Interest piqued, my brother’s brows pinched together as he leaned forward and stared at me.
“How can ye possibly know that?”
I wasn’t sure, but I knew with absolute certainty that I was right.
“I still feel her somehow. ’Tis as if our shared magic bonds us in a way I doona have the knowledge to understand. Grier is still alive.”
Alasdair took in breath so quickly that his lungs made a painful noise at the sudden intrusion of cold hair. Relief seemed to roll off him as I looked on in wonder.
I assumed Alasdair’s distress had come from his worry over how I would handle the news of Grier’s death, but I could see as I watched him that I had missed something in my assumption.
“I dinna know ye cared for Grier so much.”
A half-hearted, restrained smile crossed my brother’s face as he leaned back on his arms and looked across at me.
“Grier was the first woman I ever loved.”
Still not understanding, I dismissed him.
“Everyone was in love with Grier.”
“No, lass. Ye doona understand. I wanted to marry her. I asked her more than once but she denied me every time, never giving me an explanation that made any sense. She held my heart in a way that only Elspeth has ever surpassed.”
My mind reeled. While a kinder sister would have been more sympathetic toward her brother’s heartfelt confession, I couldn’t help but find it anything other than hysterically funny.
“Alasdair, I know why she wouldna marry ye.”
His brows lifted again as he twisted his head in doubt.
“Do ye now? Please, do tell.”
“Grier is at least four times yer age—older than our grandmother was.”
I bent over and lost myself in a fit of hysterics as Alasdair’s eyes all but bulged from their sockets.
“Trust me, lass. I know that canna be true. I saw more of Grier than I had right to at such a young age, and there was no part of her that was aged in any way.”
I struggled to speak between bouts of laughter as I lifted from my doubled-over position to look at him.
“Aye, ’tis true. Her magic allows her to appear whatever age she pleases. She told me that I would someday be able to do the same. We doona age like the rest of ye.”
I watched Alasdair’s face carefully change from an expression of horror to amusement. Before long, he sat laughing even more loudly than I was.
“I hardly know what to say. While I canna rightly express how pleased I am to hear that she is alive, I doona believe I’ll ever be able to think of her in the same way again.”
With my own laughter finally subsiding, other obvious questions came to mind.
“Why were ye looking for her, Alasdair? We’ve barely spoken of her since she left.”
Alasdair’s face grew grim once more as he corrected me.
“She dinna leave, Morna. I doona believe she ever would have left if Father hadn’t sent her away. I saw her face that day in the field. It broke something in her—not only her heart but nearly her soul—to leave us that day. Ye’ve need of her now. I thought it past time I saw her home.”
Alasdair always believed he knew more about what I needed than I did. Most of the time, he was right. The same age difference lay between me and Alasdair, as did between Alasdair and our father—sixteen years. Oftentimes, it seemed that while Father was Alasdair’s da, Alasdair served as mine.
“Why do I have more need of her now than ever? Has something happened to me that I canna see?”
Alasdair let out a frustrated growl as he stood and paced in front of me.
