Page 10 of Highland Spy

Or even if it was all a lie.

“You do too much for me already.” Liv nestled deeper into her blankets and her response came out muffled. “I’ll be fine.”

Ariana’s heart squeezed for her new friend.

Liv hadn’t been quite so sick at the beginning of their journey. In the carriage from London, she’d introduced herself with a sardonic grin and proudly announced how she’d landed a blow on a duke. Every night when they made camp, they’d lain side by side in the dark and shared stories until they fell asleep. Both had been raised outside of court and placed there during their parents’ attempts at an advantageous betrothal.

They were two women rejected by the court they’d once loved so much, two women who had lost everything and at least found friendship in one another. The first week or so of travel had been some of the most fun Ariana had had in almost her entire life.

But then Liv got sick. Nausea, weakness, and vomiting. The late-night stories and giggles had stopped and the bright smiles Liv gave had faded, like a sun hidden behind heavy clouds.

Ariana had tried to help, giving Liv extra rations from her own food and caring for her through the night. To no avail.

They’d lost track of how many days they’d traveled, how many times they’d changed horses.

“Does she need rest?” A woman’s firm voice sounded behind Ariana.

She looked behind her toward Sylvi, who had escorted them from London to the frozen hell of Scotland. And escorted was all she’d done. She never answered their questions and gave them none of the information they so desperately sought.

Sylvi’s hair gleamed white as the snow and had been pulled away from her face in a half a dozen small braids. Unlike Ariana and Liv, Sylvi did not cower beneath the flimsy refuge of a plaid. No, she leaned into the wind with little more than a fur mantle upon her shoulders and a simple dress, a challenge in the ice of her own hard blue gaze.

Ariana had once heard Scotland was wild and beautiful. There wasn’t much beauty she could see outside of the wall of frozen misery she faced every day.

At least Scotland smelled a great deal better than London, where the streets ran with filth and the people lived atop one another. Especially near where she’d resided the past year. The small rented rooms, barely large enough for her and several staff, all paid for entirely with her winnings.

The thought of London stabbed at Ariana’s heart. Not with longing, but with sharpness of memory at how she’d barely managed to scrape together a life for herself. At least the servants had been paid their final coin. Delivered by Sylvi, who had also collected Ariana’s meager belongings.

Liv too had been eager to leave London. She didn’t say why, but her eyes had filled with such sorrow that Ariana could not bring herself to press for an answer.

A savage wind stung at her cheeks and tried to pry the sodden plaid from her hard-knuckled grip. She clawed the blanket more tightly to her. Surely they would be stopping soon. They’d already traveled far longer than any day before.

“You’re cold.” Liv’s horse came beside Ariana. “Will you take my extra blanket? I’m much warmer now.”

She extended her pale hand with the blanket pinched between her fingers. It was the blanket Ariana had given her just that morning.

Ariana strengthened herself against the chill. “Keep it. I imagine we’ll stop soon.” She offered her friend a smile in an effort to convince her.

Liv gave her a fragile smile in return and her slender arm dropped as if she did not have the strength to hold it aloft anymore. She had wasted away so much during their travel. It pained Ariana to have watched it all unfold, and to be so helpless to stop any of it.

Hunger grumbled low in Ariana’s stomach, no longer assuaged by the hard bit of crumbly oatcake she’d had earlier.

Sylvi’s horse sidled up next to hers. There was a stern quietness to Sylvi, a strength so powerful it chipped away at Ariana’s own resolve.

Was this how Connor would instruct her to be?

“We’ll be arriving soon if she can make it a little longer.” Sylvi’s low voice carried over the wind. The ribbon tight around her throat lifted with the strain of raising her voice. The presence of the thin, delicate luxury seemed entirely out of place on Sylvi, who wore no additional adornment on either her simple blue gown or the thick gray fur mantle draped over her like a cape. And yet, there it was—a single black silk ribbon tied into a neat bow at the very center of her throat.

Though they’d traveled for almost a month together, Ariana found she knew nothing more of the woman aside from her apparent lack of sympathy for poor Liv, and the strange battle moves she executed each night when they finally stopped.

“We’ll be arriving at our next campsite?” Ariana shifted in her saddle. A breath of cold air scurried around her legs and bottom, and the pinch in her back was no better off once she settled.

“At Kindrochit Castle. Where we live. Where you’ll be living.” Sylvi’s reply was in her usual efficient, emotionless manner.

A spiral of hope curled hot and eager inside Ariana. “Truly? Truly we’ll be done traveling?”

A little smile played on Sylvi’s lips, the first Ariana had seen. “Truly.”

They’d be in a castle.