Page 31 of Highlander Redeemed
She made short work of retrieving her sword and was quickly back on the ground next to Duncan. She expected that wonderful broad smile that he gave her when she’d accomplished one of her training tasks particularly well, but his face was still unreadable.
“There is more to this test?” she asked, but he said nothing. “Very well.” Now that she knew what the training was today she was anxious to continue it. She let her mind drift, waiting for that moment when sheknewsomething. And then it was there, in her mind. “You have hidden the dagger that killed my mum,” she said. “If I find it, ’tis mine again.”
Duncan nodded. “That seems fair, but first you must find it.”
She closed her eyes and returned to theknowing, but this time she added a silent chant:the dagger, the dagger, the dagger. She did not say anything but headed up the ben, past the lochan, and on up the steep slope until she found a downed tree. Without hesitating, she reached inside a rotted-out portion of the trunk and pulled the dagger from under leaves that had gathered in it—or that Duncan had added to the hollow after he’d hidden the knife. She turned and showed it to him.
“’Tis mine once more,” she said, sliding the sheathed blade into her belt.
“Do not lose it again,” Duncan said.
“Never.” She pinned him with a look. “Why is this working when it did not for Jeanette’s healer’s bag?” she asked. “These are but things—blades both,” she said, putting one hand on the pommel of the sword and her other on the haft of the dagger, “but things nonetheless.”
Duncan looked at her but his usually readable face was still a mask to her. “You did not ken Conall was among the allies when they arrived, did you?”
“Nay, though I would not have mentioned him if I had. I did not ken exactly which allies were arriving, only that some were.”
“You kent I was joining you at the lochan, did you not?”
She nodded slowly. “How did you know that?”
“You were standing as if you knew exactly where I was coming from, though ’twas not a direction any of the trails or any of our usual locations lead from. And while you looked a bit irritated with me, you did not look surprised to see me coming that way.”
“Iknewyou were coming, and then I closed my eyes and ... I do not ken how to explain it exactly but ’twas as if I felt for where you were. I turned until the feeling was strongest, and that is where you came from.”
She watched as her words sank into him.
“And you were irritated with me for keeping you waiting so long?”
“Of course.”
He nodded and looked about him before he turned back to her. “Emotion is the key for you, Scotia,” he said. “You must have a strong emotional connection with the thing ... or person ... in order for you toknowwhere they are.”
“But I dinna give a rat’s ass about you,” she said quickly, and to his unexpected satisfaction, not very convincingly.
“You do. You always have, but since we kissed ’tis stronger. Can you not admit that? Since then you have known where I was, have you not?”
Scotia wanted to deny it but what he said was true, though she had not realized it until this moment. “Aye, though not all the time. But if I think of you, or someone says your name, I ken exactly where you are. I do not remember being able to do that before ... before you kissed me.”
“An emotional connection,” he said.
“But I do not feel—”
He stepped closer to her and touched her hand. Her heart thumped harder in her chest.
“You do. ’Tis why you ken where I am even when I am not here with you.”
“But why?”
“Why?”
She pulled her hand away from him. “Why just you? I have kissed Conall, but I get nothing even when I say his name. Rowan, Jeanette, they are important to me. Why do I not know where they are?”
“Do you not?”
“Nay!”
“Then why have you always found it so easy to elude them when they were looking for you? Think about it, Scotia. Calm your thoughts and think back to a time you did not want to be found. How did you stay hidden?”
