Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Una stood before him another moment, shaking her head with disappointment and then she turned away, hobbling back to her worktable. “I suppose it could be true … if ye have no faith in the lass.”

  “Why the hell should I?” Aidan roared back. He stood, tossing out his hands as a plea for Una to listen to reason.

  “Ach! It seems to me that men will trust their ears far less than their eyes, but they trust their hearts e’en less!” And with that, she huffed and tossed her staff upon the table, abusing the ashwood stick as he had never seen her do before. It rattled noisily over the table and came to a halt beside the grey, dull keek stane.

  Aidan frowned. His gut began to ache. He stood there looking at Una, disheartened and heartsick over the way he had spoken to her. By god, she might not truly be the Mother of Winter, but in so many ways, she was the mother of them all. “Forgive me,” he allowed, swallowing a whole new lump of grief that appeared. And then he left her, returning to the hillside.

  Without another word from anyone, Aidan and his men filled in the entire cave beneath the fissure, moving mountains of dirt into the hillside, until nothing remained to evidence the caverns below.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  As Aveline’s mood lightened and her smiles increased with thoughts of returning to Keppenach, Aidan’s mood grew darker yet.

  Lìli thought mayhap he suspected something but he said not a word. Troubled over his mood, she double-checked her coffers to be certain the ring and vial were still secreted inside. Certainly if her husband had discovered the horrible device by now, he would have questioned her about it. But, nay, there it remained, right where she had left it, and so she could not account for the change in his demeanor.

  In truth, though she had considered many times hiding the offending pouch somewhere out in the fields, it had become quite apparent that the one place it would be safest was right here where she kept it. Aidan’s people spent little enough time indoors, and she could not guarantee someone might not find it out there—no matter how well she hid it. But no one ventured into this room without permission aside from her and Aidan, and unlike Stuart and Rogan, her husband did not seem to feel the need to govern every aspect of her life. He had never once questioned her about her belongings from the moment he had dumped her coffers in his room. And despite his bluster upon her arrival, he had embraced her wholly as his wife, giving her nothing but respect and affection. Not one thing had she asked of him that he had ever denied her, and in fact, she did not have to ask for much. He cared for her in a manner that no man had ever done before him—no man.

  With her husband’s help, she scribed a formal request to Rogan—or rather, Aidan wrote the missive himself. Her husband was an accomplished scribe, more so even than Stuart or Rogan. What irony, she thought, that the man they’d hailed as a savage was a great deal more educated than most men she knew. In spite of his seclusion by choice, Aidan knew far more about the designations and positions of the men who ruled this land than she did. His choice to abstain from politics did not mandate that he remain ignorant of their machinations.

  Lending the weight of his position to her request, so that Rogan could not deny her, he wrote:

  To Rogan, high chief of clan MacLaren, laird of Keppenach and lesser keeps,

  In the matter of Aveline of Teviotdale, since the lady is thick with child and too heartsick to remain at Dubhtolargg, I return her forthwith to Keppenach, with apologies to David, though it is the lady’s wish that her child be born under the protection of his father, the laird of Keppenach. In the matter of Kellen MacLaren, son of Stuart MacLaren, grandson of Dougal MacLaren, I would see him returned to his mother Lìleas, the now and future lady of Dubhtolargg …

  The now and future lady of Dubhtolargg.

  Lìli’s heart swelled over the proclamation, for by it, he declared to one and all that she was his wife in truth and that he would never, ever rebuke her.

  However, she noted how carefully he worded his next words so as not to provide an endorsement to David as his king.

  … It is acknowledged that because a full year of hand fasting has not yet elapsed, proper dispensation must be received by David mac Maíl Choluim, Prince of the Cumbrians, Earl of Northhampton and Huntingdon, King of the Scots, but not of the Pechts, As I am certain he will be pleased to find this union suits me well, please convey to me at once when the child may be retrieved, at which point I shall send a fully equipped garrison with all due haste in order to amend the current situation and see the boy safely to his mother before the first snows fall.

  Subscribed and sealed on this sixth day of October by me, Aidan, High Chief of the dún Scoti, laird of Dubhtolargg, forebear of Kenneth MacAilpín, the Righ Art, the High King and Chief of Chiefs.

  Alas, but the true message—the one Lìli dared not scribe on paper—that one, Aveline must deliver herself in secret. Rogan was to bring Kellen to the stone cairn near the Faerie Glen—the ancient ruins that sat before the pathway leading down into the vale. He was to bring her son on the first day of the Blood moon in October. Somehow, Lìli would find a way to slip away in order to exchange the information she had discovered. She must also endeavor to put her guilt aside for she was convinced there was no other way.

  Aidan sealed the message and handed it over to one of his men on the day he dispatched the troupe to escort Aveline to Keppenach. Another messenger was sent with a similar letter for David. And thereafter, Lìli resigned herself to wait. There would be no way to know whether Rogan would accept her bargain or nay, but in any case, he could not entirely ignore her husband’s letter. He must send a message back, and in that message she would listen carefully for his answer. And then, no matter how he replied, she would hie herself to that Faerie Glen on the first night of the Blood moon.

  However, to Lìli’s dismay, once Aveline was gone, Aidan kept even more to himself, drawing his men into the fields to spar, as though preparing himself for war. Long hours the men spent practicing while Lìli busied herself with designs for a garden come spring, preparing her seeds with a bit of Una’s guidance as there were some she did not know, and the soil up here was far different from the soil to be found below the ben. Despite the fact that the vale sat upon a carpet of green, the layer of good loam was lean, and below it was a table of stone. For some of her plants that needed deeper roots, it might behoove her to raise a bed or two.

  Upon her request, her husband had ordered a worktable to be constructed and placed near the window in their chamber so that she might work while enjoying a view of the loch.

  But as the first snows fell upon the vale, still with no word from Rogan, Lìli began to worry. Fat flakes danced about the sky, like white butterflies. Lìli watched them, thinking about the mountain path by which they had come only a few short months before … wondering how the ground fared below the rise of the first ben.

  So much had happened since that day… she was not the same girl she had been, and it came as little surprise that she no longer considered Keppenach her home. These, in truth, were her people now…

  Guilt-ridden for having lied to Aidan, and worried for her son, she took her frustrations out upon mortar and pestle.

  Una stood watching while she prepared a measure of white willow bark… and another of valerian. The concoction of white willow bark was the same mixture she had used for Duncan and Keane both, to help them with pain and to reduce their fever. The valerian… well, she hoped Una would not recognize the root. Betimes, Lìli took a small dose during her woman’s curse, but a far more potent mixture could be used to put grown men to sleep. The only drawback was that it had a very bitter taste, but she was not too concerned about that. Their uisge was so stout that she could easily hide the taste of the root, and the alcohol would greatly amplify the drogue’s effects.

  She and Una had developed a strange fellowship. The old woman was hardly affectionate, and yet Lìli sensed the great love she bore her clan. It was for love of them that Una had cursed Lìli in the first place
, she realized.

  Una watched her ground the dried valerian root, saying little, and Lìli dared to ask her then about the curse, hoping to distract her from the concoction she was making. Anyway, what good would all her work be if Aidan was still fated to die?

  As though her leg troubled her, the old woman shifted her weight upon her staff and said, “All that we are, child—all that we become—arises from the depths of our hearts. Be the two of ye as one and even death willna part ye.”

  Lìli considered the old woman’s answer, but was still not appeased. She did not want merely to be connected to Aidan in spirit. She wanted him present body and soul, flesh and blood. The possibility of losing him now was heart-rending!

  While images of Aidan’s demise darkened Lìli’s thoughts, the old woman continued. “’Tis impossible to unshed blood, or call back words spoken in anger. And yet I once heard it said that forgiveness is the remission of sins,” she concluded. “If there is hope, it must be found there.”

  Lìli frowned and peered down at the pestle in her hand. Forgiveness? For what she was about to do? Was the old woman predicting bloodshed over her schemes? Or was she saying perhaps that Lìli ought to forgive them for the misery she had suffered over the damnable curse? In truth she had already found forgiveness in her heart, for if the old woman had never cursed her, she would have never found her way to Aidan and she loved him with all her heart.

  Frustrated by the answer she received, she ground away at the valerian root, reducing it to dust. It seemed everything Una did or said was shrouded in some form of mystery, and yet the woman never truly confessed to any sort of magic at all. For all anyone knew, she might be simply an eccentric old crone, although Lìli sensed something otherworldly about her. Nor could she forget the blinding sensations that had assaulted her when she had touched the woman’s scrying stone—that flash of light that had filled her head at the moment of connection. As yet, Lìli had not admitted to being in her grotto, but she sensed Una knew.

  The old woman’s green gaze was canny—eye-color much like Aidan’s and his siblings’—but they were reserved today as she watched Lìli set the crushed valerian root aside.

  More and more, Una had been coming about—betimes helping, betimes simply watching. And betimes Lìli thought she might simply be keeping an eye on her. Sometimes Sorcha also came to watch and help, and during those times Una sometimes told them stories of the early days of Dubhtolargg.

  She told Lìli about a chieftain—a man who had followed his sire up the mount, full of doubt. His father died, Una said, and the new chieftain buried him up on the ridge—beneath the same cairn she had spied coming into the vale—and then he nearly went back down the mountain, plagued by doubt and grief. Apparently, he had been visited by a faerie, with whom he later fell in love, and it was their offspring who dwelled here now. It was a fanciful story—one Sorcha seemed to love. After hearing it, she ran out of the room, searching for someone to whom she could recount the tale.

  Once she was gone, Una turned to her and said, “’Tis true what they say… sisters are merely different flowers from the same garden.”

  “I would love to have had one,” Lìli replied absently. It had long been her secret wish—far less lamented now that she felt, at last, a kinship with Aidan’s people. For so long she’d had no one at all.

  “Ach, the eyes are blind!” Una railed unexpectedly. “See with your heart, child!” And then shaking her head as though with disgust, she hobbled away with her staff, leaving Lìli to look after her as she went muttering out the door.

  But then suddenly, as Lìli stared out into the darkened hall… and she heard Sorcha’s voice telling Keane the tale somewhere nearby, the tenor of her laughter so familiar… And in that instant, Lìli grasped the true depths of her father’s sins, and she blinked, understanding.

  Sorcha, the little girl who had embraced her long before any of Aidan’s kinsmen had—was her sister by blood. And once Lìli knew it, she knew it deep down in her soul, like a perfect truth uncovered by the light. The realization left her dazed. It would explain how and why she had felt so connected to this place from the instant she had ridden into the glen.

  She was bound here already by blood.

  With the approach of twilight, the echo of steel on steel ceased to ring through the hills.

  Aidan craved solitude, needing to feel the sting of cold upon his flesh. Stripping fully, he stood beside Caoineag’s Pool.

  An icy mist rose from the water. Soon the shoreline would be congested with ice. Like frost in an old man’s beard, the grass would turn crystalline. But even then, Aidan would find a moment to immerse himself in the icy waters of the loch, for it gave him a sense of euphoria to emerge and feel his blood flow into his limbs like warm uisge. In those instants, he felt more alive than at any other time, save the moments he spent in his wife’s arms.

  The Am Monadh Ruadh could be a bitter foe, unless a mon were at one with the land. Aidan’s daily plunge into the loch kept him acclimated to the cold. Tonight, as the sun set over the crannóg in the distance, he felt a sense of calm that came, not simply from a good-day’s practice with the blades, but a peace that settled over him with simply knowing that Lìli awaited him at home.

  In the waning daylight, he spied the first flurries of winter and he sucked in a breath and plunged headlong into the icy loch, trusting his instincts. If war came to the vale, he would be ready—so would his men. But faith, like the bone-chilling cold, rushed through him as he immersed himself in the waters of the loch.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was a king’s prerogative to change his mind.

  A letter arrived from David. His green eyes glinting, Aidan brought the missive to Lìli, handing it to her while she stood at her desk, a half smile turning his lips. With trembling hands that were stiff from the cold, Lìli quickly unfurled the parchment, her heart surging into her throat. She held her breath as she read. Apparently mistaking Aidan’s carefully worded letter for a form of alliance, David wrote:

  To Aidan, High Chief of the dún Scoti, laird of Dubhtolargg, forebear of Kenneth MacAilpín, I give thee greeting.

  As it pleases me greatly ye are so agreeable to this alliance, I see no reason not to grant your lady’s wish. Please give your lovely bride my regards, and convey to her my deepest regrets over the manner and implementation of her circumstances. Long life to ye and yours.

  Subscribed and sealed on this twentieth day of October by me, David mac Maíl Choluim, Prince of the Cumbrians, Earl of Northhampton and Huntingdon, the Righ Art, the High King of the Scots and Chief of Chiefs, forebear of Kenneth MacAilpín.

  Lìli’s hands shook with relief as she handed the parchment back to Aidan. David’s message was clear to her, even if Aidan could not read between the lines. The king had had a change of heart, and regretted his part in Rogan’s scheme.

  Long life to you and yours…

  It was a blessing upon their marriage from Scotia's reigning King.

  But Rogan would not so easily conform, she realized. And yet once her son was safely in their hands, Rogan would not dare undermine his liege. With but a single day remaining before the Blood moon, she knew David’s letter would have missed Rogan at Keppenach, for he would surely be on his way north—if indeed he intended to bargain with her. And she knew in her heart of hearts that he would. All she had to do now was convince Rogan to make the trade—to relinquish her son into her hands—and that she vowed to accomplish however she must.

  For the first time in so long, she felt hopeful. She glanced up at her husband, loving his face—loving everything about him. If either of them must leave this earth too soon, she would not go without showing Aidan what was in her heart.

  Be the two of you as one, Una had said.

  That was precisely what Lìli intended to do, for now she understood what the old woman had meant.

  With a twinkle in her eyes, she walked to the door of their bedroom and closed it, then turned and smiled at her husb
and. That was all it took—a smile on her behalf, and she watched his breacan stir below his belt. And seeing that she spied the evidence of his arousal, he laughed huskily and she flung herself into his arms, seizing him by his face and kissing him wantonly, wanting him to feel everything that was in her heart. Answering with unreserved passion, he kissed her back, all the frustrations of the past weeks evident in the ardor of his kiss. She dared not let him go as she drew him into the bed, intending to love him as a true wife should. This time, their coupling was not gentle. Lìli wanted him to understand that not even death would part them because, aye, he was her one true love.

  Inhaling a rush of stinging air into her lungs, Una watched as Lìli stole away from the crannóg, up the hill toward the crumbling ruins at the edge of the Faerie Glen.

  The twilight of the year was knocking upon their door—the time between times, when the days descended into darkness and the nights grew cold and long. A blanket of fresh snow lay untrodden below the ridge, tinted copper beneath the full Blood moon—but this would not be simply any Blood moon. Tonight, the red sphere in the northern sky would eclipse itself, and the division between this world and the next would be at its thinnest. It was a time for rebirth, a time for growth, a time for atonement… and aye, a time of rest for the Mother of Winter…

  But tonight, before the full eclipse, there would be no rest.

  Her face painted the pale color of snow, Una ignored the exhaustion that threatened to steal into her old bones, and stood watching the night unfold. Fog swirled at her feet. The staff in her hand, with the stone in its claw, winked under the red moon, like the slow, waking blink of a weary mother whose child wailed in need.