Chapter 1
To the right and noble William MacKay, Lord Strathwick,
My deepest wishes that your health and prosperity continue in this most difficult time. Your lack of response to my previous correspondence signifies that this might not be so. If I am mistaken, please take care to correct this misconception. As I explained in my previous missives, my father is still very unwell. It is my greatest wish that you should grace our humble home with a visit. Your miraculous skill in the arts of healing is spoken of throughout the land and I fear you are his last hope. I pray you to remember that these gifts you are blessed with were given to you by the Almighty, to use as He wills. Alan MacDonell is a good and honorable man. He has been a just chieftain to his people and a good servant to His Majesty and God. It cannot but be God’s will that you do this. So why do you ignore my pleas?
We have much to offer in the way of compensation and reward, and we will endeavor to meet any request you might make for sustenance or comfort. I pray you, my dear lord, do as God wills you and come to Lochlaire with haste. You are our only hope.
Thus indebted to the great pains you shall take on our behalf,
your good and humble servant,
Rose MacDonell
From the House of Lochlaire on xv July
The year of our Lord 1597
Rose read the letter over again with a critical eye. It was the tenth letter she’d written him in so many weeks. Her gaze strayed to the window. A gray pall lay over Glen Laire. Soon it would be harvest, then it would turn cold and there would be snow. William MacKay lived in the far, wild north, where the weather and terrain—as well as the inhabitants—were brutal. It would be foolish to attempt the journey in the winter. Time was running out.
It would take at least a week for the letter to reach him. An unspecified amount of time for him to respond. And again, another week or more to receive his answer. A month? Winter was months away. The journey was still possible. Perhaps there was time.
Her shoulders sagged at the futility of these calculations. She’d been writing to the MacKay chief for months. He’d yet to respond to a single plea. What made her think this one was any different? And when the weather turned ugly, it was certain he would not come.
She looked over her shoulder to the still figure on the bed. Alan MacDonell had been clinging to life for months now. He was horribly thin and weak but no worse. In fact, there had been some improvement over the past month. That should encourage her, but it didn’t. Rose feared he’d given up the good fight, and without the will to live, all was for naught.
She’d tried, over the past two months, to convince herfamily members to help her bring Lord Strathwick to Glen Laire. Uncle Roderick thought it was a bad idea to bring a hunted wizard to Glen Laire and had forbade her to continue writing him. She’d ignored this edict, of course. Hagan, her father’s guard, also thought it too dangerous, what with the current state of matters in Scotland. He felt that the wizard’s healing powers were too mythic to be true. He feared that Rose only opened herself to disappointment. And though her sisters and brothers-in-law agreed with both Uncle Roderick and Hagan, the earl of Kincreag, Gillian’s new husband, had sent a man to fetch the Wizard of the North. To humor her, certainly, but it was something, and Rose was grateful to him.
It was past time Kincreag’s man returned, and yet there was no sign of him. Lord Kincreag feared he’d had a mishap on the journey and wouldn’t return until the spring. If ever.
All of this merely frustrated Rose. If only she could talk to Lord Strathwick. If only he would answer her letters. She stared down at the parchment before her, wondering what she could do to make this letter somehow different, more convincing than the previous ones.
She rose from the writing table and crossed to her father’s bed. Unfortunately her ability to heal was not sufficient to save Alan MacDonell. His sleep was restless. She watched as his gaunt face twitched beneath the full gray beard. He frowned in his sleep, shook his head slightly.
Rose placed a hand against her father’s forehead. It was cool. She exhaled, her hand closing into a fist. If hewere feverish, then at least she’d know what to do. She closed her eyes, sliding her hand over his head and body, fingers almost touching him, but not quite, seeing the shape of his body in her mind, glowing softly with color.
This was her magic. With concentration, when she passed her hands over a body, she couldseethe ailment. A fever was an angry red glow suffusing the body. The area causing the fever—often internal—was a dark, textured color. Her magic was a great help in diagnosing and treating all sorts of ailments, but it was of no use if she could not see what was wrong.
With her father, she saw nothing. Every person possessed their own color when healthy, and Rose could see that, too, when she passed her hands over them. Alan MacDonell’s color was green. Normally a lovely shade like spring grass, it had faded so that she could barely see it. As if the light—and life—were being drained from him. Rose could pinpoint no source, no darkness. Nothing. He was just fading away before her eyes, and there was not a thing she could do to stop it.
The door opened, and Rose’s hands fell to her sides.
“How is he?” Uncle Roderick asked softly, moving to the other side of the bed to look down at his brother. Roderick was a big man, with powerful shoulders and lustrous copper hair tied at his nape. His handsome face creased with worry and sadness—and resignation. Everyone else had accepted the inevitable, that Alan MacDonell would soon die. Rose could not accept it. After twelve years apart, it could not end like this. There was more to do. More to say. Hecould notdie.
She gazed down at her father. His sleep had calmed.
“He’s the same.” She clenched her useless hands. Energy still coiled tight in her chest, making her restless and confused. It was always this way, as if there was more to do—but what, she couldn’t fathom. “The nightmares are fewer and less severe. No bruising.” For a time he’d suffered from horrible nightmares that he’d been unable to remember. And when he’d woken, he’d been covered with odd bruises, as if he’d been beaten. It had been nearly a month since the last incident.
Rose rubbed her eyes wearily. “How is Tira?”
Tira was Roderick’s third wife. The MacDonells seemed to be cursed. Rose’s father had managed to have three healthy daughters with his wife, Lillian, who had been burned at the stake for witchcraft. He’d wed again, but his second wife had died in childbirth. Uncle Roderick had married three times in the past twelve years. The first two wives had died in childbirth as well. He had no children. His current wife, Tira, was heavily pregnant and due to give birth in a few weeks.
It was a very important baby Tira carried. Alan had no sons, so his lands and leadership of the Glen Laire MacDonells would pass to his younger half brother when he died. If Roderick died without issue, it would all revert back to Alan’s children. As Isobel was the oldest, it would go to her husband, Sir Philip Kilpatrick. Rose could think of worse things than Sir Philip being chieftain of the MacDonells, but then Roderick was a strong leader, too, and the MacDonells knew him and trusted him.
And more importantly, it was a son that Tira carried. Many MacDonells were fey. Rose’s mother, Lillian, had been a powerful witch. Rose and both of her sisters werewitches. And Alan had a shine. One of his powers was the ability to determine the sex of the child a woman carried. He’d never been wrong. Before he’d fallen ill, women had come from miles around so he could touch their bellies. He’d once confided to Rose that he didn’t actually have to touch the women to do it, but they’d always offered their bellies up, and it had seemed to make them more confident when he’d laid hands on them.
“Poor Tira. She’s tired and has been a bit achy,” Roderick said. “Mayhap you could come look at her when ye’re done here?”
Rose sighed. She was forever tending Tira for every little twinge. It wasn’t Tira who was difficult; it was her doting husband. He panicked at every little pain she had. Though Tira could still get around fine, Roderick had confined her to bed for the past two months.
