Love Beyond Destiny

by Bethany Claire

  Still, it was a price I was willing to pay. If I was going to start over in this time, I wanted a true fresh start. I wanted to be who I was. I wanted to speak in my own voice.

  We also decided—although, I still didn’t quite understand how she’d talked me into it—she was a wizard at getting her way—that perhaps it would be good for Olivia to leave home for a while. I’d agreed to speak to her mother about it first thing in the morning.

  For now though, I needed to speak to Raudrich and upend everything he believed was true about me. Retracing the path I’d taken earlier, I traveled through the woods until I reached the tents Griffith and his men had set up on the edge of the village. I had a slight moment of panic when I saw the number of unmarked tents—I could just see myself creepily peeking inside a dozen of them before finding Raudrich’s. But as I approached the first, I heard Raudrich’s voice three tents away.

  “No, Griffith, I willna join ye for more ale after dinner, and ye should abstain from it yerself, even if ’tis only for this night. Yer duties begin tomorrow.”

  “Which is precisely why I wish to get sloshed tonight. Ye’ve turned into an old man since ye got married. Ye are just like my brothers.”

  Raudrich laughed and gently ushered Griffith from his tent. I remained hidden in the trees until Griffith was well on his way back to the castle.

  Once I could no longer hear the sounds of Griffith’s rather poor whistling skills, I walked to Raudrich’s tent and audibly said, “Knock, knock,” to request permission to enter.

  “Is that ye, Silva? Come in.”

  I stepped inside and smiled at the impressive set-up he had.

  “Do ye mind if I speak to ye about something?”

  I knew that since I was about to tell him the truth there was no real reason to use the accent, but it just felt too abrupt to drop it without explanation.

  “Not at all, lass. Ye look troubled.”

  “No, I’m not troubled, but I do need to tell ye something.”

  He smiled and motioned to one of two wide and squatty logs they were using as chairs as he spoke. “Please tell me that ye intend to take me up on my offer and that ye shall come to The Isle to visit.”

  Part of the tension inside me relaxed. At least his invitation had been sincere. “In truth, I wanna to do more than that. I wanna to move there.”

  His eyes lit up, making me smile. “’Tis wonderful news. The women of Murray Castle will be glad to have another lass around, and we’ve just completed building various cottages on the castle grounds. One of them is yers if ye wish it.”

  I nodded in excitement. “I do wish it. But that isna what I wanted to tell ye. Raudrich.” It was time to let go of the accent for good. “I’m not who you think I am. Like your wife, I’m from the twenty-first century. I, too, am American.”

  For a moment, I thought his brows might lift all the way off his head.

  “Are ye…are ye one of Morna’s lassies then?”

  “Morna?” I’d never heard such a name in my life. “Who is that?”

  He frowned and crossed his arms skeptically. “Morna dinna send ye to this time?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “’Twas it Sydney or Gillian, then? Did ye travel through Cagair? If so, I can scarcely believe Sydney dinna tell me. We write to one another frequently.”

  “No. It wasn’t Morna or Sydney or Gillian.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Raudrich, it was Ross. Ross had magic. We…we met and married in my own time. It was only after your brother died that Ross told me the truth about who he was and we moved here.”

  Raudrich’s suntanned skin paled making him look ill.

  “Are you all right, Raudrich? Do you need me to fetch you some water? I’m sorry to tell you this. I don’t know why Ross never told you. But I need to start over now, and I couldn’t do that while living a lie.”

  Slowly, he nodded. “Ross was a druid, lass?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really know what he was. I just knew what he was capable of. “Maybe. I just knew he had magic and he could travel through time.”

  After a brief moment of silence, the color began to return to Raudrich’s face. His expression was fascinating. He wasn’t angry, which was good, and surprisingly, he didn’t look hurt or sad. If anything, he looked disturbed—troubled in a way that didn’t make sense to me.

  “Why did he insist ye use an accent, lass?”

  Until Sydney arrived at the castle demanding to see Raudrich, I’d been under the impression that I was the only twenty-first century woman in seventeenth century Scotland. I’d always assumed that Ross had insisted that both my father and I assume Scottish identities to keep us safe, but as Raudrich’s question had just forced me to consider, I now wasn’t so sure.

  When I didn’t answer him right away, Raudrich shook his head, and his teeth ground together enough to make his jawbone bulge. “To make certain that none here knew of his magic.”

  I nodded. It was the only thing that made sense. “I suppose so. Look, I understand if you don’t want me to come to The Isle. I can find somewhere else to live.”

  “Lass.” He released the tension in his jaw and turned sympathetic eyes on me. “O’course ye should come to The Isle if ye wish it. Ross was my friend, but ye are, as well. I must ask ye though, why would ye wish to start over here? Do ye not wish to go back to yer own time?”

  “Right after Ross died that was all I wanted to do, but my father is here. Even though I don’t want to live here in Allen territory, I don’t wish to be so far away from him either. Besides, I promised Ross before he died that I would never go back.”

  Raudrich appeared genuinely concerned. “Why would ye promise him that?”

  “He asked me to.”

  The muscle in Raudrich’s jaw bulged out again. “Why would he do that?”

  “He worried that I would try to find someone else with magic that could send me back, and he wouldn’t have wanted me to place such trust in someone. Not when the travel is so difficult and painful.”

  “’Tis not difficult or painful at all through Cagair. He should have told ye to travel through there if ye wished it.”

  “He might have had he known about it.”

  Raudrich sighed and stood. “Lass, he did know of the portal at Cagair Castle. I told Ross many stories of Sydney’s travels through the portal.”

  It took a moment for Raudrich’s words to sink in. As they did, I began to shake.

  Ross had lied through omission. Lied about something that could drastically change my life.

  “So you don’t believe that he told me to stay here because he was worried about my safety?”

  “Before ye walked in this tent, I could have told ye why I believe Ross did a great many things, but now I feel I doona know him at all.”

  “What do you mean?” I stood to try and better gauge his expression.

  “Nothing, lass. ’Tis only the knowledge that Ross held magic comes as quite a shock. Ye are welcome to join us at The Isle. Indeed, I insist that ye do just that.”

  I could sense that he was ready for me to leave, and I was more than eager to do so.

  My husband was a liar. Learning that he’d known about Cagair and kept it from me felt as if my every memory of him was shattered somehow, distorted, different, poisoned in a way that I wasn’t sure I could ever get back. I wished I’d never said anything to Raudrich.

  And worse, Raudrich clearly knew more about my husband than he was letting on.

  Why was my father the only man in my life that believed I could handle the truth?

  Chapter 5

  Allen Castle had a storeroom filled with ale and wine collected for years from traveling merchants. Angry and heartbroken, I visited said storeroom on my way back to the master bedchamber of the castle.

  Intending to drown my sorrows, I stepped inside to find Olivia still sprawled out on the bed reading.

  Gripping a container of wine in each hand, I stepped inside, and in a split-second decisio
n decided to corrupt my younger sister.

  “Olivia, you’re twenty years old. Have you ever been drunk?”

  Slowly, like I’m-sure-I-didn’t-just-hear-you-right slowly, she closed her book and rose from the bed.

  Suspiciously, she eyed what I held in my hands.

  “No, I canna say that I have. Silva, are ye all right?”

  I shook my head, and set both of the oddly shaped containers down on the small table before reaching for the two empty mugs.

  “Nope, Liv. I am not all right. You were right. Ross knew about Cagair. He knew and he didn’t tell me. If he knew, why would he make me promise to stay here, Liv? Why wouldn’t he want me to return to my old life if that’s what I wanted? It has me questioning everything.”

  As slowly as she’d closed her book, she stood and stared at me a long moment before saying anything. When she did speak, she did so while walking toward me with both arms extended.

  “Ach, Silva. Please come and give me a hug.”

  I wasn’t exactly in the hugging mood, but I was rarely able to deny Olivia anything. Reluctantly, I moved to wrap my arms around her. The moment I did so, she hugged me tight and soothingly patted the back of my hair.

  “I am sorry that he lied to ye. It brings me no pleasure to know that I was right, but this is yer last night in this castle and none of yer belongings are readied for travel. Ye doona have time to question everything this night. For now, why doona ye put Ross out of yer mind? If ye wish to get dizzy with ale, we shall do so, but we must begin packing ye while we drink. On the road, once we are away from here, ye can question as much as ye wish to.”

  Sometimes, Olivia would say something that made me realize that I didn’t give her enough credit. She was wiser than she looked and perhaps not as naive as I perceived her to be.

  “You’re pretty smart, you know.”

  She laughed and pulled away. “Would ye tell that to my mother when ye speak to her tomorrow?”

  “I will. Now are you ready for your first hangover?”

  “What is that?

  I patted her on the shoulder gently.

  “Oh sweetheart, you’ll see soon enough.”

  The two of us had no problem finishing off the wine I’d smuggled from the castle storeroom, and together we spent the night laughing and packing up a roomful of memories that I no longer knew how to feel about.

  Chapter 6

  The Isle of Eight Lairds

  * * *

  “Marcus, lad, I was hoping ye would come tonight. The last two nights with Nicol have been a misery. In truth, I am glad to be free of him.”

  The garden was Marcus’ favorite place in the castle, and its permanent resident was quite possibly Marcus’ favorite human—if she could be called that—of all time.

  While most of The Eight rotated between castle duties, Marcus’ magic seemed to be just what the garden needed; therefore, he’d been named its permanent caretaker. That suited him just fine. It meant that the garden was his sanctuary, a place that—since she’d already completed her work there—Kate’s decorating couldn’t even touch. While most of the time he worked in the garden during the day, on the nights when Nicol chose not to spend the evening with his ghostly wife in the garden, Marcus would return in the evening to visit with Freya.

  His conversations with her always brought him joy, but like Kate, Freya was another subject of worry in his life. For the first many months after Marcus arrived on The Isle with Laurel, Freya’s essence was as visible to the human eye as human flesh, but over the past weeks—since Paton’s imprisonment with the fae—she appeared more translucent, as if she were disappearing before their very eyes.

  Marcus suspected this had more than a little to do with Nicol’s increasingly frequent absences from the garden. If Nicol’s observational skills were even half that of Marcus’, Freya’s husband had to be wondering the same thing—was Freya nearing a time when she would leave them for good?

  “Of course I would come. I already told you—on nights when Nicol is kept away, I’m your man. I’ll be here to visit for as long as you like.”

  She patted the stone bench where they had all of their conversations and Marcus gladly joined her.

  “Marcus, ye needn’t keep pretending as if important matters keep Nicol away. I know why he doesna come to see me as he once did.”

  “You do?” The last thing Marcus wished to do was put a worry in Freya’s mind that wasn’t already there.

  “Aye. The recent couplings around the castle—Raudrich and Laurel, Maddock and Kate, even Ludo has been courting a lass in the village—they’ve made it more difficult for Nicol to be so separated from me.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Marcus did indeed have some idea what Freya might mean, but he knew enough about women to know better than to say something that might hurt her. If she was thinking it, she should be the one to say it aloud—not him.

  “Ye must know. Before, when all of ye lads were more lonesome than him, ’twas easy to make peace with the truth that we couldna ever truly be together again. That only in this way, through our conversations, through our minds, could we show each other love. Now that carnal love has found its way back inside the castle, he sees what he misses. I doona blame him. It makes me miss it more too.”

  Marcus couldn’t imagine living in Freya’s frozen state. Forever untouchable, forever ageless, forever cursed to appear only at night in a garden separated from the man she loved most in the world.

  He said nothing. He didn’t need to. He could sense that Freya wasn’t finished.

  “Everything that has happened is good. Love desperately needed to return to this place. But it means that both Nicol and I must make peace with change, and change isna always easy. He must learn to forgive himself for wandering, and I must learn to make peace with my death once again.”

  “Wander?” Marcus nearly choked on his own spit. “Nicol would never stray, Freya. He loves you.”

  She smiled, and the look in Freya’s eyes made him feel like an ignorant child.

  “Aye, o’course he loves me, but I am dead, Marcus. In every way that matters, I am dead. ’Tis not truly wandering, but if ye doona believe that on nights when Nicol doesna come here that he is with another, then ye are a fool. He is. I can see it in his eyes when he returns. And that is as it should be. ’Twill make it easier on him when Machara is defeated and I am gone, if he has someone else.”

  Freya sighed, and in the brief silence, Marcus tried to grapple with the news Freya had just shared with him. None of the other members of The Eight would ever suspect this. They all knew how much of Nicol’s heart Freya occupied.

  “Doona look so distraught, lad. I am not angry with him. I only wish ’twas easier for me to let go of my humanity. I know that I am dead, but in truth, in the time before things began to change here, I allowed myself to live in the same blissful ignorance as Nicol. ’Twas simpler to make peace with my death when there was no threat of Machara’s defeat. And ’twas much easier to miss the touch of my husband when I wasna so constantly reminded of how marvelous physical love is.

  “I know that I am fading. Machara and I are tied. When Brachan broke his bond to her, it shattered something inside Machara she dinna know she had. She’s retreated in a way she has never done before. The women are doing what they were always meant to. It willna be long before Machara is gone. With her death, so I shall go. In truth I may pass even before her death. I can sense my tie to her breaking.”

  Marcus had always known this about Freya. They all knew that it was Machara’s power that sustained Freya’s half-alive state, but he’d never truly allowed it to sink in that once Machara was defeated—let alone possibly before—that Freya would leave them and experience her true and final death.

  It wasn’t acceptable. Freya was too good, and Nicol loved her too much.

  He loved her too much.

  If there was a way to save her, he would find it.

  “I’m sorry, Frey
a.” His mind made up, Marcus quickly made his excuses. “There’s something I’ve forgotten that I must take care of immediately.”

  For as long as it took to find an answer, the libraries of Murray Castle would be his constant companion.

  Chapter 7

  Allen Territory

  * * *

  Olivia—damn her—looked no worse for wear upon waking the next morning. In fact, I was half-convinced that she’d only pretended to drink last night. By the time I woke, she was already sitting in the corner of the room munching on some breakfast she’d taken from the kitchen, reading one of her beloved books.

  I allowed myself to get ready for the day rather slowly. My head ached from too much wine, and the last thing I needed was to look how I felt, while trying to convince Leanna to entrust her daughter to me for the foreseeable future.

  I took special time to pin my hair up in a way that made me look older and—I hoped—more responsible. Olivia seemed to understand precisely what I was doing.

  “Ye should wear yer gray dress. It covers more of ye. Makes ye look like a ma.”

  “What does that mean – ‘like a ma’?”

  “’Tis boring, Silva. The cut of that dress went out of style ages ago.”

  I snorted and reached for the plain, gray dress. It seemed so strange that anything from this time could be considered “out of style,” then again, change was the one constant throughout all of time. Even in the seventeenth century, there would be things considered no longer fashionable.

  “Ye must convince her, Silva, for I swear to ye, I’m coming with ye either way. I’d rather things not be out of sorts with my mother.”

  Taking one last glance at myself in the long looking glass Ross had acquired at my pestering, I nodded and made my way toward the door.

  “I’ll do my best. Wish me luck.”

  She called after me as I left. “Ye shall need it.”