Mystic Rider (32 page)

The tide began an unnaturally swift ebb.

Unable to utter his gratitude for his friend’s compassion,
Ian shook his head. “No, she’s alive. She’s inside my head. I can hear her.” He
said it with awe. He heard Chantal. She’d opened herself completely, and the
sorrow pouring from her heart was making his ache.

Murdoch shook his head. “That’s not possible. I saw her — ”

Fearful that he would alert any remaining soldiers, Ian
couldn’t shout aloud. Instead, he shouted inside his head, calling her name,
pleading with her to listen.

He’d never begged in his life, but he was begging now. Without
the peaks of Aelynn at his back, he felt abandoned by his gods, but still, he
beseeched them.

And they heard. Just when he was beginning to think his mind
had cracked with grief… there, in a crevasse to his left, the fluttering of
moss green fabric. Without a second thought, Ian began scrambling across the
rocks at the bottom of the cliff, looking for a path upward.

In that same moment, he heard Chantal’s startled cry of
surprise and relief — in his head. He could hear her; he could see her — His sun
would rise again in the morning!

He felt Chantal’s joy the instant she spotted him. Her
tender heart had grieved — for him. It was not an experience Ian had ever expected,
nor was this elation. Perhaps there was something to be said about giving way
to emotion — it opened whole new paths of insight.

* * *

Chantal half slid, half scrambled down the trail to the
shore. Ian hastened toward the bottom of the path, climbing over boulders,
watching her with a glow on his face that warmed her all over.

He was drenched head to foot from the surf, but he looked
very much alive and unbattered. Admiring his straight back, broad shoulders,
and wind-whipped, curling queue of hair, Chantal succumbed to an upwelling of
love and desire. She had to admit that no man had ever excited her as he did,
might never do so again, and now that the time had come for him to sail away,
she didn’t want him to leave.

Now that she’d learned what living was really about, she
wanted to be with him and ride recklessly at his side.
Where
no longer mattered.

Abruptly, she shut out the foolish images in her head.

She wasn’t in any position to act on her impossible desires.
Her family waited somewhere on the plateau. Ian had not yet intercepted Pierre
and reclaimed the chalice, but they had reached the end of the road. The harbor
was not far. There, she would be expected to say farewell.

The losses of her mother and grandparents and Jean had left
their marks on her. But to lose Ian… Ian had been a breath of life. She wanted
to spread her wings and fly.

Which was nonsense. She’d only get herself killed. That she
even thought in such fantastical terms told her how close she’d come to the
edge of madness. She couldn’t fly away and leave her home and her family. She
loved them too much.

As she loved the man wading through the crashing waves to
meet her.

Reaching the pebbly beach where she stood, Ian looked on her
as if she were his moon and stars, and a frisson of pleasure coursed through
her. Wordlessly, he hauled her into his arms and kissed her so thoroughly that
she was immediately as soaked as he.

Chantal clung to his neck, weeping, and kissed him back with
all the pent-up sorrow, excitement, and longing inside her. It was as if his
blood raced through hers, joining them in some inexplicable manner that would
be fatal should they be parted. She couldn’t bear it.

But they could not stand there with the undertow threatening
to carry them out to sea. Reluctantly, Ian set her down.

“Is there some way to the harbor from here?” he asked,
jumping to the next topic of importance, proving he was all male and not
swamped with the wild swirl of joy and misgivings that crippled her ability to
think sensibly.

She no longer heard his shouts of grief in her head, but he
held her tightly as if he could not let her go. He helped her climb over the
rocks at the bottom of the cliff, squeezing her waist as if to reassure himself
she existed. She clung to him in the same manner. Around the bend, they
discovered Murdoch, to their amazement, still waiting on a boulder, looking
grumpy and waterlogged.

“I saw you dive into a waterspout,” she exclaimed. “I
thought you were both dead!”

“Your soldiers would have to burn Ian to kill him,” Murdoch
growled, rising from his rocky seat. “You’re the one who ought to be dead. Can
you fly?”

Chantal laughed as he echoed her earlier desire. “No, but
this is my home. I’ve tumbled down these cliffs countless times. I knew there
was a ledge and a path there. I’m sure it’s the same one Pierre took.” She
sobered as she glimpsed their faces. “He’ll be far ahead of us by now. Those
were his father’s men delaying you so he could catch a ship.”

“We’ll find him,” Ian said without a shred of doubt, lifting
her past a rock covered in sharp barnacles.

With the joy of finding him alive ebbing like the tide with
her knowledge that soon she must part from him, Chantal shoved away and fought
to return to her feet. She gulped back a sob and tried to remain as coolly
rational as he.

“The tide is
out
,”
she said, swiping at her eyes. “If Pierre was very quick, he’s already on a
ship in the channel. If there was no ship available, he’s still there. We must
hurry.”

Ian caught the back of her head and pressed a kiss to her
brow. “Thank you.”

She glared at him and refused to ask for what, not in front
of Murdoch. If that was his manner of farewell, fine. She would guard her heart
and keep it for her family.

Chantal stalked the familiar beach past the slope of the
cliffs. A steep path led down a hill to the low terrain of the river valley. She
shook out her muddy skirts, but the men didn’t seem in the least concerned
about their soaked attire.

“Where are your mercenaries?” she asked Murdoch.

He grimaced and glanced at Ian, who merely lifted his
eyebrows in what appeared to be an arrogant challenge.

“I told them to escape any way they could,” Murdoch
admitted.

The notes in his voice said he did not speak the entire
truth, but Chantal had sensed his confused honesty from the first, so she
shrugged this off as one more deception. “I ordered the other two to guard the
carriage,” she told him. “My family will be waiting for me. I must find some
way back while you look for Pierre.”

“No,” Ian stated simply, pulling her down the dusty path toward
the town in the distance. “We will ask after Pierre together, then go back for
your family. I won’t abandon them.”

Murdoch looked at him as if he were crazed but said nothing.

Chantal met Ian’s unwavering gaze through eyes blurred with
tears of gratitude. He wouldn’t sail away immediately? Because of her?

Still, she had to let them know she wasn’t entirely without
help. “Once Pierre is safely on his way, his father’s men will protect Pauline
and my father. They’re friends of our family.”

“I don’t suppose you can persuade them to protect us from
the National Guard on our heels?” Murdoch asked dryly.

“They aren’t trained as well as the guard,” she admitted. “I
wouldn’t wish to see them slaughtered. They might hide us, if we asked.”

“After what they saw us do up there, I don’t think that’s
wise,” Ian said. “Perhaps they’ll all think us dead. Come along, let us find
Pierre. I am not leaving you here, and that’s final.” Ian caught her elbow to
help her down the next steep slope of the path.

* * *

The chalice had all but disappeared from his ability to
sense it. Ian knew it had taken sail.

After the terror of almost losing Chantal, the loss did not
seem so significant. The chalice would always be somewhere. He could follow it
anytime. But he couldn’t bear to be parted from Chantal. If she was the gift of
plenty that the chalice had granted him, he would not disrespect the bequest by
letting any harm come to her.

What she had done on the cliff, the screaming war cry that
had paralyzed an army… The energy that had surged through him at her screams…
The way she had called out his rage and directed it safely… Their actions
surmounted all the knowledge he’d been taught. He knew Trystan claimed he
shared some small portion of his amacara’s gifts, but Trystan and Mariel were
formally bound by Aelynn vows.

Ian thought his connection to Chantal was more visceral than
that. He couldn’t read her mind as he might others unless she let him, but he’d
never uttered a war cry in his life. He hadn’t exploded with such fierce passion
since his childhood. It was as if she’d burrowed into his heart and unlocked
all he’d hidden there, and together, they’d ignited like fireworks.

Keeping a possessive hand on Chantal’s shoulder so he would
not lose her in the bustling port town of Le Havre, Ian let her choose an inn.
She assured them that the owner was a friend of the family and would keep quiet
about their presence. Ian used his mental ability to verify this and planted a
warning that added urgency to her request. Then he commandeered several rooms.

Murdoch disappeared as he was wont to do. Their bargain was
over. Ian would soon have to decide what to do about him. For now, he simply
hoped Murdoch was discreetly searching for Pierre in a manner his worldly
experience prepared him to do better than Ian could.

Perhaps it was a mistake to let Murdoch go, but the man had
saved his life, fought beside him, and shared his mind when he could have run.
Underneath the bitterness, Murdoch was still the friend Ian had once known.

“You should follow him,” Chantal murmured as if reading his
mind, while the innkeeper sorted out their keys. “He cannot be trusted.”

“He could have escaped anytime these last hours. Instead, he
protected my back. I think he does not trust himself.”

She tilted her head as if considering the idea. “I suppose
that’s possible. He’s very confused in some ways. In others, he’s extremely
determined.”

“And how do you know this?” Ian asked in amusement as they
followed their host.

“The same way I know you can be trusted, and that our host
is loyal to Pauline’s family. I read it in your voices.” They were murmuring so
the innkeeper couldn’t hear them, but her answer was defiant.

“Your gift is foreign to me,” he acknowledged, “but
nonetheless, I find it amazing. You read voices, not minds?”

She shot him a glance so full of hope and disbelief that he
almost kissed her right there on the stairs in front of all. Fortunately or
not, the space was too narrow for him to reach up to her.

“I have never thought of it like that,” she admitted, proceeding
upward. “I thought it was something musicians noticed. I cannot tell what
people
think,
” she corrected.

“People think a dozen things at a time. That is seldom
useful. If you were to read my mind now, you would know that I am watching your
wet garments cling to your lovely ankles, while wondering if the bed will be
soft, hoping Murdoch returns with information, craving a good dinner, and
trying to figure out if I can talk to porpoises. Such a clamor from dozens or
hundreds of people around you would quickly drive you mad.”

She waited until the innkeeper had shown them their rooms
and departed before responding. To his relief, she did not immediately leave
for the larger chamber she’d been assigned but remained in the one he’d chosen
for himself.

The minute the door closed, she studied his face. “Talk to
porpoises?”

He’d said it deliberately. If she could not accept what he
was, she would never be happy on Aelynn. And with her apparent gift for causing
all who heard her to feel as she did — An unhappy Chantal would be a disaster
for his home.

The differences between them weren’t as vast as the
differences between their two countries. He understood her reluctance to leave
the security of the familiar, but he wanted her not only to accept the
necessity of leaving, but also to act on it of her own free will.

“I am a foreigner in your land,” he said carefully. “I
cannot easily explain our differences without showing you where I come from.
Where your father comes from.”

Stunned, she stared. “My father is from Le Havre.”

Ian shook his head patiently. “He is not allowed to speak of
it, and since he will not admit his weakness, he won’t tell you, but your
father was born in my land, and for his health he must return there. I will
take you both with me, and you will see for yourself that our gifts are
natural.”

“My father’s home is here,” she protested. “He married my
mother in Le Havre.”

“No, he settled here as a young man. I do not know why he
chose to remain. Your mother, perhaps, and then, you. It happens that way sometimes.
But those were peaceful times, and these are not. I must take you and your
family to safety.”

“Pauline?” She turned eagerly to him. “If we could take her
and the children — ”

Ian caressed her cheek and tangled his fingers in the fine
hairs that had escaped their pins. “Pauline cannot come with us,
mi ama
. We will see her settled safely
wherever Pierre goes. She will want to be with him, someplace where their
parents can go when the time comes.”

Her thick lashes closed over her beautiful eyes as she recognized
the truth in his words. And his voice. A single tear trickled down her cheek.

“You tear me in two.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “But we are out of time, and I have
no choice.”

Murdoch had told him that he always had choices, but Murdoch
was wrong. Ian’s path had been carved from birth. Aelynn was his destiny.

With Chantal assuring him that the citizens of her
childhood home would not reveal her to the National Guard and could be trusted
to quietly fetch the carriage and her family, Ian reluctantly left her at the
inn while he went in pursuit of Murdoch. He no longer believed that Murdoch was
the reason for the chalice’s disappearance or the means of its return. And
while he might trust Murdoch’s word, he could not trust Murdoch’s control over
his own powers.