Prologue
Wales
Winter 1295
urry!” Megan ordered, her breath fogging in the frigid air as she leaned forward in the saddle. Her horse, a headstrong bay mare with an urge to nip, galloped through the forest as night closed in. “Faster, you beast, faster!” Megan glanced at the sky. Through the bare branches she saw clouds, thick and dark and menacing, ready to spill a shower of sleet over the countryside near the castle of Dwyrain, her home.
At least she hoped it was still her home. Her father might just banish her this time. “Please, God, no,” she whispered, suddenly frightened and contrite. Why had she been so foolish as to let her younger sister Cayley goad her into an argument? Wouldn’t she ever learn?
“Run, Shalimar, ’tis a good girl you be.” The encouragement she gave slid through teeth that chattered.
The wind picked up. Megan shivered. Her gloved fingers turned to ice as she held the reins. The forest surrounding Dwyrain had always been an enchanted place in the summer where she’d ridden, hunted, laughed, and waded in the meandering streams. She’d picked berries and nuts, dug for herbs, and plucked wildflowers and ferns from their stalks.
But this afternoon, only a few days before the Christmas revels were to begin, the woods were gloomy; the dark-limbed trees with their naked branches appeared to be forgotten soldiers guarding secrets that no mortal man dared unearth. How many times had her mother warned her that the forests around Dwyrain were sinister, haunted by the spirits of ghosts, people who had believed in the old ways rather than the lawful teachings of the church?
Megan had always laughed at her mother’s silly warnings, though Violet of Dwyrain was not the only one who believed in spirits boding both good and evil. Many servants in the castle professed Christianity and knelt on the cold stone floor of the chapel each day, but clung to the faith of their forefathers—the ancient ways. Even old Rue, the nursemaid, trusted the runes and spells of her elders. Megan had spent years watching her, learning quickly, though knowing instinctively that she should never let anyone realize just how much of Rue’s pagan magic she’d planted in her mind.
Gathering her cloak to her neck, she squinted as the first icy drops began to fall. The sky was nearly black, and again Megan cursed herself for her foolishness. Her father, Baron Ewan, would be furious with her and would probably send her to her chamber without food and order her to spend hours in the chapel on her knees while begging forgiveness of the Blessed Mother and Holy Father.
Saints in heaven, why had she been so foolish? Frozen cobwebs brushed her cheeks as she rode, guiding the animal down the narrow deer trail. The mare’s quick hoofbeats echoed in the quiet forest. Gripping her hood about her neck with one hand, Megan leaned forward and the horse took the bit, running faster and faster along the narrow trail. “ ’Tis good you are, Shalimar,” Megan cried as a branch slapped her face. They weren’t far now, just around the next bend and up a hill and—
The earth seemed to shift. Megan flew forward as Shalimar stumbled.
“Oh!” As she slid sideways in the saddle, leafless branches spun wildly in her vision. The slick reins slid from her fingers as she hung upside down. Her cloak fell over her face and swept the ground. Gamely, the horse plowed forward, limping. “Stop! Shalimar! Halt!” she commanded, scrambling to pull herself back into the saddle. The mare went down on one knee and Megan, barely astride again, pitched forward.
The ground rushed up at her. She landed hard on her shoulder. Pain screamed
up her arm and she felt dizzy as she tried to sit up. Shalimar stood, sweating and mud-spattered, favoring a foreleg, her liquid eyes rimmed in white, her dirty coat trembling.
Gritting her teeth, Megan climbed to her feet and made her way to her horse. “What is it, girl?” she asked, but the mare shied and limped farther away.
“Your mount’s lame.” A deep, soft-spoken voice shook the rain from the leaves of the ivy that clung tenaciously to the trees.
Megan nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled quickly, her boots sliding in the mud, her eyes narrowed as she squinted into the thicket. “Who are you?” she asked, her horse forgotten, her fingers searching through the slits in her cloak for the knife she had strapped to her belt. “Show yourself.”
A soft chuckle followed and an owl hooted from the higher branches of a great fir tree.
“I said—”
“I heard you.” A man appeared from the shadows. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a ragged cape that nearly touched the ground, he stepped forward with a noticeable limp. His face was hidden by the hood of his cape, and for a second, Megan shivered in fear. “What are you doing out here alone, Megan of Dwyrain?”
Her throat went dry as her fingers clasped upon the hilt of her dagger. “I—I went riding.”
“Ahh. Because of a tiff with your sister Cayley, aye?”
Her heart pounded. “But how did you know? Were you in the keep standing with your ear to the door? Who are you?” she demanded, tossing her wet hair from her face and lifting her chin proudly, mimicking her older brother Bevan. Rain dripped off her nose and chin ignobly and dirt was probably smudged on her face, but she stood her ground, refusing to appear frightened.
“I … feel things,” he said, looking suddenly vexed, as if he would like to come up with a better explanation, but could not. “Now, let’s have a look at your mount.”
“She’ll shy.”
He ignored Megan and spoke softly to the horse. His words were nearly hypnotic, a chant of sorts at which Shalimar, snorting nervously, didn’t flinch; not even when he lifted her pained leg and examined it with long fingers that protruded from gloves that covered only his palms. What kind of man was he? The mare, anxious only seconds before, quieted under his hands, and when he reached beneath his cape and withdrew a fat leather pouch, she didn’t so much as nicker.
“What’re you doing?” Megan asked.
“Shh!” His command was sharp. “You’ll scare her.” Gently, holding his gloves in his teeth, he applied the jellylike salve, speaking nearly inaudibly to the horse, closing his eyes for a second as he wrapped his fingers around Shalimar’s foreleg. The bay didn’t move and appeared in a trance.
Rain pelted the ground, creating pools and splashing in icy droplets against Megan’s face and cloak. Shuddering, she stepped away from the mystical man. Though she believed that there were powers on this earth that she didn’t understand, powers greater than those given to men and accompanied by crown and scepter, powers that were invisible to most and granted to only a few, she felt a jab of fear.
“There now, you may go,” the man said, turning toward her. His face was shadowed by his hood, but she saw that his eyes were blue as the sky in summer.
“Who are you?”
He slid his fingers through the holes in his gloves. “ ’Tis of no consequence.”
“A sorcerer?”
His smile was humble. “Would you want to think of me as such, so be it.”