Charlotte Boyett-Compo - Windweeper

The WindLegend's Saga
Book I: Windkeeper
Book II: Windseeker
Book III: Windweeper
Book IV: Windhealer
Book V: Windreaper
Book VI: Winddreamer
Book VII: Windbeliever
Book VIII: Winddeceiver
Book IX: Windretriever
Book X: Windschemer

He was in the depths of a nightmare and the dream was hurting him.

A moan came from deep within his throat; his eyes moved rapidly behind closed lids. His blond hair thrashed on the pillow; a fine, oozing, pebbled sweat drenched him. His hands gathered the coverlet in a tight grip, while his restless legs kicked at the covers weighing him down.

Liza watched, her green gaze sweeping over the dear planes of his handsome face. Gently shaking him, she called her husband's name, but he didn't wake. She softly called him once more and he turned away from her, tightly hugging the pillow to his chest.

There was an horrific clap of thunder. The window glowed as another loud boom shook the panes and rain began to pelt the keep. She moved closer to him, wedging herself behind his shoulder, putting an arm around his waist.

"Conar?" she whimpered as another shriek of lightning speared the ground. Storms frightened her, and her heart raced beneath her ribcage. She called out to him again.

He couldn't hear her. The sound of rain lashing the windows only added to his nightmare. He buried his face in the pillow and dreamed on:

She was running to him, her face stricken with terror and vulnerability. Her white gown floated behind her in the draft of unseen wind, and the windows behind herdown the long corridorflared with light and lit her body through the gown. Screaming as lightning streaked across the firmament, she held out her arms, rushed into his embrace, burying her face in the white silk of his shirt. His arms went about her as he whispered her name. Her hands raked at his waist as she plastered herself against him. He whispered her name, lifted her in his arms, then gently cradled her as he took her to his bed. In the tempest of the storm, he took her, soothed her, promised her his heart.

"Conar, please!" Liza moaned as she tried to wake him. She trembled with fear; her lids squeezed shut to blot out the flares of lightning. "Conar, wake up! I'm afraid, Milord!"

Rain swept against the window of the room in which they lay, but he heard their soft moans of pleasure as sexual release came and went. He saw their sweat-dampened faces, their smiles, heard her sweet words of trust and his fervent words of love, and he knew the exact moment she conceived his child.

Conar groaned. He gripped the pillow so hard the seam split. He didn't feel the woman clinging to him, didn't hear her frightened pleading. He was lost in his nightmare, hearing another man's words of love to his wife, feeling that man's pleasure at knowing she would have his child. He groaned again and went deeper into the nightmare.

He was alone this time. He could no longer see his wife and her lover as they strained against one another in the big bed at Ivor Keep. Now, he was walking along a black sand beach stretching for miles away from him. Beneath his feet, volcanic rock crunched; thunderclouds hovered over the tops of the distant snow-capped mountains and rumbled a warning. The sky was lowering to the metallic gray of the approaching storm and streaks of yellow washed across the horizon as the wind, wild and hot, blew over him, tousling his hair.

He heard seagulls careening overhead. They seemed to be mocking him with taunting cries: "Come and see, Conar. Come and see!"

Looking at them, he saw their beady black eyes regard him with contempt for intruding on their domain. They swooped over him, around him, landing in the crashing, angry waves that washed over his bare feet, soaking his breeches. He stumbled in the sucking draw of the water as the ground gave way. The gulls chorlted at his solitude and loneliness as the undertow sought to drag him into the swirling, churning ocean depths.

Ahead of him, in the breakwater, he saw a dark mass lying in the waves. The closer he came, the harder it was for him to move his feet. A chill shot through him and he walked like a condemned man toward what lay before him.

"Come and see, Conar. Come and see!" the gulls taunted once more. He flinched at the evil he saw in their feathered faces.

When at last he could see what formed the dark mass in the breaking waves, his heart felt as though it would break. He tried to turn away, but found he could not; nor could he blink or close his eyes to blot out what he was seeing. A moan of unbearable hurt made its way out of his very soul. He stood helpless in the churning waves and watched the scene unfold.

"Conar, please, wake up!" Liza cried, her hands shaking his shoulders. She heard him moan, felt him tense, but he did not answer. She plastered her body as close to his as she could, but still he did not wake.

It was Brelan Saur lying with Liza in the sweep of the breaking waves, his lean, taut body completely covering hers. Her long black hair undulated in the moving water as it washed over her and her lover. One long, wet tress curled lovingly about Brelan's right forearm as though holding him to her forever. Her slim, white arms were around his bare back, pulling him ever closer. Saur's mouth had captured hers in a never-ending, longing caress full of promise and dark passion. They did not look up at the man who gazed at them with such deep pain. They were oblivious to him and to the world. It was as though nothing, and no one, existed but them.

Conar wanted to run from this material source of his pain, but couldn't. He felt cold and he wrapped his arms around him, but the cold was in his heart and nothing, ever, would warm him again.

"Do you see?" the gulls screamed. "Do you see, Conar?"

The storm grew darker, heavier, and lightning slashed in the distance behind the mountains, turning the sky a deathly gray. Chill air swept over the beach, blowing the layers of lighter sand on the dunes into high spirals of blinding, stinging pain. The waves became stronger, the water moved higher as it lapped with increasing force at the lovers, pushing them closer together; rocking their bodies in a wild parody of lovemaking, blending together their wet bodies in abandon.