The Witch and The Thief

18

The unease grew to full-blown anxiety and settled like an iron weight in Lachlan's gut. Maera was in danger; he could feel the truth of it in his bones.

Dragging his attention back to the shriveled and imperious Master of the Deepwood, Lachlan stood. "You need me alive because you know deep in your dark and withered soul that your superfluous and ill-laid plans reveal that without me, you will fail in your duel. Nathair will not only claim his prize in retrieving the Dragon Tooth Stone but will lay siege to all the combined magic brimming within this vault."

He stared at Drummond, silently daring him to deny what he'd said was false.

Aggie sputtered, slithering across the floor with a look of murderous rage burning in her eyes.

After a moment, Drummond thumped his staff on the floor and raised his hand, bringing Aggie to an abrupt stop. He took a step closer to Lachlan, holding his gaze as he quietly threatened, "When this duel between Nathair and I is over, you shall pay for daring to question my power."

"Will I?" Lachlan murmured.

"Aye, I'll see to it you rue the day you ever crossed me."

Lachlan's gaze hardened, and he bared his teeth in a feral snarl. "I look forward to it." Turning on his heel, he marched to the door and left without another word or backward glance.

The instant Lachlan was free of the oppressive vault, he ran. Driving sheets of rain had turned the street into a mucky soup, pulling at his boots like demonic hands reaching from the maw of hell to slow his progress.

After flinging the tavern door open, Lachlan stumbled inside, soaked to the skin, and left a trail of muddy footprints in his wake when heading to the stairs. His heart raced as though he'd run over ten miles to get there instead of a mere hundred feet. Dread filled him, swimming in his gut and snaking through his limbs.

Olly and his two sons, tall copper-haired brutes by the name of Odhran and Oliver, appeared out of nowhere, planting themselves in front of Lachlan and blocking his progress up the stairs as effectively as Hadrian's Wall. "I be needing a word with ye, knave."

Muttering an expletive under his breath, Lachlan scowled at the three unwelcoming faces, "Another time perhaps." He glanced toward the rowdy group of men at the back of the tavern, and his stomach sank to his toes when he couldn't find Hamish's bulky frame among them.

"Where's Hamish?" Lachlan gasped, forcing the words past numb lips.

His horrified gaze turned to the ceiling, where the thumps rang with sickening clarity, proclaiming his location.

Olly shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, remaining immovable as though he'd suddenly grown roots. "Who's the lass with ye, tucked away above stairs?"

Lachlan clenched his mouth shut and tried to push past the three of them, refusing to answer when every nerve in his body screamed that Maera's life was in danger. Glass exploded somewhere above, and Lachlan's breath lodged in his throat, trapped there by a lump of terror that he was too late.

Olly pulled Lachlan back just as he managed to slide between Odhran and the railing, clinging to him like a barnacle, "I asked ye a question, knave."

"And I asked you one," Lachlan snarled, shoving Olly against the wall so hard he splintered several boards. His soaked hood lost its precarious perch atop his head and slid to his shoulders, revealing his starlight hair in all its newfound radiance. "Where is Hamish?"

Odhran and Oliver muttered several curses and retreated to the bottom of the stairs.

"I-I didn't know ye to be a Shadowblade," Olly stared wide-eyed at Lachlan's glowing starlight hair, stammering, "he be u-upstairs, fetching his sister, sir."