My Shadow Warrior Read Free

asking about their mother,” Gillian said. “They understand that she’s dead, but they don’t understand they’re dead. If they’d move on, they’d be with their mother again.”
    “Unless she went to the other place,” Rose said.
    Gillian shook her head firmly. “She didn’t.”
    “How do you know?” Rose asked, skeptical. Her sister could see ghosts, but so far there’d been no mention of an afterlife.
    “Because there is no hell.”
    Isobel looked around the hall nervously, but no one was close enough to overhear. “Hush, Gillian. That’s blasphemy you speak.”
    Gillian shrugged. “It’s the truth—or so it seems to me. Hell is of our own making, if we’re afraid to move on.”
    “So the wee lassies are in hell?” Rose asked.
    “That’s not what I said. They’ve not made it into a hell. They don’t even understand they can move on. They’re just children. It’s the ones that tie themselves to a place and haunt it. Those are the ones in hell.”
    Rose considered this while Isobel glanced around nervously.
    “Can we speak of something else?” Isobel whispered. After nearly being burned herself for witchcraft, Isobel had become quite cautious about such things.
    “Aye,” Rose said. “I’ve something to tell you, but you must not breathe a word to anyone—especially Uncle Roderick.” Rose scanned the hall. It was deserted except for a few hounds lazing in the rushes. She leaned closer to her sisters. “I’m leaving at first light. I’m going to bring Lord Strathwick here.”
    They both stared at her as if she’d gone mad. And perhaps she had, to undertake this alone, but she could see no other alternatives.
    “Tell Da for me, but give me as much of a head start as possible in case he tries to send someone after me. Two days would be good.”
    Isobel reacted first, shaking her head in bewilderment. “You’re going north— alone?”
    Before Rose could respond, Gillian gripped her arm. “You cannot go alone.”
    “And who should I take? Who can I trust here?”
    Isobel and Gillian exchanged an uneasy glance.
    “Fash not. I will disguise myself as a man.”
    Gillian grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Rose—think! Broken men roam the Highlands. Even lone men are in danger.”
    “You and Isobel traveled alone, and not disguised as men either. You came to no ill.”
    “We were fortunate.”
    “As will I be.”
    Her sisters still looked uneasy, and Rose couldn’t risk them doing something foolish, like telling their husbands. That might end her journey before it began. She stared down at the rush-strewn floor for a long moment, then inhaled deeply through her nose. “I’m not a fool. I know that some of the stories about this wizard might be just that—fables. But I can’t help hoping…” Rose’s heart raced at the thought, her voice catching momentarily. “If he is real, then I’ll bring him back if I have to tie him to my horse. But if he’s not…” She didn’t want to consider that. “I have to know.”
    Gillian’s lips thinned, and she gazed at Rose with worried gray eyes. “But are you sure it’s wise? Nicholas’s man never returned…we don’t know what happened to him. The journey north is harsh and dangerous.”
    “Aye, but they haven’t burned nearly as many witches up north. It’s far safer than what you two did a few months back, traveling into the heart of the witch hunt to save Sir Philip.”
    “Aye,” Isobel conceded, “but there are other dangers in the north.”
    “It’ll be fine. I promise. I lived on Skye, remember? I can’t imagine a bigger band of hempies then the MacLeans. I’m well used to such men.”
    They both still looked so worried. Rose sighed and held her arm out to Isobel. “Have a look—see what happens.”
    Isobel frowned uncertainly. She had visions when she touched some things. Sometimes she saw the past, sometimes the present, sometimes the future. She’d been working hard to gain greater control of the gift, and