Moira did also, her face streaked with rain like tears. Saerla’s brighter head—now darkened by wet—lifted in turn. They regarded one another.
“Be we all well?” Saerla asked.
Moira shook her head. “Half deafened by that thunder. How did the both o’ ye find me?”
“Where else would ye go?” Rhian asked. Aye, as she should have known from the outset.
Saerla had one arm wrapped around Moira’s neck and the other around Rhian’s. She tightened them. “Stay but a moment. There is strength in us being together like this. The three sisters MacBeith.”
There was magic in it. And aye, such magic remained Saerla’s domain. Rhian stayed where she was.
“We are stronger all together,” she said. “And we will need that strength, no doubt.”
“Aye,” Saerla agreed, “we will need it for what is to come.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Ha’ ye receiveda Vision, Saerla?” Moira asked. They’d climbed down from the rise in the wake of the storm, encountering both Farlan and Alasdair in passing before moving on to Rhian’s chamber, where they felt they might best be alone.
There they dried off, Rhian lending her sisters fresh clothing. She tended the fire in her own hearth while they found words to exchange with one another.
They needed this time together.
“Nay, I ha’ no’ received a Vision.” Saerla shook her head. Already her hair began to dry in the warmth from the fire, forming a halo of bright curls around her head. “I ha’ no need o’ one. Anyone might feel what is to come.”
Moira nodded soberly. “I ha’ made a right mess o’ things. I wonder what Da would say.”
That made Saerla lift her gaze to Moira’s face. “Ye have no cause to wonder. I ha’ told ye, Da believes Farlan to be your destiny.”
“Aye. To be truthful”—Moira hesitated—“so do I. Yet look at the trouble it has caused. Continues to cause.”
“Aye.” Rhian could only agree.
Moira hurried on, “Just because I trust Farlan—and I do, I would trust him wi’ my very life—does no’ mean the council ever will. Or the clansfolk. Or Alasdair.”
“Alasdair stood for Farlan,” Saerla reminded her, “when he crossed the loch to your side.”
Miserably, Moira said, “Alasdair did that for my sake. No one is fooled into thinking differently. Add to that the fact that, despite our latest victory, Rory MacLeod is no’ done wi’ hounding us. He will attack again and again. If we lose a man here, a man there, if we grow depleted, what will happen then?”
“He will also lose men,” Rhian said. “He has already lost Leith.”
“Aye, a sore blow, if Farlan can be believed. Leith is Rory’s cousin and close to him as can be. But will that no’ merely serve to enrage him all the more?”
“Perhaps best to send Leith MacLeod back,” Saerla suggested.
Rhian felt an immediate tug just beneath her heart, as if the connection to Leith buried there tightened. She wanted to protest it. But aye, mayhap it would be the best thing.
“He has regained his sight,” she announced. “Only a short time ago.”
Both her sisters stared at her.
“’Tis the hand of the gods, that,” Saerla breathed.
“Or Rhian’s. Either way, it makes him more of a threat,” Moira declared. “If we send him home, he may recover to fight against us again in the future.”
Rhian shook her head. “Not soon, and perhaps not ever. That wound in his arm has his life still hanging in the balance.”
“All I know,” Moira said unhappily, “is I do not want a repeat o’ what happened when we tried to bargain wi’ Rory MacLeod over Farlan. Best to send Leith back now, I think.”
