Free Love's First Light by Jamie Carie Page B

stood awhile, regaining the real world around her. What time was it? Was is early morning and time to visit Daniel’s grave?
    Before she was even fully awake, Scarlett had her shoes on and was outside taking in the chilly night air. She looked up into the dark sky, studied the placement of the stars, and realized that it must be the middle of the night. She smoothed her hands across her stomach and shook her head. “We should go back to bed,” she whispered to the babe, but it didn’t move and she was wide awake. Before she knew it, she was walking in the direction of the old Cité.
    She watched the dark water of the river, heard it slosh over the stones and ebb against the banks as her feet rang, too loud, against the stone bridge. On the other side she paused. Her footsteps would normally take her to the right and toward the graveyard. But this time . . .
    She turned to the ancient castle. The original Carcassonne.
    As she neared, the old stones seemed to whisper their legendary past. Built during Roman times, the city saw its greatest glory during the Middle Ages and the dynasty of the Trencevals. Scarlett had heard the tales of troubadours and knights and the grand tournaments held within the castle walls. But soon after, the Cathars—Christians who were viewed as heretics by Pope Innocent III—brought wrath and crusades to the town. Upon their defeat, Carcassonne was given to the French king.
    In the years that followed, the second wall was built and Louis IX built a new town across the river. As the new town grew, the Treaty of Pyrenees after the Hundred Years War came into being, changing the southern border and ending the Cité’s strategic stronghold. The old Cité fell further and further into ruins. Scarlett couldn’t remember hearing of anyone living in the castle for over a hundred years. But as she gazed at it, she could still feel its greatness, its history leaking from the stones.
    She trudged through the weed-clogged path toward the crumbling entrance. She passed the two famed walls, an outer wall and a lower inner wall. There used to be a watery moat, but no more. It had been dry, with only river rock to fill it for some time. Her footsteps took her into the inner chamber of the grand hall. Here, she paused, catching her breath, looking up into the dark ceiling. What was she doing? It seemed someone was guiding her tonight. Was it God?
    A sound, a spark of light, had her spinning toward a long, narrow hall.
    She veered toward it and saw a room where a light was flickering. She came to the door and stood at the threshold, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Slowly, carefully, she pushed the door open. She stood blinking in the darkness. A cold shiver raced up her spine as she took a step forward and looked about the room.
    He turned. Dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged breeches, his long, blunt hair fell like a curtain over his intense gaze. He turned further toward her, impaling her with those sapphire-rimmed eyes that seemed to belong to another world—and suddenly Scarlett could neither move, nor think.
     
     
    CHRISTOPHÉ SPUN AT a sound behind him, knocking off a bottle that flew to the stone floor and shattered. He dove for his pistol, rose up with it, and held it trained on the intruder.
    Her features overwhelmed him, made his hand shake as he lowered the weapon. He couldn’t seem to get his breath as his mind wove its way back from calculations to this pale, frightened face staring at him with huge eyes. “Scarlett?”
    She was gripping her rounded stomach, blinking at him in the dim light of the room, looking like she’d walked out of his dreams so that he woke up to find it was real.
    He went to her and cradled her face in his hands. “Scarlett.” His lips lifted and he was smiling, glad she was there. “You are shivering. Come. Warm yourself by the fire.” In an underbreath he added, “Heaven knows it is the last stick of wood.”
    A hint of fear shone in her eyes as she followed