She’d like to know that accounting herself. Her memories of the Vision were clouded and merged, as if she’d been presented with too many options mixed together, and she’d experienced them layered one on top of another, all occurring simultaneously.
“You’ve every right to be angry with me.” She paused to gather herself, picking her words with care. “It’s only that I’ve never had a sister before, and I wanted Orabilis to meet Danielle. I should have asked yer permission to take her with meto visit Orabilis, but it was my belief you would deny such a request, so, selfishly, I dinna ask it of you.”
“Indeed?” Torquil stared at her, no doubt weighing the truth of her words. “Is that also yer reason for assisting in Malcolm’s escape? Because you dinna think I would agree to it?”
Christiana’s heart pounded. Her next words could well determine whether she lived or died.
“In spite of what you may think, I dinna assist Malcolm into that wagon. When we came to the edge of the forest and he emerged from that barrel, it was the first I’d seen of him since my visit to the cell where you held him prisoner.”
Every single word she uttered was technically true, as anything she said had to be. She honestly had wanted Orabilis to meet Malcolm’s wife. No need to add that she’d known when they left Tordenet Castle that they’d never reach the old crone’s home. Just as there was no need to add that from the moment she’d helped her brother escape from his cell, she’d made sure she stayed ahead of him and never looked back, specifically so that she wouldn’t see him. She’d even stood with her back to the wagon as the others helped him climb into the barrel and covered him in flour, for she had known that this moment would come.
Torquil’s eyes narrowed, distrust rolling off him in great, heaving waves of emotion so powerful that she felt their energy wash over her.
“You expect me to believe you had nothing to do with our brother’s escape?”
“I expect nothing of you, Torquil. You ken as well as I do that the price I pay for the gift of Vision is my inability to speak a falsehood. How many times have I shared with you that which I dinna want to share? How many times have I given the answers I dinna want to give?”
Too many times to count, before she’d learned the key lay in her intent, not in her words. The line between truth and deception was thin enough to be obscured by a carefully chosen word.
“So you have, my gentle Christiana.”
Torquil reached down to grip her upper arms, his hands like iron bands as he lifted her to her feet. His eyes, hard and cold, locked on hers when he pulled her face close to his, filling her with a fear that would have sent her once again to her knees had he not supported her.
“I want yer promise, yer sworn oath, that you’ll no ever try such as this again.”
Easy enough to promise. It wasn’t as if the same situation would ever present itself again.
“I will never again attempt to take someone to Orabilis without first asking yer permission.”
She was forced to her tiptoes as he pulled her closer still, his head dipping next to hers.
“Swear it,” he insisted, his hot breath fanning over her skin as his mouth hovered next to her ear.
Fighting the fear, she forced her lips to move. “I so swear.”
“Good.” He moved back from her, his expression triumphant. “If no you, then who was it who aided Malcolm in his escape? You must have seen someone.”
“What?” Foolishly, she hadn’t anticipated that question.
“If no you, which of my men betrayed me by helping Malcolm in his escape?”
Rauf’s long, thin face filled her mind and she fought to push the vision away lest her brother somehow read her thoughts. “None of those loyal to you would ever—” she began.
“I’ve no time for yer word games,” Torquil interrupted, his voice as sharp as the look with which he pierced her. “Obviously none loyal to me would have helped our brother. I ask you again, which of my men is a traitor?”
“I...I have no way to answer you. I am no aware of any of yer men who would dare to cross you.”
A truth, though only by the thinnest thread. Rauf was not one of Torquil’s men. His loyalty was to her father, the old laird. He’d been tasked with watching over her younger brother, Dermid, but upon her father’s death he’d become her man, as her father had instructed him. She would die before she would expose him for his part in Malcolm’s escape.
“As you say,” Torquil murmured, obviously weighing her every word. “Since it appears I’ll learn nothing of this matter from you, I’d have yer account of what you saw while you traveled Skuld’s world. I want to know everything.”
He would not like what she had to say.
“I have no words to describe what I remember. I’m left with memories of feelings, more than of specific events.”
“I’ve no interest in yer feelings. I want to hear of yer time in the Visions. Try harder,” he hissed, one hand moving up to grip her throat. “Try as if yer life depended upon it.”
She had not a single doubt that her lifediddepend upon it.