She narrowed her eyes and peered up at the sun. It was brilliant and clear, a cloudless day. She glanced at Maggie. "He didn't leave any instructions?" She needed him awake now.
The MacKeltars shook their heads.
"It was thought he feared someone might wake him before it was time," Maggie said. She cast Colleen a wry look. "Like my daughter who's been infatuated with him since she first peeked through the slit in the tower and saw him slumbering."
Closing her eyes, Gwen thought hard. What was different? She opened them again slowly and gazed down at his chest. Everything was the same: the sun, the symbols, her hands…
Blood. There had been blood smeared on the symbols from her cutting her hands up when she'd fallen through the rocks. Could it be that elemental? Human blood and sunshine? She knew nothing about spells, but blood figured prominently in myths and legends.
"I need a knife," she cried.
Colleen dashed into the castle and returned swiftly, clutching a small steak knife.
Mumbling a prayer beneath her breath, Gwen lightly ran the edge over her palm so drops of blood welled up. With trembling hands, she smeared it across the symbols on his chest, then sat back anxiously, waiting.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then one by one, the symbols began to fade…
She sucked in her breath and glanced up at his face.
"Good morrow, English," Drustan said lazily, opening his eyes, his silvery gaze tender. "I knew you could do it, love."
Gwen's eyelids fluttered and she fainted.
* * *
Chapter 28
When Gwen regained consciousness, she was lying on the bed in the Silver Chamber. Drustan was bending over her, gazing down with so much love in his eyes that she gasped and began crying.
"Drustan," she whispered, clutching at him.
"She's awakened, Maggie," Drustan said over his shoulder. "She's all right." Gwen heard the door shut as Maggie left, giving them privacy.
She stared up into his silvery eyes wonderingly. He was looking at her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
"How?" she managed to ask, cupping his face in her hands. She traced her fingers over every plane and angle, and he kissed them repeatedly as they passed his lips. "How?"
"I love you, Gwen MacKeltar," he whispered, catching her hand and planting a kiss in the palm.
Gwen laughed through her tears. "I love you too," she whispered back, flinging her arms around him and holding him tightly. "But I don't understand."
In between dozens of kisses, quick sips, long leisurely ones, he told her.
Told her how he'd watched her disappear as he'd lain on the ground, the battle raging all around. Told her how the arrow had been deflected by the metal disc on his leather bands and had been but a flesh wound. Told her how they'd discovered who the "enemy" was.
"That old woman," Gwen murmured. "She said she'd hired the gypsies."
"Aye, Besseta. She made a full confession." He kissed her again before continuing, sucking gently on her lower lip. "Besseta claimed she scryed in her yew sticks that a woman would bring about the death of her son. Since I was soon to wed, Besseta decided my betrothed must be the woman in her vision. She warned Nevin, but he laughed it off and made her promise not to harm me. To her ailing mind, bespelling me wasn't harming me, so she purchased the gypsy's services to enchant me so she might prevent the wedding. In the first reality, when Anya was killed by the Campbell, Besseta must have thought the threat had passed. I suspect, however, that sometime shortly after Anya's death, Besseta must have had her vision again, and realized that as long as I was alive and might yet wed, the danger would never pass. So she proceeded with her original plan to have me enchanted."
"So she drugged you and sent the message bidding you come to discover the name of the man who'd killed Dageus."
"Aye. I was enchanted, you found me, and I sent you back."
"But in the second reality," Gwen exclaimed, "since
Dageus and Anya weren't killed, she must have heard you were coming home with your betrothed—"
"—and stepped up plans to have me abducted. Unwilling to take any chances; she wanted my "betrothed" gone too. As you were in my bedchamber, they assumed you were Anya."
Gwen shook her head, amazed. "It was her belief in her vision that made everything happen, Drustan! If she hadn't believed in it, she would never have enchanted you, I would never have been sent back, and Nevin would never have given his life to save me."
"Aye. 'Tis why the gypsy are o'ercautious of fortune telling. They make it dear that any future they scry is but one possible future: the most likely one, yet not writ in stone. For Besseta, driven by lifelong fear, it was indeed her most probable future. Fear drove her to have me enchanted. Having me enchanted resulted in me sending you back. Once you were there, Nevin gave his life to protect you. Her fear drove her to fulfill the possibility."