“I swear, I will be fine.”
“Willpower alone canna accomplish this. I wish it could.”
“Who will lead the men if MacLeod attacks us again?”
“Perhaps Moira will herself.”
“No’ with that Farlan at her side! The men will ne’er countenance it. Nor will the council.”
“Nay.” Rhian did not suppose they would.
“Wha’ if Moira marches out and MacLeod takes her down? Ha’ ye thought o’ that?”
Rhian had not. It was unimaginable.
“’Tis all I can think about. Lyin’ here,” Alasdair said wretchedly.
He loved her. He loved Moira still.
That knowledge made Rhian gentle when she said, “Ye maun believe, Alasdair. The battles ha’ all gone our way so far. There must be some magic in it.”
“I ha’ told ye before, I do no’ believe in magic. And has it no’ occurred to ye, mistress, the battles may ha’ gone our way because I was there?”
Chapter Fifty-One
Despite her bone-deepexhaustion, Rhian climbed the rise to the standing stones. She had intended not to go, and had told Saerla so, but something called her. She went just as the gloaming began to come down, bringing the close of another day. The wind had died, and she saw, when she reached the height, that a soft mist gathered among the stones, as it so often did.
When they were all young, the four of them, including Arran, had come up here frequently. Saerla used to say the mist was proof of the magic that dwelt at this place.
Ye can see it only sometimes.But ’tis here always.
Rhian did not spy her sister when she reached the height. Perhaps she’d missed Saerla at her prayers. If so, she would have to seek her out below. Because she needed to know what Saerla knew.
It had frightened her, what Alasdair said—that he sensed something big and terrible bearing down on them. He was not a fanciful man. Besides, she too sensed it.
Slowly, she walked toward the mist and felt the ancient magic descend upon her. So quiet here amid the steeped knowledge of the ages and the sleeping dead. She paused at Da’s cairn and laid her hand on one of the stones.
She wished she could speak to him for even one moment. Unburden her heart as she had so often in the past. Gaze into his kind blue eyes and feel the strength of him that always bore her up.
Perhaps she could still speak to him.
“Da, I am so weary. Tired to my verra soul. I do no’ ken how to go on wi’out him.”
Not so much as a bird settling for the night made answer. But the mist continued to roll out from the stones as if reaching for her.
She caressed the stone with her fingers and whispered, “I carry your grandchild. Your first. But I canna see a future for him.”
Saerla stepped forward out from the stones. She seemed to materialize from the mist itself, and looked so otherworldly, Rhian caught her breath.
“Sister?”
Was that Saerla, or merely an image of her? A memory. Because the woman with the flowing red-gold hair and dreamy gaze did not glance at Rhian or acknowledge her presence.
“Saerla?”
Rhian took her hand from the stone, still warm from the day’s sun, and went to her sister. Flesh and blood, aye. And caught fast in some wonderment.
A Vision?
