Warren’s knees gave out and the ground rose up to meet him.
Eoin and Gus. Four brothers. His cousins. He’d killed them. When had they become involved with the witch hunters? His own efforts to save the falsely accused were a secret, but witch hunters were usually not so secretive in their dealings.
But he’d killed them, and the dark was no excuse. Pain and regret surged within him, a tidal wave that swamped rational thought and tore a roar from his throat.
When he returned to himself, minutes or hours later, he remembered that Avera was still missing. Pregnant and very likely within the grasp of witch hunters.
He could barely feel his body as he stood. His cousins deserved a proper burial, no matter that they’d been involved in evil at the time of their death. He deserved just punishment for their murders, no matter what the light had been like when he’d killed them.
But first, he had to find Avera. Before it was too late.
It took two days. Two miserable days of combing the three nearby towns—nearby meaning something different in the Highlands than it did elsewhere—to stumble upon a scene more grisly than the one he’d left behind in the forest.
The crowd screamed and cheered, a riotous mob of mindless hate swarming a pyre in the middle of the square. His stomach pitched, but far worse was the sight of the woman on the pyre.
Avera. Bound by harsh rope to the post behind her, her black hair whipped in a wind he couldn’t feel. He pushed his way through the crowd, desperate to free her, when her voice rang out over the screams of the mob.
“Release me! Release my daughter! Or you shall all die!” Her shriek was unholy, terrifying in its intensity and volume.
Warren was close enough to see her eyes turn black and her hair whip ever faster around her head. He realized then that there was no wind. Whatever force surrounded Avera, it was not natural. The man holding the flaming torch ignored her warning and tossed the brand onto the kindling at the base of her pyre. Three more did the same.
He pushed forward through the crowd, determined to free her and her unborn child. She shrieked as the flames grew, and as he neared, he saw that her belly was far smaller than it had been. The wail of a baby drew his attention. To the left of Avera stood a woman cradling an infant.
“Your devil’s spawn shall go after you,” cried the man who’d thrown the first torch.
Avera’s head whipped toward him then, her eyes pitch-black holes in her skull. “Die!” she shrieked, and the man fell to his knees, clutching his neck. Her head whipped toward another man who had thrown the torch, and she screamed her bloodthirsty call again. He too fell to his knees, clutching his neck.
By now, the flames had reached halfway up her body, and Warren was still too far away. She was shrieking, but she’d channeled her pain into cries of “Die!” that she directed at members of the jeering audience until more than a dozen of them were on their knees or fallen altogether.
A true witch. Conflict rose in Warren’s heart, but he pushed on all the same, knowing even now that he was too late. She was consumed by the flames, her screams silenced.
He reached the pyre finally, a minute from saving her. It had happened so fast. He had no idea if she was good or evil, but she was dead and it didn’t matter.
But her child was not.
He charged around the pyre, intent on reaching the babe clutched under the arm of a terrified woman who bent over a fallen man. It was the work of a moment to pull the babe free. One look at the amber eyes of the squalling infant told him it belonged to the witch. The eyes were no normal infant’s blue.
Confirmed that the baby was Avera’s, he clutched it to his chest and sprinted across the back side of the square, away from the villagers who screamed and cried over the bodies of their loved ones. They’d stop him if they caught him stealing the witch’s child. He had only one chance to get it to safety.
When he reached the quiet of the forest that surrounded the village, he stopped, the breath heaving in and out of his lungs as the infant cried.
What the hell was he to do now? He had a day-old infant. Nay, maybe hours old. It would die if he didn’t find a wet nurse. It would die if anyone knew the identity of its mother.
Should it die? Had Avera been evil? Was this child?
He looked down into the face of the newborn. He had no idea. But he couldn’t hand it over to its death without knowing. So he took it to the port, a place large enough that he found a poor woman to nurse the baby.
After arranging payment, he left the woman’s humble home and set out onto the street of the port. He would find the sister and turn over the babe. He stopped in his tracks. Could he trust the sister, or was she a witch too? She had been fierce when he’d met her, her eyes flashing black like Avera’s. And, witch or no, how the hell would he even find her? He had no idea where she lived.
He spun on his heel in the middle of the crowded little street, miserable and lost. The babe had a father in the New World, he remembered. It was the only thing that would work.
He ran to the docks and was relieved to find that Avera’s ship had not yet sailed. A quick conversation revealed that it would sail the next morning. This was safest. The sister couldn’t be trusted. He would find a wet nurse to travel with the babe and get it out of Scotland. It wasn’t safe here, and though life in the New World was uncertain, it was better than a place where the babe with strange amber eyes would be hunted.
It took the full night to find a nurse to go with the babe, and nearly the entirety of his wealth, little as it was. He watched the ship until it was but a pinprick in the distance, then set off along the forest road to his village.
He was nearly home when he came upon the woman in the forest. His steps stuttered, then stopped. She stood twenty feet away, golden and light, her shining blonde hair and amber eyes bright in the dimming light.
“Warren.” Her voice belied the lightness of her being. It was dark and heavy and her eyes changed to match. “You are called Warren, I have learned. I am Aurora.”