by Lora Andrews
Caitlin jumped to block her path and extended her hands, letting her magic brim. “It’s over, Laoghaire. It’s only a matter time before Balor is restrained. Running will make things worse for you.”
The Norn’s frenzied gaze darted to Balor, but he was lost in his battle against Dyn. Brigid rose off the floor, sword in hand. Fionn cradled a nasty gash against his stomach.”
“It’s over,” Caitlin said, throwing more certainty in her voice. “No one needs to get hurt.”
“No. No.” The Norn’s glazed eyes landed on her son squirming in Ewen’s arms. “No. It is only beginning.”
She threw magic at the wall behind her. A circular area of stone disappeared into a spinning vortex of light.
No, not light. A portal.
“Don’t!” Caitlin screamed.
Laoghaire spun and ran through the portal, the light blinking off as she vanished.
Shadowy Norn stood behind Orhavet, her hands clamped to the sides of his head. He opened his mouth. Sound bounced around the room. Unknown words rattled inside Caitlin’s head. Exhaustion clawed at her chest.
Shields. Shields. Secure shields.
But she was too late. A vision flared in her mind’s eye. She saw her grandmother, Mariota, as clear as if she were standing before her.
Get out of my head.
Her grandmother spoke. “Swene, you doona know what ye speak of. Stop, brother. For the love of god, stop.”
The room’s stone walls faded away, replaced with bright tapestries. The great hall. Confused, Caitlin wheeled around. How did I get here? Stone cold floors dug into her knees. Tears blurred her vision. Her love lay dying on the floor.
A memory? Caitlin was trapped in her grandmother’s memory. She had to get out.
Swene foamed at the mouth, yelling ugly words. He was crazy. He’d lost his mind.
She searched the floor. A sword lay on the other side of his body, out of reach.
“I am laird,” Swene yelled at her. “I am your chief. Everything you see—” He waved the bloody sword around, droplets of blood hitting the floor. “Everything is mine. Mine. Rightfully mine.” Spittle flew from his mouth. He thinned his lips. “You would defy me? You would let Campbell steal our lands over myth? Over ancient lore? No, not lore, lies. Lies passed from our forefathers.”
This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
The cooper tang of blood invaded her nose.
“No,” Caitlin screamed. It was Ewen. Ewen’s body on the ground. Ewen’s blood.
It can’t be real. Push the Norn out. I have to push the Norn out.
But the words were too loud, multiple streams pinging inside her head.
“Give me the stone, Mariota. Give me the stone.”
Kill him, the voice pleaded. Look what he’s done.
Ewen was on the floor. So much blood. So much blood. It seeped into her dress. Her hands. Her breasts. She squeezed the stone in her hand. They’d almost made it out of the castle. Almost. My god, please, by all that is holy, I beseech ye to help me. Save Ewen. Please.
Not her words. Not her words.
Invoke the spell and his pain will end, the voice teased.
The time spell had been permanently etched into her memory. Like a prayer, the words came to her tongue. I call forth the winds of time and space…she prayed. Over and over, begging god to save him. To save Ewen.
“Caitlin.”
A familiar voice sounded from far away. Too far. But who? Ewen? It couldn’t be. He was on the...
“Caitlin.” The voice urged again, insistent. Something shook her body. “Caitlin.”
Ewen.
She snapped her eyes open.
Wind tore through the chamber, whipping against her face. To the right of the altar, a funnel whirled, a torrent of raging wind hanging in the air with lightning striking through the center.
Her mouth dropped. It couldn’t be. But how?
Her hand rose to Brigid’s pendant—the same pendant Brigid had used to send Ewen to the future.
“Stop it, Caitlin,” Ewen yelled over the raging wind. “Shut it off, lass.”
“How? I don’t know how!”
The shadowy Norn threw Orhavet to the ground and jumped over his body with one goal in mind. The portal.
Grabbing her sword off the floor, Caitlin ran. The Norn couldn’t escape into time. The result would be disastrous. But the Norn was fast. Faster than Caitlin. Then the horrifying realization hit her. She wouldn’t catch the witch in time.
Ewen let go of Simon and raced across the room, plowing into the Norn mid-air, knocking them both to the ground.
Caitlin skidded, her chest heaving. She sheathed her sword. She had to stop the portal. But how?
Intention.
It was all about intention. Back in the cave in Arran when she’d open the time portal the first time, Valoria stressed the spell would only work if the intention was clear. It was more than words. Brigid had alluded to the same.
Caitlin’s pulsed raced. She stared into the portal. I will you closed.
The pendant at her neck heated against her skin.
Now. I release the winds of time and space. I command you. Close the bridge. Close the portal, please.
Light flared from the ruby. The wind slowed. Color flickered inside the portal as the magic began to dim.
It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
“It worked,” Ewen said.
“I think so.”
And before the light fizzled, little Simon streaked past her and Ewen, screaming, “Màthair.” He jumped into the portal as the light faded to black.
Caitlin stumbled back. Raised her hand to her mouth.
No.
Her head moved from side to side, eyes locked to the spot where the portal had breathed a second ago.
No. Oh, god no.
She sank to the floor. “He jumped.” It was her all along. Not her grandmother. Her. “Ewen. Oh, god. It was me. It was me all along. I sent him…” She couldn’t finish the words.
Ewen lifted her dazed body off the floor, her feet numb. Her eyes fell on the dead Norn, the shadows gone from her face, revealing deep scars encompassing the right side of her body.
“Dyn,” Brigid screamed.
Balor staggered, blood smeared over his mouth. He dropped to his knees, wobbling, a griffin’s wing in his hand, then he toppled to the floor, rolling onto his back, his large chest moving up and down in steady breaths.
Brigid kneeled, cradling Dyn’s head in her lap. Blood pooled from beneath his back, forming a dark circle that edged out like a ripple around his body. “Bloody fool. Had to be the hero, didn’t you?”
Tremors overtook Caitlin’s body, seizing her legs. Anger, shock, regret.
Please don’t die.
Caitlin fisted her hands. She wanted to stab Balor over and over. Rip the flesh from his body. Beat her fists into his chest until he was nothing more than a bloody pulp.
Ewen’s grip tightened around her arms.
Dyn sucked in a garbled breath. “The blood…will…hold him.” He laughed, a laugh that morphed into a sickening wet cough. When his lungs settled, he caught Caitlin’s eye. “That will teach him”—another heartbreaking draw of breath—“to wrangle with a griffin.”
“Get the abbot,” Brigid screamed to Fionn. The anguish in her voice shoved her brother to his feet. Fionn clutched his stomach and staggered out of the room.
Caitlin kneeled beside Dyn, her knees sinking into his blood.
“Ah, little one.” He reached for her hand, but his arm fell limp.
“Dyn,” Caitlin croaked. “Please. Please, don’t die.” Her throat collapsed. An ugly sob sounded in the room.
Hers.
She took his heavy hand in her own and squeezed, forcing whatever magic she had left into his body. Heal. Oh god, please heal him. But nothing happened. “Who’s going to fly me around if you’re not here?”
“It has been an honor to serve you, both of you...min breninesau.”
&
nbsp; Brigid kissed Dyn’s forehead. “Go in peace, my guardian to defend those who have preceded you to the Isle of Elysium.” She closed her eyes, her lips still pressed to his skin, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I release you.”
Caitlin took in the devastation around her. Battered bodies. Dead Norns.
Orhavet stood, his mouth covered in blood. He grasped the cauldron’s neck with his left hand, then yanked the jeweled dagger from the Norn’s neck and dumped it inside. Swaggering a few steps, his gaze caught on Faolan’s sword. He retrieved the weapon off the floor and stumbled over to where the sleeping giant lay. He set the cauldron down and raised the blade high over the Fomorian king’s neck.
Justice.
The old Caitlin would have looked away. The new Caitlin wanted her friend’s death avenged. “Kill him.”
Brigid’s head snapped up. Her eyes cleared. “No.” She jumped to her feet. “No!”
Orhavet swung the sword, cutting through flesh and cartilage, decapitating the giant as Brigid’s anguished scream echoed through the chamber. He pivoted and used the momentum from his spin to thrust the bloody blade through Brigid’s heart.
The goddess collapsed near Dyn, Faolan’s sword protruding from her chest. The torque around her neck shimmered, reforming into a bangle-shaped disc that clanged when it hit the floor.
For what seemed an eternity, Caitlin didn’t move. She remained frozen, on her knees, staring at Brigid’s lifeless body.
She was dead.
She was really dead.
Oh, god. Orhavet had killed her.
No, not Orhavet.
Bres.
Just as the thought blared through her head, the gray skinned creature with the silver eyes transformed into the blond Viking they’d encountered outside the Lismore jail.
Caitlin’s heart slammed against her chest making it hard to breathe.
Bres cocked his head, assessing her from behind his blue-blue eyes. “Mariota MacEwen. I believe you hold something I desire.”
Adrenaline exploded in her veins.
Ewen clutched her from behind and dragged her to the back of the room. Away from the evil monster swelling with pride over his dastardly deeds.
“Come now. There’s no need to be disagreeable.” Bres shoved Brigid’s body out of his way with the side of his foot. Recovering the cauldron, he said, “You have proven to be worthy opponents. No need to make this more difficult than it is. Relinquish the stone. Perhaps I’ll let you live.”
Anger fueled magic into Caitlin’s hands. “And how long do you think that cauldron will protect you until you need more blood, huh? Five minutes. Ten? An hour? You’ll have to put it down sometime.”
His eyes flared. “Shall we try?”
Ewen took position beside Caitlin. “Will blood stop my sword from piercing your mortal heart?”
Bres’s mouth twitched.
Without the Norns, he’d probably lost control of his zombie army. All she and Ewen had to do was buy themselves enough time until Fionn returned with Brother Rupert and the monks.
Tipping his head back, Bres laughed. “Until we meet again, Mariota MacEwen.”
Caitlin felt the magic build in the air before he flicked his wrist. Her body sailed across the room, her right shoulder slamming into the wall. And then she hit the stone floor. Air dislodged from every possible crevice in her body, including her lungs.
God that freaking hurt.
With a grunt, she rolled over onto her side and used her left hand to push herself into a kneeling position. Ewen was a few feet away doing the same. Her right arm was dead. She couldn’t move it if she tried. Not that she wanted to. Despite the numbness invading her limbs, that side of her body ached.
With blood dripping into her eyes, Caitlin extended her left hand, ready to zap the asshole god with what little magic she had left.
He dodged her flimsy fireball and smirked. With the artifact snug under one arm, he shapeshifted into Brigid’s form and exited the chamber with the cauldron, the torque, and the jeweled dagger.
EPILOGUE
Iona Abbey, two days later
CAITLIN SNUCK PAST a sleeping Deidre and tiptoed out of the chamber they shared. She quickly jogged down the hall, glancing over her shoulder as she approached the outside door. Not a soul in sight.
The heavy wooden door creaked. Wincing, she slipped through the opening and stepped outside. With her breath misting before her face, she followed the outline of the building until she reached the field, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dawn. Before her, a blue-yellow haze hung over the sea, bleak gray clouds striating angry lines across the sound. A week ago, she would have stopped to marvel at its beauty.
Today, she just wanted to run.
She fell into a slow jog, her muscles burning and her lungs working to meet her body’s increased demands for oxygen. The first mile is always the hardest, but it had been weeks since her last run—since the morning MacInnes had kidnapped her. God, it felt like an eternity.
Turning left, she moved away from the shoreline, one foot in front of the other, her rasping breaths and pounding feet the only sounds she heard. Running in medieval leather boots was a different experience from the made-for-your-feet Asics she preferred. But she pushed on, occasionally glancing behind, expecting to find Deidre or the six-three Highlander who’d worried over her for the past two days.
She had roughly one hour before his sleepy band of warriors stumbled out of their tents to make their way across the abbey’s grounds to start their morning routines.
One hour before anyone noticed her gone.
One hour to make sense of the horror that was MacEwen Castle.
Concentrating on the inclining terrain, Caitlin pumped her arms faster, ignoring the sharp pains in her lungs, and the way her leather boots bemoaned every rock, bump, or depression along the ground.
Brother John had healed her shattered arm. Her broken ribs. Her punctured lung. And maybe her cracked skull. Lord knows she’d hit the wall hard enough. Afterwards, she’d crashed hard. And when she woke, she’d feigned sleep. Magic had healed her physical injuries, but her spirit?
Her spirit was broken.
She’d replayed that moment in the chamber, over and over in her head. The dead healer on the ground. The blood dripping from Orhavet’s mouth. The Norns chanting over Balor’s body. Why hadn’t she put two and two together? Orhavet was the thing that didn’t belong. Never in a million years did she imagine he was Bres in disguise, belly full of the healer’s blood.
But she should have known. The Bres detector hadn’t lied.
They discovered the real Orhavet badly beaten and near death inside a dungeon along with scores of other supernaturals. And humans who’d apparently been used as chattel to fuel Bres’s magic.
People had died. Brigid. Dyn. Braern. Abbot MacKenzie. A handful of MacLean warriors and monks who’d bravely sacrificed their lives out of loyalty to Ewen.
God, she’d been such a fool.
With tears brimming in her eyes, Caitlin pushed her legs faster, harder, attempting to outrun the loss and the grief she wished to god she could numb. Her fingers dug into the dank earth of the elevated side of the dun, the hillock where Ewen had escaped to as a young boy.
When she reached the top, she sat near the edge, pulling her knees into her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She pressed her forehead against her knee. Rocked. And cried. Until the tears ran dry. A minute? Two? An hour or more? Caitlin wiped her face and directed her gaze ahead, staring out into the distance. At some point, light poked through the array of dark blues and oranges filling the sky.
She didn’t hear Ewen approach, not until she felt the heat of his body at her back. He planted his long legs alongside each of hers. Thick, muscular arms wrapped around her torso and tugged her tight against his chest.
A sob caught in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “You can’t blame yourself, lass.”
“I know.
” But she did. “I let him get into my head.” And as a result, she’d opened a time portal that sent an innocent boy into the future. She had been the catalyst that destroyed Simon MacInnes’s life, not her grandmother.
Her chest tightened. Tears spilled from her eyes—tears she didn’t bother hiding.
“Och, lass.” He kissed the top of her head. “You were one person against two. Bres and the Norn broke through your shields. He couldn’t do it alone.” His chest expanded against her back, then his breath ruffled through her hair. “You did the best you could. We all did, lass. You weren’t in that room alone. If you failed, we all failed.”
Caitlin didn’t say anything for a while. She kept her eyes focused on the sea as the sun rose, listening to the steady rhythm of Ewen’s breathing.
Finally she said, “He’s out there.”
“Aye, he is.”
Five minutes. If she’d managed to hold him off for another five minutes, Fionn, Brother John, and Brother Rupert would have encountered him in the chamber before he’d shape-shifted his way to freedom. Fionn had found the hidden exit Bres used to escape the castle. And a pile of stashed clothes. Even amidst the chaos of battle, someone would have noticed a half-naked god lugging a cauldron through the throng of zombie humans and wild-eyed MacLeans. Bres had been prepared.
Caitlin sighed. “I wish I could forget.”
Ewen made a sound of agreement in his throat. “And for a time, you’ll make an effort to do so. It will dull the pain.” He paused, released a breath, and leaned in to press a kiss to her temple. “One day your eyes will clear, and your heart will stir, and through the darkness of your grief, you’ll begin to realize time forged the pain into something else. Something new. Something that is a part of you.” He touched the center of her chest. “Here. Always here.”
Dropping his hand, he repositioned her body so she was sitting on his legs and not the cold, dank earth. “We dinna forget, lass. We never forget. We remember, and we march on cradled by the sacrifices of those we’ve loved and lost.”
She angled her head back and noticed the tired lines around his beautiful eyes. “Are you okay?”
Ewen smiled, then lowered his mouth to hers, the kiss gentle. When he pulled away, those gorgeous blue eyes were fierce. “We live to fight another day, but we willna forget.”
