Evina nodded in understanding. This was the only visit she would be permitted, and it would have to be enough to get the information she craved.
Sorcha picked her way down the path once more and waved for Evina to follow. “Mother will be here soon and ye may ask her yer questions. Until then, I can help with some of yer questions. I have wanted to meet you for so verra long.” She kicked her slender legs in a show of excitement and Evina couldn’t help but laugh.
“Can ye tell me about my curse?” Evina asked.
“A bit. Ye see, we all have been accursed in some way.” Sorcha stopped in front of a pool of water and sank to her knees. “It started long ago. Morrigan had always wanted a child, but found her womb could not hold seed. She approached each one of the gods but none could help. At last, she went to Rhiannon for aid.”
The name was immediately familiar to Evina through the many days she’d spent reading the books on mythology. “The goddess of fertility,” she surmised. “The underworld.”
Evina settled beside Sorcha at the pool and the girl beamed a smile up at her. “Exactly. Morrigan begged her for a child. Rhiannon agreed, but warned her joy came at a cost. Morrigan would only ever bear daughters, and those daughters would be tempered with a curse, each one different.”
“Ye have one too then?” Evina frowned.
Sorcha’s mouth pulled into a hard line and she lifted her face up with bravado. “Aye.”
Evina wanted to wrap her arms around the brave child to keep the small girl from harm, as if she might be able to fend off her sister from any harm.
Sorcha swept a small hand over the pool where the stillness of water mirrored the sky. She circled her fingers and small waves appeared, lapping in a cyclone until an image came into view. “Ye are only here visiting, and canna visit the whole of our home, but I can show you much of what ye may want to see in the pools.”
A woman with brilliant red hair and an arrow slung over her shoulder stalked through snow-covered woods with a white fox at her heels. “This is how we can observe our sisters.”
Evina leaned over and stared at the red-haired woman. Her mouth was wide, and set with determination.
“She only recently left.” A sadness to Sorcha’s eyes let Evina know she missed the woman. “She is only just beginning to experience the world. It has been inspiring to see it through her eyes.”
“Does she know her curse yet?”
Sorcha shook her head. “I sense she will discover it soon.”
“Is there any way to break it?” Evina asked.
“Of course.” Sorcha gazed down at their red-haired sister. “But it comes at the greatest of all sacrifices.”
CHAPTER 12
DUNCAN REMAINED at the window with his shoulders uncomfortably jammed against the stone frame. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but the pinch in his back did not abate. His head ached, his pulse thundered in his skull and his nerves unraveled thread by thread.
He knew he should walk away, perhaps seek the companionship of Gillespie, mayhap even help the loyal servant in his last attempts to find a way to save him. Yet even with these precious few minutes of his life, he could not walk away. He could not abandon his post.
His stare trained on the single remaining leaf quivering on an otherwise empty branch. The entire tree was almost completely bare now, thrusting from the tender green earth like a skeletal hand with one lone leaf. The last.
Duncan had turned thirty that morning. The day had arrived with an ominous silence that rattled his soul.
He pressed his cheek to the stonework. It rasped against his skin, coarse and cool. It was amazing how much more he appreciated sensations in these final days. The stroke of a breeze against his face, the sweetness of a pastry melting against his tongue, the brilliant green of the sunlit grass around the rowan tree.
It was beautiful, but it was painful.
Evina.
How he missed her. He hadn’t expected her home in time, he’d known better. But it wasn’t the hope for continued life he missed. It was her.
Evina’s presence lingered in the castle though her warmth had long since faded. Memories that both haunted him and comforted him.
Her soft feminine and leather scent had remained somehow, caught in scant whiffs he could not trace. Some days, he reviled it, unable to take the ragged pull at his heart, and some days – most days - he revered it, craved it.
Through it all, he had never stopped missing her.
A glint of light winked below his window, beside the thick trunk of the rowan tree. Duncan straightened. It flashed again. His pulse raced, charged with life and hope.
He might see Evina one last time before he died. He pushed himself from the window and raced down the stairs taking them two at a time. The same as he had when he first met her.
Evina. Beautiful, strong, brash and so damn perfect. To hold her one last time, to relish in the pulse of her heart against his chest and lose himself in her gray eyes – it was more a dream come true than he had allowed himself to wish for.
He pushed through the side door to the garden. Sunlight splashed against his vision, filling it with golden fire and reminding him how long he’d been indoors, staring out at his destiny.
He swept the heel of his palm against his eyes to clear them.
“Evina,” he cried. “Evina, come back to me.”
The light flickered once more and went out, snuffed out by an unseen force. Duncan stopped and stared at the nothing that had once been his hope.
Silence pressed on his ears.
No leaves remained to rustle and whisper against one another. Even the clusters of berries that had gashed the branches of the tree like fresh wounds had withered and fallen away.
A quiet snap sounded above him. He tilted his head upward and his heart slid into his belly. The final leaf had begun to fall. It sailed to the ground with the slow, graceful ease of a feather. Duncan watched every flip and twirl, sure he could hear the caress of wind play over its glossy surface.
It fell past his face and dodged the swipe of his hand as he sought desperately to stave off his destiny for at least a few moments more.
After all, a few more moments could bring him Evina.
The leaf touched the grass and curled into gray ash. Duncan looked to where the flash of light had been, and his heart slowed as his body began to die.
A SENSE of urgency shoved at Evina and left her body tense with unease. She sat forward with such suddenness, the image of her red-haired sister shuddered in the water and disappeared.
“What is it?” Sorcha asked.
Evina shook her head. “Something doesn’t feel right.” Hours had passed since she’d arrived. Which meant many days had passed in the real world. But how many?
Sorcha froze and let her wide gaze scan the area. “Nothing seems off to me,” she whispered.
Evina shook her head, but the ominous press did not abate. “Mayhap Morrigan is close?”
Sorcha smiled a wide, earnest grin. “Ye willna sense any unease when ye’re with our mother. She will make ye feel like yer insides shine with love. It’s why she keeps us here, ye know, to protect us from the curse until we’re at least fifteen. When we can better protect ourselves from what it might be.”
“But what about me?” Evina asked.
Sorcha’s mouth twisted into a regretful frown. “I was a babe when ye left. From what I understand of how it’s told, ye wanted to see yer da. I heard he was a great warrior. The Shadows tried to take ye, but he saved ye and begged Morrigan with his dying breath to clean yer memory so ye wouldna know who ye were. Otherwise The Shadows would have read yer thoughts and realized who ye were.”
“The Shadows?” Evina repeated.
“Aye, The Shadows.” Sorcha’s eyes went wide with dramatic emphasis. “It’s another reason Morrigan keeps us here. They seek the souls of the Gods’ children. Before we turn fifteen, we are too weak to defend ourselves. After we are of age and released, they dinna try t
o attack anymore as they know they’ll die for their efforts.”
Evina’s mind swirled with what she’d been told. Her father had died to protect her. Why had she left in the first place? Who had he been? “But my father wasn’t a child of one of the Gods, was he?”
“Nay, but a man canna take on The Shadows and live. And they dinna attack men, unless he stands in the way of what they want.” Sorcha pointed at her hip. “I like yer dagger. It’s verra pretty.”
Absently, Evina pulled it from the sheath and handed it to the girl. Sorcha ran her fingers over the intricate scrolling branch and leaf pattern over the hilt. “This is enchanted by the forest.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “It hums with magic.”
“What do I do to break the curse?” Evina asked. “I want to remember my father, this place, everything.”
Sorcha opened her eyes and lifted the dagger to Evina to return it to her, hilt facing out. Evina shook her head. “Keep it. A thank ye for what ye’ve told me. It’s far more than I’ve gleaned in my entire life.”
The girl hugged the flat of the blade against her small chest. “The only way to break the curse is to sacrifice something great.”
Evina shook her head. “Something great? Do ye mean jewelry or coin?”
Sorcha tenderly tucked the dagger into a small belted purse at her side. “It’s different for every sister, just as our curses are. We dinna know what is required until it is paid.”
A raven settled on a rock nearby. Its wings flapped out and it gave a rasping cry. Several more crows descended from the sky, gracefully landing in the soft grass and surrounding stones and trees.
Sorcha lifted her face to the sky with the relishing joy one looks to the sun for its warmth and light. “Our mother is coming.”
Panic fluttered in Evina’s chest. “I have nothing to give to break the curse.”
Sorcha quickly drew the blade from her pouch and handed it to Evina. Still, Evina shook her head. “Nay, that was a gift. I’ll no’ take it back. And it held no special meaning to me.”
“Perhaps it’s another thing.” Sorcha looked up at the cloud of flapping black wings drawing nearer and nearer. “Mayhap ye’ve already sacrificed it.”
Evina frowned. What had she had that might have already been sacrificed? What did she cherish enough to make a worthy gift?
The ring, perhaps? The one she’d thought was her father’s all those years, but which truly belonged to Duncan.
Duncan.
Her blood chilled.
A flood of memories poured over her. His inability to give her the full details of his enchantment, the way he’d argued with Gillespie to tell her of Morrigan’s secret place when the servant so clearly had not wanted him to, the way he’d looked at her as if he’d never see her again. How he’d screamed his love for her with such longing, such pain.
Gillespie had told him he should have left the castle more. It had confused her then because he’d been cursed to not leave, but now she understood - they’d lied to her about what the witch had said.
The rowan tree. The leaves that fell and never grew back. Duncan watched it often. And his anger, the blind, mad fury exploding from her when she’d pulled a leaf from a branch.
Oh God. Duncan.
She had sacrificed Duncan.
“Evina, what is it, sister?” Sorcha put her hands to Evina’s cheeks. Evina had fallen to her knees in the soft grass.
The dry flick of wings and scoring cries of the crows raked into her brain.
“I have to leave,” Evina gasped.
Sorcha pointed at the cloud of birds now almost completely overhead. “Now? Our mother is nearly here.”
Evina’s eyes burned with tears. “Now.”
Sorcha lowered her dark gaze to meet Evina’s, her small face solemn with a wisdom far beyond her scant years. “Ye canna come back again once ye leave. This will be yer only chance to meet our mother, to learn who ye are. Ye’ve been lost for so long…”
A sob choked from the tightness of Evina’s throat. “I canna…I believe I know the sacrifice and I canna bear to lose him.”
“Duncan,” Sorcha said softly.
“Aye.” The word caught in Evina’s throat. “I might already be too late.” She caught Sorcha’s hand in hers. The girl’s fingers were cool and dimpled with the extra flesh of youth. “Please.”
The flock of crows settled on the ground before them and began to meld into a large, black mass. Sorcha flicked a glance to the shifting cloud of birds once more and then closed her eyes. Her small mouth moved in a steady chant similar to the one Gillespie had muttered to bring her into this world.
The mass rose and stretched, taking on the unmistakable shape of a woman. The world began to spin, and blurred the forming image of a face. The face she’d spent a lifetime wanting to see.
“I’ll miss ye, sister,” Sorcha said softly.
A scream cut the air, sharp with a soul-deep hurt.
My daughter.
The words whispered around Evina, carried on the wind and echoing deep in a hollow place within her heart.
My daughter. I have lost her again!
Tears ran down Evina’s cheeks and were immediately blown dry by the whirling wind around her. The world spun in such a way, she could no longer discern the dark shape nor feel any firm ground beneath her feet.
“Forgive me, Mother,” she cried out. “Forgive me.”
The chaotic motion stopped and Evina was rendered blind by a golden glow. She covered her eyes to shield the pain of the brilliant light. The scent of sun-warmed earth surrounded her. A familiar smell. The haven of the rowan tree.
Evina lowered her hands to find the tree stretching naked toward a magical sky. She searched the grass and her heart caught.
There, laying in the grass several feet away, was the prone form of Duncan Maclean. The man she loved. The man she was not willing to sacrifice.
She was too late.
CHAPTER 13
EVINA STARED A LONG MOMENT, held in place by shock. Duncan did not move. Evina’s legs moved into action, propelling her to where he lay in a cradle of soft grass. His face lay turned to the side, his eyes closed and his body entirely still.
“Duncan.” Her voice shook with fear, with disbelief.
He did not respond. She waited, possibly for his eye lids to flinch, or the grass near his lips to stir with his breath. Anything.
Neither happened and Evina’s blood went cold. She pulled at his shoulders to roll him onto his back. His body obediently flopped over without issue. A sob choked in her throat. He had always been so strong, so sure and now… Now he had the emptiness of a doll tossed aside and forgotten.
“Duncan,” she whispered. Tears burned hot in her eyes. She reached out with trembling fingers and pressed her palm over his heart, hoping, expecting for the steady thud. The flesh beneath her fingertips remained still. A white hot pain coiled in the pit of her stomach and curled into something hard and sharp.
No.
No.
No.
Her gaze scrambled over him in an attempt to find a wound, some kind of injury she might work with her limited skills to heal. Nothing.
Frustration clogged her throat and she choked out a harsh sob. Damn it, she was no healer. She didn’t know how to make this right.
Slowly, she dragged her gaze up the length of his body and let her stare rest on his face.
His face was pale, relaxed. She brushed a strand of hair from his cheek and found his skin warm. It was all as if he were only sleeping. But he wasn’t asleep.
She crumpled around the pain in her gut, in her chest. He was dead.
Her heart was splintering apart with the most unimaginable pain. She’d lost everyone in her life. Her memories, her mother, her sisters, her father, her hope at understanding her past.
She couldn’t lose him too. Not Duncan.
“Nay.” Her voice was a high-pitched keen of emotion in her own ears. “Please no.” She bent over him and lay her head on h
is still warm chest.
A tidal wave of cherished recollections dragged her under the surface of her grief, flooding her with images how his eyes crinkled when he smiled, how he sought to protect her when she needed no protecting, the endearing way his hands had shaken the first time he’d touched her, and the countless hours he’d sat opposite her in their search for information on Morrigan.
He’d given her the opportunity to see her mother, even though he knew he was Evina’s sacrifice.
I love ye, Evina.
His cry as she’d disappeared to Morrigan’s home echoed in her soul. He loved her. Truly and without question.
She tightened her fists around the loose fabric of his léine. “I’m no’ ready to lose ye.” She gritted her teeth. “Duncan, I canna lose ye. I love ye.”
The dam holding back the worst of the hurt buckled beneath those words and a pain unlike anything Evina had ever acknowledged washed over her. Her sobs became uncontrollable and left her gasping, her body shaking. His léine beneath her cheek had gone wet with her sorrow. She continued to lay thus, crying and helpless. Completely, utterly helpless to save the man she loved.
Something moved against the heel of her hand resting on Duncan’s chest. She froze. Was it something she’d done? Had she somehow made him move?
The thing moved again beneath her hand. Slow at first, then building into the familiar rhythm of a heartbeat. Evina jerked upright and stared down at Duncan through tear-swollen eyes.
“Duncan,” she gasped. “Please come back to me. I canna be without ye. No’ when I love ye so desperately.”
Color slowly came to his face, turning the paleness of his lips and cheeks to a very alive pink once more. His brow furrowed and he blinked his eyes open. Those wonderful, dark eyes which looked into Evina’s soul and found something beautiful enough to love there.
“Evina?” He sat up and groaned.
She braced her arms around his sturdy back. “Easy. Ye’ve only just…” Just what? Come back from having been dead?
“Ye’re here.” His voice was hoarse, but it was the most wonderful sound she could ever imagine.
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