“Someone comes.”

Meghan looked up from the bowl she had just filled with stew.

Her grandsire stared into the fire, a familiar faraway look in his faded brown eyes.

“Who comes, Grandfather?” She set the bowl on the board before him.

He shook his head. “Someone with great power.”

Unease trickled through her. Her grandfather, like Alyssa’s mother, had been born with the sight. If he said someone approached, then someone approached. But who? He had said someone of great power, surely he did not mean their liege lord. Did he?

A knock shook their door.

Meg jumped.

Lord Osmond did not intend to call her grandsire forth to serve in battle, did he? Her grandfather had barely survived the last battle he had fought on their lord’s behalf.

Heart pounding, she crossed to the door and opened it.

The man standing outside, nigh swallowed by the darkness, was so tall she had to tilt her head way back to find his face.

Her mouth fell open.

He was strikingly handsome, with a strong angular jaw and piercing brown eyes so dark she at first thought them black. His shoulders were nigh as broad as the doorway. And his garb was indeed that of a nobleman.

But this was not Lord Osmond. She had never met this man before.

He offered her a slight bow. “Greetings, Mistress Meghan.”

Or had she? Her heart pounded in her chest as she bobbed a curtsy. “My lord. Forgive me, I cannot recall—”

“We two have never met,” he interrupted with a smile. “I know your name because I am like you.”

Her grandfather moved to stand behind her. “Let him enter, Meg,” he instructed, then addressed the stranger. “You are most welcome, my lord.”

“My thanks,” he said as he ducked his head and entered.

“You are a gifted one,” her grandfather said.

Meghan studied the giant curiously.

His tall form was clad in black chain mail, the likes of which she had never seen. A black tunic, plain but woven of fine cloth, covered it. And the sword he bore in a scabbard looked as though it was longer than she was tall.

“Aye, I am a gifted one,” he confirmed in a warm, deep voice.

Meghan had not realized others born with peculiar gifts existed outside of her and Alyssa’s bloodline.

Her grandfather offered his arm. “I am Albert.”

The stranger clasped her grandfather’s arm. “I am called Seth.” As he did, Meghan noticed his hair. Pulled back and secured with a leather tie, it fell to his waist in raven waves that glinted in the firelight.

“I sense great power in you,” her grandfather said, gazing up at the man.

A faint smile curled Seth’s lips. “I am quite powerful, aye.”

“And you bring us news, eh?”

“Aye.”

“My vision told me as much.”

Seth turned to Meghan, surprising her. “Alyssa needs you, Meghan. I have come to take you to her.”

“I do not understand. If she wishes to see me…”

He shook his head. “She has done what you all feared she would do when she donned her grandmother’s robes. She has healed mortal wounds Lord Dillon suffered in an ambush and now lies dying in his stead.”

Icy fear lodged in her chest, then clawed its way down her spine. “How know you this?”

“I have seen it in a vision not unlike your grandsire’s. If you believe me not…” Reaching out, he touched the fingertips of one large hand to her shoulder.

Images flooded her mind of the Earl of Westcott being felled by three bolts from a crossbow. Of Alyssa healing him, then collapsing.

Meg’s breath left her in a rush. “No.”

“I can take you to her tonight.”

She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes and spilling over her lashes. “She lives several days march to the north.”

“We will not walk or ride there,” he informed her. “If you will place your trust in me, I can and will take you there tonight.”

Meghan looked to her grandfather.

“Go with him.”

But go with him where? The man couldn’t sprout wings and fly her there.

She eyed the stranger uneasily. Could he?

His lips twitched. “There are faster means than even that to convey you.”

Again her mouth fell open. Had he read her thoughts?

“Aye.” He turned to her grandfather. “I shall return her anon, and thank you for trusting me to ensure her safety.”

So saying, he again reached out and touched Meghan’s shoulder.

Darkness engulfed her, shutting out all light. Her head swam with dizziness. Then she found herself standing in a moonlit forest.

Seth chuckled. “’Tis a bit unsettling the first time, but ’twill pass.”

“Where are we?” she managed to gasp, her heart beating so fast she feared it might burst from her breast.

“Two days march from Broughston castle.”

She frowned. Alyssa’s brother, Geoffrey, lived on Lord Humphrey’s lands.

“Roland,” Seth said.

Foliage rustled as a dark figure emerged from the shadows. “Aye?”

Though not as tall as Seth, this man towered over Meghan, as well. Short black hair. A handsome face that made her wonder if he and Seth were brothers. Broad shoulders encased in chain mail and the garb of a nobleman.

“Protect Meghan whilst I seek out Geoffrey.”

Roland nodded.

Seth closed his eyes, then vanished.

Meg gasped.

Roland’s stony face lit with a faint smile. “I reacted the same in the beginning.”

She gripped her skirts in clenched fists. “You are not like him?”

He shook his head. “I am like Alyssa. I can heal with my hands.”

Another gifted one. How had she and her family never heard of them?

“How do you know of Alyssa?”

“Seth told me.” His brow furrowed. “He seems to know of us all.”

“I knew not there were others like us.”

“Nor did I until…” His expression darkened.

“Until?”

He shook his head. “Until Seth found me and helped me understand otherwise.”

An uncomfortable silence descended upon them.

“If Seth is so powerful, why does he not simply heal Alyssa himself?”

“I know not. But, if he wishes you and your family to learn how to do it yourselves, I have no doubt that he believes such knowledge will benefit you in the future.”

An unsettling notion. Did he think Alyssa would sacrifice herself again for Lord Dillon? Or had he foreseen Meg or one of the others suffering a fatal wound? “Who is he?” she asked, unable to stifle her curiosity. “Whence came he?”

“I know not his origins. I know only that he is the eldest and most powerful amongst us.”

That sparked another frown.

If Seth was the oldest amongst the gifted ones, how did he appear so young?

The trees around them swayed and whispered as a brisk breeze buffeted them. Lightning flashed in the distance, the rumble of thunder chasing it. ’Twould rain soon.

Seth reappeared, Geoffrey at his side.

Geoffrey’s face lost all color as he stumbled backward and looked around with wide eyes.

“Geoffrey!” Meg rushed forward and embraced him.

Closing his arms around her, he held her tight. “Meg? Who are these men? How did… how came I to be here? I was—”

“They’re gifted ones, like us.” Drawing back, she clung to his hand. “Only more powerful. I was home with my grandfather only moments ago.”

Eyes wide, Geoffrey looked up at Seth. “Who are you?”

“I am called Seth. And, as your cousin has told you, I am a gifted one. As is Roland.” He motioned to the other man.

Roland dipped his head in a slight nod.

Meg squeezed Geoffrey’s hand. “Alyssa needs us. Lord Dillon suffered mortal wounds, and she healed them. She now lies, dying, at Westcott.”

“Nay.” Alarm and fury returned the color to his features. Geoffrey had warned Alyssa that the black robes would mean her death. He had warned her that she would one day sacrifice her life to save Dillon’s. “Nay!”

“Seth said he can take us to her and show us how to heal her.”

Geoffrey eyed Seth with rising resentment and no little suspicion. “I am not a healer. Neither is Meg. We do not bear that gift. And, even if we did, my sister will not live long enough for us to reach her.”

“You can be with her tonight,” Seth said. “We’ve still your mother and grandmother to collect. Let us tarry no longer.” He touched Geoffrey’s shoulder. The second man touched Seth’s.

Darkness blanketed them.

Then the four found themselves standing outside the home in which Alyssa and Geoffrey had been raised. Far from Lord Humphrey’s lands.

The door opened. Light from the fire within spilled into the night as Geoffrey’s mother and grandmother stepped into view. Matthew, his father, opened the door wider and joined them, his head turned slightly aside as he sought to hear with his ears what his sightless eyes could not tell him.

Beatrice’s face creased with despair as she looked at the four of them. “My vision was true then? Alyssa has sacrificed herself to save Lord Dillon?”

Seth answered her. “I fear ’tis so. You do not seem surprised by my presence. Did you foresee my coming as well?”

“Aye.” Tears welled in her eyes. “In my vision, my daughter suffered such pain.”

“And still does, but you can remedy that. All of you together. Matthew, I know you fear for their safety, so you may accompany us.”

Matthew frowned. “If you are as powerful as my wife suspects, why do you not heal Alyssa yourself?”

“I could. But should Alyssa again suffer grievous wounds in the future, at a time when I cannot be present, you will need to know how to work together to heal her yourselves. I will show you how tonight.”

Meg saw Geoffrey look to his mother, asking her with his eyes if her vision had told her they should trust this man.

She nodded.

Seth removed a pack from his shoulder and opened it. “You should all don these.”

Geoffrey took the black robe Seth held out to him. It looked much like the one Alyssa always wore, but larger. “Why? Would we not draw less notice without them?”

Shaking his head, Seth handed similar robes to Meg and the others. “No one else will see you. And these will keep Lord Dillon from skewering you when he awakens to find you all in his chamber.” Dropping the sack, he donned a black robe of his own. “Alyssa is the only one he has seen wear these robes. He associates them with healers and will accept both your presence and your purpose more readily if he thinks you are like her.”

Confusion and concern for Alyssa muddling her thoughts, Meg donned the midnight robe and moved to stand with the family. Matthew, she noticed, clutched one of his carving knives, the tip peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his robe. Apparently, he too did not trust easily.

“Are you all ready?” Seth asked.

Geoffrey’s father stepped outside and closed the door. “Aye.”

“Then come closer and link your arms.”

Meg linked one arm through Alyssa’s grandmother’s and one through Geoffrey’s.

“Roland,” Seth said.

The stranger with Seth moved forward to touch Geoffrey’s shoulder.

Then Seth touched Matthew’s shoulder and darkness enfolded them all.

A voice woke Dillon in the still moments that preceded dawn. Deep and soft, yet filled with barely suppressed violence, it brought Dillon to instant alertness. “I should kill him whilst he sleeps.”

“Nay, Geoffrey,” a feminine voice countered. “He has done her no harm.”

“She lies moments from death, in agony, and you would defend him?”

As soon as the deep voice predicted her death, Dillon’s eyes flew open and focused on the form he held.

The wisewoman’s face bore a faint bluish cast. Dark hollows had formed beneath her eyes. Dried blood flecked her cheeks. The tiny breaths she took were few, the lengths between them growing with each erratic heartbeat.

“He does not understand her gifts,” the female voice continued.

“That does not excuse—”

“She was forewarned,” a third voice, aged and wise, interrupted. ’Twas familiar, almost identical to the voice he was accustomed to hearing emerge from the wisewoman’s lips. “She chose to follow this path, knowing full well where it would lead her. You warned her yourself, when she donned my robes, and must not condemn him for a decision that was hers alone.”

Dillon swept the room with his gaze, seeking the source of the voices. Several black-robed figures formed a horseshoe around the foot of the bed. Startled, he yanked a dagger from beneath his pillow and sat up, leaning over the healer in a gesture of protection. “Who are you?”

“See how he defends her?” the old woman asked. He could not tell which one she was. There were six of them, and all wore cowls that hid their faces as efficiently as the seer’s did.

“Who are you?” he demanded again. “Why are you here?”

Had she said the wisewoman had donned her robes? Was one of these figures the wisewoman who had served his father? Was that why their voices sounded so similar?

“We have come to undo the damage you have wrought,” the deep voice answered, teeming with rage over the wisewoman’s condition. Dillon guessed it was that of the tall figure closest to him, for the one next to him placed a restraining hand on his arm and stepped forward.

“We were told you sought a healer,” the younger woman who had spoken earlier announced evenly. “We are like the wisewoman.” She reached up and doffed her cowl, revealing black hair streaked with gray pulled back from a face so similar to his wisewoman’s that the two were most certainly mother and daughter. As her brown eyes slid to the still figure on the bed beside him, tears welled in them, and her pale throat moved in a swallow. “We wish to aid her.”

Dillon lowered the dagger, hope rising. “Do you share her gifts? Can you help her? Will you heal her?”

“We will do what we can for her,” she replied.

Dressed as his Wise One did and appearing as silently as they had without disturbing Gideon, they must share her extraordinary gifts, he thought.

Dillon glanced down at the wisewoman. “There is little time. Please, do not let her perish. I shall give you aught you ask do you heal her.”

“Think you material goods mean aught to us?” the tall one growled.

“Then tell me what does matter to you and I will—”

The wisewoman made a sound—half gasp, half cough—and fell silent. His wide-eyed gaze locked on her as his heart thudded in his chest and his stomach clenched painfully. “Wise One?” he cried. His dagger fell from lax fingers, slipped over the edge of the bed, and clattered to the floor, obscenely loud in the pregnant silence.

She gasped again, her chest barely rising.

Shards of excruciating relief at the reprieve cut through Dillon’s veins as he turned back to the robed figures. “Any boon you ask of me is yours, just heal her ere ’tis too late!”

“Will you give your life for her?” the tall one challenged.

“Aye,” he answered instantly.

“Enough,” a deeper, resonant voice boomed.

The six robed figures all started, then swiveled as one to peer into the dark corner behind them.

Dillon eased up a bit so he could see over their heads.

The shadows beyond deepened as a seventh dark-robed figure stepped forward. A figure who must surely be the tallest man Dillon had ever beheld. Dillon stood a couple of inches above six feet himself. Yet this man, whose face remained hidden beneath his cowl, was at least half a foot taller.

“I brought you here to heal her,” the man said, his voice carrying an accent Dillon could not place, “not to taunt Lord Dillon. And I would see her suffer no longer. Remove her bandages, my lord.”

Fingers fumbling, he hastily did so.

Gasps sounded when the last of them were removed.

He swallowed hard. “I know naught of healing, of herbs and medicines. There is one here who is just learning. She did all she could for her, but ’tis not enough.”

“We shall reward her for her efforts,” the female who looked like Alyssa promised thickly.

“I have already vowed that she will want for naught as long as she resides at Westcott,” he informed her, stroking the seer’s hair as he turned to the giant. “Please, will you heal her now? I, too, would have her suffer no longer.”

“You must withdraw first, my lord.”

“I will not leave her.”

The other six swung their attention back and forth between them, waiting to see what would happen.

“Very well,” the giant conceded. “But you must remove yourself from the bed and retreat some distance to give us room.”

“As you wish.”

As soon as Dillon slipped naked from the bed, five of the black robes flowed forward to surround the wisewoman on three sides. The giant remained where he stood, another at his side.

Dillon retrieved a tunic, braies, and hose from his trunk and pulled them on as the dark figures glanced at the tallest one, then clasped each other’s hands and extended them above her. The eldest woman began to chant softly, the words indecipherable to him. Soon the others joined her.

Spent from the simple exercise of clothing himself, Dillon remained still, awe striking him when their exposed hands—male, female, old, young—began to glow with an eerie iridescence. The elderly woman touched a hand to the wisewoman’s shoulder. Light flowed over the seer and settled upon her like a blanket, molding itself to her limbs and torso. Shifting from white to gold, it suffused the seer with a healing warmth so great the temperature of the room rose.

Sweat trickled down Dillon’s temple. The ugly, seeping wounds on the wisewoman’s body sealed themselves, healed themselves, vanished as he watched with wide, fascinated eyes. The bruising and old scars followed suit, disappearing without a trace. Color returned to her pallid features, cloaking her form with a healthy flush. Her chest rose and fell in deep, even breaths.

“Enough,” the giant said.

The chanting ended. The light vanished as quickly as candlelight snuffed out by damp fingers.

Silence reigned as nigh darkness cloaked them. Dillon blinked furiously, attempting to banish the ghostly shapes the peculiar light had planted in his vision. He brought his hands to his eyes and rubbed them impatiently. When he lowered them, all but the tallest of the robed figures had vanished.

Dillon glanced at the door that had not opened, then back to the giant in the corner.

“They await me outside,” was his only explanation.

Slowly, Dillon approached the bed. Every inch of the wisewoman’s flesh now appeared flawless. No quarrel wounds, no cuts, no bruises, no scars. No blood rattled in her lungs. No haggard coughs racked her torso.

Yet something was awry.

Her body glowed not with health, but with a more moderate form of that unearthly iridescence, much as the horizon often glows with the residual warmth of the setting sun. Instead of the calm serenity he had expected to encompass her once the pain receded, she lay as stiffly as his shield, her muscles tense and trembling. A frown creased her brow. And she gritted her teeth as if she waged some fierce internal war.

“What have you done?” he asked hoarsely.

“Shown them how to combine their powers to heal her, so they may do so again should she require aid in the future.”

“She will not.” Dillon would not let her sacrifice herself for him again. He would not have let her do so this time had he been conscious and aware of the price she would pay. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reached out to stroke the hair back from her damp forehead. Heat seared his skin. “She burns with fever!”

“’Tis not with fever she burns,” the dark one denied as Dillon searched for something to dip in water.

“Are you mad? Do you not see how she trembles?” The cool, damp cloth Dillon pressed against her burning skin warmed within seconds.

“She burns and she trembles, but ’tis from the healing.”

“I do not understand. She has healed me many times and it did not affect me thusly.” Dipping the cloth into the cool water, he rung it out, then tried again.

“You do not share her gifts, Lord Dillon.”

He frowned. “You are saying ’tis because she is a healer herself?”

“Aye. It affects her differently than it does you.”

“Her injuries are healed, are they not?”

“Aye.”

“Is she in pain?”

The robed figure seemed to choose his words carefully. “She is experiencing some discomfort, aye, and will continue to do so until her body has adjusted. But ’tis mild compared to that which came before it.”

Dillon knew not what the man meant, why the healing had done this to her, what kind of adjustments her body must undergo. He knew only that he did not like seeing his wisewoman so uncomfortable.

“How long will she be like this? What can I do to bring her ease?”

“You are already doing it, my lord. It may take some time for her to awaken. Until then, see that she consumes water frequently. The heat will leave her with a great thirst.” He turned to leave.

“Wait!”

“Aye, my lord?”

“Who are you?”

A pause ensued. “I am known only as Seth.”

“Where can I find you? If she should worsen, I will need to know where to send for you.”

“You will have no further need of my assistance.”

He glanced down at the wisewoman dubiously. When he looked up, the last robed figure was gone.

Once more, there had been no sound of the large oak door opening or closing, leaving Dillon to wonder at his means of escape. The idea that all of the black-robed figures had simply vanished through some magical means made gooseflesh pepper his skin. He quickly shook it off, admonishing himself for letting the keep’s superstitions infect him, and dipped the cloth in cool water once more.