Chapter One
Northwest Scotland, July 1620
Saerla MacBeith stoodpoised at the top of the rise overlooking Glen Bronach with her arms spread wide in the sweet morning air. Even though she kept her eyes closed tight, she could see in her mind all the details of this place she knew so well. The great sweep of green that led down from her perch to the valley floor below; the loch that lay glittering in the new light like a precious drop of water cupped in a giant’s hand. The burn that led into and out of the loch, deep in its seam. The rough stone dwelling place to her right, which she could see from above.
Home.
A rush of love came up the glen, as if riding on the breeze that flew in from the sea, and suffused her. She treasured everything about this place, from the holy ring of standing stones at her back, to the graves of her ancestors not far away, to the strength of the granite beneath her feet. That feeling upheld her even in such dire times as these.
She opened her eyes and narrowed them a bit against the bright light. Her father, who lay in the cairn not twenty steps away from where she stood, had been their chief, Iain MacBeith. She was the youngest of his three daughters.
She blinked away some of the moisture that had gathered on her lashes. If she focused her gaze and peered far, she could justglimpse a dark blot on the other side of the glen. The keep of Clan MacLeod. Her enemies.
She did not like seeing it there, spoiling this vision of magical beauty. But one thing she had learned—a woman, even a Highland Seer like herself, could not deny what was.
The breeze blew against her a tad more insistently, and she rocked on the balls of her feet. The wind smelled of wild thyme and the far-distant sea, and caressed her skin with warmth.
Standing here so, she almost felt she could fly. Just keep her arms spread like wings, kick up her feet behind her, and soar out over the glen. Leave behind the weight of her responsibilities and her worries. The dread. Soar away into freedom.
The dread, aye, lay like a ball of iron in her gut, tethering her spirit.
“Please,” she whispered to the air, to the spirits of those at rest behind her, to the standing stones. To the glen itself. This place that was her strength.
They had lost so much.
That thought had haunted her of late, set up a chant in her head. Even when, as now, she came up here to the place where she’d always found peace to pray and seek guidance, it stole her concentration.
At barely twenty, she had lost so many she loved. Her ma first, to illness. Her big, bright brother, Arran, with his crop of wild red hair, not unlike her own, and smiling eyes. Lost in a battle against MacLeod. Da, cut down just three months ago, also by their enemies. Countless friends and brave clansmen she had known from birth. And now—and now…
Her sister, Rhian.
Och, not that Rhian was dead. no. But she’d been swallowed up in the conflict between MacBeith and MacLeod. Sometimes it seemed to Saerla that Rhian might as well be dead. Lost to her.
Since Arran’s death, it had been the three of them, the sisters MacBeith, standing together against all things. Even when her elder sister, Moira, had taken a MacLeod defector for a lover, they had held, indivisible. With every loss and every blow, they had battled together. Moira on the field as a warrior and in the place of chief. Rhian with her gift of healing, holding them sheltered even as Ma had always done, keeping the fire burning at their heart. Herself with her gift of the Sight rooting them in the magic native to this place and taking her stand also on the field of battle when she must.
Now—now Rhian had gone to the other side of the loch to live at MacLeod. With the man she loved.
Saerla narrowed her eyes again and trained them on that distant black speck—MacLeod’s keep. Hard to imagine Rhian surviving there. Alone among strangers, having chosen the man she loved above her sisters and her clan.
Hard, too, not to feel hurt by that. Aye, Saerla understood about the power of romantic love, even if she’d never experienced it. But she didn’t realize quite how Rhian had made that choice. She had broken the chain. Now they were two instead of three.
Saerla had come up here, aye, to pray and perhaps seek a Vision to guide them. The bitterness, though, accompanied her. A woman could not present herself to the spirits with bitterness in her heart. A heart that sought a Vision must be calm and open in order to allow in the light.
Only, some Visions were dark.
She pressed her lips together at that, and turned away from the beauty spread out below her. Back toward the stones.
“Da.” She acknowledged him with a nod and a touch to one of the stones that formed his cairn. Softly she spoke a prayer for the peaceful disposition of his soul. What would he think of Rhian leaving them?
She could not imagine.
Rhian had left to follow Leith MacLeod, who had been a prisoner here and under Rhian’s care. Leith was heir to the place of chief at MacLeod, being cousin to the current leader, a man named Rory.
Saerla’s mind flinched from the thought of him. Rory MacLeod. The source of all their trouble. The boggart of Glen Bronach.
Saerla had seen him in the past, of course. She’d caught glimpses of him during battles, a fierce fury of a warrior with flying black hair and feral green eyes. She’d also gained a much closer look at him during the battle not long past when she’d been captured and very nearly hauled away as a prisoner.
She hadn’t been hauled away. But only because an exchange had taken place, her for Leith MacLeod.
