Forged in Dreams and Magick (Highland Legends #1)(83)

Sunshine cast an impatient look at his brother. Yeah, well, that makes two of us. Orion shook his head imperceptibly. They had a whole nonverbal conversation going on in front of me too.

“Ms. MacInnes, we do not control the time travel. You do. Cupcake did not steal the box. He’d been given a task. As always, he completed it with efficient precision.”

Sunshine growled low at being called Cupcake. Again.

“Wait. What do you mean, I do?”

“Perhaps it would be better to show you,” Orion said.

The mist surrounding us dissolved, even though my feet still stood solidly on an unseen floor. Iain’s entire castle grounds appeared below. Soldiers practiced on the field. Women turned a fresh row in the garden. Two young girls chased after a grasshopper, their peals of laughter reaching my lofty ears. I even saw Brigid beneath a tree. She held a leather-bound book in her lap, but it was closed, and her gaze stared off into the distance.

A strong wind blew, masking the view as white clouds flew by. When the vapor cleared, the castle grounds were gone, and the image was replaced by a half-built pyramid. Slaves worked, positioning enormous stones of granite with an elaborate pulley system. Captivated, I focused on the long-mysterious method of hoisting the massive pieces of stone. The vision honed in where I’d concentrated, but then shifted to a marble room within a palace.

A young man stood near a reflecting pool. He wore a fine, turquoise linen tunic fringed in gold embroidery and had ornate gold bands around one bicep. A disturbance in the air, like heat shimmering above near-molten asphalt, occurred opposite the water, and a black-cloaked figure materialized into the scene.

I squinted. When I concentrated on the detail of the material instead of the figure as a whole, feathers appeared, the hood became tousled raven hair, and I saw the face in profile.

Well, hello, Sunshine.

He held a box. The box.

The Egyptian fell to his knees, interpreting the appearance as a visitation from one of his gods. He threw his upper body down, hands over his head, bowing facedown.

Words I couldn’t hear were exchanged. The Egyptian stood hesitantly as Sunshine walked forward, right over the water, and stood before the man, offering the box. The man accepted the gift with a questioning look on his face, staring wide-eyed at the treasure. Sunshine nodded. Completely absorbed in the box, the Egyptian missed it when Sunshine flattened his feathers, refracting the light in the room, and vanished.

I glanced at the boys that orchestrated my movie. Orion concentrated on the show, but Sunshine looked bored. I laughed.

The image clouded over again, drawing my attention. I shifted my weight to my other hip, crossing my arms over my bare chest, instinctually covering up even though neither of my companions seemed to care . . . or even be remotely aware.

A third image appeared. We hovered far above an island chain. From an eagle’s eye in flight, our view descended, passing over a snowcapped Mt. Fuji and the misted valleys of Japan.

A group of primitive people built a step pyramid along the shore of the southernmost island. I watched, amazed. An ancient Japanese tribe worked on a structure similar to the Egyptian pyramids. The scene played out, the box gifted again by Sunshine to an apparent tribe chieftain.

Iain’s castle shimmered again under the disappearing mist like a mirage. My mind reeled, digesting all the new information. Otherworldly beings had gifted the box, and its power, to master races throughout time.

Had those been actual events or mere symbolic representations? Modern-day scientists and historians had long grappled with many unsolvable mysteries because prior races had possessed superior, inexplicable knowledge. Thoughts of Atlantis teased through my mind despite the legend’s lack of representation in this history lesson.

“Have you seen enough, Ms. MacInnes?” Orion’s gentle, low-timbered voice asked.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘Ms. MacInnes’? I’m married. It’s Brodie.”

Orion smiled as Sunshine twitched. I imagined he bit his tongue about a colorful nickname for me, or likely restrained all-out laughter at my irritation of the formal, incorrect moniker.

“We’ve watched you pre-time jump and post-time jump. We’ve known you unbound by definition. ‘Ms.’ is unidentified—without specific label.”

“An anomaly. How delightful. I’m trying to find myself and you peg hole me into belonging nowhere. Perfect. And . . . you’ve been stalking me,” I grumbled. “Peachy.”

“I’m a watcher, not unlike you,” Orion replied.

Sunshine quipped, “And we’ll call you anything that amuses us.”

I tilted my head to him at the remark. “Touché. Back at ya, Cupcake.”

Their faces remained emotionless.

The watcher remark sank in. “We’re the same. Great. I have died, haven’t I? It’s Lost all over again. I’m in a crashed plane on the bottom of the ocean somewhere. So if we’re both ‘watchers’ over—” I coughed “—time, why don’t I have wings?” I stepped closer, reaching a hand out to brush my fingers over Orion’s bright iridescent feathers. They bristled in warning. He growled for the first time, and I jerked my hand back, eyeing him as he settled down.

Orion spoke in his low cadence. “We, Ms. MacInnes, are not of the same species. Do follow along. Time is of the essence.”

I sighed. No shit. “Fine. So what the hell am I watching? I don’t think you’ve been paying close enough attention. There’s been a whole lot of participating going on. Two soul mates? Really? And my very existence had to have disrupted time itself.”