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F URY FILLED C HASE so completely, nothing remained but the bright, blistering need to cut Torquil into a million tiny pieces.

He launched himself across the room, but his prey was faster. Torquil danced away, Christiana held in front of him like a shield. A shield whose head lolled to the side while coughs wracked her body.

“You came for this?” Torquil taunted, dragging her head back by a handful of hair, revealing a swollen red welt on the side of her face.

“No,” Chase answered, his vision tunneling on the man in front of him. “I came for you.”

Torquil laughed and continued to move away, placing the table between the two of them. Chase kept his back to the door, the only means of escape from the tower.

A pop and poof sounded to his left as the fire leapt to the bags of herbs piled there. Flames shot into the air, reaching the edges of the tapestries covering the walls—but Chase’s quarry was more important.

“Think fast, warrior,” Torquil shouted, shoving Christiana toward the fire as he lunged for the opening to the stairs leading up to the top of the tower.

Chase dove to grab Christiana, reaching her as the flames licked up the sleeve of her gown. She scrabbled away from him, breathlessly pleading for him to stop, to wait.

There was no time to stop and wait. The whole damn place would be a blazing fire pit in a matter of minutes.

He pulled her close and rolled over her to smother the flames eating away at her gown.

Then he scooped her up in his arms and ran for the door and fresh air. Let that evil bastard Torquil burn.

“W HERE, WHERE, WHERE are you?” Torquil demanded, his back against the door of Christiana’s tower bed-chamber.

That the beast should desert him now was simply wrong.

“I would have given you free rein,” he railed, rushing to the window to gasp in great gulps of fresh air. “I would have allowed you to destroy them both, as you did the minstrel.”

Perhaps that was why the beast slumbered. His thirst for blood already had been well slaked today.

Below his feet, smoke slithered up between the floorboards.

If ever he had needed the Magic to work for him, now was that time. If ever he had needed to marshal every scrap of his concentration, now was that time.

His gaze landed on the clay pot at the end of the mantel. The clay pot holding the elixir that was the means to his sister’s Visions.

Perhaps it would work for him as well.

He lifted it from the mantel and tossed the stopper to floor. Tilting back his head, he drained the contents of the bottle and threw it toward the fireplace.

Now was the time.

C HAOS HAD ERUPTED in the courtyard, with people scrambling everywhere to move their possessions as far from the burning tower as possible. The entire company of soldiers busily raced from the well to their barracks, wetting down what they could to prevent the fire’s spread.

Chase came to a halt in the middle of that bedlam and allowed Christiana’s feet to touch the ground. He held her close as she coughed the smoke from her lungs, murmuring reassurances, but never once taking his eyes from the doorway they’d come out.

Whether her bastard brother met his end on Chase’s sword or burned alive, Chase didn’t care. All that mattered was that his life ended this day.

He waited, watching, until flames licked up along the wooden supports of the tower’s outer walls and shot from the highest window at the top. Waited and watched as the roof gave way and crashed in. Waited and watched, until he was sure nothing and no one could have survived the inferno.

“I see you found your lady in time.”

Halldor stood calmly at his side, blood soaking the right side of his shirt.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Artur and I resolved our feud.” He shrugged, wincing at the motion. “While it’s on my mind, little brother, I’d thank you again for the amulet of protection you gifted me. Fortuitous, indeed.”

Christiana lifted a hand toward Hall, then let it drop to her side. “I’ve nothing left to help with the healing. All my herbs are gone, but perhaps we can locate some whisky in the kitchens to clean the wound before you seek yer rest.”

“There will be no rest for us here, my lady. We must leave this place before we’re confronted by Torquil.”

Chase shook his head. “No worries there, big brother. Torquil’s dead. He isn’t going to bother us again.”

Hall’s look of skepticism wasn’t the expression Chase had expected.

“How did he meet his demise, that you can be so sure of his death?”

“The bastard is toast. Literally.” Chase inclined his head toward the still-smoldering ruin. “He was in there with no way to escape but the front door. And I made sure nobody came out the front door.”

“He is not dead. He will be back, and it would be wise for us to be long gone before he returns.” Hall held up a hand, continuing with his explanation.

“I know what you think, Chase Noble, but in this you are wrong. Fire cannot kill him. Only the Sword of the Ancients has the power to end his life now.”

“My father spoke of that weapon.” Christiana looked hopefully from one of them to the other. “I believe from the things he said, it may be here at Tordenet.”

“It was here, my lady, of that I have no doubt. But it is here no longer, and until we have it in our possession, we cannot hope to defeat Torquil and the beast that lives within him.”

“Wait. What beast? What are you talking about?” Chase felt as if he’d slipped from the History Channel to Sci-Fi Central. “Are you trying to say that Torquil is possessed?”

“Call it what you will. But whatever you call it, we should be putting distance between us and this place while you do.”

“Okay. Fine.” It was pretty damn clear to Chase that the Faeries had meant him to be with Christiana, and wherever she was, that was where he needed to be. “Let’s find some horses and figure out where to go.”

“South to Castle MacGahan, to carry warning to Malcolm and Patrick. Ella!” Christiana called out to a servant girl running past them. “Find Rauf. Send him here to me.”

The girl’s eyes were enormous saucers of fright, but she nodded her agreement before running away.

“Castle MacGahan it is,” Hall agreed.