Time of a Highlander (Arch Through Time, #12)

by Baker, Katy

  “I’ve no idea what these are.”

  An amused smiled curled his lips. “Then let me enlighten you. Those are plans on how to construct a Great Arch. One of the originals, one that can control all the others and give access to any point in time. I know you are a Builder, Georgina Smyth. And you are going to build me a Great Arch.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said, forcing a laugh. “I don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about. And even if I did—there is no way I would help you!”

  Beaumont nodded. “She said you would react like this. That’s why we’ve prepared you a little...incentive.”

  He turned to the arch, spread his arms wide and muttered something under his breath. The words were in a language that Georgie had never heard, and something about it made a shiver walk down her spine. They sounded awkward on Beaumont’s tongue, as if he’d learned them without understanding what they meant.

  In response, the arch began to flicker to life. The space beneath it shimmered, that familiar heat-haze forming, but it was unstable, flickering in and out of existence, like a TV screen with a poor reception. After a moment, it stabilized to reveal the archeological site that Georgie had left behind.

  It looked the same as when she’d left. She could see a few trenches dotted about, but most of the view was blocked by a figure standing with arms crossed.

  Georgie recognized the tall, dark-haired figure of Adaira Campbell.

  “Ye are late,” Adaira snapped. “Ye have her?

  Beaumont nodded. He grabbed Georgie’s arm and dragged her forward. For a second the vision flickered out of existence again before stabilizing.

  Adaira Campbell leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. Then she smiled. “Ah! There’s the meddling little witch! Hello again, Miss Smyth. Ye’ve caused me no end of trouble, ye know that?”

  “Good,” Georgie grated. “Then I haven’t been wasting my time after all.”

  A flash of anger marred Adaira’s beautiful features. It didn’t bother Georgie. After what had happened to Blair—Oh God, Blair!—Adaira Campbell’s anger had no power to touch her.

  “Ye have a smart mouth,” the woman hissed. “But ye are not as smart as ye think ye are—otherwise ye would not have fallen into my custody once more. Now ye will do as I tell ye. Ye will build me the arch I need. Ye will give me power over time. Ye will give me the means to avenge my brother’s killers.”

  Georgie shook her head. “As I’ve already told your friend here, there’s no way I’m going to do anything to help you. Do what you like to me—I don’t care.”

  Adaira’s image flickered again, and it was obvious that the portal was too unstable to risk passing through. It might allow Adaira to communicate with Beaumont, but it would not allow her mercenaries with their guns to come to this time.

  The only other portal Georgie knew of was the Great Arch she had restored beneath Blair’s fortress, and there was no way she was going to tell them about that. Adaira might bluster, threaten, and try to intimidate her, but she knew the Highlands were safe.

  Adaira’s eyebrows rose. A smile crept across her face, chilling in its coldness. “Brave words. Stupid words. Everyone has a price, Georgina Smyth. Even ye.”

  She walked out of the scene and returned a moment later dragging somebody with her. The figure had a canvas bag over the head and hands bound. Adaira pushed the person to their knees.

  “Ye think I have no leverage over ye? Are ye sure about that?”

  She pulled the bag from the figure’s head, and Georgie gasped. He was covered in bruises, with one eye swollen shut, but she would recognize that beloved face anywhere.

  It was her father.

  “Dad!”

  She threw herself towards the arch, but Beaumont’s heavies grabbed her arms and dragged her back.

  Her father looked up at the sound of her voice. “Georgie?” He squinted through the portal, a confused look on his face. “Is that you?”

  Tears welled from Georgie’s eyes. It was so good to see him. Oh, how she’d missed him. “It’s me, Dad. Are you all right? What have they done to you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Jeez, Georgie, I can’t believe it’s you! Where are you? What’s going on?”

  Georgie swallowed the lump in her throat. How could she even begin to answer that question? “It’s okay, Dad,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.” She glared at Adaira Campbell. “Let him go. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

  Adaira’s lip quirked. “On the contrary. He’s got everything to do with this. When ye stole my blueprints and escaped through the arch, did ye really think I would let it go? Did ye really think I wouldn’t punish such a betrayal?”

  Georgie blinked in surprise. The woman thought she’d traveled back in time deliberately? “Are you crazy? I didn’t steal anything! And the only reason I jumped through the arch was because you were pointing a gun at me!”

  Adaira’s eyes flashed. “Ye are in league with Irene MacAskill. I should have seen it from the start. But that old witch has miscalculated this time. Ye will not be the vessel of her will, ye will be the vessel of mine. Ye are a Builder. Ye will construct a Great Arch for me. Or...” She pulled out a gun and rested the barrel against the back of her father’s head. “Or it will not go well for yer father. What will it be?”

  Georgie’s blood turned to ice. She could hardly think for the sudden pounding of her heart. “Don’t you dare touch him!”

  “Georgie,” her father said, meeting her gaze through the flickering heat-haze and the span of centuries. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but don’t do what she says. These are bad people, Georgie. You mustn’t give them what they want.”

  Adaira grinned at Georgie and then pressed the barrel harder against her father’s head. “How very droll. What is yer father’s life worth, Georgie? What will it be?”

  Georgie stared in mute horror. How could she make this choice? Give Adaira Campbell the means to conquer the Highlands or watch her father die? It was an impossible choice.

  But perhaps it wasn’t so hard after all.

  Looking into her father’s fearful gaze, she remembered all the times he’d been there for her. All the times he’d made her laugh. All the times he’d listened, all the times he’d supported her. And in the end, there was only one choice she could make.

  “I’ll do it!” she blurted. “But I want your word that you won’t hurt him.”

  Adaira removed the gun from her father’s head. “Done. See? That wasnae so hard, was it?” She nodded to Beaumont. “Ensure she has everything she needs. Inform me when it’s complete. Oh, and Georgie? Dinna get any stupid ideas of betraying me. Remember what will happen to yer father if ye do.”

  Georgie nodded dumbly. Two of Beaumont’s heavies grabbed her under the armpits and hauled her to her feet, dragging her back to the castle. She twisted, desperate to catch sight of her father, but he was already being pulled away from the arch out of her sight.

  Beaumont marched ahead as her guards escorted her down a set of spiraling steps. They came out into a large square area with covered walkways along all four sides. It looked a little like a cloister, with a locked gate at the far end.

  Beaumont pointed. Racks had been set up along the wall holding the tools of a stonemason’s trade. Not one of them was made of iron, though. They were all bronze.

  “This is your workshop,” Beaumont said. He gestured to the open space in the middle of the cloister. “And that is where you will build the Great Arch. Don’t think about doing anything stupid as there will be guards around the perimeter of this courtyard at all times.”

  Georgie nodded. The threat wasn’t needed. She only had to think of her father with Adaira Campbell’s gun pressed against his head, and she knew she would do exactly what they wanted.

  “What am I supposed to work with? I’ll need stone and lots of it.”

  Beaumont raised a hand towards the gates and they began to inch
open. A stream of workers pushing barrows came hurrying in. The stone they unloaded wasn’t the common granite that formed the bedrock in these parts. It had a milky sheen to it and caught the light in a way that made it seem to ripple. Georgie’s heart skipped.

  It was Fae stone.

  So that’s why they wanted the quarry, she thought, stomach churning. That’s what he’s been planning all this time.

  She’d been so stupid. Why hadn’t she figured this all out sooner?

  Beside her, Beaumont smiled as if he could read her thoughts. “You see? You have everything you need. The stone, the plans,”—he held out a parchment, which Georgie took—“and the manpower. You carve the stones according to this design and my workers will place them wherever you instruct. You are in charge.” He grabbed her chin, forced her to look up at him. His eyes were cold and calculating. “Do not let me down.”

  “You realize she will destroy you, right?” Georgie said. “You realize once you’ve served your purpose Adaira will discard you like a dirty rag?”

  Beaumont’s eyes narrowed. “And what would you know about it?”

  “More than you. You’ve never even met her. All you have to go on is what she’s told you through the portal. You can’t trust her.”

  Beaumont gave a sardonic laugh. “You think I trust Adaira Campbell? I am no such fool. Adaira is a tool, nothing more. Just as you are a tool. Tools have their uses for the right job, but we do not become attached to them.” He released her chin. “Now get to work.”

  With that, he turned and strode away, disappearing through the door into the castle. Georgie drew in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. She felt exhausted, wrung out and on edge. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and fall into dreamless oblivion. But she could not. Her father was depending on her. She had failed to save Blair—she almost doubled over as a stab of anguish shot through her at that thought—she would not fail her dad too.

  She glanced around. Guards lounged at intervals along the walls of the cloister and blocked the gate, all watching her, all heavily armed. By the pile of stones, a group of six men wearing home-spun clothing and aprons awaited her instructions. They watched her warily, clearly following orders from Beaumont but wondering who this strange woman was.

  “Right,” she muttered. “Let’s get on with this.”

  She knelt, laid the blueprints out on the ground. They were the same as the ones she’d brought with her, showing the construction of the Great Arch and the strange half-finished map that surrounded it—a map that only made sense when the parchment was folded over to make it 3D as Blair had discovered. She kept the plan firmly flat. If Beaumont and Adaira hadn’t figured that part out yet, she wasn’t about to help them.

  Ignoring the workmen, she approached the rack of tools, selected what she needed, then went to examine the pile of stones that had been brought in. She chose one that looked the right size and shape to form the base of the first of the concentric arches and instructed one of the workers to move it into place. The man frowned at her but did as Georgie asked.

  When the stone was in the correct position, Georgie brought over the plans, laid them next to the block, squinted long and hard at the drawings to allow the design to settle into her memory.

  Then she set to work.

  As always, that strange lassitude overtook her almost immediately. The castle fell away. The guards disappeared. The workmen and their uneasy glances ceased to matter. There was only the stone. Her hands moved in perfect sync with the pattern in her mind, the chisel sending stone chips flying. The exhaustion evaporated to be replaced by that odd energy bordering on euphoria.

  She sensed the power that lay dormant within the limestone like a presence brushing her skin. It longed to be released, to be shaped into an arch that would allow it to complete the purpose for which it was made: to manipulate time.

  She finished the first stone and moved onto the next. Around her, she heard the uneasy mutterings of Beaumont’s men, but they barely registered on her consciousness.

  She was dimly aware of the passage of time. The guards changed, the workmen were brought food which they ate quickly. She left her own food untouched. Neither hunger nor tiredness touched her. The day waned and torches were lit to illuminate the cloister. Darkness fell and still Georgie worked. The arch began to take shape, one block attached to another so intricately that they were almost seamless.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  Several of her bronze tools broke, but she replaced them without missing a step. The night wore on and the only sound was the clink, clink, clink of her chisel on stone.

  Then finally, as the sun was beginning to rise, she stepped back, blinked, and looked up at what she’d created.

  A Great Arch loomed above her, its two concentric arches gleaming in the dawn light that was starting to creep over the cloister wall. She dropped her chisel from suddenly nerveless fingers and backed away as she realized what she’d done.

  It would take a single mason weeks to construct something like this, months even, given the intricate designs. But she’d completed it in less than a night.

  Fae magic, a voice whispered in her head. Magic to condense those weeks into one night. Oh God. What the hell am I?

  The workmen were clustered along the wall, watching her with equal parts awe and fear. They looked exhausted and many of them had cuts and bruises on their hands and arms from the stones, although Georgie had no memory of them getting injured. Even the guards stared at her with fearful eyes.

  She swallowed. Now that the euphoria was fading, the exhaustion was starting to catch up. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

  The arch’s presence loomed above her. To her senses, it hummed with power. God help her, what had she done? Adaira Campbell would come through that arch, brining destruction, devastation.

  Despair crashed in on her and she fell to her knees. I’m sorry, Blair, she thought. Please forgive me. I had no choice.

  She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Charles Beaumont standing in front of her. He gazed up at the arch, the expression on his face triumphant.

  “You’ve done well,” he breathed. “I have to say, I didn’t believe her. I thought Adaira’s talk of you being a Builder was just a load of hot air, but I was wrong. Look at it. Look at what you’ve achieved! What power you have!”

  He crouched by her side, put a finger under her chin and raised her face so she had to look at him. “Adaira thinks the arches are the weapon we need. She’s wrong. It’s you. You’re the true weapon.”

  “My father,” Georgie croaked. “Let him go.”

  “All in good time,” Beaumont replied. “As soon as we know it works.”

  “I’ve done what you asked,” Georgie snapped. “Now let me and my father go.”

  “Let you go?” Beaumont said incredulously. “Why would I do that? Did you not hear what I said? You are precious, Georgie. You have a gift, possibly the only person left in all the world who does. You think I would let you out of my grasp? No, my dear. You will stay with me. You’ll be given everything you want: riches, luxury. And in return, you make me the most powerful man in all creation.”

  “Like hell I will,” Georgie growled. She pushed herself to her feet and faced Beaumont. “Let me go or I’ll—”

  She cut off as dizziness suddenly made her stagger. Beaumont caught her then called for the guards who hurried over and held her up.

  “Take her to the best guestroom,” Beaumont instructed. “Send the housekeeper to take care of her. See that she is cleaned up, fed and given rest. Post a guard on her room.”

  As Georgie was led away she tried to protest, tried to wriggle out of the guardsmen’s grip but her strength had left her and it was all she could do to stop her head lolling on her neck.

  As they left the cloister and entered the castle proper, she heard Beaumont giving orders. “Prepare the men. I want them armed, battle-ready and marching by noon.”

  Then his
voice cut off as they passed through a door into the cool interior of the castle. She was taken up a flight of stairs and into the same sumptuously appointed bedroom where she’d first awoken. A woman came in, fussed around her, and helped her into bed. Georgie attempted to protest, battled to get back up, but exhaustion washed through her. As she lay back on the soft mattress, she was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

  Her dreams were filled with images of a blond-haired, blue-eyed warrior.

  Chapter 13

  He couldn’t breathe. Water filled his nose, his lungs, his eyes. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. Around him raged chaos, and he was tossed and turned and chewed up by the torrent of freezing water that pulled him along in its greedy fingers.

  This was one enemy he couldn’t fight.

  Bright spots of light danced in his vision. His lungs burned. He was drowning, he realized. As darkness closed in, he had one final thought.

  Georgie...

  Something hot and moist drifted across his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. He drifted up towards the sensation, only to sink back down into darkness. But the sensation was insistent, washing over his skin again, carrying with it the scent of grass and summer flowers. The scent of life.

  Blair blinked his eyes open.

  A long face hung above him, large, liquid eyes staring down at him curiously. A soft muzzle brushed his cheek, blowing warm air into his face.

  “Trouble?” he croaked.

  The effort of speaking was too much. He felt himself sinking back into unconsciousness but Trouble nudged him insistently, startling him awake again.

  He reached out a feeble hand, grasped Trouble’s mane. The horse gently straightened, pulling Blair into a sitting position in the process.

  He almost blacked out again. He didn’t know how long he sat there as the world spun around him and nausea twisted his guts. But eventually it began to recede and everything came into focus.

  He was sitting on damp sand at the water’s edge. Beyond, the river raged, white and swollen. An arrow was sticking out of his shoulder.