A Templar's Gifts Read Online Free PDF

quarry. I only hope I didn’t cause harm,” I said. “I made him ill. My control is no’ what ye’d call reliable.”
    â€œD’ye think they will come back?” Torquil asked.
    â€œI don’t know.” My thoughts returned to the visions and the men who were hunting me. How had they tracked me so quickly? Would Arbroath be far enough away to hide?
    â€œGet some more rest,” he said. “Our course is straight. I can sail much of the day.” Torquil was being uncharacteristically good to me, but I didn’t have the strength to question it.
    â€œWake me if ye need anything,” I said, lying down on a pile of crates that were stacked out of the wind. He nodded, and I closed my eyes and began to pray.

CLOSING THE DIVIDE
    I slept for a long stretch, knowing that it was morning when the sun, weak as it was, lit the back of my eyes. The ocean was calm, and though the water’s power should have soothed my ragged nerves, I was still jangling inside. Torquil yawned loudly and I pushed my way to wakefulness.
    â€œNext time ye think to run away, mayhap ye might give me a bit o’ warning. I could use my plaid.” Torquil was tired and on the edge of snappish. I knew it to be from worry so I relieved him as quickly as I could.
    â€œI’m sorry. Ye should have awakened me.”
    He grunted. “Ye needed the rest.”
    â€œTake a break,” I said, handing him the sack of food and supplies and relieving him at the wheel. He took out a couple of bannocks and the water and made his way to the rail. Dark skies threatened off on the horizon. We were heading into a squall. The air was cold, and the wind would not be long away. The waves lengthened and deepened, lifting the boat and setting my insides churning. Restlessly I moved from one foot to the other and back again, wishing that it would even out.
    â€œDo the visions always come true?” he asked. I was surprised that he would bring up the power.
    â€œWhat I see comes to pass, but it’s not always the way I think it will happen.” I sighed, remembering. “I had a vision that the knight I traveled with would be killed.” I took a deep breath, not wanting but needing to continue. “He was.”
    Torquil gasped.
    I forced myself to go on. “But the circumstances that surrounded that vision were not what I had imagined them to be. I thought that one of the men who traveled with us would be the killer, but in the end it was he who interceded, an’ tried his hardest to keep it from happening.” My voice was leaden. “So. It’s no’ always the truth of the future that is seen. He was stabbed. He died. I saw his blood on the face of another, but if the vision had been wider I would have known that our friend was no murderer.”
    It was a thought that had grieved me for a long while. I hadn’t trusted Ahram for any other reason than the flash of a vision and the idea that he was different from me. I felt ashamed.
    â€œStill, it did come true….” Torquil said. “Did ye warn him?” he asked a moment later.
    â€œThe Templar? I tried, but he would not hear a word o’ it,” I said. “He was adamant.”
    â€œIf it were ye, would ye want to know?”
    Torquil was acting strangely, and I found it hard to keep up. I thought about his question as I had done many times since I’d lost the Templar. I had once thought him daft for not wanting to know his fate, but now perhaps I understood better. “Seems no bargain,” I said. “If ye can’t change the outcome, what good is it to know what’s going to happen?”
    â€œBut …” he started.
    I forestalled him. “I’d no’ want to know, but to live each day to the fullest like everyone else.” I pulled my plaid tight around me. The cold felt as if it had seeped deep inside my bones.
    Torquil’s face was grave. “Ye’ve done a