Claire Delacroix Read Free Page A

laughter rose from the hall below, the cries of the gyrfalcon tied to his wrist making both women wince.
    “It may be too late,” Evangeline said quietly.
    “You are the vessel!” Elspeth said fiercely. “You cannot lose faith or fail in your responsibility!”
    Evangeline shook her head. “It has been five years, Mother. Even if I told Fergus of it now, even if he departed this very night, the relic could have traveled to any place in Christendom.”
    “No. No, this is not true.” Elspeth mustered the last of her strength and sat up, despite her daughter’s attempt to urge her back against the pillows. “Avery Lammergeier died, not long after your sire. Murdered, he was, murdered by his own son, this I heard, and a more fitting fate could not have been found for that wretch. There have been no tales of such a relic being transported, and one would hear of it for it is a prize worth the bragging. The relic is still there, still at the Lammergeier abode of Ravensmuir.”
    “Ravensmuir.” Evangeline rolled the name across her tongue.
    “Ravens are carrion-pickers and foragers.” Elspeth fell back again, exhausted. “This felon named his eyrie well. The son must not know what he has, or he would have sold it by this time. Perhaps God favors our cause, I cannot say. But Fergus must go to Ravensmuir to retrieve the Titulus , and you must persuade him to do so.”
    “You have seen how he heeds my counsel - not at all!”
    “Promise me!” Elspeth felt the pain rise anew and feared the end came too soon. She seized Evangeline’s hands and her tears rose, so fearful was she that she would fail Gilchrist. “Promise me that you will find a way!”
    Evangeline’s lips set to a firm line. She looked not unlike a peregrine now, her carriage proud, her gaze intensely blue. Even her pupils dilated and her lips thinned almost to naught. Her black hair gleamed like a bird’s plumage and she held her chin proudly.
    The similarity to her father was startling. Gilchrist had taken this pose when he would not be swayed from his course, and the sight reminded Elspeth of an old legend. It had been whispered through the years that there was a curious kinship betwixt Magnus Armstrong, the forebear of the lairds of Inverfyre, and the falcons. Indeed, it was rumored that he had taken flight with them on moonlit nights, that he was one of them, that they had prospered in his holding because they were among kin.
    Certainly, Elspeth had seen an echo of the bird’s savage determination in her husband, though this was the first time she had glimpsed it in her daughter.
    “I promise that the Titulus shall be returned to Inverfyre,” Evangeline vowed. “No matter what I must do to see it so.”
    Elspeth had no time to reply. The pain redoubled and seized her innards with sharp talons. She writhed, parted her lips to scream, and then saw the silver shimmer of Gilchrist’s proffered hand. She seized the shadow, welcoming whatever he offered.
    A coolness like a spring stream flowed over and through her flesh, filling her with quicksilver, sweeping all earthly sensation away. It was like walking into the shade or dipping into a cool river, effortless and soothing. She saw a thousand shades of grey and silver that she had never imagined before, then drank of the gleaming sapphire of Gilchrist’s gaze. She slipped from her flesh as easily as she might have shed a garment in her mortal days, shaking off her pain like an old chemise.
    One touch and all she had known, Elspeth abandoned. Her earthly life became no more than a distant dream. Inverfyre, Fergus, even her beloved Evangeline, was forgotten. Deaf to her daughter’s sobs, blind to the watchful presence of an old woman in the woods below the keep, Elspeth surrendered her past to embrace her future.
    She held fast to Gilchrist’s hand, watched the wings unfurl from his back, then took flight at his side, as free as any falcon to ride the mists forevermore.
     
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