at some unspoken command from his rider and pawed the ground, breath billowing like dragon smoke. Laurel’s eyes rose from the gauntleted hands that held the great beast in check to the man himself. He was big, his wide shoulders and thick chest encased in gleaming metal armor.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
If he heard, he made no reply, merely raised the visor on his helmet and stared in the direction of Edin Tower. Pale, eerie moonlight slanted across his features, illuminating them.
Sweet Mary! ’Twas him! The man who’d haunted her dreams this past month. Always before she’d viewed him from a distance, riding across a bloodied battlefield, standing in the prow of a ship as it braved the storm-tossed sea. Yet she’d sensed him drawing nearer and nearer. Now he was here.
“Who are you?” she asked again, voice raw with fear.
He turned toward her then, revealing a ruggedly handsome face framed by thick black hair, but ’twas his eyes that captivated her. They were a cool shade of violet, bright as gemstones, hard and glittering with a hunger that was more threatening than the gleaming length of steel at his waist.
“Why have you come here? What do you want?”
“Everything, ” he murmured, his voice dark as the aura of danger that surrounded them. “Everything you are and will be.”
Edin. He must mean Edin and her clan, for her home and her family were all to her. She backed up a step, then another. She turned and ran.
He came after her, the forest floor shuddering under the weight of his warhorse’s footfalls.
“Nay!” Laurel screamed, and wrenched upright in bed. It took her a moment to realize she was safe in her own bed. Shuddering, skin slick with sweat beneath her linen night shift, she wrapped both arms around her waist and tried to slow her ragged pulse.
“’Twas a nightmare, nothing more.” The words failed to reassure. She didn’t have simple nightmares. Though she railed against the Fates for cursing her so, the visions that disturbed her sleep were far more complex and mysterious than any mere dream. They were a portent, a glimpse into a future she was both unable to interpret and powerless to prevent.
Fear trickled down Laurel’s spine. When the knight had looked at her with those dark eyes, she’d felt...a jolt. A connection such as she’d never felt with another person, not even her Aunt Nesta, who was a seeress. Who was this knight?
“M’lady ? Are ye all right?” Annie MacLellan peered around the door, broad, freckled face scrunched with concern.
“I... I am fine,” Laurel replied, feeling anything but.
Annie frowned. “I heard ye call out”
“I had a dream..”
“Do tell.” Annie giggled. “What was it, another drought?”
Laurel sniffed. “I should think you’d be glad we had a wet spring, instead of the dry one I predicted.”
“Oh, I am, and I didn’t mean to hurt yer feelings, but I thought ye’d given up trying to foretell the future.”
“I have.” She’d stopped telling people what she dreamed. It was too humiliating. Truly she was a disgrace to those who’d gone before—the generations of MacLellan women who’d been gifted with the sight. Sight, bah! In her ’twas more like hindsight. After the fact, she sometimes found a grain of truth linking her vision to the actual occurrence. Small consolation. People expected better from the lass who should be their next seeress.
Mayhap if she’d been a conjurer like her Aunt Nesta, she’d have had more control over her visions. Instead, Laurel’s glimpses into the future came in dreams, unbidden, impossible to interpret and better forgotten. Still she couldn’t suppress a shiver at the memory of the violet-eyed stranger who’d looked at her so angrily yet so possessively.
“Why, ye’re quaking like a newborn lamb. Must be sickening with the ague.” Annie slammed the door and advanced, neat brown braid thumping against her slender back with every purposeful stride. “No wonder. Up half the night, riding the hills with the men.” She grabbed a sheepskin coverlet from the floor and bundled it around Laurel, tisking in fair imitation of Janet, her mother, who was housekeeper at Edin. “Indecent and unwomanly, wearing yer da’s chain mail and carrying his dirk and playing at being a warrior when all the while—”
“I do what I must to protect our people. If that means donning armor and riding into battle in Grandda’s stead, then so be it,” Laurel added. Not for the world would she admit to anyone how much she hated the violence and the fear. Not fear for herself, but the terror that cramped her belly each time she made a decision that sent the men of Clan MacLellan into harm’s way. Sweet Mary aid her, she was a healer, not a fighter. What if she made a mistake and it cost the lives of those she loved?
“There, ye’re trembling again.” Annie molded the sheepskin more tightly to Laurel’s body. “Bide here and I’ll nip down to the kitchens for a hot ale and a posset—”
“I’m just a bit tired.” Tired! She was weary to her soul, sick unto death with fighting and scheming to keep her people safe. “I’ll break my fast with Grandda, as usual.” Laurel threw off the heavy coverlet as she longed to do to the even heavier burden she’d been forced to take on when Duncan MacLellan had been ambushed and gravely wounded.
“Ye were so late getting in, ye should sleep till dinner at least,” Annie grumbled, not liking her lady’s pallor, nor the dark circles under her eyes, but judged the advice would go unheeded. Sighing, she moved to open the chest placed under the room’s single shuttered window. “What will you wear... the green gown or the blue?”
“Is the other set of da’s clothes clean? ’Twould save time if I put them on, for I must ride out again after mass.”
Simple, practical words, yet Annie saw the shadow they sent over Laurel’s fragile features, and her heart sank. How much more was her poor mistress expected to bear? Her parents dead these six years, her grandfather hurt two weeks ago, all of Edin Valley threatened by the reivers who’d done the evil deed and no one to lead the MacLellans save Laurel. ’Twas too weighty a burden for a lass of ten and eight, and her gently reared.
How Laurel found the strength to go on day after day, only God knew. In vain, Annie had tried to persuade Laurel to leave the fighting to the men, but she’d always been stubborn and independent.
“Ye know the laird hates being reminded ye’re determined to lead the men in his place,” Annie said quietly.
Laurel closed her eyes to hide the pain. It wasn’t only duty that made her don the clothes her sire had worn as a lad and ride out to try and catch the raiders. ’Twas guilt. She’d had a vision of trouble and warned her grandda not to leave Edin. The memory of her past inaccuracies flickering in his eyes, he’d patted her on the head, reminded her they needed the salt, spices and wine from Kindo’s merchants and gone as planned. And been ambushed.
Her vision had come true, horribly true, but because so many hadn’t, her beloved grandsire had brushed aside her warning and nearly died. ’Twas a lesson she’d not forget. She’d never again ignore her dreams. But what exactly did this latest one mean?
Laurel opened her eyes. “Men’s garb is more practical, Annie, but I confess I do miss dressing like a lass. I’ll wear the
