The moment Dara stopped to catch her breath her dread enveloped her again, like a suffocating velvet cloak she had trailed behind her as she ran. She saw her husband across the room, but he was only half-dressed, and in the snowy light he was blue-white as a cadaver. The fire was out, and the air smelled chilly and strange.
“Joseph,” Irene asked, “how many hours before dark?”
Yusuf nudged his bag aside with his foot and leaned back to peer out the tall window.
Finn balanced his weight between the balls of his feet and flexed his knees in preparation. Everyone knew a running jump did not count.
Finn stopped just short of the door and nudged Condal with his elbow to halt her. The slight movement of his arm flexed his biceps beneath her hand, and she curled her fingers tightly around it, trying to capture some of its fleeting strength before it relaxed away.
Conrad clunked the two brimming mugs onto the edge of the table and tossed back his head.
“Well, I like that!” he huffed. “I bring… buhhh… wahhh… Did you see that?” he whispered.
Eochaid let the door swing shut beneath its own weight and a breath of wind. He came bearing his own thunder: he did not need to enter with a bang.
“No, no, no!” Gwynn cried. “We’ve not even done dressing for bed yet!”
“What’s the matter?” Emma asked breezily as she strolled in after Margaret. “Afraid someone will see you in your nightgown?”
The wind had polished the snow on the hillside to a rippled crust that crunched and shattered beneath Llen’s feet like fallen leaves. No one had come before him tonight: he did not see so much as a rabbit’s tracks as he climbed.
Aed slipped his fingers out of his boot laces and slid them into the cuff of his sock. The footsteps in the corridor walked a short ways past the door and slowed. The tap-tap-tap of the booted heels grew fainter and farther spaced, like the last trickling drops from the mouth of an empty pitcher. Tap… Tap…
Nothing.
Aed hooked his fingertips around the cross-guard of his hidden knife.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « November | January » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Chapter RSS
New in the Forum