The Healer's Gift by Willa Blair

Author:Willa Blair [Blair, Willa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2014-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Coira paced within her small chamber. Her thoughts kept running in circles replaying the comments she’d overheard while in the garden—the women’s decidedly unfriendly emotions and then Logen’s disappointment in her. Why had the Lathan Healer done this to her? Could it be undone? Or was she condemned to know, intimately, every feeling of every person near her for the rest of her life?

This had been her clan, long ago, before she’d changed, before so many had been killed at Flodden, the clan itself had changed. She had expected to be unwelcome here, but with the old laird and most of his men gone—dead—things could be different.

If Logen succeeded, this could become her home again. She had promised to help him, days ago. Today, for her own protection, she had all but refused to do what she’d promised.

What other choice did she have, but to help him? Where else could she go? Not back to the highlands. Surely, the tale of her actions would spread beyond the Lathan keep. To the lowlands? The borders? Could she sail a birlinn to Ireland? Nay, not by herself. She glanced out the window as she paced. Sunlight glinted on the low-rolling breakers of the incoming tide.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the confinement of her chamber any longer. She needed air, space, freedom. To be somewhere outside of walls—not just walls of stone, but also the invisible walls of her fears—and Logen’s expectations.

She grabbed her cloak and fled down the stairs, heart pounding, desperate to get outside. She moved swiftly through the bailey, her gaze intent on the gate ahead of her, her thoughts intent on her goal.

“Coira!” Elizabeth’s voice. She ignored the call.

Outside the walls, she slowed her flight. The cliffs or the beach? Elizabeth might follow her to the cliffs. The beach it would have to be.

She hurried down the path, heedless of the distance to the rocky ground below. Twice she slipped, catching herself by clinging momentarily to the rock face next to her. She reached the bottom, heart pounding, and ran to the narrowing strip of sand quickly being covered by the encroaching tide.

There she stopped. She pressed her hand over the knife scar in her side, hoping to ease the sharp cramp that reminded her too well of the pain of Donal MacNabb’s blade. Her fault then and her fault now, thanks to her headlong flight out of the keep. She bent forward and sucked in the briny tang of the ocean air. The chill of it burned the insides of her nose until fat tears began to spill from her eyes, causing her nose to run. She gasped against the pain, in her side and in her heart, and fought to breathe.

Finally, the cramp began to ease and she straightened. She regarded the ocean before her. Between her and Ireland stood the isles of Jura and Islay, the treacherous whirlpools in the waters around Scarba, and the open waters of the Irish Sea. Even if she managed to wrestle a boat into the surf and tried to sail it, she’d never make it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.