Mistress of the Storm

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Pain. Guilt. Shame. The horrors she’d lived through. The rapes. The overwhelming fear. The loss. The helplessness. The physical damage keeping her from having a bairn. All of it poured out like a lanced boil that could not be contained any longer.

  Duncan poured his love into her body and soul, healing her, warming her, opening her so she could live again. “You are whole once more, love.” The damage, all of it, was gone.

  He smiled. “You can love again,” he whispered to her as he began to separate from her. “You can live, Isabel. Live.”

  He felt his heart slow, and he counted the beats, each one coming more slowly than the last until he heard and felt no more.

  Isabel fell with him, as his weight took her down to the ground under him. She managed to roll him to his side and spoke his name. He did not respond, so she shook him. Placing her hand on his chest, she tried to feel his heart beating.

  It did not.

  She looked around, down the glen, at the lake, and found herself completely alone. He was dead.

  Her heart cried out for him, but he did not answer. Every last trace of him was gone from her and with it all the pain she’d learned to bury so she could survive the life Sigurd had forced on her. His lies and his mad quest for vengeance was directed against a woman whose only sin was that she’d loved someone else.

  “Duncan!” Isabel screamed. Her cry echoed through the glen, across the hills and along the stream. She grabbed his shirt and shook him, screaming out his name again.

  He’d known he was going to die and he’d called his power forth to save her first. She’d felt the love he’d poured into her while they were joined and knew what he was doing but could not stop him. Whole and healed, her heart broke as she realized she’d never told him of her love. She’d seen his plan while he was inside her thoughts and realized his goal was always to free her.

  He’d used the last of his human control to heal her.

  “Duncan,” she whispered. “I do love you.” Her tears fell as she leaned her head on his chest and cried for all the possibilities that would never be realized for them.

  “You were never meant to die here.”

  A voice cut through her sorrow and she lifted her head to see a creature of infinite beauty standing near the lake. He wore garments that shone like the sun and the air around him sparkled as though someone had pulled all the stars from the sky and thrown them in around him.

  “Who are you?” Isabel rubbed the tears from her eyes.

  “No matter what the other one said, you were always protected. We let you learn to survive and we sent you strength through our connection to you.”

  “I do not understand.” She leaned back to look at him. Other voices, sounding like hundreds of bells tinkling, joined his. Turning to look at the lake, she found others watching her, including the face she remembered from all those years ago, the one who had pushed her back to the surface and saved her life. The one whose voice she heard when she swam in the sea.

  “He needed you to survive, so we kept you alive until he found you,” the one who looked like royalty explained. “Then he could heal you.”

  “Was his power from you?”

  “Aye, he is from us.”

  Confused and shocked beyond rational thought, Isabel wondered if she was going to wake up from a bad dream and find herself in her bed. “Then why did you let him die? Can you not heal him?”

  Without seeming to move, the being hovered above Duncan’s body. “We cannot call him back from death, but your love for him did.”

  The heart beneath her hand began to beat and Duncan drew in a breath, then another. He opened his eyes and whispered her name. “You do love me, even though you thought I’d betrayed you.” Not a question, a declaration as though he still saw inside her mind and her heart.

  “How can this be?”

  Duncan pushed himself up to his feet and helped her to stand. The one who had spoken to her watched them and smiled. In that moment she recognized his face as the one joined with Duncan’s in the ritual. He was the source of Duncan’s power.

  “Who are you?” Duncan repeated Isabel’s question.

  The glen quieted and the man, or being, nodded as though ready to answer him. “We are Sith,” Nodding to the others who seemed to appear and disappear at will, he added, “We are Sith.” He floated over to Duncan and laid his hand on Duncan’s chest. “You are Sith.”

  The being laughed, causing the stars above to flare brightly. Reaching out his hand, the Sith placed his hand on theirs and whispered without his mouth moving. “Learn of the origin of your powers, Healer. Learn how you came to be.”

  Isabel heard the words and felt them deep within her as something surged between the sith and them. The words flowed into her mind, then a vision of them was revealed in the glen.

  “Many years ago as humans count time, I discovered a woman in the western isles where she spent many a summer’s day. Her beauty drew me and I went to her in the day and the night, giving her my love.”

  Duncan heard the sith change the way he spoke, telling the story as a human would, referring to only himself alone. He watched with Isabel as a young woman appeared in the glen near them, beautiful and filled with life. Then the sith in human form joined her.

  “I took her to my lands through an entrance like that one”—he nodded at a place between two of the strangely formed hills next to the lake—“and we spent many months there together. I gave her everything,” the sith said fiercely, “but she was not happy and asked to return to her mortal world and the man she’d been betrothed to before I found her. She refused my love and found her way back here on that Samhain night twenty-and-eight years ago as you count time.”

  The sith turned from them and nodded at the place before them and Duncan saw it as it had happened. He thought only he saw it until he heard Isabel’s gasp and felt her hold tightly onto his hand and watch as he did.

  The young woman appeared again, pushing her way out of the fairy hill. She was huge with child and stumbled out of the ground, holding her belly and moaning against the pain of the impending birth. She kept looking behind her to see if anyone followed, then ran toward the path.

  But she did not make it, falling to the ground as her pains struck. When she looked over her shoulder before gaining her feet once more, the Sith stood on the fairy hill.

  “Do not leave,” he said. “I gave you my love.”

  Duncan thought the creature did not seem capable of such mortal emotions. His love and pain were clear though as the sith spoke.

  “Come back with me now.” He held out his hand to her but she turned away, trying to run.

  “I cannot live with you. I do not love you.” She gasped for breath as another pain struck. She howled in pain but still turned away. “Let me go!” she screamed.

  The Sith’s rage and pain exploded then; flashes of light and waves of heat pierced the night sky as he lashed out at the woman who’d betrayed him.

  Isabel trembled and Duncan gathered her close.

  “They are mine.” The Sith pointed at her huge belly. “They are gifted.” Something flashed from his hand to the woman’s belly and she screamed in pain. “But they will be cursed for your betrayal, for when they use their Sith powers, they will suffer. Their powers will grow and their mortal bodies will be tormented. When their powers peak and end, they will wither and die.”

  “No!” she screamed. “Please! Do not make my bairns carry the punishment for my sins against you,” she cried out, pulling herself up onto her knees and reaching out her hand to him. “Spare them, I beg you!”

  The Sith approached her and crouched in front of her, placing his hand on her belly for only a moment.

  Duncan stared at the scene and watched some indescribable emotion fill the Sith’s face as he felt the bairns inside her womb.

  “They will be taken from you, for you are not worthy to raise them. They will not know of their power or the source of it and you cannot tell them or the Sith will s
trike you all down,” he commanded.

  She began to crawl away as though to escape his sentence, but he shook his head at her and waved his hand. Four others appeared around her, holding her and keeping her from running.

  “Unless they find true love, given and spoken by one called enemy or betrayer, their Sith nature will destroy their human one and they will live in our world forever. If they find that true love before their powers end, their mortal nature will control their Sith side.”

  Duncan stood motionless as the story explaining his life played out before them, like a vision. The scene sped up, as Isabel grasped his hand and they watched the woman give birth to three bairns, all boys. As each was born, one of the other sith took the babe and disappeared. When the birth was finished, the last sith faded away, leaving only the woman and her lover alone.

  The Sith shook his head at her. “You will not find what you seek with him. You will suffer this loss and more by refusing what I offered you. Only one of the three can help you find the happiness you seek.”

  “No,” the woman keened out. “No more!”

  “I do not curse you, Aigneis,” he said softly. “I only see what the failure of your mortal heart will cause.”

  Duncan found it impossible to speak as he watched the sith walk to the fairy hill. The vision of that long ago Samhain night faded, until it was the present day and the moon shone high in the sky overhead. Finally they understood the power that had controlled Duncan’s life and the reasons behind it.

  The sith’s eyes glowed as he turned to face them once more. “That was your past, born of betrayal. You are half sith, half mortal. Destined only to survive in this mortal world if you could find the one thing I could not.”

  “And my mother? Does she yet live?” Duncan asked.

  The sith, his father, smiled. “She lives.”

  “And his brothers?” Isabel asked when Duncan did not. “Do they live?”

  The sith raised his face to the sky and closed his eyes. He nodded, answering her question and confirming Duncan’s brothers had survived, and found love, as he had.

  “Connor and Gavin live and have faced the same challenge you have—to find love born in betrayal before the power destroys you.”

  Duncan took Isabel in his arms and hugged her. “I have brothers!” He laughed, swinging her around in a circle. “We must find them.”

  “She will help you harness your power to find them.”

  Isabel looked startled that she would play a part in the story. The sith, his father, confirmed it. “You have found favor with the sith.” He touched her belly with his finger. “Your daughter will be favored as well. Gifted as only a female can be.”

  Duncan watched as Isabel glowed under his father’s touch. He did not understand what was meant by those words, but if it meant creating a baby, a girl who would be as beautiful as her mother, he did not need to know.

  “Seek out your brothers while your power is high on the day of your birth.”

  Samhain. He’d been born on Samhain.

  The glen grew brighter and brighter as though the sith had brought the sun into the middle of it. Then they were gone and Duncan stood holding Isabel alone among the fairy hills.

  “We should go back, Isabel. There is much to be seen to now.” He was thinking of the wife he must divorce and the woman he must claim as his and only his—legal matters he would have to attend to while trying to control the power he could feel surging within him, ready to be called forth, at his command.

  They ran through the glen, laughing as only those in love can. It took them hours to get back to his farm, all the while trying to understand what they’d learned, but there were still many hours left in Samhain for him to seek out his brothers.

  Epilogue

  Isle of Skye

  Samhain night, 1099 AD

  He could not wait any longer. Duncan thrust deep into his wife’s body and pushed her to find her release. As the moment was on her, he allowed the power within his veins to flow out, searching once more across the expanse of space and time. Isabel was with him, joined in heart, body, and soul, urging him along until he saw—they saw—his brothers.

  Isabel and Duncan seemed suspended in the air high above the coast of the inner islands, over a tower that sat by the sea. A man looked at them and waved to them.

  “Connor!” they said in one voice, mystically certain of his identity.

  Then they were above the northern islands, flying over Orkney toward the coast of Scotland. A man walked out of a huge cave at the edge of the sea and looked up at them, calling out to them by name.

  “Gavin!” Duncan called out and he heard Isabel echo the name in her thoughts.

  They came back to themselves as they reached the moment of complete satisfaction and he poured his seed, his love, and his power into her. She took everything he offered and gave him more in return. They collapsed on the bed, unable to speak for some time, never letting go of each other.

  As the last spasms rippled deep within her flesh, he felt them caressing him, and the air around them began to sparkle and shine. The laughter touched them, moving over their skin and into their bodies.

  “She is favored,” the sith said within their thoughts. “This one shall be called Ariana, for her silver eyes.”

  Duncan pulled Isabel to him, kissing the breath from her and thanking all the powers that were, for letting him find her and letting her save him.

  THE END

  Kilmartin Glen

  Midsummer, 1100 AD

  Duncan and Isabel had followed the words he’d heard in countless dreams, arriving on the Scottish mainland near the ancient hill fort of Dunadd some days ago. He’d shared Connor and Gavin’s words with her, as well as his wonderment at having brothers—and a mother. After buying supplies, a small cart, and horses for the journey, and guided by his brothers’ voices, they followed the main road through the glen, past countless standing stones and markers left centuries in the past. They needed to sail across the lake that lay at the northern end to find the others.

  Though large with their second child, Isabel never slowed and never lost her excitement as they traveled ever closer to his long-separated family. They were just days away from meeting the brothers—and his mother—he’d never known he had until last year.

  Other than the vision his father had revealed to them on Samhain night, he’d never heard his mother’s voice. He wondered what she would look like and how she would greet them. Since having their first child, Isabel knew more about a mother’s heart and tried to convince him his mother would greet him with the love she had not been able to give him throughout his life.

  As they boarded the boat that would take them across the lake on the final part of their journey, Duncan found himself growing ever more nervous about meeting her. Isabel slipped her hand in his and squeezed it, offering him silent reassurance about what was to come. The hours passed slowly. He wanted to scream and order the winds to gather in the sails and move the boat more quickly toward their destination. When the village came into sight, Duncan could hardly breathe from the anticipation.

  Once again, his Isabel understood. “She will love you as I do,” she said quietly, handing their sleeping bairn to him to carry. “Fear not.”

  Their belongings were taken to the end of the dock as Duncan looked around the small cluster of cottages. A man, tall and large, with his long black hair pulled back, walked toward them. “Duncan?” the man asked.

  “Aye,” Duncan answered. “And my wife, Isabel.”

  The man nodded to Isabel, taking a moment to glance at the bairn and Isabel’s obvious pregnancy before turning back to Duncan. “The others wait at my house. ’Tis this way.” He picked up two of the sacks and walked ahead. “I am called Breac.”

  Duncan tempered his excitement, taking Isabel by the hand and walking slowly to accommodate her.

  Breac glanced back as they made their way along the path, smiling several times, but not saying anything else. Others fro
m the village called out greetings to him as they walked. He was clearly a man of some importance. Duncan knew not who he was. The path turned and a large house sat before them.

  Isabel squeezed his hand once more. “Go on ahead, Duncan,” she urged. “Give the bairn to me and go.”

  He would love his wife until he died and forever after that. She understood what he needed to do and allowed him to go on by himself. He handed their daughter to her and hurried on ahead.

  The door opened as he reached the path and two men stepped outside. Both were very like him in appearance, tall, with fair hair and pale eyes, though one had blue eyes and the other green.

  His brothers.

  Duncan swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in his throat. He was a man who’d never thought to have a wife let alone siblings and a mother, and he had all of those and more—a beloved daughter and another bairn on the way.

  From nothing to everything he’d ever desired.

  “Connor.” He held out his hand to the one who’d appeared most often in his dreams. Connor strode over to him and pulled him into a rough hug. Turning to the other, Duncan said his name, “Gavin,” still not believing what was happening.

  Their embrace was interrupted by the soft voice of a woman. “Duncan.”

  He held his breath, unable to stop the tears in his eyes as he faced his mother for the first time in their lives. For a woman of more than two score, she looked incredibly youthful. Her grey eyes shone brightly, from tears and an inner vitality that made her seem much younger than she was.

  She opened her arms and he ran to her, not fighting the emotions that filled him. She held him, touching his face and his hair, murmuring his name over and over until she simply cried. They remained that way for several minutes until Breac called out to her.

  “Aigneis, this is Duncan’s wife.” He escorted Isabel to them. “And their bairn,” he added with a smile.