Claire Delacroix (21 page)

I fell when I did not guess a staircase yawned before me. I screamed as I tumbled down half a dozen steps. The twisting nature of those tunnels saved me, for I landed against a wall with a thud and this was what halted my fall. I leaned back against the cold stone, shaken and shaking. Emptiness loomed to my right.

I had scraped my knee sufficiently to tear my stocking and draw blood. The wound was warm and wet on my fingers when I felt for damage, the viscous heat of it sickening me.

I rose on trembling legs and continued my course. Once I descended that twisting and irregular staircase, the walls opened wide with an abruptness that startled me. I reached out but my hands grasped at emptiness in every direction. I knew I stood in a cavern, one which threw my own calls back at me mockingly.

Was I beneath Ravensmuir? Under the courtyard? Or had I descended to some grotto near the ocean? I could not say and could not retrace my steps.

I might be lost here forever.

Or until I starved.

Or worse. What other creatures shared this space with me? Did some demon watch me with sharper vision than my own?

Terror assailed me there, in that space of a dimensions I could not discern, that cavern occupied by creatures that I could not see. I fancied that spiders crawled upon my flesh, that snakes coiled about my feet, that the rock above me would fall in a sudden crash and entomb me alive.

I fled in the direction I thought I had come, but collided with a solid stone wall that seemed endless to both left and right. This loosed a frenzy in me and one wilder than what I had endured thus far. No doubt I had simply turned the wrong way and was but a few feet from my objective, but fear paralyzed my thinking.

I pounded upon the stone until my fists bled, nigh insensible in my terror. I scratched at it with my nails. I kicked at it, certain a door was hidden behind it, I tried to climb up it. I whimpered and I cried and I shrieked, not caring how witless I appeared for there were none there to see. Something soft brushed my fingertips, perhaps a spider or its web, and I shrieked like a madwoman, so certain was I that Death in some horrible guise had found me.

And then I heard it. A footfall resonating on stone. I thought that the first was a figment of my imagination.

The second made me wish that it was. I was immediately convinced that some creature consigned to darkness stalked me.

The third persuaded me that my fate was sealed. I knew that I would be tormented and no doubt devoured by this nameless beast, but still I tried to escape.

I gasped in relief when I found an opening in the rock face. I lunged through it, not caring where the path led. I raced along the uneven corridor, tripping and stumbling, weeping in fear and scattering small stones noisily as I fled.

To no avail. The creature pursued me with relentless determination, its footsteps echoing behind me with terrifying regularity. It did not stumble, it did not waver. It followed me as surely as a hungry dog follows a sack of bones.

The corridor terminated so abruptly that I ran directly into the wall at its end. I bit my lip in so doing and tasted my own blood, but my hands were working feverishly across the surface. The footsteps echoed more loudly behind me with every passing moment.

No one would build a corridor that led nowhere. I could not have found a dead end, especially as this ending would lead to my own demise.

But I did not find a portal before the demon’s breath sounded close behind me. I spun and braced my back against the wall, searching the shadows for some hint of my assailant. I could faintly discern the outline of an enormous creature that walked upon its hinds. Wings spread behind it and its eyes glinted.

I understood in a flash. The Lammergeier kept one of their namesake birds entombed beneath the keep! This was the dark secret of Ravensmuir. This explained the departure of the ravens - they had known the predator would be loosed and had fled for their own survival.

The beast lifted claws toward me and the last of my sensibility snapped. I screamed, covering my face with my hands as I cowered against the stone.

“Do not hurt me, I beg of you, I will do anything...” My protest became so much nonsense as the beast seized me with those harsh claws. I whimpered and struggled, even trying to bite its grip.

“
Chère
,” Merlyn whispered as he gave my shoulders a shake. “What have I ever done to make you fear me so?”

* * *

I choked. I froze. It took me a long moment to comprehend that it was Merlyn who held me, not some foul creature.

“
Chère
?” He shook me again, concern more evident in his tone.

“Merlyn!” I am ashamed to recount that I clutched my spouse. Indeed, I almost fainted against his chest. He closed his arms tightly around me and sheltered me against his warmth. I could make no sense of his presence in my troubled state, even though I had ventured this far solely to find him.

“You called me,” he whispered, and stroked my hair as one reassures a child awakened by a nightmare. “Did you not think I would heed you?”

“No. Why should you begin now?” I shuddered and burrowed my face against his chest.

Merlyn chuckled, his humor silenced when his hand slid up my throat. He meant to cup my chin, I knew this gesture of his well, but he hesitated when the wild flutter of my pulse was beneath his hand.

“You are truly terrified,” he said, marvel in his voice. “I always thought that you feared nothing at all.”

“Only darkness,” I admitted in my weakened state, knowing even then that I would regret it. “Only caves.”

I shuddered once more and his embrace tightened protectively. I felt his response to my presence then and it reassured me greatly that Merlyn found me alluring even in my terror.

“Yet you risk your deepest fear to save the boy from me.” There was consideration in his tone, consideration I should have known not to trust. “You think poorly of me indeed.”

I chose not to review his crimes in this moment, for I had need of his aid. “He can be no pawn between us, Merlyn. Leave the boy alone, I beg of you. Do your worst to me, but do not involve Tynan.”

I felt his gaze upon me and it was long before he spoke. “Do you wish to return to the solar?” he asked, disregarding my plea.

“Tynan?”

Merlyn traced my cheek with his fingertip and no doubt noticed how I trembled. “You care greatly for his welfare, perhaps more than one would expect.”

“Perhaps in your family but not in mine. He is my blood! Tynan is the last vestige we have of my mother and to be bereft of them both would be too high a price.” My words were anxious, hasty. “I could not bear to lose him.”

Merlyn’s tone turned chiding. “I do not intend for you to lose him,
chère
.”

I had no chance to ask what he meant. He claimed my hand then and strode back the way we had come, his pace sure. He knew every crook of that corridor, every place where I might stumble. Though he set a brisk pace, he warned me of each hazard and caught my elbow when I fell too far behind him. He guided me with a confidence I could only envy.

All this Merlyn did with no lantern - either he knew the labyrinth as well as his own hand, or he could see in the dark, like so many birds of prey. I realized now that what I had mistaken for wings was his cloak, for it flared behind him as he walked.

I breathed more easily when we began to climb the stairs, ascending as we did toward light and what I fancied to be salvation. Merlyn was fast behind me, ensuring that I could not stumble backward, yet quick to tell me of every twist and turn. One hand he kept upon my waist and there was not much distance between us, another fact which greatly reassured me.

Though reassurance and gratitude were not the only things I felt. Yes, with each step we took toward the solar and every breath that smelled less of sea and more of keep, my desire for Merlyn also increased. I liked the weight of his hand upon my back, I liked his surety, I liked his protectiveness. I liked that he took me back to the light and I liked the heat awakened in me by his presence. I wanted to reward him abed for proving to be more chivalrous than my expectation. I wanted to reward myself for surviving - I wanted to feel utterly alive.

I could not fight my instinctive response, nor did I dare to trust it. At least, not until Merlyn returned Tynan to me.

Merlyn, mercifully oblivious to my musings, paused before a smooth wall. Sadly I could not see what precisely he did. The panel slid back with a click as it had before, and the solar was before us again. I stepped over the threshold with undisguised relief.

Merlyn lingered in the shadows, watching me carefully. “Your terror is not feigned.”

I was indignant. “How can you suggest such a thing?”

“I certainly cannot believe it, not given the sight of you.”

I looked down and nearly wept at the damage I had done to the fine gown. It was not only soiled beyond repair, but it had torn when I had tripped. I lifted the hem and found both stocking and knee crusted with blood, then raised a hand to my throbbing lip and found blood there too.

I met Merlyn’s gaze incredulously.

He smiled with a warmth unexpected. “Such small wounds will all heal readily enough,
chère
, and the gown is of no import. It can be replaced. I am glad that I found you before you did greater damage to yourself.” He might have turned away, but I pursued him, snatching his sleeve.

“Merlyn! What of Tynan?”

“I am reassured -” he paused to study me and I dared to hope “- that the means I chose to ensure your assistance was the most effective one. Indeed, it appears to be a better guarantee of your aid than I had imagined.”

My heart stopped in horror. “No! You must release him!”

“Must I?”

I took an unsteady breath and held fast to his sleeve, knowing I would have only one chance to persuade him, hearing my words tumble over each other in my haste to be heard. “Merlyn, you made a confession to me this day; now I shall make one to you. I shall tell you of my deepest fear.”

“Darkness?”

“No. Even that is nothing compared to the terror that has tormented me these past years. These years in Kinfairlie, my greatest fear was that Tynan, so clever, so handsome, so well wrought, would be destroyed by our circumstance. I dreaded every day and every night that he might die young, I dreaded every winter that he might not survive until spring, and yes, I feared that it would be my fault. I feared that by one choice I made in ignorance of his pending arrival, I would condemn him.”

My tears began to fall, but still I dared not halt my confession. “He had no father. He had no mother. I could not donate him to a monastic order as an oblate to save his life, because I had insufficient coin with which to secure his place. You know as well as I that such favors must be bought.

“And so I did what little I could. I gave him the lion’s share of the meat, and I brewed ale until the bones nigh broke through the flesh of my fingers. When I took this burn from the mash, I went directly back to the kettle without a pause. I made whatever wagers I had to make to see something on our board each day and a roof over our heads each night. I found every measure of strength that I needed in the sweet innocence of his face.”

I took a shuddering breath, well aware of Merlyn’s attentive silence. “And yes, I lied for Tynan. Every lie that ever I have told has been for the sake of Tynan, whatever you believe to the contrary, and I would tell them each and every one of them again without hesitation. I would tell them twice! I would give my soul for Tynan, and that without regret.”

I could not look up at Merlyn. “Even as his presence has given me hope and joy, Merlyn, I have feared for him. It is true that this burden made me more harsh, as you mentioned, for it is not easy to watch those you love suffer and pay the price for your choice.”

My tears rose to choke me but I continued doggedly. “It is not easy to know that the chance you had to trade your soul for their comfort is gone. It is not easy to know that it is too late to repair the damage you have wrought yourself.”

I stepped away from him and stood straight. “My first instinct was to decline the legacy you left to me, but I accepted Ravensmuir for the sake of Tynan. I accepted it that he might have a future, that he might have a chance. Tynan would not have grown up as he had, if you had not deceived me as you had. It seemed fitting to me, when Fitz brought the news, that your death would redress the balance.”

We stared at each other across the chamber and my voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Do not take Tynan, Merlyn. Do not sacrifice the life that I have labored to save.” I felt my throat work. “Do not be so cruel as this.”

A shadow crossed Merlyn’s features and I was certain that I had swayed him to my side. “Your love is fierce,
chère
,” he said softly, a suspicious shimmer in his eyes. He shook his head, as if marveling at me, and his next words were hoarse. “What child could not grow straight beneath the shelter of such a love? What child could not be blessed simply from knowing such devotion in his life?”

I clutched at Merlyn’s strong fingers, needing to know the truth. “Then tell me that you will not take him.”

Merlyn lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. He moved slowly, as if burdened by a tremendous sorrow. I assumed this was because he knew his thinking to have been wrong, because he regretted his choice.

But his words, when finally he spoke, tore my very heart in two. “It is out of your hands,
chère
. You had best make your peace with that.”

I was stunned.

As I stared at him in silent shock, a voice carried from the stairs to the chamber below. “Ysabella?”

Merlyn lifted a finger to his lips. In a heartbeat, he was gone and the panel was closed, as if he had never been before me, as if he was no more substantial than a nightmare.

I pivoted in time to see my sister’s fair hair appear in the stairwell, her head bent as she gave full attention to her footing.

“Those steps are narrow enough to be a menace,” she began with a smile, then sobered when she saw me. “What has happened to you?”