Medieval 02 - Forbidden

her. He set Amber aright and released her in the same swift motion.
    “Forgive me,” he said quickly.
    Though Erik had touched her for only the briefest moment, she couldn’t conceal the unease it had caused.
    “There is nothing to forgive,” Amber said. “Better your flesh than the stranger’s.”
    Despite her reassuring words, Erik watched Amber closely, wanting to be certain that whatever difficulty his touch had caused her was truly fleeting.
    “I can’t say why your touch doesn’t pain me,” Amber added wryly. “God knows that your heart is no more pure than it must be.”
    The smile that edged Erik’s mouth was as brief as Amber’s discomfort had been.
    “For you, Amber the Untouched,” he said, “my heart is as pure as unfallen snow.”
    She laughed softly. “Perhaps it is the legacy of our childhood sharing Cassandra’s lessons.”
    “Yes. Perhaps.”
    Erik smiled almost sadly. Then he bent and wrapped the unmoving stranger in the fur cover.
    Amber hastily pulled a mantle around her own shoulders and stirred up the fire in the center of the room. Soon the friendly leap of flames warmed the room and ran like sunlight through Amber’s long golden braids. She suspended a pot from the trivet over the fire.
    “What of the man’s companions?” she asked.
    “They scattered to the winds, and so did their horses.” Erik smiled rather savagely. “The ancient Stone Ring must not have cared for Normans.”
    “When did this happen?”
    “I don’t know. Though the tracks were deeply cut, they were all but washed away by the rain. The lightning-struck oak was little more than a blackened stump and sullen embers.”
    “Bring him closer to the fire,” Amber said. “He must be sore chilled.”
    Erik moved the stranger with an ease that belied the man’s size. The dance of flames brought out the gold in Erik’s hair and beard.
    The stranger’s hair remained a rich shade of darkness. He was clean-shaven but for a mustache that was also dark.
    “Does he breathe?” she asked.
    “Aye.”
    “His heart—”
    “Beats as strongly as a war stallion’s,” Erik interrupted.
    Amber sighed with a relief that was too intense to be feeling for a stranger.
    Yet she felt it just the same.
    “Is one of your squires fetching Cassandra?” Amber asked.
    “No.”
    “Why not?” she asked, startled. “Cassandra has greater skill at healing than I.”
    “And far less skill at scrying.”
    Amber took a deep, hidden breath. She had been afraid of this since the instant Erik had dumped the naked stranger at her feet. Slowly she reached inside her mantle and nightgown.
    Though she had many necklaces and bracelets, pins and hair decorations of precious amber, there was only one piece of jewelry she wore at all times, even in bed. The necklace’s chain was of gold wire finely twisted. A pendant of transparent amber half the size of her palm hung from a golden loop inscribed with tiny runes.
    Ancient, priceless, mysterious, the pendant had been given to Amber at her birth. Within the precious gem, captured sunlight pooled and flashed, brooded and laughed and burned, defined by the fragments of darkness that were also caught inside the golden pool.
    Murmuring ancient words, Amber held the pendant between her cupped palms. The heat of her body went into the fey stone as her breath bathed it. When the substance was infused with her living warmth, a haze formed.
    Quickly Amber bent to the fire, holding the pendant just beyond the reach of flames. As the haze began to clear, the stone shimmered with light and shadow shapes constantly changing.
    “What do you see?” Erik asked.
    “Nothing.”
    He made an impatient sound and looked at the stranger, who still lay slack, seemingly unhurt save for his unnatural sleep.
    “Surely you see something,” Erik muttered. “Even I can see into amber when I—”
    “Light,” Amber interrupted. “A circle. Ancient. The graceful line of a rowan tree. Shades of darkness. At the foot of the rowan. Something…”
    Her voice faded. She looked up and found Erik watching her with eyes that were like amber seen at night, darkly golden, unreadable.
    “The Stone Ring and the sacred rowan,” he said flatly.
    Amber shrugged.
    Body poised as though for battle, Erik waited.
    “There are many sacred circles,” she said finally, “many rowans growing, many shades of darkness.”
    “You saw him as I found him.”
    “Nay! The rowan is inside the Stone Ring.”
    “So was