Page 27 of Highlander Redeemed
There at the top was the triple swirl within a circle symbol. She blinked, sure she was wrong, but there it was, the same symbol that was carved into the Targe stone Rowan always carried with her. It was also painted in the center of the ermine sack that held the Targe stone, and was incised on the large rock in the grotto where Jeanette had come into her Guardian gift.
And below it was another symbol: the broken arrow. It was just as she’d seen it painted inside the Targe sack just yesterday. It was the one symbol left without anyone to claim it.
“Duncan?” She looked about and found him scanning the forest at the edge of the meadow. “Did you see something?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Nay, but that is no reason to let down our guard.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, as if to admonish her for losing herself in her memories. “Do you remember that day any better from here?”
“I do.” She shuddered a little and forced herself not to touch her neck.
“Good. Do you see that it was not glorious? Only painful and filled with death? Can you feel it all around you?”
She looked around, taking in the entire meadow, marveling that the battle itself had been mostly confined to a small area opposite where the Guardians had constructed their barrier, made only from the power of the Targe stone. The barrier had driven the English away from her at the stone, all except the gap-toothed bastard. But she could remember naught after Duncan had taken her hand and dragged her away from the stone. She nodded, unable to speak around the lump that lodged in her throat.
“There is no sword here,” he said, disappointment pulling the corners of his mouth down. “We should go.”
It was only then that Scotia remembered why she had insisted they come out here to the stone. She hadknownthere was a sword here for her. Was she wrong? She looked about quickly, but the symbols on the stone once more captured her attention. As she looked closer she could see the faint lines of other symbols carved into the stone below the ones she knew from the Targe and its sack. She reached up and ran her fingers along another carving. This one, upon closer inspection, appeared to be a melding of the three symbols from the edge of the Targe sack, as if whoever had carved them here had carved them one on top of the other so that they were jumbled together, the broken arrow weaving through the other two.
“I have heard of this stone once or twice, but never has anyone mentioned these carvings,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Carvings?” Duncan asked.
“Aye, come around and look at this side of it.” He joined her, though his eyes were still clearly focused on the forest. She touched his arm to gain his attention, then she pointed up at the largest of the carvings at the top, the triple swirls within a circle. “Do you recognize that?”
Duncan glanced up at it, then shook his head.
“’Tis carved on the Targe stone, and painted inside the ermine sack.”
That got his attention. He stepped a little closer to her, standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder as he gazed up at it.
“Do you see the symbol below it?” she asked.
“It looks like an arrow broken in two places.” He glanced at Scotia. “Do you recognize it?”
“Aye. ’Tis the third symbol painted around the edge of the ermine sack. Jeanette and Rowan claim the other two are symbols of their gifts. That would make this one—”
“A symbol for another gift? Yours? I dinna ken how aknowingis symbolized by a broken arrow, though.”
“Rowan and Jeanette said if I was a third Guardian I would understand what the symbol meant.”
“And you do not?”
“I do not,” she said, but her mind was busy working on a problem. When Jeanette had been taken by the power of the Targe stone she had found a large boulder with the swirl symbol incised on it, as well as the mirror that was the symbol of her gift of second sight. When she had found the two symbols together, in the grotto, her gift had overtaken her as the Targe claimed her. Would that happen here, to Scotia? If she was a third Guardian and the broken-arrow symbol was meant for her, perhaps indicating some gift beyond herknowing, would she be chosen by the Targe now?
She pressed her hand to the arrow and waited for something similar to what she had seen happen to Rowan, or to what Jeanette had told her about being claimed by the Targe, to happen to her.She closed her eyes and searched within for anything unusual, anything different ...
Nothing.
“Scotia? Is something wrong?” Duncan asked, startling her out of her concentration.
“Wrong?” She let out a shuddering breath. “Aye. Something is wrong. If I am meant to be a Guardian, finding these symbols here, together like this, should have been ... should have made ...” She shook her head hard, as if that would loosen the words that did not want to leave her mouth. “’Tis clearly not meant for me. I am not a Guardian.”
“But yourknowing, ’tis a gift.”
“But not a Guardian gift. ’Twill serve me and the clan well in battle, aye? I do not need to be a Guardian to protect the clan. I will be a warrior.” She glared up at the stone as if it had insulted her greatly. “I will be a warrior,” she said as if convincing the stone.
She looked back over the meadow, the battle area notably empty of the early summer wildflowers that dotted the rest of the meadow with blooms of white and yellow and lavender. If she had harbored any hope of being a Guardian after yesterday’s failure, she harbored it no more. Oddly, she felt relief at knowing for sure that she was not meant to be a Guardian. She need not wonder any longer. She need not feel hopeful, nor disappointed, and her decision to become a warrior was made all the stronger for the clarity gained this day.
“We should return to the cover of the wood,” she said just as Duncan asked, “What are these other symbols?” He nodded at the jumbled symbols she had already forgotten about.
