Erik was utterly aware of the lady behind him, no less so when she whispered his name. The tremble of uncharacteristic fear in her voice had him turning, reaching out his hand to her. She was so bold, this maiden, so resolute, that he suspected she must deeply afraid to have given any hint of such weakness.
“Vivienne?” he replied, reaching his hand to where he thought she must be.
He heard her take a step toward him, heard the quaking breath she took, then felt her fingers collide with his. “I hate these caverns,” she said, trying to cover her fear with a laugh that only made that fear more evident.
Her bravado had Erik lacing his fingers protectively with hers, had him drawing her closer to his side. “It is no different in darkness than in light,” he said. “We still stand in a cavern below the keep.”
“It seems much worse,” she said, then unexpectedly leaned her cheek against his chest. “Please do not leave me, Erik, not alone in such darkness.”
Erik’s arm was around Vivienne’s waist before he could consider the wisdom of his impulse. In the darkness, his other senses were more sharp. He could smell the sweetness that clung to her skin, as well as the tang of her terror. Her hair wound over his arm and through his fingers like fine silk, the curve of her breast was crushed against his chest. He felt her breath against his throat and knew she had tipped her head back, knew her lips would be parted, knew she would not spurn his kiss.
But too much temptation lay that way.
Indeed, this would have been the perfect moment for some scheme against him to be launched. He had even lowered his sword and was not longer listening to his surroundings.
“Nay,” he said with resolve, putting the lady an increment from his side. “This changes naught.”
“But...”
“Ruari!” he bellowed before she could argue the matter.
There was no reply, except a muffled grunt. Had Ruari been attacked? Or had he fallen?
“I missed a step, lad,” that man shouted, his voice wavering. “And dropped my cursed torch in so doing. I am as a blind man, nay a blind man with a hobble!”
Erik sighed with relief. “I am coming, Ruari,” he shouted, then added a few words to make the older man smile. “Upon that you can rely.”
Ruari’s snort of laughter echoed down the stone corridor.
“Farewell,” Erik said, though he could not discern the lady’s presence. He could hear her breathing, though Vivienne did not return to his side. Some other emotion than fear tinged the air, though, and he thought it might have been annoyance.
Despite himself, he could not leave the matter be. “You do not argue my departure any longer,” he said. “Does this mean that you agree with my course?”
“No,” she said sharply. “It means that I will not waste my breath endeavoring to persuade you of the truth. My mother counseled against ever begging a man for any due.”
Had she lost her desire for him, so quickly as that? Erik was dumbfounded by the prospect, and in truth, a bit disappointed.
To his further surprise, Vivienne exhaled with what might have been a laugh. “Do not imagine that you have not seen the last of me, Erik Sinclair,” she said with uncommon resolve. “You might abandon me here, but I will follow you. I know, after all, your destination and your goal.”
Erik wished he could have seen her in this moment, for surely her chin was tilted high and her eyes burned with determination. There would be a flush upon her cheeks and a set to her lips that both defied argument and demanded a kiss. He had called the matter right: she was a veritable Valkyrie and perhaps it was folly to protest her collection of his soul so vehemently.
Or perhaps her vigor was yet another element of her inescapable spell.
Another scream rose from below them, followed by a splash which concealed Erik’s muttered curse.
“I am coming, Elizabeth,” Vivienne shouted, though Erik heard the tremor in her voice. He heard her hands brush the stone wall and knew she meant to feel her way in pursuit.
Whatever his convictions about the lady’s objectives, he could not abandon her to seek her sister alone, not given her fear of the darkness.
He told himself that he merely returned her favor, that he aided her to find Elizabeth as she had aided him to escape Ravensmuir’s dungeon. It made good sense, though even he knew it was not the sum of the argument.
He simply did not wish to be parted from Vivienne as yet.
“I will come for you shortly, Ruari,” he shouted. He would find the sister first, then leave Vivienne in the company of her sister and the supposed fairy-guide. Then he would seek out Ruari, tend the other man’s injuries, and they both could be upon their way.
Erik reached out and claimed Vivienne’s hand, hoping he was not falling prey whatever scheme she might have concocted with her family. “You feel the right wall and I shall feel the left,” he bade a silent and likely astonished Vivienne. “We shall seek each step together. Make no haste and we should be able to descend without incident.”
It seemed, like so many of Erik’s schemes, to be a plan that offered ready success. That, and the presence of Vivienne, should have warned him of potential complications.
* * *
Vivienne heard a splashing in the distant depths ahead, its sound echoing through the caverns with dizzying speed. Behind that sound were whispers that might have been voices.
“Elizabeth?” she called, her own voice echoing wildly.
There was no reply, merely another muffled scream.
Vivienne would never forgive herself if some foul fate befell Elizabeth, especially after she had persuaded Elizabeth to aid her. She hastened onward as well as she could.
To her relief, Erik seemed to feel the same urgency, and within moments, she had to rush to keep pace with his long strides. He took only one step on each stair, while she needed two or three; he strode into the darkness with a confidence she did not share. They reached a confluence of passageways but Erik did not hesitate in making a choice.
They might have been alone in the labyrinth, for there was only the echo of their footsteps and the distant dripping of water. Vivienne could faintly hear the lapping of the sea. Though she knew that the caverns played tricks with sound, and she knew that Elizabeth and Ruari were in the labyrinth as well, the lack of sound from either of them made her grasp Erik’s hand more tightly.
To her relief, he did not seem troubled by her anxious grip. He moved with a surety she could only envy, as if he was well accustomed to being lost in dark places.
They reached a second intersection, a salt-tinged breeze wafting through one of the openings. Vivienne smelled a snuffed torch as well, though she could not discern its source.
“This way,” Erik said without hesitation and urged Vivienne boldly onward.
“How do you know? What if you are wrong?” she asked, knowing she would have wasted precious moments weighing each choice.
“Only one course descends at each intersection,” he said. “Your sister chose always the downward path.”
“She followed Darg,” Vivienne corrected and heard Erik’s snort of disbelief.
“Her scent comes from this way, as does the smell of the snuffed torch,” he explained, his tone patient. “Can you not discern it?”
“What scent does she have?”
She felt his shrug. “I cannot explain it. It is the smell of warmth, of a person, and thus different from the scent of the stone and water surrounding us.”
Vivienne wondered what sort of scent she had, and whether he found it as alluring as she found the scent of his skin. She dared not ask when his manner was so grim. “You know how to pursue someone who leaves no trace of their path, then.”
“All men and women leave a trace of their path, even when they strive to not do so.” Erik said. “Ruari taught me to discern it.”
“And he used his skill to find you.”
Erik’s grip tightened suddenly on her hand and he pulled her to an abrupt halt. He did not have to bid her to be silent, not when he stood so abruptly still. Vivienne remained motionless, wondering what he discerned, for she could tell that he fairly prickled with watchfulness.
She could see nothing.
She could hear nothing.
She tried to smell her sister’s scent and failed.
What Vivienne smelled was her Aunt Rosamunde’s perfume. She had never smelled that enticing scent save in her aunt’s presence. It was exotic and rare, and she felt Erik’s start of surprise when he evidently caught a whiff of it.
Vivienne strained her ears and then heard the faint grunt of men at labor, the muffled tread of boots on the stone. There was another scream, one more infuriated than fearful, and she guessed who had emitted it.
All made perfect sense to her in that moment, the sounds from below and Darg’s insistence upon descending ever lower.
“Aunt Rosamunde!” she whispered to Erik in excitement. “That is her perfume. She must have returned to Ravensmuir, after all.”
“Perhaps it is not your aunt,” Erik said quietly.
“It must be,” Vivienne insisted. “So few souls know the labyrinth, and even fewer would care to visit it.”
“One cannot be certain of that. If the labyrinth has been unused, any curious soul could have explored it.”
“But why?”
“To gain access secretly to a wealthy keep would be motivation enough.” Erik sounded grim. “Your sister might have been captured, to be ransomed to the laird above.”
Vivienne’s heart skipped with fear, then she knew he must be mistaken. “But what of the perfume?” She made to tug Erik onward. “It is only Rosamunde. We must be near the large cavern where so many relics were stored. I was there once, with Uncle Tynan. There is an easy path from there to a grotto that opens onto the sea. It is large enough to hide a small boat, so goods can be moved from cavern to ship...”
Erik held his ground stubbornly. “Why would this Rosamunde have returned to Ravensmuir if she not only pledged to not do so, but if the relics she covets are gone?”
And that made Vivienne pause.
Once she would have suggested that Rosamunde had returned for her love of Tynan, but not since Tynan’s rejection. She had a feeling that Rosamunde had returned, but not returned to mend the rift between herself and her former lover. She suspected Rosamunde had come for vengeance, though she did not want to give voice to such a dark thought.
Surely he knew enough about the ignoble impulses of her family.
Instead, she let Erik believe he had persuaded her that it was not her aunt. “Perhaps you are right,” she said and hesitated.
“Even so, we must find Elizabeth,” Erik said. He lifted his blade and moved onward, though with greater stealth than before. Vivienne followed his course ever downward, heeded his instructions, and hoped against hope that her family did not provide her with another scandalous credential.
She had a sense, however, that her hope was not to be realized.
* * *
With Vivienne fast behind him, Erik eased his way down the stone pathway. A light appeared after they turned one corner and their course became easier as a result. The sounds of activity grew louder, as well, the scrape of boots on stone and the low rumble of men’s voices becoming more clear with each step.
A woman still screamed periodically, which was most troubling. Erik rounded a corner and a lit portal gaped wide before them. He flattened Vivienne into the wall behind him and listened.
There were no sounds of pursuit. He glanced back at Vivienne, intending to tell her to wait, but one glance at her determined expression told him that she would not be persuaded to do so. He drew his blade soundlessly, lifting a finger to silence her protest. He sidled closer and peered around the corner.
Whatever Erik had been expecting, he had not expected this.
A large cavern opened from that portal, so many lit torches braced upon its walls that the chamber might have been illuminated by the midday sun. A chasm snaked its way across its floor, its jagged edges making it look like a recent fault. There was a dark glitter of water within the chasm, as well as someone splashing and thrashing within it.
“I cannot swim!” roared that person, whose voice revealed her gender. Here was the woman who had screamed repeatedly.
Vivienne’s sister did a strange dance upon the lip of the chasm, alternately reaching to aid the woman and apparently beating off an invisible assailant. “Darg, no!” she cried. She clearly could not reach the woman in the water, though she tried.
The woman in the chasm clutched the lip of the stone ledge, then jumped upward. She grunted as she braced her hands on the stone and pulled herself higher. Her hips had cleared the water, all of her sodden to the bone, when she screamed in sudden pain. She snatched her left hand away from the lip, then plummeted back into the water with a resounding splash.
“It bit me!” she bellowed when she cleared the surface again, then swore with such vigor that Erik’s eyes widened. Elizabeth kicked at something which Erik could not see. He might have thought her mad, but her kick was followed was another smaller splash further down the chasm.
“Rosamunde!” Vivienne cried. She ducked under Erik’s arm, seemingly untroubled by this strange scenario, ran across the cavern and fell to her knees beside her sister. “You keep Darg away and I will help Aunt Rosamunde.”
“I cannot see Darg any longer,” Elizabeth complained and Erik refrained from noting that no one could see the rumored spriggan. “She must be under the water yet.” The girl frowned with a concern no one else shared. “Surely she cannot have drowned?”
“I would drown her gladly myself,” the aunt muttered, looking as furious as a wet cat when she managed to climb out of the chasm with Vivienne’s aid. To Erik’s surprise, she was dressed as a man, in chausses, high boots and a chemise that had been more white than it was in this moment. Her tabard was cut longer than was typical for a man and came almost to her knees.
Her garb looked as if it had been fine, for there was gold embroidery aplenty at the hems and it was wrought of cloth of deepest black. In this moment, it dripped large puddles on the stone floor and the hem hung crookedly. Her boots squeaked when she walked, though the cut and the leather looked to have been fine. Her hair was long and she wore it loose, though it too was wet and dark.