The Winter Stone: One Legend, Three Enchanting Novellas

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Hours later, Fia knelt on one side of the bed, ready to help Elena, while Mairi knelt on the other side, holding her mum’s hand in hers, pouring all the Lamont healing gift into her. The labor had taken a toll on all of them, but no one, least of all Elena, had given up.

  The midwife did not look up from her position between Elena’s knees, but said, “We are almost there, my lady. I think one more contraction will do the trick. Prepare yourself.”

  Elena responded with a loud groan as she pushed with all the strength left in her. Fia pushed upon her stomach to help, and at last the first bairn was pulled from his exhausted mother. The midwife quickly handed the bairn to one of her apprentices, and within minutes the second one slid free of her mother and was handed to the second helper. Neither bairn cried, nor moved.

  “Mum?” Mairi said, her voice tight but steady. “They are born.”

  “Just a little more, Elena. We are almost done,” Fia said quietly to the glassy-eyed woman, with as much encouragement as she could manage. “One more push.” Elena managed a weak effort and collapsed but it was enough to deliver the afterbirth.

  Fia looked from Elena to where the bairns still lay silent and unmoving. “Mairi, you stay with your mum. I must see to the bairns.” Just as she said that there was a weak cry from one of the babes, and an answering murmuring from the apprentice who was cleaning him.

  “What is it?” asked Mairi.

  “A wee laddie,” the apprentice said, bringing the bairn to cuddle next to his mum.

  “And the other,” Elena asked, her voice hoarse and weighed down with exhaustion.

  “A girl,” the second apprentice said, but did not look up from where she was not-so-gently rubbing the child’s blue-tinged skin.

  “She will be fine, my lady.” The midwife glanced over her shoulder to her apprentice but neither woman looked hopeful.

  Fia moved to the apprentice with the baby girl. “Elena needs a brew of raspberry, thistle, and mother’s heart, to slow her bleeding,” she said to the lass who was not much older than Mairi. “Will you go to the kitchen and see it made? And tell Symon he may come in soon, that Elena is well and we are just cleaning up. Do not speak of the bairns yet.”

  The girl bobbed her head, handed the cloth she had been chafing the baby with, and left. Fia quickly looked over her shoulder to make sure the midwife was attending Elena. Mairi kept watch over her new brother, one hand on him, and one in Elena’s. The tiny girl struggled to breathe, and despite the apprentice’s efforts, she was still faintly blue and deathly still. Fia knew there was no time to waste if she was going to save this bairn. She pulled out the Winter Stone and held it over the baby. Under her breath Fia said those remedies she knew of to help the bairn, but the stone stayed stubbornly white. She searched her mind, but still found no response from the stone. The child gasped, as if she could not draw in breath, as if something was caught in her throat or her lungs. At this thought, the stone went pink, with that ribbon of bright green once more weaving through it.

  Acting on instinct, Fia dropped the stone on the table and lifted the tiny body into her hands, laid the babe’s chest in one hand and gently, but firmly patted her back, the infant version of a hard back pounding. Once. Twice. Thrice and the girl coughed. Another several pats and she coughed again, this time more strongly. More pats and finally she cried, weakly. She began to wave her arms about and pulled her legs up. Tears of joy ran down Fia’s cheeks, and she heard Mairi tell Elena both bairns lived.

  Fia kept patting the baby’s back, cooing at the bairn as the wee lass’s cries grew stronger and her color grew pinker. Carefully, Fia swaddled her, making sure she continued to breathe deeply, and settled her next to an exhausted, but beaming, Elena.

  Chapter Eleven

  A young woman Kieron did not know flew out of the chamber, pulling the door closed behind her so quickly nothing could be seen of the room inside. She stopped long enough to tell Symon that Elena was well, and he would soon be allowed in to see her, then she was gone down the corridor, leaving both men to stare at the chamber door. An angry bairn squalled, the second they had heard, accompanied by a rise in the volume of the women’s voices this time.

  Kieron wasn’t sure what to do or to say. Symon had been furious with Annis, and had glared at Kieron, but had only banished the woman to her chamber, promising her punishment would be revealed soon. He’d turned his back on Kieron at that point and taken up his pacing again.

  Symon sighed and took the decision out of Kieron’s hands. “What are your intentions toward Fia?” he asked suddenly.

  Kieron took a breath to steady himself.

  “Do you love her, lad?” Oddly, he didn’t seem angry.

  “I do. I have loved her since first I met her years ago.”

  Symon looked surprised. “I did not ken you knew each other before she went away with you. I ask again, what are your intentions?”

  “I will not ask her to abandon her responsibilities here,” he swallowed before he added, “and I cannot abandon mine at Kilglashan.”

  “That is no answer. I am asking what do you want of her?”

  At that question all that he and Fia had shared the night of the ceilidh flashed through his head and his body, but he did not let that stop him from looking the man in the eye so Symon could judge the truth of what Kieron was about to say.

  “I love her. I cannot bear the thought of leaving her here and never seeing her again. I want her to be my wife and I would wed her this very day if there was a way to do so.”

  Symon pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “And my wee lassie, does she feel the same?”

  “She does.”

  Symon sighed and glanced at the still closed chamber door, the muffled sounds of women still evident, along with the fussy squalls of two new MacLachlans. “I felt…I feel, the same way about my Elena. I dinna ken what I would do if she…if I…” He looked back at Kieron. “I have never seen Fia look so sure of herself as she did when she hurried down this hall toward me. I have never once seen her turn to another man for comfort or reassurance, as she did so easily with you. I have never seen her…as the woman she has come to be.” He nodded as if he had come to a decision. “I want nothing more for Fia than for her to be happy, you ken that?”

  “It is all I want for her, too, Symon.”

  The chief turned his attention back to the door without another word. Kieron tried not to let his mind travel to a future that was still uncertain, though it seemed perhaps now he had reason to hope.

  Suddenly the door was flung open and his Fia stood there, a smile on her tired face.

  “Symon, your new son and daughter would like to meet you,” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist as she stepped back to let Symon into the room.

  Kieron stayed in the corridor, wanting to drag Fia into his arms, but holding back, not wanting to interfere in this moment with her family. So he was surprised when she stepped through the doorway, pulled the door closed behind her, and melted into his arms.

  Never before had he been so sure that he was exactly where he was supposed to be. He hugged her fiercely, and she responded by gripping him harder around his waist.

  “We almost lost her,” she said quietly against his chest. “We would have lost her and the bairns but for Mairi…she’s so strong in her gift already. She had no fear, no concern that she might fail, as both Elena and I struggled with. She kept her mother strong enough to birth the bairns as if she had been using her gift for a lifetime.”

  “And the bairns? We heard them cry.”

  “I thought we had lost them, too. The laddie came round quickly but the lass…” She looked up at him, a grin on her face that he had not expected. “I used the Winter Stone, Kieron. I found a way to help her breathe because of it.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, shyly at first, then more sure of herself. “Thank you,” she said at last, stepping far enough away to pull the pouch with the stone from her belt. She held it out to him. “Without
it, I dinna ken if she would have lived.”

  “Keep it, love,” he said. “I think auld Beira would agree that it is in better hands with you than with me.”

  “But you use it all the time,” she said, still holding it between them.

  “I use it for minor things, things I should be able to ascertain without it. You use it to heal. ’Tis far more important.”

  She let her hand drop. “’Tis too bad we cannot simply share it.”

  Kieron pulled her back into his arms, remembering that Beira had told him the stone would bring him to his destiny. He was certain the stone had worked its magic. He was certain he held his destiny in his arms. If he had to wait to make her his wife, he would do so, for as long as necessary. She would be his, as he would always be hers.

  The door opened once more and Mairi stood there, looking less an uncertain girl and more a self-assured young woman than she had when he had seen her a sennight ago.

  “Mum would see you both,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

  “Me?” Kieron asked. “I do not need to impose…”

  “Both of you,” Symon called from where he sat on the bed cradling a bairn in each arm.

  Fia took Kieron’s hand and together they joined the family at the bed. “Someone should send for Stineag and Ailish,” Fia said, noting the absence of Symon and Elena’s younger girls. “They shall want to meet their new brother and sister, too.”

  “Aye. Mairi,” Elena said, “will you fetch your sisters? Fia can keep watch over me and the bairns while you are away.”

  Mairi didn’t look terribly happy to be sent away, but her good nature won out. She kissed her mum on the head, then ran a finger over the cheeks of her new siblings, and left the chamber.

  “She is stronger, both in her gift and in her temperament, than I realized,” Elena said. “She says she felt no pain as she helped strengthen me and the bairns. I daresay she is ready to work with me, when I am recovered.” She slanted a look at Fia. “Do you not agree, sprite?”

  “I have said so for some time now, so aye, I do agree.”

  A look passed between Elena and Symon that Fia recognized. The two were up to something.

  “I understand Annis was less than useful to you while you were amongst the MacAlisters.”

  Fia blanched and looked at Kieron. “You told Symon?”

  “Aye, and he has already banished her to her chamber, awaiting her punishment.”

  “But,” Fia said. “But…”

  “She did accuse you and Kieron of certain things,” Symon said.

  In spite of her years trailing after her chief and his wife, Fia found the look on his face unreadable. She could not tell if he was angry at her behavior, or simply disappointed. Either way, she was embarrassed and could only look at her feet.

  Elena patted the bed next to her, and Fia sat there, unable to look Elena in the eye, either.

  “I can think of several fitting punishments,” Elena said.

  “Do not punish Kieron,” Fia said, now pleading with both of them. “It was not his fault.”

  “I was not speaking of you, nor Kieron.” She gave her husband a soft smile Fia knew she saved only for him. “’Tis not as if we can condemn you for something we ourselves once did.”

  Fia covered her mouth with her hand, not sure whether to be embarrassed at this admission or to find it funny.

  “I am sorry I sent Annis with you, sprite. Had I known…”

  “We all ken you did not intend harm, love,” Symon said, nestling their son back in the crook of Elena’s arm. Fia noted that the lad’s color was a healthy pink, and that though he slept, he sucked his lip as if he nursed.

  “How much more training do you think Mairi needs in the herb lore,” Elena asked Fia.

  “She is learning very quickly of late, as long as she is not distracted by the lads. Another year and she will be as knowledgeable as I am.”

  “Hmm, that is too long.” Elena said, tapping a finger against her lips.

  “Too long?” Fia looked from her foster mother to Symon, who had one of those silly grins on his face she had seen so often when he was cooking up a surprise for one of his lasses. “Why too long?”

  “May I see that pretty stone,” Elena asked, ignoring Fia’s question completely. She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers impatiently.

  Fia pulled it from the pouch she had yet to tie back on her belt and placed it in Elena’s palm. Elena held the stone out for a puzzled Symon to take from her.

  “Hold it in your palm and tell them what you told me,” Elena said to him

  Symon looked from the stone to his wife and back, then shrugged. “I told her Kieron loves you very much, Fia, enough to keep his promises to you even when faced with the Devil of Kilmartin. I told her I believed he was a man worthy of you.” A milky, but distinctly pink, ribbon of light filled the stone.

  Fia had not heard that name in many years, an epithet used by many until Elena came among them. Now it made her smile as she reached for Kieron’s hand.

  “Kieron is brave beyond measure,” she said, looking up at the man she loved with all her heart.

  Symon chuckled. “He also told me that he wants to wed with you. Do you feel the same?”

  “Aye, but—“

  “No buts, sprite. You’ve said enough.” Elena held her hand out and Symon poured the stone into it. Elena held it up for all to see.

  “Symon and I would be very happy to see the two of you wed.”

  The stone turned a brilliant pink, with a shimmering deep blue weaving through it.

  Fia stared at the stone. “What does that mean?”

  “I do not ken, love,” Kieron answered her.

  “I think it means happiness,” Elena said, “for I am abidingly happy today. I think a month is long enough to wait, do you not?” she said to Fia and Kieron.

  “Wait?” Fia asked.

  “To be wed,” Symon said. “Elena and Mairi need you here until my love is recovered fully. ’Twill give you a little time to train Mairi some more, too, though I think we should be able to spare her now and again so she can visit you at Kilglashan when she is ready to learn more.”

  “I would like to see the daughter-of-my-heart married where I was,” Elena said, “in the stone circle where first I saw my Symon. In the stone circle where we were wed.”

  Fia was unable to speak around the emotions that raced through her. Symon cleared his throat and threw a pointed look at Kieron who suddenly pulled Fia to face him.

  “Fia, you are my love, my destiny, my hope.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her lightly. “Will you be my wife?”

  She looked back at the couple who she owed so much to. “You are sure?” she asked them.

  “Dinna keep the lad waiting, imp. ’Tis cruel.”

  She turned back to the man she loved with all her heart. “I will!”

  Kieron whooped, startling the bairns from their sleep.

  Epilogue

  Kilglashan Village, 1323

  “’Tis a perfect tincture, Mairi!” Fia placed the small glass bottle on the shelf above the workbench in her stillroom. “I do not think there is aught else I can teach you of herbs.”

  Mairi grinned. “Mum says the same for the Lamont healing gift.”

  “I do indeed,” Elena said as she walked through the wide open door, bringing the scent of spring inside with her. We’ve brought someone to see you,” she said as she shooed the toddling twins, Fia and Ranald, into the chamber on the ground floor of the hallhouse. Upon Fia’s marriage to Kieron, the MacAlister chief had insisted she take the space for her stillroom.

  “Who?” Fia asked, trying to look around Elena to see out the door, though the sound of a fussy bairn gave away the answer.

  “The wee princess, of course,” Kieron said as he stepped around Elena and her weans, his crying daughter on his hip. “Hope is hungry and only her mother will do,” he said as he handed their nine month old daughter into Fia’s arms.

 
Warmth filled Fia’s heart as she held her bairn. Kieron beamed at the two of them, as proud a da as she had ever seen, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “What is it, sprite?” Elena asked quietly.

  Kieron just smiled and pulled Fia close with an arm around her shoulders. “She is happy,” he said, laying a sweet kiss upon the crown of her head.

  Elena looked skeptical, so Fia smiled and leaned into her husband’s embrace. “I cannot help it. I am so happy the tears just come.” Hope let out a cry of frustration as she nuzzled at her mother’s breast, stymied by her mother’s gown. “Patience, little one,” Fia said, moving to the chair she kept in the stillroom for just this reason. She quickly settled the bairn to her meal.

  “’Twould make a good name for our next one,” Kieron said as he settled onto the stone floor. Ranald and the new wee Fia immediately clambered over their uncle.

  “What would?” Fia asked.

  “Patience,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Nay, ‘twould be too confusing since that is what I say to both of you all the time.”

  “But patience is difficult for us MacAlisters,” he said, and she could tell he was trying his best to keep their secret. All at once the love she felt for him and the bairn they had made filled her heart to overflowing.

  “You can tell them,” she said, laughing at the look of glee that swept over his beloved face.

  Elena and Mairi were looking from one of them to the other. “Well?” Elena asked.

  “We are having another bairn,” Fia and Kieron said together.

  Elena and Mairi whooped so loud they startled the twins and the baby. Fia calmed Hope. Elena and Mairi each scooped up a twin, bouncing them on their hips to stop their crying. Kieron rose from the floor and kissed his wife, and his bairn, and the joyful tears that seemed a constant in Fia’s life of late once more trembled on her lashes. Fia could not imagine a better life, a better husband, or a better family, old and new, than she had.