Page 7 of Highland Storm

Quickly, as though she feared to change her mind, Sorcha tugged the cloth and the tartan slid off the keek stane, revealing a concave crystal from whence all the mist in the room seemed to emanate. All that remained trapped within the crystal shifted violently into desperate shapes.

Una waited patiently for the energy to be harnessed, and then demanded, “Tell me what you see.”

For a long moment, Sorcha’s gaze was inscrutable, and then, curiosity silenced the beat of her heart, and she slipped past Una, around the table so that she might better peer into the ancient keek stane.

There inside the crystal, shapes began to coalesce… but this bruadar was not for Una, so she kept her eyes affixed to Sorcha. Illumined by the changing light of the crystal, the girl’s dark hair appeared as violet as her eyes. Her skin took on the translucent hue of a pearl. After a moment, Sorcha lifted her eyes from the crystal and met Una’s gaze.

Una’s brows wiggled with amusement. “Speak. Tell me what you see.”

“I-I canna be certain,” Sorcha said.

“It is better to see without certainty than to yield to blindness.”

Long accustomed to Una’s enigmatic lectures, Sorcha peered down again into the keek stane, staring into the swirling eddies. She swallowed perceptibly. “I see a broch.”

Una’s brows lifted. “A stone tower?”

Sorcha nodded.

“Of the Norman type, or rather those erected by our ancestors?”

“Not Norman.”

“What else?”

“A wolf and a blue four-legged bird.”

“What else?” Una snapped.

“I canna be certain,” Sorcha said, nipping at her lower lip.

“Ye must remember that certainty is the death of dreams. Hurry, child, tell me what more ye see.”

The images faded irretrievably and Sorcha shook her head. “I dinna see aught more,” she said, looking confused.

Annoyed, Una clucked her tongue. “’Tis too late now!” She lifted up the tartan from the table, tossing it irritably over the keek stane, concealing the crystal.

“What does it mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“What is that crystal?”

“There is an unseen life who dreams us, Sorcha… one who knows our fate. The crystal provides a glimpse through Cailleach’s eye. But the bruadar is yours alone to decipher.”

Sorcha’s gaze lifted to Una’s face, to the patch that hid Una’s one missing eye. Disappointed, Una turned her face. “Go on, take my book back to your room.”

“Why?” Sorcha argued. “I dinna ken how to read it.”

“But ye will.”

“Una… I mislike the way ye’re speaking—as though ye mean to leave us.”

The chords of Una’s neck and shoulders tightened. The strain was taking a toll. Another winter would be her undoing. She needed a long rest. At the moment, even the thought of making her way down the hillside did not appeal.

“Tha mi cho sgìth ri seann chù,” she said. I'm as tired as an old dog. Slowly, as though her bones might break with the effort, she moved back toward the chair and sat down once more. “Take the poultice down yourself, Sorcha.”

Sorcha’s brows slanted unhappily. “But why, Una? I dinna ken.”