Page 45

T he glen looked dim, even in the mid-morning sun.

Aileana suppressed a shiver. She’d felt strangely all morning, but she’d be finished here soon enough.

She squinted, searching for the spot. It was hidden well.

Dragon’s breath but she wanted nothing more than to find the amulet and bring it and herself home to Duncan and their warm bed.

A smile teased her lips. Thoughts of Duncan had sustained her through the dark hours of travel.

Even when the rain began, soaking her to the skin, she’d kept on, driven by an image of his face and the memory of his touch.

She loved him, and giving him the Ealach would be a final act of trust, a gift to ensure he never need doubt her commitment to him again.

But first she needed to find it.

Pulling the old, frayed plaid she’d brought with her as a cloak more firmly over her damp hair, she stepped into the chill of the glen.

Bits of sun sparkled through the copper and gold leaves still clinging to the trees, belying the storms of the night.

Mist rose from the mossy ground, making her shiver.

It was cold. Much cooler here than along the barren stretch of road she’d followed from Eilean Donan.

Her breath hung around her in white puffs, dissolving almost as soon as it took shape.

Then a jutting boulder caught her gaze, and she paused. Its brown and red contours looked familiar. A twisted root nearby seemed to point to a mossy patch of earth, just as she remembered. This was it. The spot that—

A chill raked up her spine an instant before she heard it.

Soft laughter, tinkling over her like a shower of ice.

Whirling to face the sound, Aileana gasped.

Her hand flew to her throat, and she took a step back.

Ten paces away, half hidden in the gloom, stood a disembodied vision.

A haunt like those of a thousand Highland stories told round the fire of a cold winter’s evening.

Only this spirit was more frightful than any anonymous fiend she might have faced. She knew this shade’s identity.

“Morgana?” She breathed her sister’s name, fear and awe closing her throat so that only a whisper escaped. She almost expected the vision to melt before her eyes into the mists of the glen.

“You remember me, then, little sister.”

Aileana swallowed. She’d never known spirits to speak. Yet this could be nothing but a phantom. “Why have you returned here? Is something troubling you that you seek me out?”

Morgana laughed again, throwing back her head, and the rippling cascade of sound filled the glen.

When her amusement abated, she stepped closer to Aileana, directly into a shaft of sunlight that shone through the branches of the trees.

It kissed the glossy waves of her red hair, her luminous blue eyes…

the Ealach amulet that hung shining around her neck.

“Ah,” Morgana said, cocking her head, “it’s a fine story I’ll be telling, what with you thinking me a ghostie come back to haunt. How delicious, when the truth is nothing more otherworldly than that you came upon me here just as I was readying to return to my holding in the north.”

Bewilderment, joy, and uncertainty all blended in a torrent as Aileana faced the sister she’d last seen more than thirteen years before. It seemed a dream. Unreal.

“They told me you were dead.”

“Aye, as I made certain they would. I had word sent that I’d died from the privations of banishment, and it was nothing our dear clan leaders hadn’t expected to hear.

” Morgana arched one brow wickedly and smiled.

“It went just as I planned. But as you can see, little sister, I’m as alive as you are, and I have many tasks yet to accomplish—many dreams to fulfill.

” She stepped closer, reaching out to chuck Aileana under the chin, a gesture reminiscent of their childhood.

Tilting her head to the side, she studied her.

“It is true what they say,” she murmured finally.

“You do share an unusual likeness with me. All except for the eyes…”

Aileana’s plaid fell to her shoulders, and she shrugged herself away from her sister’s touch. “Why have you come back?”

Morgana’s expression hardened, and she brushed her hair back from her face.

“To get the Ealach , of course. But first I had to determine where you’d secreted it.

” She gestured around her. “It took me a deal of time to find it once I arrived here last eve, but in the end it was a certainty. And deliciously ironic, wouldn’t you say?

I couldn’t have chosen a better spot myself. ”

“But the amulet isn’t yours. Father took it from you, and for good reason.”

“Father is dead,” Morgana stated flatly. “May his soul burn in everlasting hell.”

“How can you talk so about him? He loved you more than the sun.”

“Not enough to stop the clan elders from banishing me,” she snapped.

After a moment, a knowing, sinister look came into her eyes.

The negative force of it drove Aileana back a step.

“But come, little sister. Don’t tell me that you never cursed Father for all those long years he locked you away in the tower chamber.

He was a meddling fool who got what he deserved. ”

Anger and shame clouded Aileana’s mind. It was true; she’d sometimes wished Father dead—wished so heartily for freedom from the four walls of her room and from the keeping of the amulet that she could taste the need. But Morgana couldn’t know that. It was impossible for her to know that.

Aileana lifted her chin. “What would you care for how I felt? It was because of you and your ways that I was kept under watch and key at all.”

“Be that as it may, I’ve learned much these thirteen years, Aileana.

Much to make me strong.” A fierce light shone in her eyes, making them pierce the shadows of the glen like sapphire blades.

She stroked the Ealach ’s opalescent surface.

“And now my time has come. Samhain is fast approaching, and on that day all of the Highlands will be forced to acknowledge me. Your arrival here is unfortunate, sister, but it confirms what I’d suspected; you’ve cultivated a connection with the amulet as well.

Such a thing might prove useful to me. If you wish to share your gift in that way, I would make sure that you shared also in the glory that is to come when I use it to gain my power. ”

“I could never use the Ealach for ill, Morgana.”

“Why? Are you so loyal to those who mistreat you? Our father imprisoned you and our brothers sold you as leman to the MacRae; he is no better than they, keeping you in shame and captivity at Eilean Donan.” She arched her brow.

“I admit to being rather surprised at the news that Duncan lived; I’d thought I’d taken care of him when I gave him to the English those years ago.

” She shook her head, making a clicking sound with her tongue.

“You’ll have to forgive me for that one, sister.

By rights he should have been dead and of no threat to anyone anymore. ”

“It is only because he still lives that I am able to bear any forgiveness for you, Morgana. What you did to him was nothing less than—”

“After all he’s done, you can still feel pity for him?” Morgana broke in sharply.

“Nay, not pity.” Aileana swallowed, the softer part of her nature not wishing to cause her sister pain even now, after all she’d learned about her. “Duncan has asked me to wed him, Morgana, and I have accepted. I am to be his wife.”

A deadly silence settled over the clearing, and Aileana felt a shiver up the back of her neck.

“His wife? ” Morgana broke the quiet, hissing the words with vehemence. “You must be jesting. Duncan would never offer to marry you. Not after everything that happened between our clans.”

“And yet he did. We are to be married.”

As Aileana spoke, Morgana’s face tightened, sharpening to a look that was almost painful in its bitterness.

“I see,” she answered, her voice both harsh and echoing hollow through the chill of the wood.

She glanced around them. “You’ve come to this place alone, haven’t you, little sister?

Duncan could not know of your journey, else he’d never have allowed you to make it without escort, especially with so important a prize as the Ealach at stake,” she added, her palm drifting up to stroke the amulet.

Aileana remained quiet, the sudden, painful memory of what Duncan had told her about Morgana’s cruelty and lack of conscience lodging in her chest. She worried the edges of her plaid almost absentmindedly, feeling the frayed weave loosen.

It seemed she’d been foolish to eschew all company this morning, and now she was forced to do what she could to conceal her mounting uneasiness.

Her sister’s gaze slid back to her, piercing as she leaned in to say with soft menace, “It would be wise of you to answer. Your silence will be deemed an attempt to thwart me—and believe me well when I say that you do not wish to do that.”

Tendrils of fear unwound in Aileana at Morgana’s tone, and to mask her reaction she gripped the plaid tighter to her chest, cocking her head at a mutinous angle.

“If you know as much about me as you claim, you would realize that I am not easily intimidated. Just what do you think you can do that would force me to comply with any demand of yours?”

“Not what I can do,” Morgana said with a dark smile, “but what I’ll let him do.”

As she finished speaking, she jerked her chin toward a place just past Aileana’s shoulder, and Aileana whirled in that direction, gasping as she came face to face with what seemed to be another haunt—only this one in the shape of a strangely familiar man.