Page 7 of A Constant Blaze

“He’ll see what to do next,” Gormflaith said confidently. “All will be well.”

“Of course,” Christian agreed. She glanced at the other girl. “Do you mean you—the MacHeths—baseallyour decisions on Adam’s dreams?”

“Only the big ones,” Gormflaith said with a quick, humorous glance. She was tall, like her mother, though she shared her brothers’ darkness of hair, which she rarely troubled to cover except on formal occasions. “It was Adam who saw that our father would not die in prison, that we could and should rise up against the King of Scots.”

How many people had died since then on both sides? And now his brother was imprisoned, too. “Do you think he regrets it now?” Christian asked, low.

“No,” Gormflaith said. “There is no point. He can’t undo it, so he’ll just look for a way through it. As we all must.” She walked across to Adam and touched his hair. He spared her a glance, even pushed his head into her hand like a large, shaggy dog before he went back to staring into the flames.

Gormflaith walked on to the chamber Christian had once shared with her and quietly closed the door. Christian went and sat by Adam’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned into her.

“Do you see anything?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

Christian gazed into the flames with him until she had to blink and turn away. Instead, she watched him staring.

“What do you really see, Adam?” she blurted.

His eyebrows twitched. “Nothing. Yet.”

She gave his arm a little shake. “I don’t mean now, I meanever. Have you truly seen that your father will be king?”

He blinked and slowly turned to face her. His lips parted and closed again. He swallowed. “My father will never be king. None of us, none of our issue ever will be.”

Christian stared at him. “Have you always known that?”

He nodded.

“Adam, dotheyknow?” she asked, waving one hand toward the front of the hall to indicate his family. “Does Halla?”

Adam shook his head. “They need to justify what my father has done, and they need more than a reason to fight for his freedom. After twenty years, they need acause, or they might give up.”

She touched his cheek. “Don’tyouneed these things?”

Again, he shook his head. “The belief that he could and even should be king is my father’s protection as well as our best weapon. His right adds to their fear of us. And yet, because of his blood, no one will kill him save in combat.”

It was not a courtesy, she knew, that would be extended to Donald. He was a true, expendable hostage, and therein lay Adam’s fear for his brother. And Halla’s.

For a moment, Christian felt all the weight of Adam’s burden, the knowledge he carried alone, and the responsibilities, right or wrong, that he’d given himself. “And if and when he ever does come home? What then?”

“Life,” Adam said vaguely, his attention drifting back to the flames. “Happiness and honor aren’t bound to kingship.”

Christian pulled his face back to hers. “But what isyouraim, Adam? I’ve never truly grasped that. What doyouwant out of all this scheming and fighting?”

“Peace,” he said, drawing her head back down to his shoulder. And so, they sat in silence before the fire until the men began to drift into the hall to sleep. Then, she rose and tugged at his shoulder until he stood with her.

He couldn’t make the visions come any more than he could stop them. He knew that better than she did and never, ever relied on them. Like everyone else, he had to wait and think and plan with the knowledge he had.

*

In the chamberthat had been his father’s prison for longer than Gormflaith had been alive, Donald MacHeth lay in the darkness and listened to his father breathing on the mattress against the opposite wall. Part of him couldn’t quite believe he was breathing the same air as his almost legendary parent. Though hardly the place he’d have chosen for this reunion, he couldn’t be sorry.

He wondered if his father had the same thoughts. Certainly, he hadn’t seemed angry at Donald’s capture, only with the idea of being forced to leave Donald in prison in his place. But he wasn’t a talkative man. If he ever had been, lack of company had broken him of the habit. Still, what he did say tended to be amusing, whether light or sardonic, giving Donald little clue as to what went on behind the calm face and unquiet eyes. Eyes like Adam’s, only saner.

Into the silence, Donald said, “When we were boys, Adam and I used to lie in the dark and describe you to each other, to see if we still remembered you.”

There was a pause, long enough for Donald to wonder if his father was asleep after all.

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