Page 4 of Love Beyond Reach (Morna’s Legacy #11)

M uch changed at Conall Castle following my grandmother’s death.

At our father’s insistence, no one within or around the castle ever spoke of Grier again.

Within a fortnight of her banishment, all evidence of her time with us was gone.

Already heartbroken and grieving over the loss of our grandmother, Alasdair and I were forced to wade through the deep loss of our friend alone.

My magic practices ceased entirely—or at least that’s what Alasdair and I worked day and night to lead our father to believe.

I continued to practice as much as I could, but with no one to guide me, I made little progress.

My apparent lack of magic pleased my father immensely and as I grew, his treatment of me improved.

My feelings toward him remained unchanged.

How much can you love someone who only loves the version of you that they want you to be?

I didn’t hate my father—I pitied his incurable unhappiness—but I couldn’t bring myself to love him, at least not in the way I loved my brother and friends.

Despite his confession that he wasn’t actually my father, I never allowed myself to travel down the uncertain path of wallowing in that revelation.

Even if what he claimed was true, it mattered little.

Simply by claiming me as his own, I’d been afforded a life that most people in Scotland would only ever dream of.

Even as miserable and mean as he was, I had to be grateful to him for that.

Three years after that terrible summer, Alasdair fell in love and married one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen—Elspeth—a shy but strong woman who stole his heart the moment he laid eyes on her.

At the age of thirty-one, most in Conall territory had begun to believe that Alasdair would never marry, so his nuptials with Elspeth were met with wondrous celebrations that lasted nearly a month.

Two years later, they welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Eoin, making me the happiest aunt that ever lived.

Before the child’s birth, I spent years roaming around the castle with no real purpose.

Now three, Eoin had grown into an energetic and abnormally-tall-for-his-age child that spent every spare moment following me around.

As a result, I was the closest thing that wee Eoin ever had to a nurse, and I loved every moment of it.

My father, Elspeth, and even Alasdair—who usually tolerated everything I did—hated it.

Childcare was a servant’s work, and they all believed my role in Eoin’s rearing was below my station as daughter of the laird.

It wasn’t only them. Everyone I knew seemed to be deeply worried about me in one way or another.

Nearing twenty, the villagers seemed to have the same fears about me now that they’d had for Alasdair.

I was quickly reaching an age where few would wish to marry me, and I knew my father well enough to know that he wouldn’t let such a problem go unresolved for long.

My days of freedom were bound to end soon.

Until they did, I was determined to enjoy every moment with those I knew and loved.

Thoughts of true adulthood could come later.

“Again, again.”

I squeezed my nephew tight and grinned as his long legs bounced up and down against my thighs as he squirmed in my lap.

Eoin pointed to the candles, urging me with his limited vocabulary to blow them out and relight them with my magic.

For at least the eighth time that night, I flicked my wrist and watched the room go dark.

Bending in close to his ear, I whispered, “Only once more. Then ye must go to bed. Do ye avoid sleep in this manner when yer mother tucks ye in?”

Eoin simply laughed and continued to point to the candles as I re-lit the room.

It was one of the few spells I could work without worry of something going dreadfully wrong, but even this must end soon.

Eoin’s speech improved quickly. I would have to stop doing magic in front of him before he mentioned the candles to my father.

With the room now lit, I stood and carried Eoin to his bed, tucking him gently inside. He yawned as I wrapped the blankets around him. I knew it wouldn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

Most nights his mother saw him to bed, but Elspeth had appeared so weary at dinner that I insisted she go to bed early. With my brother away for the next month, I imagined that she was due a few weeks of uncrowded, peaceful sleep.

Just as Eoin began to drift, he suddenly jolted awake and reached beneath the covers for something he’d bumped against with his foot.

I watched as he pulled a large book from beneath the blanket. I took it curiously as he extended it to me.

I knew he couldn’t read. Neither could Elspeth. Had Alasdair begun to read to him at night?

“Is this yer da’s?”

Eoin shook his head and squirmed back until he sat up in the bed.

“No. I found it.”

I held the book, flipped it over in my hands, and looked suspiciously down at him.

“Ye found it? Where did ye find it?”

Books were rarely left just lying around the castle. As far as I knew, only Father, Alasdair, and myself could read.

Eoin scooted out from beneath the blanket and crawled to the end of the bed until he could look all the way down the hallway to his right. Slowly, he lifted his finger and pointed to the room at the very end—my father’s bedchamber.

I lowered my head and lifted my brows as I looked up at him questioningly.

“Ye found it or ye took it?”

The young child just smiled and returned to snuggle in beneath his blankets.

“Ye can bring it back. I doona want it.”

Why the child wanted it in the first place, I couldn’t guess. For the first time, I opened the book to its middle and looked inside.

A deep chill swept down the length of my body as I flipped hurriedly through the pages.

Spells in Grier’s hand filled the book’s entirety.

For eight long years my magic remained stagnant while assistance unknowingly lay only a hall’s length away—hidden by my close-minded, controlling father.

Trembling, I tapped the book’s cover as I spoke.

“Did ye see other books like this? When did ye take it?”

He nodded, and his eyelids grew heavy as he started to drift into sleep.

“Aye, in a chest. I found it this morning when I hid from ye.”

His little eyes closed. I sat perfectly still until his breathing deepened enough that I knew my leaving wouldn’t wake him.

Grier’s spell books were still in the castle. Soon they would be mine.

I would stop at nothing to learn to harness the magic that hummed with life inside of me.