Page 35 of Highlander Unraveled
But the only answer I received was the same mocking silence
I’d fall asleep, staring up at the star-filled sky. Or the cloud covered sky, and I’d endure the rain as it fell upon my head.
I waited for Emma to fill my dreams, but every morning I woke having not seen her, a fact that made me extremely fearful for her safety.
Shona had been hard at work pouring over books in the library and fleshing out old wives tales that might have had anything even the least bit to deal with magic.
Nothing had yet worked.
Not even a sign.
Nor a glimmer of hope.
Even Saor seemed to notice that his mama was gone. The bairn had grown quiet, his cries not as forceful. The nursemaid said he was eating well and sleeping, but the fact that he’d grown so quiet worried me. He stared vigilantly at the world around him, as if hoping he might just catch the sound of his mother on the wind.
I paced the courtyard, still wet from my swim. I rarely went inside. Each morning when I trudged dejectedly back down the mountain, I dove into the loch, plunging deep and searching the bottom, just in case it wasn’t Fate that had taken her.
Emma would never have taken her own life, but that didn’t mean one of my enemies wouldn’t.
Thank the saints I came up empty-handed each time.
I studied the sky, searching out even the smallest hint of a breeze that might show me she was coming back, or that Fate had something more in store for us.
“My laird, can I bring ye something to break your fast?”
I looked at the servant who approached, possibly the one to have drawn the shortest straw. A different one came to me at each meal during the day. Their eyes were also shifty, their steps too close together, bodies taught as if prepared to run.
I grunted. “Whisky.”
I found a dram of whisky every morning helped to settle the fears charging through my brain enough to get my mind thinking. I’d have liked to barricade myself on the battlements where I could see far and wide with a barrel of whisky to numb the pain. But being inebriated wasn’t going to help me find my wife, and likely it would make me feel worse than I already did.
The servant nodded and hurried away. I continued my pacing, glaring up at the clear blue sky. When Emma had been brought to my time the sun had not been shining. A massive storm she’d said had been taking place—but that was on her end of the timeline. My end had been a decent Highland day. Much like this one.
“Good morning,” Shona murmured.
I’d not heard her approach. She held out a cup of whisky and a bannock cake. Guess the servant had passed off the task to someone less likely to get their head chewed off.
“Breakfast,” she said.
I nodded, swigging down the whisky and biting into the cake.
“Am I really so terrifying?” I asked.
Shona laughed, the joyful sounded twinged with loss. “Nay. Not to me.” She cleared her throat, standing beside me both of us looking toward the gate. “Will Moira be arriving today?” she asked, an edge to her voice.
I got the sense she’d been working her way to asking me. Perhaps, I was terrifying. “I pray ’tis so.” I tried to say it softly, to put her and myself at ease. But it didn’t work. The tension inside me only seemed to grow.
“I have an idea, and I’m not sure you’re going to be open to it,” she said, crossing and then uncrossing her arms.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Tell me.”
Shona fiddled with her belt. Tightening it even though it was already tight. “The glen has magical powers, especially when one is giving themselves over to… passion.”
I’d told her about the dream, about seeing Emma and that it was real. That it wasn’t the first time our spirits had made love. Shona hadn’t flinched. Emma had told her about the magical powers of the glen, and she’d taken Ewan up to the top. That was how they’d been able to conceive a child when all else seemed to have failed.
“I’ve gone to the glen every night since the first one,” I said. “But I’ve not seen her again.”
“I’m thinking, that if all five of us are there. Me and Ewan, Moira and Rory, ye, that we might be able to make a bigger, more powerful impact on the glen’s magic.”
