Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(59)

He approached Cairenn, weaving where she stood, looking at him in pained, silent question.

“Cairenn, mo chridhe,” he said, cupping her pale, lovely face. “It’s time to take fate into our own hands.”

***


Around the bend, the spit of land that curled into the dark blue waters of Loch Fyfe came into view. At the end of that crescent rose the mighty, square, stone-walled keep in which Lachlan had been raised. It was a formidable defense, guarding the lake from any sea invaders who dared to come upriver into the heart of MacEgan lands.

He supposed he’d always known that his home was also a fortress, but seeing it with Cairenn beside him made him all too aware of how little her people needed such defenses, and of how damned often his did.

“Lachlan,” she said, as she faltered in her step. “I can feel them.”

His heart leapt, for she could only be speaking of the dolmen stones. “Can you hear anything?”

“That strange crackling sound has dimmed.” Her brow furrowed. “I feel less burdened by the noise, now that we’re farther away from the council height. But I can hear…something…”

Her words trailed off.

He said, “I’m sure it’ll come, lass.”

“Yes.” She filled the word with conviction. “Perhaps when I get closer.”

She dropped her gaze to the muddy ground. How he ached to draw her against him, but an embrace would draw the attention of the men on horseback who cantered by. Some were guards he knew, some were MacGilchrist and Ewing cousins, and others were squires and MacEgan servants. The long, winding path lay before them, crowded with people heading to the narrow causeway that led to the castle. If he made it that far unrecognized, he’d still have to stride under the iron portcullis into an interior courtyard full of stable boys who’d once saddled his horses, laundresses who’d once given him an eye, and long-time guards who used to tousle his hair.

Only then would he reach the mead-hall where the dolmens stood in the midst of his newly-alerted enemies.

“Talk to me, Lachlan.” Her face was pale with fatigue, which made her green eyes all the more striking. “Tell me why your father moved the portal stones into the castle.”

“He did it after changing the way we choose the chieftaincy.” How he longed to run his hand over her soft hair, tucked beneath the hood of her cloak. “My father did nothing without a big, symbolic gesture. This was his way of buttressing his plan that only MacEgans would be chosen as chieftains.”

He’d been barely twelve years old when his father had considered the idea of moving the stones. His father soon became convinced that the task would be impossible, but Lachlan’s own imagination wouldn’t let the idea go. So he stole a fresh lambskin from his father’s cleric and sketched how such a feat might be done with rope and rolling logs. His father had been on the verge of beating him for the theft when he paused and examined the sketches. He ordered the work done according to Lachlan’s plans. When the project was finished, his father had written to his brother in Rome about Lachlan’s further education.

Lachlan liked to think it was his father’s pride that had sent him so far from Loch Fyfe—and not the hostility of his father’s Stuart bride.

“For both worlds,” Cairenn said, “moving those sacred stones was a dangerous thing to do.”

“So was his decision,” he said. “But my father wanted to make his decree as vivid and memorable as the portal he seized from the heights and erected within his hall.”

“Those stones do not belong under any man’s roof, Lachlan.”

“You are not the first to say so.” Back then, his father had had a hard time gathering men to move the stones, and it wasn’t just because the septs balked at the idea of dismantling the place where the central council had met for generations. As a boy, he saw the dolmens as fine pieces of building stone, but many of his father’s crofters looked upon them with fearful eyes. “It took months of hard labor because my father had so few workers.”

“And haven’t the years since been full of strife?”

He thought of his childhood before the movement of the stones, when every August the seals swam upriver to loll on the mud flats around the castle walls, and he, Fingal and Elspeth ran unfettered through the nearby woods. Then he thought about the reeving and the skirmishes of the last decade, of all the men who’d died.

“Discord arises from desecration.” She curled her hand in his tunic, leaning into him as they walked. “I’m afraid, Lachlan.”

Hidden by the folds of his tunic, he wound his hand around hers. “My blade will find bone if anyone seeks to hurt you.”

“It’s not me I’m afraid for. So uprooted from their rightful place, those portal stones may not help my gift. Then we’ll be right in the middle of the mead-hall in full view of those who murdered your father and tried to murder you.”

She didn’t speak her mother’s prophecy in so many words, but Lachlan heard Cairenn’s fear that this crazy attempt to take fate in their own hands just might make that deadly prediction come true.

He ran his hand over her hair, knocking her hood off so that her blond tresses shone in the growing sunlight. He’d meant to do it in comfort, but the sight of her bright, beautiful hair sparked an idea.