Outlaw (Medieval Trilogy 3)

“If he truly was a sorcerer, why would he not escape with the door locked? Why would the restraints hold him?”

Stephen considered as he chewed, then wiped his mouth with a grubby sleeve. “I guess they wouldn’t.”

“Right. So there’s no reason I can’t speak with him and find out what more he knows, is there?”

Stephen frowned. Even in the poor light, she saw great lines furrowing deep in the skin between his eyebrows. “I don’t think that—”

“And as the baron’s daughter and lady of the castle, I’m not asking you to open the cell to me, I’m ordering you to do it.”

“Well, that’s it, then, ain’t it?” Shoving away from the table, he rattled his keys and opened the metal door, which screeched on its rusting hinges.

Cayley slipped through the opening and found the magician seated in a dark corner of his cell. Above him, there was a small hole bored into the wall to let in a bit of fresh air. The breeze was faint, but enough to make it easier to breathe. “You want to know more of your sister,” he said in that calming voice of his.

“Aye.” She handed him the bread, and he took it gratefully. Then in a voice so low she could barely hear him, he said, “Two men are riding to Dwyrain. They come with news of Megan and will be treated as enemies, for they are outlaws.”

“Criminals?” she gasped, her heart pounding in dread. “They know of Megan?”

“Aye, but they will not speak, for they are loyal to their leader, a man who hates Holt.”

“How do you know this?” she demanded.

“I know.” Again, the calm, reassuring tone that frightened her.

“Who be they?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder to the guard, but Stephen paid no attention to them as he dipped into the soup again.

“They be friends, though they will be brought to this prison and flogged. One will die. The other will help you find your sister and save the castle.”

“Die?” she repeated, her throat turning to dust. “Die?”

“Aye, there is naught either of us can do.”

“You speak with a devil’s tongue,” she hissed, frightened. “How can I trust you?”

“How can you not?”

She wanted to run, to hide, to wake up from this foul nightmare she’d been living, the one that had started when Megan had been kidnapped and her father had collapsed, leaving Holt to rule Dwyrain. If only Megan had fought her attacker, if only she’d escaped, then maybe Cayley herself wouldn’t have to fight, wouldn’t be forced to meet with prisoners in the dungeon or make plans to save her father and the castle. Her shoulders were just too small to carry so big a burden.

“You are stronger than you think,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “You doubt me still, but all that I have said, ’twill come to pass.”

“Where is Megan?” she demanded.

“That I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice more ruffled than before, as if he were irritated at the limits of his powers, “but you will need these men and must befriend them as you’ve befriended me.”

“But they are criminals.”

“Friends,” he said as Stephen rattled his keys again, indicating that it was time for her to leave. Obviously, the soup was gone.

Megan’s stomach grumbled loudly as she rode onward. She paused only to eat once a day, and that was usually a scant meal, as she had no money and her only weapon was a small knife. She’d fashioned a basket with willow branches and had caught fish from each creek she’d crossed, plucked winter apples from a tree she’d discovered on the first day of her journey, and stolen eggs twice from a farmer’s untended chicken’s nests.

Four days had passed since she’d left Wolf, and as she rode through the snow and sleet, past villages and through dank woods, her thoughts continually strayed to him and she tried to imagine what he’d done when he’d found her missing. Had he been furious and enraged, or relieved to be rid of her? Had he ranted and raged, damning her to hell, or had he smiled inwardly that she was no longer his burden? Had he returned safely to his camp, only to be the laughingstock of his men? She smiled faintly at that thought. Had he then climbed aboard another swift steed and set off after her? Would he appear at the next bend in the road? Her heart raced impatiently with that thin hope. Or would he meet with Holt and try to explain the fact that he had no wife to return for his blood money?

Not that she cared. Wolf could suffer these and every other kind of indignity for his plans to ransom her to an enemy he detested.

But she couldn’t stop her heart from taking flight every time she approached another traveler, a man who sat tall upon his mount, a man with black hair and broad shoulders. Her pulse always pounded wildly for a second, only to return to its regular, even cadence when she drew close and she saw that the rider was not Wolf and bore not much resemblance to him. Oh, wayward, willful heart!

How willingly she’d given herself to him! The shame that should have been her companion, the disgrace of having lain with him, did not chase after her. Truth was, she had no regrets. If she could spend another night with him, she would gladly share his bed and suffer the consequences, for she was not married in her heart, nor had she slept with her husband.

Her plan—pray that it worked!—was to prove Holt to be the traitor she knew him to be. She’d find that proof in Erbyn, which was still several days’ ride away. God help me, she silently prayed as the snow fell in flurries that obscured her view and chilled her deep into her bones, and please, please be with Wolf. Give him peace and keep him safe.