Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

"To my astonishment, Grandfather told me he'd had the same dream as a boy but it had simply stopped when he'd been about sixteen, but he'd never forgotten it or you or the sense of failure. He said his father had told him the same thing, but he'd never understood the debt either, and his dream had stopped also when he'd been a young man. It was as if, my grandfather said, whoever or whatever had brought on the dreams had given up. My grandfather supposed it went all the way back, although exactly how far he didn't know, and it always came to the eldest son and he always dreamed that dream, but then, as he gained years, it simply stopped. But not the feelings of loss, the feelings of some­thing vital left undone.

"I asked him about my father. Had he dreamed the dream? My grandfather told me my father was the second son and he denied any such dream, as did his older brother, the first-born son.

"And so it came to me. Then he recited the words of the song, looked at me sadly. 'I never did a thing, Nicholas, never did a thing because I didn't know what to do, like all the men in our line, I suppose. But now it is your turn. It is up to you to pay the debt, if the debt finally appears.' He told me he believed the little girl had somehow been out of time, and surely that was beyond a man's comprehension, but he knew she would appear when it was right for her to appear, and not before.

"Perhaps, he told me, now it was time and she would be there for me, but in truth, he didn't know, though he was hopeful."

Nicholas fell silent.

"Did the dream fade away when you were a young man?" He shook his head. "No, and that is how I knew I was the Vail to pay the debt. I dreamed the identical dream perhaps

twice a month. After I met you I dreamed it every night, un­til we wed. But not last night."

Rosalind said slowly, "Perhaps this all ties together with the Rules of the Pale. It was your grandfather who told you about Sarimund the wizard and Rennat the Titled Wizard of the East. I dreamed of Rennat, and he told me I would come into my own and to obey the Rules of the Pale, and he kept repeating it."

He stared at her. "Rennat actually appeared to you? He told you you would come into your own? Those were his words?"

She nodded, searching his face. "So the Rules of the Pale must fit in all this mess somehow. What is this all about, Nicholas? Who am I?— What am I?"

Nicholas smoothed his thumb over her palm. "I kept dreaming about you, the little girl with the rich red hair and eyes as blue as the summer sky, and the beautiful haunting voice. I knew someday, Rosalind , knew all the way to my soul that I would find you and I would save you since you were now my debt. It was time, you see, it was the right time, and something deep inside me knew it was the right time. And so I came for you."

'To pay Captain Jared's debt?"

"Yes."

"You came to London, you saw me, recognized me, mar­ried me. A debt is one thing, but—why did you marry me, Nicholas?"

Not a single word came to his brain.

"You didn't succumb to the coup de foudre, as

the French say, did you? You did see me across the ballroom, but your heart didn't fall to your feet, did it? You said you recognized me, Nicholas. And you came to me. Why didn't you simply tell me who you were, what this was all about?"

"I couldn't very well tell you when I had no idea what I was to do. What would I have said to you? Besides, whatever

I could have said, you would have believed me mad. Your Uncle Ryder certainly would have put his boot to my back and kicked me out."

"So you believed so strongly in this debt business that you married a girl you didn't even know?"

38

"There was more to it than that, Rosalind ."

"Yes, there was the Rules of the Pale. And Sarimund and your grandfather—who just happened to have another sort of Rules of the Pale written by this Sarimund character. Now that's a universe of madness in itself, isn't it? You must have been so excited when it turned out I could read the bloody thing—but the Rules of the Pale didn't tell us any­thing, nor did the scribblings of Sarimund that your grandfa­ther had in his possession. He couldn't read it either. That's what you told me."

"No, he couldn't. And it drove him to near madness. The hours he spent trying to decipher it. I can remember him sit­ting up until late into the night studying the code, trying to figure it out."

"But he couldn't, because it isn't really a code. It's magic, some sort of enchantment."

"Yes, perhaps so. Who knows?"

"So since I'm the only one who can read the bloody thing, I must be magic as well. Do you agree?" She laughed over his silence, an ugly sound because it was filled with fear and something else he couldn't identify. "Oh, yes, I'm so magic I was nearly beaten to death. I'm so magic I can't even remember who I am or how I could possibly be any­one's debt." She jumped to her feet and paced the length of the library. "That visit of Rennat the Titled Wizard of the East in my dream—and what does that ridiculous title mean anyway?— I'm to come into my own. How would he know that? Why did he come to me? What does he want me to do?"

"Perhaps Rennat was the wizard or being who saved Cap­tain Jared's life. After all, he isn't a simple plain wizard, he's the Titled Wizard of the East. Perhaps he also caused the storm, the being who brought the huge wave that destroyed Captain Jared's ship and killed all his men. He set it all up so Captain Jared would believe he did owe him a great debt."

"You believe Rennat brought the storm? That bespeaks a power neither of us can comprehend, Nicholas. Could a wiz­ard do that, even a wizard with a bloody title?"

"I don't want to believe it but there doesn't seem to be a choice for me. It also means that this is a very powerful be­ing, if this being did indeed bring Captain Jared Vail under his thumb. It can only mean that Jared Vail was the only man to pay this debt. If it wasn't Rennat, was it Belenus, the wiz­ard Sarimund wrote about at Blood Rock? Or Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond? He was the god, after all, sup­posedly immortal and all-powerful. Is that why we were led to the Rules of the Pale? But again, why Grayson and not one of us?"