Born of Mist and Legend (Highland Legends Book 3)

by Kat Bastion

  The rest? Being tied to a human for the first time since…

  He forced the quandary from his mind. The catastrophic time-rift took precedence. The rest would resolve itself one way or another.

  The aerial view continued to stream like a giant three-dimensional board game. Unchanged markers shone crystal clear: the significant castles of Stirling and Edinburgh along with their unique Brodie Castle, key events and locations of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, strategic movements in the beginnings of the Scottish War of Independence. However, the time-rifts were another matter. Places or events that had once been, were increasingly delineated by ragged edges and ever-blurring centers, as if being sucked out of existence down a massive whirlpool. New events materialized with vivid detail at their core, outer borders blurred, stretching the very landscape itself as each burgeoning incident tore through the fabric of time.

  Three Viking ships materialized off Britain’s eastern shores, out of nowhere—centuries after they’d begun to ignore Scotland.

  Scores of Knights Templar advanced with stealth into dense Highland forests, out of time and place. While a much smaller number of their brethren were rounded up and arrested in France—a full decade early.

  Extinct Pleistocene mammals sprouted into existence, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and the massive Irish elk. And they appeared not only into their former Scottish roaming grounds, but into other parts of the globe as well.

  And in Asia, Marco Polo still remained with a very alive Kublai Khan. Which doomed the famous The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco’s fellow inmate Rustichello—penned during an imprisonment that had suddenly ceased to exist—to absolute nothingness.

  “How much do any of us know?” Orion continued to puzzle on all things unprecedented as they witnessed history rewrite event after event, with accelerating speed.

  “Some more than others.” Skorpius remained the first and only of angelkind to guard time itself. Knowledge served as a base requirement, which Orion well knew. The black void of the unknown? Unsettling. “However, I’ve never been completely blind.” Never without a compass, never aimless regarding a mission.

  Orion let out a resigned sigh before he landed a heavy stare at him. “Then surrender to it. Focus on the present moment, the task at hand, whatever its requirements dictate, nothing more.”

  Surrender. What humans did.

  He locked gazes with his brother. They both knew Skorpius had done that once before. Surrendered. Accepted. Rolled with events.

  And then, in a bizarre twist of fate, he’d become human.

  Trapped as a tormented mortal, in a prison of his own making, Skorpius had down-spiraled. Eventually, like all doomed mortals, he’d died.

  Then, he’d become something entirely other.

  Angelkind had accepted him back into the flock—to a point.

  And as eternal penance for sins against both races, he’d accepted the cold role of outcast. Rebel. The one marked by blackness, different among all kind.

  “Surrender,” he murmured. “Of course. Why not?” Only in the last months had things gotten interesting around the realms anyway. The arrival of the long-prophesied Traveler had ignited his brethren with an infusion of fresh energy.

  Why not test his own limits, face his own demons?

  Guard another human? Protect time from said human, he reminded himself.

  “Surrender,” Skorpius repeated louder, forcing conviction into his tone. His continued existence required a stretch of imagination. Even his own. Then he released all doubt, any reservations. He accepted that he’d never had a choice in the matter anyway. No point in fighting the inevitable.

  With a sudden rippling wave, molecules of energy excited around them. The nature of the disruption washed over his senses as foreign, youthful, exuberant.

  The Traveler. Think of the smart-mouthed devil.

  “Well, hellooooo, boys.” Isobel gusted out a dramatic sigh from behind them.

  Silence followed. After several odd seconds of no-commentary, he and Orion turned.

  A smitten expression softened her face. Tightly clasped hands clutched over her heart. “So poignant, you two. Dark Knight and Snow White.”

  A low growl rumbled from his throat. “Runt.”

  Orion merely arched a disdainful brow. “Ms. MacInnes.”

  “Really? Not Mrs. Brodie? Still with the whole MacInnes thing?”

  Skorpius fought an amused tug at the corners of his mouth. “Does it bother you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, yes,” Skorpius ribbed.

  And yet, a smile brightened the Traveler’s face. Plump cheeks were pinked. Wavy blond hair appeared rumpled. Settling into marriage and embracing happiness suited her. The ivory linen of a night shift peeked below the hem of her black wool cloak. Interrupted sleep, then.

  “Nice map.” The female strode between the two towering angels and stared at the morphing depictions.

  “My work here is done.” Orion vanished.

  “Hardly,” he grumbled at his escaped brother’s energy-stream wake. Then he sighed in resignation, no closer to any answers.

  Isobel quirked up a brow. “What’s got your panties in a wad?”

  He ignored the jibe. Still not in the mood.

  “Wow.” Her full attention diverted back toward the ever-evolving map. “Your map puts every known cartographer to shame.”

  “Not our map.” The Authority’s. But close enough.

  Isobel stared hard at an empty spot on the lower-left edge. Script began to appear at her mental command; she’d learned well how their world operated, how her clear focus created matter. “Here there be dragons…” As she spoke aloud, the words took shape. Then she waved the fingers of both hands beside her eyes, but toward him. “Ooo-ooo-oooooo…” Her higher octave rose and fell in ghost-story mockery.

  If you only knew. He dared not envision actual dragons. The stray thought risked the actual magickal creatures bursting into the chaotic mix.

  “Whoa!” Isobel quick-stepped backward. The map stretched down as her gaze tracked toward its lower edge, spilling out onto the mist under her feet, images crisping in detail as it floated atop the iridescent backdrop.

  But her attention wandered back upward. She eased closer to the map, zeroed in on a spot, then pointed at a northern thickly forested region. “Aurochs.” Large wild cattle. “European brown bears. Polar bears.” She shook her head. “Impossible. They’ve gone extinct in Scotland by now.”

  “‘Now’ is relative.” Skorpius scanned over countless developing anomalies. “And anything is ‘possible.’” Proven by her friend’s recent power disruption. “At least the realms themselves haven’t been breached,” he muttered as the realization hit him. Yet.

  If Isobel heard any of his remarks, she offered no indication. Instead, she swished her hand through the misty colored particles of the map. Back. Forth. Back again.

  The image shimmered with each wave, then coalesced into a static form once again. When Isobel focused her gaze on a new area. The reactive map responded to her, zooming then crisping its summoned details in response.

  She batted her hand through the translucent image again.

  Like a child with a shiny new toy.

  Irritation rumbled up and he growled again. Louder. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “Quit growling at me. I thought you appeared anytime I wanted.”

  He snorted. “You need, I support. Wants never concern me, Ms. MacInnes.”

  “Skorpius.” A rare event, her speaking his official name as she landed a serious stare at him. “When are you gonna call me by my actual name? Eeee-sooo-bellll…”

  “The moment irritating you stops amusing me.” So never. Of course, she’d garnered his respect for her hard-earned position as Traveler. But the needling banter? That was their thing.

  With a melodramatic huff, she brushed past him, ruffling his feathers.

  Skorpius stifled the urge to tense his wing.

  “Fine.
” Isobel spun toward him once she reached the edge of the map. At their combined inattention, the map fuzzed into the background, its details obscuring into a blur of muted colors. “I need to talk to you.” She smiled with crafty sweetness and batted her eyelashes. “Pleeeease…”

  Some aberrant soft spot in his heart caved. He leveled an unforgiving look at her, while endeavoring to harden over that tiny weakness. “Not here. I don’t do idle chat in the archives.”

  She smiled broadly, like she’d won a jousting match.

  He didn’t care enough to correct her misassumption.

  Inclined toward rapid commencement of her requested consultation, in pursuit of an even swifter conclusion, he stepped close, lifted his hand near the wool cloak covering her shoulder, then paused and cast her an inquiring glance.

  After a slight brow furrow, she dropped a slow nod: permission granted.

  Skorpius gripped her shoulder with a gentle touch. Energy burst from his heart’s center, fusing their essences together, then flashed them as one into the Scottish Highlands of her new home-time. They materialized on a favorite outcropping, the weathered top of a rock spire, a granite sentry perched high upon the nearest mountain range that overlooked Brodie Castle, which was asleep under a blanket of fog.

  “Holy hell!” Isobel clutched his arm as her knees gave way. Shaken, she wobbled down onto her ass on the gray stone.

  He swung down and seated himself beside her, settled his wings back, and dangled his boots into the open air. And even though Isobel had shifted into nascent immortality, he pressed a shoulder against hers to radiate his warmth amid the subfreezing temperatures; snow-covered Highland peaks at night exceeded the human tolerance of wind chill.

  “Warn a girl next time! I’ve got plenty to battle with morning si—” Gaze tracking beyond him, her eyes widened as she absorbed the unsurpassed view of an expansive starry night over the silhouetted mountains. Her lips wordlessly parted, expression softening.

  Silence. Blessed silence. And all it took was a change of scenery.

  Skorpius gestured a sweeping hand along the far horizon line. “Welcome to my office.”

  “What was that back there, in Mist-Land.” She pointed a finger toward the sky, her only—mistaken—concept of where they’d been with the map.

  “A briefing.” Not quite. But as far as she needed to know.

  “Care to brief me?” She angled an arched brow at him.

  “No.”

  “Aren’t I one of you?”

  Hardly. “You are not one of us.”

  Neither was he, technically. But Isobel didn’t need to know that. No one did.

  Her expression hardened into a scowl.

  Which had no effect on him. Leniency didn’t belong in her new limitless world. “You’re a mere fledgling. Add a few millennia. Then we’ll talk.”

  She heaved out a long-suffering sigh.

  “You chose,” he reminded her. “You knew there was a price.”

  That straightened her spine. “I did.” She gave a firm nod. “For good reason. You know that.” Her determined gaze swept over the moonlit mists that blanketed those she’d vowed to protect, as well as the man she loved, and her voice softened. “And I understood there would be consequences.”

  Skorpius let her self-realization settle with her for a moment.

  After a stretch of silence, he relented. “On with it, Runt. Tell me what you need, so I can watch over the world in peace.” And resume his intriguing mission.

  He stared down over the obscured ancient forests below. Somewhere under that Highland mist, his new charge stirred up trouble. On a monumental scale.

  “First”—her brows shot up, tone deepening into a command—“explain why you’re visiting Brigid’s room in the middle of the night.”

  Fury shot through his system as he shifted; he towered over the neophyte, muscles tensed, eyes narrowed, irritation radiating outward. “I will ignore joking nicknames, but I will not suffer insolence.”

  Isobel winced. A rarity for her.

  Good. You’re learning.

  Skorpius granted her a slow nod, satisfied she recognized the danger of crossing the thin—but distinct—line between them. That she respected his rank above her. Which was how they needed to function.

  As to an explanation of appearing in Brigid’s room? He settled back, centered on his granite perch. “Not. Gonna. Happen,” he replied in her vernacular, soft but clear. And although he didn’t owe anyone an accounting of his whereabouts, he added, “But not what you think.”

  Because he didn’t have any recollection of it. No point in Isobel theorizing.

  More silence stretched.

  A rare restlessness took hold within him. He had things to do. Missions to decipher. Another hell-bent female warrior to guard. Or rein in. After a measured inhalation, he tempered his mood. “Next?”

  Isobel’s jaw firmed. A slow nod signaled that she’d relinquished her friend’s battle. “Iain forbade me to fight. Or time travel. His bairns”—she scratched quotes into the air and deepened her voice a couple octaves—“his rules.”

  Skorpius glanced over with arched brows, pleased he wasn’t the only one giving Her Feistiness grief. “And your feelings regarding your ruler’s decree?”

  She rolled her eyes, then huffed out a soft laugh. “Typical Iain. Issuing orders. But there’s love behind his protectiveness. And common sense.” She smoothed a hand over her still-flat belly. “I don’t want anything to happen to the twins either. I’m stepping down as Traveler. You’ll have to find someone else.”

  Sudden laughter boomed from his throat so hard, its echoes bounced off the granite walls and down into the jagged chasm below. “Doesn’t work that way, Princess. You don’t decide. Your vocation has been chosen for you and accepted by you. There’s no ‘givesies-backsies.’” The bold hilarity of her suggestion tempted him to use her modern human slang.

  Impervious to his teasing, she crossed her arms, expression defiant. “No way am I fighting.”

  Skorpius had to give her credit. The female held her own in an argument or an actual fight. He admired the quality of temerity in others, most especially in humans.

  Ah, yes, but you’re no longer human.

  He shook his head, reminding himself she’d only crossed that mortality barrier mere months ago. As had her husband. Both still thought like humans, their once-limited minds adapting in slow stages. They hadn’t yet fully comprehended that she and the babes couldn’t be harmed. Mostly. At the thought, a sudden streak of generosity broke through that weak spot in his heart.

  Irritated at all his sudden compassion, he rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll grant you maternity leave, like your human tradition. As long as no catastrophe develops. The worlds can function without you for a while.”

  The worlds had survived for eons before her.

  And the developing situation with Brigid?

  All mine.

  Isobel gaped at him, speechless.

  Skorpius touched a finger to the tip of her chin and closed her mouth. “What?” he asked as her wide-eyed stare persisted.

  “Seriously? You can just decide my welfare like that?” She snapped her fingers beside her narrowing eyes. “You have that authority?”

  “Not that your welfare is my concern, but yes. The Authority gave me the authority,” he replied. “And if you feel no undeniable inner pull toward a task, then yours is to rest. Even with responsibilities, everything requires balance.”

  Relief washed over her face. “What will you do with no dire time-wrinkles to iron out? Without harassing me?”

  As if Isobel’s vacation meant everyone’s lives ground to a halt.

  The rest of angelkind would guard all that existed, carry out their missions as directed.

  And with his two opposing threads to attend to, he’d be the busiest one of all.

  For Brigid’s power-event had transcended dire, registered as far more than a “time-wrinkle.” But the greatest incessant pull he’d eve
r felt—to Brigid’s person and her place in time—marked the task as his sole responsibility.

  “I’ll find a way to manage.” In fact, he looked forward to the unique purpose, a greater challenge. Threats were meant to be dealt with, one way or another.

  A heavy furrow marred her brow while she scanned through the nighttime darkness, as if she surveyed the expansive rugged terrain below. “It’s dangerous out there. Armies building. The War of Independence.”

  Skorpius knew the purported historical records. English defending their recent occupation of Scottish castles. The proud Scots uprising in rebellion to seize their territory back.

  If the historic war still remained on course to happen in the new magick-reorganized reality.

  Aside from all the reintroduced great predators.

  Assuming it all ended there. Cataclysmic events induced by magick rarely did.

  “It is dangerous,” he agreed. For someone like Brigid. For so many reasons more.

  Silent seconds dragged by.

  Another long-suffering sigh gusted out from her. “If you are stalking Brigid.”

  “I am not.” His tone darkened, final.

  “Will you check in on her, maybe? Make sure she’s safe?”

  He intended much more than that. “She’ll be watched over.” Safe? He couldn’t promise. Not if Brigid herself proved to be the worst danger.

  The slow relaxing of her shoulders and a drowsy nod marked the end of Isobel’s concern. She yawned loudly, eyelids drooping.

  Consultation? Over. Both of Isobel’s queries had been addressed.

  And that ever-present dual tether—to his new charge and the time-rift—burned hotter in his chest. He had important issues to resolve; they would no longer wait.

  “Back to bed with you.” On her slow nod, he touched her shoulder, then flashed her under the linen covers, cloak and all, beside her slumbering man.

  Skorpius dematerialized, returning back into the ether to charge his reserves from the icy cold of utter darkness. Instinct suggested his journey ahead would be long. Premonition flared, warning him that he’d need all the energy he could gather.

  When he returned to the granite perch he’d occupied mere hours before, gloaming dusted the misty landscape in hues of purplish gray. And the undeniable ache in his chest from his dual mission escalated as he stared down through the mist, toward an awakening Earth-realm. The first rays of sunlight began to splash over a landscape that had developed unparalleled time anomalies. And within it, Skorpius faced an unrivaled challenge: Save the female and end her. With a complete absence of guidelines—and no strategy.