The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy

by Alisha Klapheke

  “Perfect.” Aini smiled and folded her napkin on her lap.

  “So…you’re no longer against all sixth-sensers?” Thane asked. Uncle Callum had always railed against them, although he’d protected Perth from the worst waves of questioning Nathair set into motion.

  “No, lad. I’m not. It was my own fear that drove that anger. I’m ashamed of it. Truly.”

  “It takes a real man to admit when he’s being an arse,” Bran said, giving Uncle Callum a nod.

  Thane took a sip of black coffee and cleared his throat. He had to tell him. “You know the old stories about the Coronation Stone?”

  “Aye,” Callum said, “of course.” He steepled his fingers and watched Thane carefully. The white bandage around his hand was like a flag of truce he’d raised to sixth-sensers and Thane had to make the most of his uncle’s open state of mind.

  “Aini here, Aini MacGregor, daughter of a chemist who once worked for the Dionadair, is the Seer. The Seer. She found the Bethune brooch and followed the trail that led to the Coronation Stone’s resting place on Bass Rock Island.”

  Callum’s face was unreadable.

  “And when we touched the stone, it…well…”

  “It growled like a beast and took down all those idiots working for Earl Nathair!” Myles, halfway out of his seat, raised a fist.

  Callum stood and walked to the door.

  “I know it’s difficult to believe,” Thane said.

  Taking a deep breath, Callum returned to his seat. “You’re saying that the Coronation Stone protected you, young Thane.”

  “Aye.”

  “And so you claim you are the Heir to Scotland’s throne.”

  Aini raised her chin. “He is the one that will knock the king from his seat.”

  “You’re his Seer. He is your Heir.”

  Neve clasped her hands and grinned. “Merlin and Arthur is my favorite way to think on it.”

  Callum swallowed and grabbed his glass of water, drank it down. He wiped his mouth, gaze roving the faces gathered around the table. Thane couldn’t stop clearing his throat and the room felt too small even though it was honestly too big. His fingertips tingled like he was about to be attacked.

  Beside Callum’s hand, a phone reflected the morning sun and sent a ray of painful light into Thane’s eyes. With one call, it would all be over. They’d be taken into custody and thrown in prison if they were lucky. If not, they’d be shot the moment Nathair’s crew showed up in answer to Callum’s report.

  Thane’s hand searched for Aini’s under the table. She found his and gripped him tightly in her soft but strong fingers.

  Callum pushed away from the table again and turned his back on them, arms crossed. “What do you suppose I do about this?”

  “Support Thane, of course,” Aini snapped.

  Callum whirled around, and Thane wished a little that Aini hadn’t jumped to that so quickly.

  “In what way?” Callum demanded. “With guns? Fighters? How do you plan to overtake the entirety of Clan Campbell’s forces and the king’s, which will back them? What do you know about fighting against the king’s Head of Security?”

  Thane wondered…should they tell him? In for a penny…

  “Uncle Callum, meet Vera Bethune, daughter of the most influential leader of the Dionadair rebels.”

  Vera stood up and curtseyed. “Good to meet you, Earl Callum.”

  Callum’s mouth dropped open. “God above. You’ve already gone in with the rebels, then?” He glared at Thane. “And brought them to my house. Without any thought to my safety.”

  “Aye, but I did worry about your safety and ours and that’s why I have black hair and contacts and we all have fake Subject Identification Cards. We’re committed to this, Uncle. We can’t back out now. Will you support us or throw us to the wolves?”

  “If I do throw you to these metaphorical wolves, will a non-metaphorical, actual curse take my life?”

  Thane didn’t want to say. He wasn’t sure how the stone’s curse really worked and he wanted his uncle to do this because he believed in it, not out of fear.

  “Probably!” Myles grinned and scooped another heap of eggs onto his plate.

  “I need time to think,” Callum said.

  “Aye. Of course. But will you give me your phone as a sign that you’re actually just thinking?”

  “You know I have access to any number of communication paths.”

  “I do. It’s merely a symbol of your action. A promise, of sorts.”

  Uncle Callum slid his phone to Thane, who pocketed it before the man changed his mind. “Thank you, Uncle. I hope you’ll come to me with any questions you might have.”

  With yet another heavy breath, he nodded and left the room. Poor old man. They’d probably end up giving him a heart attack.

  “How long do we give him?” Aini arranged her used fork and spoon on her plate, then finished the last of her coffee.

  “I’ll find him in an hour. If he doesn’t know by then, we need to find a way out of here.”

  Vera brushed a little egg off her dress. “Agreed. In the meantime, we should practice with those candies of yours.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Aini.

  Aini grinned. “It’s time for dessert, friends.”

  Thane looked out a window to see Callum walking the garden, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched. He didn’t envy his uncle’s decision. No matter what he decided, his life was never going to be the same. It wasn’t so long ago that Thane had gone through that same decision.

  Aini came up beside Thane and steered him out of the dining area and into the hallway. “You never told us what you and Bran did last night.”

  Thane broke into his tale about Scone and the sword. “I’m not sure what good it did, but…”

  “I can see what good it did,” Aini said. “Your aura is brighter than ever. Do you truly feel like the Heir now?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with the position.”

  “Me either. With being the Seer, that is. Leading the rebels. I’ve done everything wrong so far.”

  “You have not.”

  She waved his arguing off. “I want to talk about you.”

  “Well, I do feel different today. After going to Scone. Is it mad to say I can feel the blood of those kings inside my own veins?”

  “Of course not. You do have their blood in you.”

  “But I feel it. It’s as if I’ve fireworks setting off under my skin sometimes.”

  Aini reached up and put her arms around his neck. She smelled lovely and her skin was so warm and smooth. Her lips parted to say something, but she stopped. The corners of her mouth tipped down.

  “What is it?” Thane made circles on her cheek with his thumb.

  “I want to enjoy you, enjoy us. To say that I’d like to give you some more fireworks, if you don’t mind. But…”

  He pulled her close and ran his nose along her forehead. “I’d like that very much.”

  “But I feel awful. I should’ve had us arm ourselves with the altered candy and taken the back roads at night. I should’ve been more careful. I messed up during our talk with Callum, too. I always blurt things out and I wish I was more like you, so measured and smart.”

  “Hah. Right. I’m so even keeled. Sure.”

  “You do have a temper, but yes, you seem to know what to do all the time.”

  “I don’t. Hardly ever. I’m making this up as I go along, just like you, just like all of us. And I certainly think we should firework one another while we can.”

  She smiled sadly, tears shining in her big eyes. “The others will be busy with the candy for at least a few minutes. I saw a quiet spot on our way in yesterday. Is there a library here?”

  “Aye. Just here.” He pointed to a wooden door covered in carved thistles. A likeness of Scone Palace sat below the plants’ tangled roots.

  Aini tugged him into the dark library. He shut the door with a foot.

  His hands had a mind of their own
. His palm smoothed the fabric covering Aini’s hips, all the way to the stripes over her flat stomach. His thumbs stopped just below the curve of her breasts. Body thrumming with want, he closed his mouth over her lower lip and she let out a small noise that undid him. She kissed him back, her teeth nipping lightly, before her mouth moved to the spot behind his ear. A kiss there, and heat raged down him, through him, making coherent thought near impossible. His hands were in her hair then and she pulled back, her lipstick everywhere.

  “Do you miss my long hair?”

  “No, hen,” he said, laughing, “I’d be mad for you even if you were bald as Myles.”

  “Please don’t bring up Myles right now.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.” He touched his mouth to the smooth lines of her collarbone and slid his hands down her back. The feel of her body against his was too much. She was so soft and so strong. He wanted more than kisses in a library corner. “Aini. What if we—”

  A knock on the door cut him off. “Sorry to interrupt, but,” Neve said through the thick oak, “we’re supposed to be practicing with the altered sweets, right?”

  Thane squeezed his eyes shut and tried very hard not to be rude. Neve was fantastic and she didn’t deserve the rough end of the chemicals currently raging through his body. “Of course, Neve. Be right there.”

  Aini laughed against Thane’s chest. “The rest of our fireworks show will have to wait.”

  Thane adjusted his clothing and things. “Ugh.” It wasn’t as easy to switch gears with this amazing girl of his. Finally, he took Aini’s hand and they left the library.

  Chapter 14

  Colorful Training

  Candies—red, purple, pink, brown, and gold—covered Aini’s neatly made bed.

  “Be sure about which one you want to try.” She chose the golden taffy.

  “Yes,” Thane said, “because I truly don’t think you should intake more than one type. I worry about brain damage.”

  Myles patted his own head. “I really don’t want to risk the little I’ve got up there.”

  “No one is going pressure you, Myles. You do what you feel is best.”

  He smiled genuinely. “Aww, I need to do it. I don’t want lovely Neve to think I’m a coward.”

  “Giving in to peer pressure makes you more of a feartie, darling,” Neve said, picking up a chocolate drop.

  “You people kill me.” Vera pulled a cherry drop out of her pocket, walked up to Bran, and shoved it into his mouth.

  “Vera!” Thane ran over to him and patted him on the back as he sputtered and spit the thing onto the floor.

  Bran straightened and rubbed a sleeve over his mouth. “I’m fine.” He nodded to Thane, then turned to Vera. “You need to stay away from me.”

  “What are you doing?” Aini grabbed Vera’s arm and spun her around. “It is NOT OKAY to shove altered sweets down throats.”

  She laughed loud. “Calm down. I was just having a bit of fun with tall, dark, and handsome.”

  “You two have zero in common,” Aini hissed in her ear. “I don’t know why you think you can seduce him.”

  “Seer, let me have my fun.”

  “That is not fun,” Neve said. “That is assault.”

  “You wouldn’t know fun if it hit you in the face,” Vera said to Neve.

  Neve socked Vera right in the nose.

  Both girls bent, howling. Neve held her hand and Vera, her nose.

  Blood seeped between Vera’s fingers. “You glaikit girl. So you want both boys, do you? Myles, you can have. Bran, now he will be mine before this thing is through.”

  “Don’t I get a say in it?” Bran asked, looking pretty thunderous.

  Thane examined Neve’s hand. “Good thing you used your palm and not your fist. You would’ve broken it if you’d tried that.”

  “Vera!” Bran started toward her.

  But Vera didn’t answer. She sauntered from the room, dripping blood. She was terrible, but she was tough. They would definitely have to rein her in. Unfortunately, Aini thought that was probably her own job.

  “I really, really want to call her very bad names.” Neve glared at the door.

  Aini couldn’t agree more.

  “Go right ahead, love,” Myles said. “Let it flow. We support you. Better in than out. Or something.”

  Thane’s mouth lifted as he put the remaining candies back into the containers Aini had organized. Bran said something to him that made him laugh darkly.

  “All right, everyone,” Aini said. “I’m going to head toward town and to find a kirkyard. I want to see if this improved Cone5 taffy helps me see spirits more readily. Anyone want to come?”

  “As enticing as that is,” Myles said, “I think I’d rather have a fight training sesh with Thane and Bran here. Blood before boogie men, I always say.”

  “Boogie men?” Thane cocked his head.

  “He means ghosts.” Aini headed toward the door. “All right then, have fun with some fighting. Neve, want to come along?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to, but I will. For you, Seer.” Wincing, Neve shook her hand. Her palm was splotchy.

  “Please just call me Aini. You’re my friend, not my disciple.”

  Neve hugged her and just about broke a rib.

  “Take it easy.” Aini stepped back. “Your chocolate power is dangerous.”

  “Och. I’m sorry.” Neve covered her mouth with her hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Myles sighed dramatically. “I know I’m about to hear that same phrase from Thane one thousand times.”

  Thane grinned like a maniac and cracked his knuckles. “It was your idea, colonial.”

  Aini paused by the door. “How about we watch a bout or two first?”

  Neve bit her lip. “All right.”

  Myles shrieked and ran at Thane, one hand raised like he could hammer Thane into the floor somehow. Thane caught Myles’s forearm, stuck out a foot, and Myles landed in a heap at the foot of Aini’s bed. Bran put a shin across Myles’s stomach, his other leg extended for balance.

  “Don’t show me what you’re trying, colonial,” Thane said.

  “Don’t break my back in the learning process, Lord Heir.”

  Bran helped Myles up. “Keep your hands up, near your face, to protect yourself. Don’t look where you’re about to strike. Don’t hesitate.”

  “And less screaming would be good,” Aini added.

  “Aye,” Neve said, “but did you know when ancient Highlanders went into battle, they often shrieked wildly to throw their enemy off?” She raised both eyebrows like this was the most exciting thing ever.

  Bran tilted his head toward Neve. “She’s right.”

  “That is interesting,” Aini said, giving Neve an indulgent smile.

  Myles threw a punch, and Thane pushed it off to the side, past his ear. “That’s called a parry. Doesn’t need to be much, just a wee shove.”

  Thane began throwing slow punches at Myles’s chin. Myles used the parry to keep from getting hit.

  “Good job!” Neve clapped once, grimaced at her palm, then rested her hands gingerly on her hips.

  A sheen of sweat made Thane’s cheeks and forehead shine. His undershirt stuck to the planes of his chest and the curve of his upper arms and shoulders. “Now we’ll go the ground and I’ll teach you how to sweep a man off you.”

  “Or a woman,” Aini said. Then she blushed realizing how this sounded.

  “I need to practice that one,” Bran said, an eye on the door, watching for Vera’s return. “Or maybe I don’t since Neve Breaker-of-Bones Moore is around.”

  Myles covered his heart with his hands. “Breaker-of-hearts.”

  Bran and Myles traded a look that said they might have a bit too much in common in the way of Neve.

  Myles’s mouth switched from grin to glare. “I had her first, you handsome Scottish devil. And I make her laugh.”

  “I won’t take her from you, lad,” Bran said gently.

  Aini was so gl
ad Thane had Bran in his life. With all the horror he’d endured, Thane needed a good friend like Bran. Myles did too.

  The boys began to tussle again, sweating and laughing as they threw punches and tossed one another onto the floor.

  “Let’s let them have their fun,” Aini said, checking to be sure she had the golden taffy wrapped well. “They should enjoy some laughs while they can.”

  A fairly nice day turned into an icy, foggy one as Aini and Neve passed the first of the gravestones.

  “Why did I agree to this?” Neve tugged her sweater so it came right up under her chin.

  “Because you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  Neve squeezed Aini’s arm gently, using just her fingertips.

  “Appreciated,” Aini said.

  With the effects of the taffy fully in play, the fog’s white plumes took on more color. A pale, iridescent green shifted through the air and wove into a deep wine color that moved more slowly. Aini waved a hand through the myriad of colors.

  “I wonder what all this really is.”

  “What is?”

  “The colors I’m seeing. There is this green and a burgundy…is it gases in the air or what?”

  “I have no idea. That’s a question for Thane.”

  Then they had no more time for speculating because a human shape was forming not ten feet from where they stood. Over a head-high grave marker of an angel, a ghost shimmered into view. The blue-white light that had been around the ghost kings and Lady Greensleeves was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the air around the vague shape shimmered a color Aini had no name for.

  “Can you see that?” Aini pointed.

  Neve shivered. “No. Is it a spirit?”

  “I think so. But it doesn’t have that same color.”

  “The kind of light the kings had?”

  “Right.”

  The unnameable hue faded and the bluish white light replaced it. Neve gasped.

  “Ah. There’s that color they usually have,” Aini said.

  The ghost drifted closer, the colored fog stirring around his bulky frame. “Do not come here.” His eyes darkened.