“She has come awake. Regained her senses, more or less.”
More or less?
Rory stared at his cousin, who entered the chamber and shut the door behind him. “Rhian remains wi’ her. I recommend ye leave them together for a time.”
“Aye, to be sure.” Saerla needed her sister. “Will she recover completely?”
Leith shrugged. “Cursed if I know. I do no’ think even Rhian is sure. She has seen Saerla suffer Visions all her life. I gather few ha’ ever taken her as hard as this one.”
Leith studied Rory carefully before he went on, “I mysel’ ha’ never seen the like.”
“Nay.”
“Ye stood there holding her, just, and she was gazing across o’er the glen. Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she—Well, ’twas like she was no longer there in her body.”
Rory went and sat on the settle before the cold fire, rubbed his hands across his face. “I thought for an instant I’d killed her. That my blade had somehow moved of its own and slit her throat. The manner in which she collapsed against me—”
Leith said nothing. He paced to the table, poured a dram, and thrust it into Rory’s hand.
“They are close, these sisters. Rhian is beside hersel’, and if Moira believes some harm has come to wee Saerla, she will come seeking vengeance.”
Aye. As he would, in her place.
Rory raised his face and regarded his cousin. “Wha’ d’ye suppose she Saw?”
Leith shook his head.
“She has no’ said?”
“Nay, and I think Rhian fears to ask her.”
“It maun have been somewhat dire, to seize her so.”
Leith’s eyes looked grave and cold. “Her own death, mayhap? The death o’ someone she loves?”
A shiver took Rory from head to toe. The desire to protect Saerla, to keep her from all harm, blazed within him again. But how could even he protect a woman from what was foretold?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Saerla and Rhianlay in the big bed, Saerla with her sister’s arms wrapped around her, just as they had when they were very small. She could not tell when Rhian had gotten up from the floor where she’d been kneeling and climbed in under the counterpane, but the reassurance of it, the sense of belonging, helped ground Saerla after that terrifying flight.
All she found missing now from the comfort of it was Moira, who had always cuddled up on her other side.
Moira. She had Seen Moira fall. Run through by Rory MacLeod’s blade.
When Saerla thought on that, the whole of the Vision came roaring back at her again. The clamor and the screaming. The crashing of weapons. The blood. Alasdair going down. Moira with bright courage in her eyes.
Moira had always been the courageous one. The defender. Not to say she did not become afraid. She did. Saerla had seen stark terror in Moira’s face many times. She had on the night Da died. But Moira was able to put that fear aside for the sake of others.
For the sake of MacBeith.
Even though Moira was a defender more than anything else, Saerla could not doubt she would march out and attack Rory if, say, he took Saerla’s life.
Indeed, what she’d Seen might have taken place after she, herself, was dead.
Was that why this Vision had affected her so drastically, had taken her down so far? Because she’d been a dead woman—would be a dead woman when it took place.
She drew a deep breath, lying there with Rhian’s arms around her, warmth seeping into her, and stared into the room. She breathed, aye, yet. And she tried to remind herself that a Vision was not destiny. It but revealed a path where life might or might not lead.
