Twenty-three – 04

“It was stupid to try to leave me in bed,” Marin murmured to him as they headed for the wall, for the gate.  “Why did you do it?”

“You were tired,” Thom said, his voice quiet as he leaned his head toward hers, trying to keep their conversation as private as possible.  “And with the nightmares—”

“I wasn’t having nightmares.”

He just stared at her for a long moment.  She stared right back and he swallowed hard.

“Fine.  With the nasty visions you were having last night, I thought that since you’d finally settled in I’d let you get some of the sleep you’ve been needing.”

She sighed softly and leaned her head against his shoulder for a brief moment, fingers weaving through his and squeezing.  “What I need goes out the window in the face of what everybody needs.  I know that you worry about me more than you worry about everyone else, but that needs to take a backseat when there are dozens of other lives depending on us to make the right choice.”

Thom fought against the tightness in his throat as he swallowed again.  “Right.  Of course.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“Good, because I don’t.”

Matt eased past them to arrive at the gate first.  Thom gave Marin’s hand a quick squeeze before he stepped away from her, toward the gate.  Matt shook his head, holding up a hand.  “Stay there,” he said.  “I’ll open the gates and you two head out there to meet her.  Thordin and I can cover you from here.”

“She said come alone, didn’t she?”  Marin smiled wryly and shook her head.  “She could get pissed that you two are here.”

“That’s why we’ll be staying by the gate,” Matt said.  He gave his sister a weary, worried smile and turned back toward the gate, gloved hands making quick of lifting the latch.  Thordin helped him lift the bar away and set it aside.  Together, then men threw open the gates to the snowy expanse of field beyond the walls, dark in the pre-dawn.

“We should have brought a lantern along,” Thom muttered, shaking his head at his own lack of foresight.  Marin laughed softly.

“We’ll have more than enough light soon enough.”  She looked beyond the gates to the snowy field, her eyes tracking the slender, shadow-cloaked form that emerged from the brush.  The sound of boots on snow echoed eerily in the silence of the early morning.  “There she is,” she said softly.  “The Lady of the Rowan.”

Thordin tore his eyes from the specter and looked at Marin.  “What?”

“That’s how she identified herself to Matt and Paul.  Lady of the Rowan.  Paul told me.”

His gaze drifted back to the figure and he swore.  Thom rocked back against his heels.

“Something wrong?”

“I’m coming out there with you,” Thordin said, tone brooking no argument.

“She said that only Thom and Marin—”

Thordin cut off Matt’s protest with a wave of his hand.  “She’ll deal.  Let’s go.”

He was already crossing the snow pack before anyone could stop him.

“God help us all,” Thom muttered before he took off after him, dragging Marin in his wake.

One of these days, it’s going to be him, not Phelan, that gets us all killed.

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