Page 49 of Highlander Redeemed
Jeanette started to speak once more, but this time Scotia stopped her. “Sister, he is right”—her voice wobbled just a little, but she was determined to take without complaint whatever punishment he deemed necessary—“and though I have no intention of bringing further trouble here, I cannot promise it won’t happen, for I have never meant to bring trouble to our clan.”
Nicholas nodded at her, but his eyes were unreadable.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NIGHT WAS FALLING. A crackling fire cast a small circle of flickering light around the Guardians where they worked near the burn, leaving Scotia alone in the dark. Her back was beginning to hurt. Her hands were numb, and so were her feet. Malcolm had trussed her up like a deer ready for roasting, then tied a rope around her waist and the tree, just as she’d been tied to the Story Stone. It had taken every bit of courage she could muster to let him do that to her without complaint. She hadn’t said a single word.
She did not think she had another word in her after her confessions of this afternoon anyway. She had told the truth about almost everything, not knowing if it was too late to make a difference. She still didn’t know, wouldn’t until Duncan returned and she could tell him that she had lied when she said she held no love for him.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on Duncan, saying his name over and over in her head until sheknewhe was still alive. He felt closer now, as if he were heading back to the glen. Would he even give her a chance to tell him of her heart?
He must, even if he could no longer love her. It was her last secret, held so tightly she had hidden it even from herself.
Something passed over her, a sensation that made every hair on her skin stand up.
“How often do you have to renew the barrier?” she asked, recognizing the sensation as the same one she felt when she entered and left the bower, passing through the barrier.
“I thought you had gone to sleep,” Jeanette said, but did not look at her sister. She was moving her hands through the air in one of the blessings their mum had taught both of them many years ago. She had discovered that it strengthened a barrier once it was created.
“I could never sleep like this,” Scotia said, holding her bound hands up to make her point.
Rowan looked over at her. “That is the first time you have even made reference to your situation. ’Tis most unlike you, cousin.”
“Do you think I cannot change?”
“I think that remains to be seen.” Rowan held the Targe stone up in front of her, face high, and a light breeze whipped up, swirling around the bower.
“What are you doing?” Scotia asked, desperately needing something to take her mind off the pins and needles in her hands, and the chill of the ground that was creeping into her backside.
“Practicing. Just as you have practiced your sword skills with Duncan, we must practice using our gifts through the stone.”
The breeze grew stronger as Rowan closed her eyes and concentrated. A branch cracked overhead, then flew across the bower to land, broken end buried in the ground. Rowan opened her eyes and grinned.
“’Tis a handy thing to be able to do, aye?” she asked no one in particular.
“Wheesht,” Jeanette said. She was staring into an overfilled cup of water sitting on the ground in front of her, one hand held out to Rowan, who moved the stone close enough for Jeanette to touch it.
“Can you see where the English are?” Scotia asked.
Rowan and Jeanette both shushed her.
Scotia watched as her cousin and her sister did things she would never be able to do. They prepared for battle in their own ways, not warriors with sword and shield, but warriors all the same. Scotia knew she would never be a warrior of any sort.
She was still trying to understand what Duncan and Jeanette had said to her, that she had not been responsible for letting the spy get to her mum. Even if she had not caused her mum’s death, the belief that she had and the guilt that came with that belief had changed her, moving her in a direction she never would have imagined, filling her with pain, and hatred, and a need to see vengeance done.
That need for vengeance had driven her to seek out the English on her own, which had put Myles directly in danger and had cost him his life. He had died right next to her, and she had not even been allowed to give him comfort as he did. That lay heavy on her conscience too, turning her in yet another direction—preparing herself for battle so she would never put another warrior in a position to protect her when she should do that herself.
Two deaths. Two times her world was broken and put back together in a new way ...
She looked at the ermine sack that lay on the ground between the Guardians.
Twice broken ... like the arrow on the sack and on the Story Stone. Was it possible? But if she was meant to be the third Guardian, if the twice-broken arrow really was her symbol, then why had the Targe not claimed her the day at the Story Stone, as Jeanette had been claimed when she found her mirror symbol on the grotto stone?
And then Scotia realized she knew the answer. She was not worthy to become a Guardian. Not then, but now? Now that she understood the things she had done wrong, the things the fear and hatred in her heart had led her to do, the things that she had admitted to and taken responsibility for, now would she be worthy?
If she was, it would mean they had yet another Guardian to help protect the clan and the Highlands. If she was, would her gift ofknowingbecome stronger? Would she be able to use it at will? ’Twould make her gift an even more formidable weapon against their enemy.
And if she was not worthy? That would be yet another thing she would have to take responsibility for, for if she was not worthy, ’twas no one’s fault but her own, and the clan would be the one to suffer for her failures. She could not bear to let anyone else suffer because of her.
