Page 90 of The Splendor of Fire
Beithir raised his eyebrows.What?
A battle waged across her face and her shoulders slumped.Fear. I’m afraid. This place is terrifying.
Sea looked at Lion, his face full of disbelief, and he knew Sea’s thoughts—Birdy didn’t become afraid.
Yet Lion knew the truth. She got afraid, but he’d seen her rise above it time and time again, except over this dark water.
He waved to Beithir and got his attention.It’s the dark, open water. The tide.
Beithir turned back to her.I don’t like this place either, but I’m here to get a mission done. You have a choice to make. Face your fear and complete the mission, or we forget this whole thing. Tell me now. Can you do this?
She rose to her feet.Let’s go.
Shedding her thick plaid, leather trews, and shoes, she shivered in the breeze in her sleeveless tunic and the hose she’d cut at the thigh. They would need all the bare skin they could stand in the early harvest chill in order to grip and move. Lion tossed his tunic into the bottom of the bìrlinn, tied his hair up on his head, and looped the rope over his neck. He stepped out onto the rocks beside Beithir and put his hand out for her. Placing her trembling arms around his shoulders, he lifted her onto the rock.
Beithir nodded.Let’s go.
Together, the three of them scrambled over the columns thatpitched along the rock shelf, like slick stepping stones at different heights. Some columns of rock were as large as several feet, others barely wide enough for his foot. Some rose flat, others angled in, still others sloped away. His hand went behind him and hers slid into his palm.
As they neared the end of the shelf, the rocks broke apart and a narrow strip of water led into the sea cave. Two guards sat at the mouth of the cave, their backs to them. Lion pushed her against the stone wall.
Stay here.
She shook her head.No.
Yes. Stay. Here.
Narrowing his eyebrow at her, she rolled her eyes. He released his hand from her arm and she stayed.
Beithir placed a hand on Birdy’s shoulder and nodded to him. Drawing his dagger, Lion observed the guards sitting in silence for a few moments. Both slender, both muscular. No visible weapons.
Stone by stone he crept along the narrow shelf, then poked his dagger into the back of the first guard. “Don’t move.”
The guard’s eyes went wide, and the second turned, drawing a sword from among the rocks and swinging it above his head. The sword had been hidden, and Lion had only a moment to register that he was about to die.
A flash of blond sprang over the uneven rocks and collided with the second guard, knocking him into the water. A gauntleted hand went up and released the sword just as the guard’s armor saturated with water, dragging him under the powerful suction of the ebb. Beside him, Birdy stood in front of a shocked-looking Beithir, her eyes frozen over with ice, chest heaving.
Staring in stunned silence, the first guard turned to Birdy, his gaze flicking down and ogling her bare arms and legs. Reflexively, Lion punched him in the face. “Turn back toward the sea and stop staring.”
The man staggered and lost his bascinet but did as he was told.
Pulling rope from around his neck, Léo secured the man’s hands and feet, speaking low to the remaining guard. “How many more guards inside?”
The man looked at the patch of water his fellow guard had just disappeared into, and seemed to weigh his answer. “Two.”
Lion wrapped the rope around the man’s mouth and cut it. Beithir hefted the man over his gigantic shoulders.“Do you want to wait for the others?”
He shook his head. “No, Birdy and I can handle it.”
Continuing their climb, Lion and Birdy made their way into the arched mouth of the cave. Like a cathedral made of natural rock, the sound of the waves pitched and echoed off the walls in a haunted melody. Moonlight snuffed out a few yards in and they continued to move, feeling with hands and feet toward the dim glow of firelight within, sticking beside the wall.
Behind him, Lion could only hear the sound of Birdy’s breath coming in short bursts, and the unseen tide whooshing in and rushing away. A wave bucked and hit them with a fresh blast of spray and he heard her gasp with chill.
When they reached the peak of the impenetrable darkness, a pinprick of light began to build from a fire at the back of the cave. And there, set high into the stone wall, a mouth, four feet wide, settled among slick, sea moss covered rock. The mouth of stone had been the MacKinnon clan’s treasury for centuries, accessible only during high tide for ten minutes at a time. Not long enough to steal the bounty. Until today.
Lion slipped his dagger between his teeth and scrambled over the remaining rock, careful to stick to dark shadow, Birdy close behind.
A guard turned toward the back of the cave and adjusted his boot. Not wasting time, Lion slipped the rope around the man’s mouth and drug him into the shadows, bringing the pommel of his dagger down on the back of his head. The man went slack. Tying him and cutting the rope, he propped him against a rock and made his way down to the other guard who was staring off into the mesmeric waves below.
