Highlander Avenged (17 page)

Jeanette rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest and slowly opened her eyes to ground herself in the present. The past was done and could not be changed. She had enough to worry about now without letting anger muddy her mind. Once more, she called upon her training to calm herself, pulling fresh air deep into her lungs, over and over again, until the steady rhythm of the air moving in and out calmed her body and her mind. Working on instinct, for she had found precious little in the chronicles about how to call a vision on purpose, she lowered her gaze to the cup of water, noticing how it mirrored the trees and specks of blue sky above her. She let her gaze move deeper, past the reflection. At first she saw only the darkness of the wooden cup, but slowly what she saw began to swirl, as if a whirlpool were gathering, moving faster and faster, sucking her down into its depths. Jeanette resisted the sensation. Her stomach roiled and her head pounded, but when she realized she could not pull herself free, she quit fighting it and let herself be swept up into the current.

Images pressed against her, almost as rapidly as had happened in the grotto yesterday, but this time Jeanette let them fly by until Scotia’s scowling face came into view. Jeanette reached for that one—perhaps with her hand, or perhaps only in her mind, she didn’t know—and pulled it from the flow so she could examine it.

Anger, outrage, and fear assailed Jeanette as she tried to understand what the vision held. In it, Scotia sat at the base of an ancient standing stone, tied there, her emotions rolling over Jeanette again and again until she had no choice but to wrench herself from the vision, flinging it away like a leaf into the storm of visions that still rushed past her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

M
ALCOLM COULD SEE
nothing change in Jeanette except for the pace of her breath, but then she cried out and he grabbed her fist. “Jeanette? Jeanette, can you hear me? Come back, angel. ’Tis only a vision you see. There is no harm for you here, Jeanette.” The last he said more firmly. If she did not awaken from her visions, he would knock over the cup of water but he did not know what that would do to her, so he pried open her fist and wove her fingers with his, clasping her hand and repeating her name once, twice, thrice, and at last her lashes fluttered and her fingers bit into his hand.

“She is in trouble.” Her voice shook.

“Who?”

“Scotia. I saw her. I felt her emotions. She is angry . . . and frightened.”

“Was Duncan with her?” The man had watched over her for so long, he was like Scotia’s shadow, seldom far from her side, and always pulling her out of trouble.

“I do not ken. I could not see anything but her.”

“You could not tell who had taken her or where she was?”

She got that faraway look in her eyes, then excitement lit up within her, quickly chased away by worry and a furrowed brow. “She’s at a clearing down Glen Lairig from the castle. There is a standing stone in the middle of it.”

“Hellfire.”

“Aye, and damnation. We must get back to the caves. We must send someone to rescue her quickly. Her tongue is sharpest when she’s afraid and that is not a good thing when you are held by an enemy.”

“The English scouts?”

She hesitated, her eyes going soft again. “I cannot tell, but I think so.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “But I do not ken why I think so.”

“Are you sure this has already happened?”

Her hands fell back to her lap as she shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “Nay. Curse it all. What good are visions if I cannot tell if they are in the past, the present, or the future?”

Malcolm gazed up at the sky, a crystal-blue sky just visible here and there through the trees. “It is getting on to midday. Perhaps Rowan will know where Scotia is. Perhaps she’ll even travel here with Rowan, so you can warn her.” Malcolm looked down at the still overfilled cup, then back at Jeanette. “It would seem you can call upon the second sight when you wish.” Pride in her accomplishment filled him. “Is there something we need to do with the cup?”

“I do not ken . . . I hate that.”

“Hate what? The cup?”

“Nay, not understanding what it is I need to do. Not understanding this gift that I suddenly have. I do not like feeling stupid.”

Malcolm rose and used their still clasped hands to pull her up, too. “You are not stupid. Do not ever say that. Look what you just did with little guidance. Perhaps you are blazing a trail the Guardians have not trod before
because
you can figure it out without guidance.”

In her way, she considered his words carefully. “Perhaps, but I still do not like it.” He laughed and she smiled up at him. “We must get back. I do not know how far into the future I have seen, if indeed it is the future, and I would keep Scotia from being captured by those southern vermin.” She picked up the cup and carefully walked back to the burn, where she returned it to the flow with a few muttered words that he could not make out.

“Do you think it works that way?” he asked as he followed her back toward the caves. “Do you believe you are shown a possible future that can be changed?”

“ ’Tis another thing I do not ken, but I cannot sit idly by and wait for Scotia to be captured. If I can see something of the future, is it not so that I may act on that information?”

“ ’Tis an excellent question, but now I am the one who does not ken the answer.”

“At least I have company in my confusion.” She paused long enough for him to draw even with her, then she hooked her arm around him and they continued side by side.

“Always, angel. Always.”

T
HEY MADE THEIR
way quickly back to the caves. The first thing Jeanette saw was Rowan’s coppery hair, with Nicholas next to her. Duncan stood nearby, speaking with Peigi. While Duncan had not been proclaimed Nicholas’s champion yet, he acted in that capacity, just as Uilliam had been Kenneth’s champion, which was probably why he had come with them.

“You are safe!” Jeanette rushed to Rowan and hugged her hard, only then realizing that despite what she had told Malcolm, she was very worried for her cousin. “Is Scotia with you?”

“We are safe,” Nicholas said from his wife’s side. “And Scotia is not with us. She refused to return to the caves.”

“ ’Tis a good thing, too.” Rowan’s hands trembled as she grasped Jeanette’s hands. “We were nearly caught by English soldiers not an hour past. I stopped them, Jeanette.” There was a quiver in her voice, but a look of wonder lit up her face. “I used the Targe and I—”

“Dropped trees around them,” Jeanette said, knowing now that sh
e had dreamt of the future, for her dream had come to her before the event had taken place.

“How did you ken that?” Rowan asked.

“Aye, how did you?” Nicholas echoed.

Jeanette looked at Malcolm and his nod warmed her. “I had a dream early this morn. I saw Rowan, with the Targe stone raised, facing twelve English soldiers who stood in a small clearing, swords drawn. I saw you toppling trees around them until they fled,” she said, still holding her cousin’s hands tightly in her own.

“You saw?” Nicholas asked, his eyes wide. “Like a vision?”

Jeanette nodded as she looked about to see who might be close enough to hear, and found Duncan staring at her. Peigi pushed him toward the two couples, then shooed the weans away and set them to chores that would keep them busy for some time to come. Bless her.

“You dreamt it . . . saw it . . . exactly as it happened,” Rowan said, her eyes as wide as her husband’s. “A dream? Like when you were little?”

Duncan shifted on his feet but said nothing, though his attention was rapt.

“Aye, like when I was little, but just now I tried to call the visions while awake.”

“And?” Rowan prodded as she leaned a little closer to Jeanette.

“And I did.” There was a collective intake of breath with that answer. She looked at Nicholas and Duncan. “Scotia is in trouble, or will be soon. I do not ken how far into the future I am seeing, or if ’tis even the future.”

“That one has been out of trouble for too long,” Duncan muttered. “ ’Twas inevitable.”

“Are you sure you are seeing something real, Jeanette?” Nicholas asked. “Something that will indeed happen?”

“Aye. I have reason to believe I am seeing things that will happen, or that might already have happened. This time the English take her.”

“You saw this?” Duncan asked before anyone else could react to her revelation. He did not wait for her to answer. “I must get back to the warriors’ camp. I shall drag her back if I have to. She will stay here until we can rid ourselves of the English once and for all.”

Nicholas grabbed Duncan’s arm and held him in place.

“Is there aught else you can tell us?” Nicholas asked Jeanette.

“They take her to the Story Stone.” She looked at Malcolm. “That is what we call the ancient standing stone I saw.” She looked back to Nicholas. “I could not see if anyone was with her there.”

“I found an abandoned English camp near that stone,” Duncan said, tension clear in the sharp planes of his face and the tight control of his voice. “They must be returning there.”

“Go, Duncan,” Nicholas said. “Get to her and keep her within arm’s reach at all times until you return here. We cannot let the English have her. We cannot let them get a hostage. Watch yourself, too. I would not have them capture either of you.”

Duncan nodded, then sprinted out of the clearing and up the ben.

“I pray he will arrive in time to keep her safe,” Rowan said, her eyes still fixed on the path Duncan had taken.

“As do I,” Jeanette said. “Perhaps, when I have learned better how this ability—”

“Gift,” Rowan and Malcolm said simultaneously.

“—Perhaps it is a gift,” Jeanette allowed, “but I do not ken that yet. I hope that when I understand it better, I will begin to know what is the future, what is not, and if what I see is carved in stone or if it can be changed. I pray it can be changed, else Scotia will indeed meet the English.”

Rowan and Nicholas started peppering her with questions about the visions: when they had started, what she could see. Jeanette spoke of the grotto, of how they had found it, and of what had happened to her there when she knelt upon the stone in the pool. Malcolm filled in details she could not, and of course neither of them spoke of the intimacy that had passed between them.

“Can you direct the visions to what you want to see?” Nicholas asked, excitement speeding his words.

“I do not ken. Not yet at least. I only just this morning tried to call the visions to me while awake.”

“And that worked, aye?” Nicholas asked. “That is when you saw Scotia?”

She nodded, then swallowed hard. Her next request was likely to cause much consternation with her cousin.

“Rowan, I would like to see if the Targe stone will help me with this gift.”

“Why do you think it will?” Rowan asked, much more calmly than Jeanette had expected. No Guardian in the records had ever shared the Targe with another until the Guardianship was passed along. Jeanette had never seen her mother even allow another to touch it while it was in her care—not even Jeanette, at least not until her mum had taken so ill. Even then, Jeanette had only handled it in its sack, never the stone itself.

“The stone I found in the grotto, the one in the pool, it had the same symbol as the Targe stone, three swirling circles within a circle, but it also had one of the symbols that are painted inside the sack.” She paused, letting that sink in. “It had the symbol Mum called the mirror, and ’twas when I found it that the visions erupted within me.”

Rowan pulled the sack from her belt without a word and spread it wide, draping it over her palm, where she cradled the fist-sized grey stone in the middle of it, covering the swirling circles in the middle of the sack with the stone itself, which had the same symbol carved into its surface. Three other symbols were spaced around the outer part of the sack that hung from her hand and there, clearly, was painted the same mirror symbol Jeanette had seen in the grotto.

Malcolm stepped close, examining the stone that had both protected them and brought them all this recent trouble.

“It is smaller than I had imagined,” he said. He pointed at the symbol on the stone and looked at Jeanette. “This is the one on the grotto stone?”

“In the middle, aye, but this is the other symbol.” She lifted an edge of the sack and laid it over her own palm, showing him the mirror.

“And you thought of the water this morning because it is like a mirror?”

“I did, and it was. I did not try to direct the gift this morning, but I was prepared for it and was able to look closer at the vision of Scotia, for it caught my attention as it tried to rush by me.”

Rowan was quiet and Jeanette gave her time to consider all she’d been told. At length she asked the question Jeanette had been waiting for.

“Is there anything in the chronicles that says there can be more than one Guardian?”

“I have searched, but found naught.”

Rowan nodded, the stone still held in her palm, the four of them standing close enough to shield it from those curious enough to shirk their duties. Protecting it was more habit than need here in the heart of the MacAlpin clan.

“Perhaps my gift is not enough to protect us from the English king,” Rowan said quietly. “Let us find out if you are a Guardian, too, as you were always destined to be.”

S
COTIA HAD BEEN
happy to stay behind at the warriors’ camp when Rowan, Nicholas, and the annoying Duncan, along with a handful of warriors for keeping the Guardian and the chief safe, had left before dawn. She had no use for the women’s camp, for women hiding in caves, trembling in fear of their enemies. And now, at last, she was free of the ever-watchful eyes of Duncan and Rowan. Uilliam had no doubt been left with orders to keep a tight rein on her, but it would be easy enough to slip by him as he had his hands full overseeing the watches.