Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Unless the fates be faulty grown

  And prophet’s voice be vain

  Where’er is found this sacred stone

  The blood of Alba reigns.

  She blinked, staring at the words on the stone plaque—carved long ago, she realized, for the etchings were not fresh. Her fingers traced the ancient markings. There were more on the stone itself. She recognized the markings from the sword of the Righ Art—the intricately carved weapon Broc Ceannfhionn had placed upon Aidan’s table. And then below the stone, upon the altar, there were three words written in the Latin tongue: Sola Virtus Nobilitat.

  A prickling erupted upon her flesh—a prickling that would not stop, for the import of the discovery was not lost upon her. She knew of only one stone whereupon kings were crowned… but this was not it… was it? That Stone was at Scone. David too had been crowned upon it. She knew that because Rogan had gone to witness the coronation last year and he had bragged that he too had sat upon that stone, and then joked that it had not made him a king.

  Her skin tingled strangely—a sensation that had naught to do with the cold, and she shivered fiercely. As though she had conjured it with the thought, a cold mist spilled down from the hole in the ceiling above, and suddenly Lìli was unnerved, wanting nothing more than to be away from this tomb for a stone.

  Climbing the ladder quickly, she realized that she had discovered something Aidan did not wish her to see, and she felt clammy and sweaty despite the cool air.

  But then little might have prepared her for what she emerged into, for if the cavern below seemed forgotten over the ages, this one was well lived in. Misty and dank though it was, it was lit by a fat candle braced upon the far wall. In the center of the room sat a small table, along with a smaller crystal about the size of Lìli’s head. Mortar and pestle sat to one side and the remnants of powder peppered the surface, along with notches from the pounding of a pestle. Lìli recognized the marks for she had her own worktable at Keppenach where she ground her herbs.

  Inspecting the rest of the room, she found very old manuscripts upon a shelf on one wall and an old matted wolf skin rug lying upon the ground. A chair sat beneath the torch, strewn with an old blanket that was woven in the clan’s colors. Spiders wove their webs up high, but for the moment the room was devoid of human life, though clearly not for long.

  This then, was Una’s home—dark and deep within the earth.

  Drawn to what appeared to be a scrying stone, Lìli reached out to touch it. She only knew what it was because she had been told of them, though she had never actually seen one. The instant her finger touched it, white light flashed through her head, startling her. She withdrew her hand at once, and backed away from the table, peering around for an exit.

  She did not belong here, and she suddenly had the most incredible urge to be gone, before someone could discover her snooping.

  Once again, she found a ladder leading through the ceiling—this one made of wood—and not daring to linger a moment longer… somehow feeling as though she were desecrating a holy place… she hurried toward it and pulled herself up, thanking the heavens above that she had not harmed herself in the fall and that she could hie away as quickly as possible.

  That cavern led her to another one yet, but this one was filled with foodstuffs—winter stores, no doubt. How advantageous, for in the dead of winter, the room would be cold enough to freeze water, she was nearly certain. But Lìli didn’t linger to see what goods were stored here.

  Like a maze of caverns, she made her way through each, until the light grew brighter in the last cave. From there, she hurried out into the waning daylight, and onto the worn path that led down the mount. Never in her life had she ever been so unnerved, and yet as she raced down the hill, she felt a burgeoning hope, for she realized that she had discovered the means to save her son and her husband as well.

  Una was among the last to leave the funeral.

  For long hours now, the smoke would continue to curl into the gray sky, darkening the immediate horizon. The stench of burnt flesh was one she would never grow accustomed to, no matter how many years she spent upon the earth. And yet, she knew … Meara’s soul was not lost after all. She had simply returned to whence they had all come, to where one day they would all go.

  The stone in her staff winked despite that the sun was gone, and she waved it over the pyre, and spoke words:

  The peace of the lochs be with you, child.

  The peace of the earth be with you.

  The peace of the stars be with you.

  Now and evermore.

  And then she sighed and closed her eyes, giving Meara farewell love, and trying not to grieve over a young woman who would never know the cries of her own babe, or the spirit of life growing in her womb, or even the love of a good man. Keane’s life was destined for another turn… one that may not much please his brother.

  But that was neither here nor there.

  Lifting her gaze, she spied a figure racing down the hillside and her fist tightened about her staff, for she recognized the gait and the long flowing auburn hair. Lìli was coming down the mount from the direction of Una’s home, hurrying down as quickly as her feet could carry her.

  A fierce prickling assailed her, flowing into every limb. Sadness threatened, but she sucked in a breath of smoke-tinged air and closed her eyes… now it would begin.

  The fate of the clan—of the stone itself—was in the lass’ hands.

  Chapter Thirty

  When Lìli returned to the crannóg, the sun was barely an orange glow rising above the shrouded peaks. Aidan was standing in the middle of the dock, peering out over the water when she found him. She stopped beside him to glance out as well, nibbling nervously at the inside of her lip. Despite that she’d intended to wait until they were completely alone, she was too anxious to broach the subject. “I was thinking, my love…”

  He turned to look at her, offering her a half-hearted smile. “My love?”

  Lìli’s heart flipped over the way he’d said the words—the way he was looking at her. For an instant, she didn’t realize he was echoing her own words.

  “’Tis the first time ye have ever called me such a thing,” he said, enlightening her.

  Lìli blinked. Forsooth, it was true… she might in fact need something from him now, but she did love him. Those words had come out her mouth of their own accord. It wasn’t simply a means to soften him, for she would never ply a man with sweet talk just to gain her way… she didn’t even know how. She turned away, feeling awkward suddenly that she would require something of him. She stared at the sliver of orange that spilled across the surface of the water toward the crannóg… a watery flame inching toward them as the sun set behind the distant peaks.

  A gargle of geese flew by, their wings beating in harmony, their V-shaped flight silhouetted in the water. For the longest instant, Lìli couldn’t tear her gaze away. She watched as the image of the birds skated across the loch to the distant shore.

  “Do ye mean it, Lìli?”

  Lìli was quick to answer, though she couldn’t look at him for fear that he would see the secrets she needed so desperately to keep. “Aye,” she said and sensed his lingering gaze… then he turned away and she felt like she could breathe again.

  This was the only way, she convinced herself.

  She had already spoken to Aveline. Aveline knew what she must do. There was no other means to disembroil them from this mess. She had the means now to retrieve her son and mayhap even to prevent Aidan’s death… at least by her hands.

  For long moments, Lìli stood staring at the gleaming water. From somewhere, the sound of a lone reed lifted upon the air, a melancholy note that moved her heart. The mournful sound shifted her thoughts for the moment. “How is Keane?”

  “Well enough,” Aidan said, without looking at her.

  Lìli sensed his withdrawal, and when at last he turned to acknowledge her again, she spied only a lingering sorrow in his eyes. She assumed Meara’s death
troubled him—particularly since only Lìli realized as yet that the illness was not so mysterious after all. Nobody else need die. And remembering her discovery, she thought at once to put him at ease, though couldn’t remember how she’d left the area—would he know she had stumbled into the caverns?

  While he was watching, she refrained from looking to see how badly her arms and legs were scraped. She had all but forgotten her injuries in the excitement of the moment. Now, suddenly, like a stab of guilt, her elbow stung, and the dirty stains on her dress seemed like evidence of her sins.

  His voice was gentle. “What is it ye were thinking, mo chride?”

  Lìli cleared her throat, unable to keep the news from her husband. “I believe I know what malady plagues your kinfolk.”

  His brows collided.

  Lìli pulled her arisaid higher about her shoulders to hide her trembling. “I'll show ye,” she promised. “But first … I must beg something o’ ye.”

  “There is no need to beg for aught, Lìli. Ever. All I have is yours, and these are your kinfolk now as well as mine.”

  Lìli’s heart fluttered in her breast. It seemed to her that he meant every word, and it only made her all the more determined to see this done. She gathered her courage then, and asked him to return Aveline to Keppenach to bear Rogan’s babe where she belonged. There were no assurances Rogan would do the right thing by Aveline or the child, but Aveline did not wish to remain at Dubhtolargg any longer. The girl was miserable, weeping every day, heartsick, for she believed Rogan loved her. Lìli knew better, but it was not her place to dash the girl’s hopes, and mayhap Rogan might come to love Aveline if he saw his babe.

  “Ye wish me to send the lass back to Rogan? Why the change of heart?”

  “Because I canna live without my son,” Lìli answered, her heart in her eyes, and her words full of emotion. In this there was only truth, but she also wished to save the man she loved. And yet that she could not tell him. If there truly was a curse, she would find a way to prevent the course Una had predicted so long ago. The old woman must know a way! Until then, this seemed the right thing to do to save him from a fate decreed by lesser men.

  “Soon, the snows will come and the mountains will become impassible,” she contended. “I would have my son with me through the Yuletide.”

  He simply stared at her, and Lìli tensed, fearing his answer.

  He must agree to this! Sending Aveline back was the only way she knew to get a message to Rogan. She planned to trade her son for information she knew beyond a doubt would be far more valuable to David of Scotia than the death of Aidan dún Scoti. But she would not give them a bloody thing unless Kellen was returned to her.

  “Rogan promised he would send my son once I was settled,” she lied. “He only wished to be certain—” Her mind raced for a plausible excuse.

  “That we were not savages who might corrupt his nephew?” Aidan provided, his green eyes glittering.

  Lìli nodded, hating herself for the lie. Inasmuch as it was true that Rogan believed them barbarians—and she had as well—it was not true.

  “Please,” she beseeched. “Please…”

  His green eyes bore into her own, reaching too deeply into her soul. And yet to her dismay, and to her relief, he agreed without argument, saying only that it was not his desire to keep a woman prisoner within his vale.

  Lìli exhaled in relief, hardly aware that she had pent up her breath until it rushed from her lungs, leaving a puff of mist lying in the air between them.

  It was that simple. He would send Aveline home escorted by three of his best men, and Aveline would take a message to Rogan from Lìli. If Rogan dared to release Kellen, the men would escort her son home, but she knew it would not be so easy.

  Once they were agreed, Lìli took Aidan by the hand and led him up the hillside to show him the basin she had discovered. As she feared he would, he spied the fissure as well and Lìli was forced to give him half-truths.

  “I nearly fell,” she explained, and showed him where she’d scraped her knee. “I stumbled backward and fell upon my rump.” She showed him the scrapes on the palms of her hands, and his look darkened, his jaw clenching. “I was so excited I ran down the hill to tell you what I’d found.”

  “You might have killed yourself,” he scolded, but that was all he said, and Lìli shrugged, and explained about the water that both Glenna and Fergus had gotten from the pool downhill. She showed him exactly where it was then.

  Lìli believed that the offal had contaminated the pond, for it was small enough and the water was not clear—something she had not been able to tell so late at night the evening she had gone to tend poor Meara.

  From there forth, Aidan’s attention shifted to filling in the fissure that had appeared so suddenly, and making certain the water from the basin didn’t flow anywhere near the village well.

  Thankfully, there were no more questions, but Lìli thought she sensed in him a change of mood—a brooding darkness that only deepened as he labored with his men up on the hill. He came to bed late that night, and every night thereafter, and abandoned their bed every morning before sunrise. For more than a week, he barely touched her, but Lìli busied herself, helping Aveline prepare for her journey home, reassuring herself that this was the only way.

  There was a moment when Aidan had begun to believe in something more—something magic, if one must use that word. But Lìli’s miraculous healing was naught more than hard work on her behalf. Una’s tricks were merely that—an old woman’s trickery. The curse was fantasy, an old woman’s rage put to verse. Men were prone to believe in faerie tales so it was no surprise to Aidan that the bloody curse had become a song for wandering minstrels to carry door to door. Stuart’s death was probably no more than a simple accident—just a clumsy dolt who didn’t know better not to stare up into the sky after sending an arrow into the air. Ach, but he loved the woman madly and here he stood, barely alive but hardly dead, shoveling dirt into a god-forsaken hole in the ground! Their purpose here in this vale seemed a mockery at the moment. All these years they’d held the stone in keeping for a worthy king to arise, and now, because he had gone and wed an outlander bride, their efforts would all come to naught.

  Every spade of dirt he tossed into the fissure grew heavier and heavier, until his mood turned as foul as the stains on his clothes.

  His men all worked in silence, fearful of his mood—and bloody good for the lot of them! He’d like to smack every last one upon the noggin with his spade, including Keane, who was still recovering, for putting the lives of their kinsmen at risk—all for a crude game of “who could shit the bigger log of bloody rotten shit!”

  Peering down into the fissure, Aidan marveled that it seemed never to fill, and his curiosity needled him. He must know what Lìli may have seen. He couldn’t see the stone from where he stood, and she claimed she hadn’t been down there, but he suspected she had, and there was only one way to appease his curiosity. The only reason he hadn’t gone down as yet was simply because he was a coward. He wanted to believe his wife. But he was a fool if he did not!

  Hurling his shovel to the ground with the force of his anger and commanding his men to cease their work while he explored, he jumped down into the crevice, finding the hole in the wall and cursing beneath his breath as he slipped through to the other side, straight into the cavern that housed their precious stone. From there, he climbed straight up to Una’s grotto, finding her standing alone, staring blankly at her keek stane. When she looked at him, she didn’t appear surprised to see him.

  “I suspect Lìli has seen the stone.”

  Her head bobbled rather calmly. “I suspect she has.”

  To Aidan’s liking, she didn’t react well enough, and he told her, “She has asked me to return Aveline to Keppenach.” By the sins of sluag, he’d yet to tell a bloody soul, and the fact was needling him to the bone!

  The old woman merely blinked. “This I know.”

  Aidan’s shoulders tensed, his anger risi
ng. “By the gods, Una! What if she has told Aveline of the stone? What if Aveline should lead them here?” he asked, demanding answers, and then he wondered when Lìli might have told Una about her request—and more, why the hell hadn’t Una come to inquire about it?

  The old woman merely peered up at him then, leaning on her staff for support. The mist was gone today. It was likely that the caverns had aired out with a second entrance to the caves. But without the curling mist about their feet, the grotto appeared little more than a filthy, dank cave, devoid of any mystery.

  And yet Una’s good eye did not lose its sparkle, even if the stone in her staff was gray and dull. “It is our charge to guard the stone, until such time as the rightful heir finds his way to the throne—not to choose who will be the one to find it.”

  Aidan willed himself to calm down. He found her rickety old chair and sank into it, feeling weary to his bones. If Lìli were to tell anyone at all—anyone!—David would march upon the vale—and that was if his rivals didn’t beat him to it. By all that was sacred, if they should fight to protect the stone, they would invite bloodshed to their door. Aidan would not allow it! They were simply not strong enough to defend one small vale against the whole of Scotia. He would sooner tie a ribbon around the oversized rock and hand it over to the first to ask.

  Una hobbled over to the chair and stood before him, reminding him of her presence. By the light of the fresh candle burning overhead, she looked tired and old, and her voice was gravely and weaker now than it seemed to be yesterday. “Our history is not our destiny, Aidan. I was coming to believe we were approaching the end of our days, though it appears to me now ’tis merely the beginning.”

  Aidan gave her an incredulous look, his heart squeezing painfully. “How the bluidy hell can ye say such a thing, Una? The end has never seemed more near. We might as well send Cailin and Sorcha to England to wed, and match Keane to a bluidy Scotswoman. Our Pecht lineage will be no more!”