Highland Moon Sifter (a Highland Sorcery novel) (7 page)

Shaw felt it immediately, the pull on his own magic. ‘Twas always open to her, an unlimited well Aldreth drew upon and he let her, never resisting, knowing his magic was the only thing keeping her from falling off the ledge into insanity.

But this time…he could not aid her in this…not in stealing a child, especially knowing it may not work and ‘twould only be sending both mother and infant to their deaths.

He forced the flow to stop, to cut her off, but he was already weakened and she’d had too much of a hold within his soul and essence for years. “Aldreth, no,” he gasped against a sudden spasm in his muscles.

Muted light suffused Aldreth’s strained features, red and subdued sliver, the taint of magic taken from the darkness of swearing loyalty to demons, blended with the silver cords of his moon magic. It pulsed around her hands over the mother’s frantically heaving stomach. Both women’s hair lifted as though caught in a gentle breeze.

“Nay, please,” the woman screamed. And screamed and screamed and screamed.

Shaw flipped over to his stomach and crawled toward them. The magic binding him tightened, the magic flowing from him drained him.

The woman’s bulging stomach deflated beneath the witch’s hands and Aldreth’s shoulders jerked. Her face blanched bone white. The flat of her belly pushed outward, expanding into swollen pregnancy.

Shaw crawled closer, horrified by what he was seeing, at what he felt. ‘Twas unnatural, twisted magic, stealing an unborn baby from its mother’s womb.

Aldreth’s screams echoed the woman’s. Discarding the woman, Aldreth’s hands fell to the floor, on knees and hands, fingers clawing into the fur of the thick rug.

Spent, the woman crumpled to her side.

The magical strands binding Shaw disappeared and his momentum against them jerked him forward to fall on his face.

Aldreth’s head snapped up, close to his. Her eyes were wild and dark. “Help me. Something’s wrong. ‘Tisna working.”

It was all wrong. Shaw shuddered under the sick feel of the magic slicking the air around them. Whatever witch’s spell Aldreth had conjured, ‘twas a bad one. The greater the spell, the greater the price to pay. ‘Twas always thus whenever witches were involved. Blood leaked from his nose.

“Stop fighting me and help me,” she groaned.

‘Twas too late anyway. She’d taken the baby, but mayhap he could still spare one life. “Then give me the woman.”

Anger flared behind Aldreth’s eyes, but the lines beside her mouth were white with pain and she nodded.

Shaw immediately let go of his end of the tug-of-war they’d been playing with his magic and let her have it. It pooled from him like a river suddenly undammed. He yanked back on it, trying to get control, to guide it to where it needed to go to help the unborn child, rather than let it be consumed by this terrible awful spell Aldreth’s unstable mind had unleashed.

The magic was slippery, unwieldy to manage and he was so so tired, his energy all but gone. Yet he had to do this, had to do what he could to spare this child.

Shaking with exertion, he managed to guide his silver moonlit threads away from the entwining roiling darkness and steer it to the witch, focusing on the pain emanating from her stomach and within to the small spark of life. Nay, not one. Two lives. Twins. The woman had carried two children and Aldreth had unwittingly taken them both. He could feel them, their small hearts in sync, yet slowing, the shock of being ripped from their mother’s womb taking its toll.

He was no Healer, yet he did what he could, coaxing the small life essences to grasp hold of what he offered and live.

He wasn’t sure when it happened, or when he felt it, but something changed. The turmoil in the air shifted, the magic dissipated and everything quieted.

At the end of his endurance—physical, mental, emotional, magical—Shaw slumped forward into blackness.

Chapter Eight

Shaw woke up on the cold floor. The fire in the hearth was out. Aldreth was gone and the poor pregnant woman lay unmoving on the furs where she had slumped over. No, that wasn’t right. She was no longer with child. With children.

But did she still live?

Pushing up on his hands, still shaky, Shaw crawled to her and passed a palm along her throat until he felt a flutter of life.

Relieved, he closed his eyes and sat still for a moment, waiting for the tremors in his muscles to still.

He climbed to his knees and gathered her in his arms. She moaned, her head lolling toward him. “My babe…” He lowered his head to hear her. “My baby…”

Shaw stiffened, his heart aching for her. She did not know she carried twins. “Shhhh, all’s well. Ye’re safe now.” His throat closed, choking off any assurances he could give her about her child. He could offer her no comfort there. “I’ll take ye home.”

Getting to his feet took monumental effort, but he did not dare leave the woman without care for much longer, care she would never receive within the castle walls.

With every step, Shaw worried his legs might buckle. Since leaving Aldreth’s dungeons, he hadn’t felt as wretched as this. Padding through the silent corridors and remaining upright took every ounce of perseverance he had and when he stepped through the doors and into the regenerating moonlight, he felt like weeping.

He straightened. He couldn’t afford to show that weakness to the watching guards. Shifting the woman more comfortably in his arms, he followed the starlit path into the forest toward her village.

Every step he feared would be his last, but he kept going, resolved to get her home. Several times he heard quiet rustles in the forest, but he plowed steadily on.
 

The blacksmith’s forge came into view first. Donagh was a flickering silhouette behind the flames as he worked late at his forge in the cool of the evening.

When Shaw approached, the smith came out from behind the anvil to face him, large flat-head hammer in hand. His features hardened like cooling metal in water upon seeing the limp woman. “What have you done, witch’s
striapach.”

Shaw’s lips tightened at the insult. ‘Twas no more than he deserved. “She needs aid.”

Donagh‘s meaty hand creaked around the handle of his hammer, unwilling to cast it aside in favor of taking the woman, though they both knew Shaw’s magic could hurl the large smith aside if he so wanted.

At least on a better day than this.

Right now, Shaw doubted he had the strength to swat a rodent. “Where is her family and I’ll take her home.”

“Her husband and father are in the forest searching for the lass. They feared when she didna return home. Especially after two of our men went missing. There are strange tracks in the forest.”

Shaw nodded. “Tell yer people to stay within the village. Do not let yer women come to the castle for a sennight.”

“But the witch…”

“Is distracted with other matters.”

Donagh glared, though he did not dare ask what other matters could distract the witch.”

Several more villagers came out of their cottages, shying back when they saw who had come into their midst. Donagh reluctantly lowered his smith’s tool to the ground and lifted his arms to take the woman. “What have ye done to her?”

Shaw carefully transferred her into the smith’s care. “She lost her child.”

Eydis hobbled forward. At ninety, the wise woman was one of the few who didn’t fear him. “Bring her to my cottage.” She glared up at Shaw. “The witch did this?”

Shaw simply lifted his chin. The blame fell upon his shoulders like a weighted cloak. He should have found a way to stop it.

“Leave this village. Yer kind is no welcome here.”

His kind. Which did she refer to? Betrayer, Moon Sifter, or monster? It mattered naught. In their eyes he was all three.

Chapter Nine

Bekah followed the Highlander from the castle to the village, keeping to the shadows and far back. He’d proven before that his senses were good enough to detect her. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

She’d lost the Sifts when she jumped into the river and let it carry her downstream. It’d taken all this time to find her way back, while using every bit of foliage and tree line for cover. She’d nearly run into the Sifts again, though they also seemed to be doubling-back, picking up Shaw’s scent again. They obviously weren’t going to kill him. Perhaps they decided to act as his bodyguards to keep her from killing him since they hadn’t been able to stop her yet. It’d be what she’d do. Great. Now she was thinking like a Sift. She felt so proud.

The monsters were out there in the dark somewhere. They’d been following Shaw even as she followed them until they slipped up into the trees out of her sight.

She’d been trying to figure out how to warn Shaw without alerting the beasts to her presence when he walked into the village.

What on earth was he doing, carrying an unconscious woman this late in the evening? Had there been some kind of accident at the castle involving the servants? He was not receiving a warm welcome by the stony expressions of the villagers who ventured out.

How she’d love to hear what was being said, nothing pleasant if the rage in the old woman’s bent posture relayed the tale correctly.

After passing the unconscious woman to the tree-stumps-for-arms dude, Shaw straightened under the old lady’s tirade until he finally turned on his heel and walked rigidly from them. Blood trailed one side of his dark kilt. His or the woman’s he’d carried? As soon as his back was turned upon the villagers, the stony façade of his expression melted into sorrow.

Sympathy wound tight around Bekah’s heart. Their words had hurt him.

The moment he was in the trees again, away from the watching eyes, he leaned back against the trunk of a tree, or rather slumped against it as though he no longer had the energy or will to hold himself fully upright.

His shoulders sagged, head lowered so that his long hair fell forward, covering either side of his face.

He remained like that, motionless, a living, breathing sculpture of a broken defeated spirit, and she didn’t want to be moved by it, or him, not with what had to be done, but she couldn’t hold the tide of emotion back.

She hurt for him, for all that he’d endured, all that he’d lost. His clan, his family, even his pride.

He was a good man.

She could no longer deny that.

Yet sometimes good men made terrible choices.

He made his. Or would make his. And she had already made hers.

She knew what she had to do. She’d jumped into a freaking tornado of a time rift because she had made her choice.

After a long while, Shaw moved, shifting fully back to unsteady feet. She thought he’d return to the castle as beat as he looked, but instead he headed in the opposite direction.

She shadowed him from afar, afraid to get too close and give herself away. To him or to the Sifts? She wasn’t all that sure anymore. Though with the way his pace slowed and his steps weaved, he most likely wasn’t alert enough to hear her approach anyway.

Or any monsters, beasts, or men who might wish him harm.

She glanced about for the Sifts but saw no trace of them. Which of course didn’t mean a thing.

Damn. She shouldn’t feel protective of Shaw. It’d be good if something came along and took him out for her. Wouldn’t it?

Her circling thoughts were getting way out of hand. She had a knife, albeit a small one. He was weak. She’d never get a better chance than now. Except…she couldn’t do it anymore. She knew she should, that it was what was right, but she couldn’t.

A low thrumming rumbled through the ground into her feet, the crashing of waves. Shaw moved out of the forest onto a craggy ledge that looked out over a gray tumultuous sea.

From the shadows within the trees, Bekah watched Shaw turn his face up to the silver glow of the waning moon. His hair whipped back by the wind coming up off of the cliffs. As though magnetized by him, particles of moon dust rained from the sky, coating him in a jewel-like substance.

It was magic.

He was magic.

Moon Sifter.

He literally sifted his magic from moonlight.