined his head to Bronwyn before turning on his heel and striding to his horse. “Now, let’s go.”
Dawn light lit the camp palely as we hurriedly broke camp. The trees seemed more vibrant in the early light, the leaves more splendidly alive – in stark contrast to Devyn.
Devyn was barely conscious as I bid him a constrained goodbye in full view of everyone. His glazed eyes hardly registered what was going on, and I couldn’t read him as we had closed off the bond on both sides to protect me from his pain. Actually, it was less pain than a sense of weakness and deterioration. He hadn’t even been consulted when Bronwyn
