Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Dark winged creatures spilled out from the Realm of Chaos into the air, attacking anyone and everyone in their path. The three MacLeod brothers went into action, somehow avoiding the attacks, as they fought the MacDonald men.
A man screamed behind her. She turned to see a winged creature sink its claws into his back, pick him up, and fling him over the side of the ruined castle wall.
Someone slammed into her from behind. She pitched forward and fell, the stone tumbling from her hand. She watched as it landed in the dense grass. Frantic, she clawed her way toward it while the creatures continued their assault on the MacDonald men and beyond.
“I’m here, lass.”
Suddenly, Jamie was there. He snatched the stone out of the grass with one hand and reached for her with the other.
She scrambled to her feet as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and darted off toward another part of the ruins.
The boulder, well-worn with age, was before them, glowing and pulsing.
Carved on the top of the stone was the exact same symbol as the one on the keystone.
She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise.
“Jamie, look!”
“Aye, lass.”
He said it as though he already saw it and knew it was there. He must have seen it before he got to her.
“Ye have to stand on it,” he said.
“How do you know?” Her heart rammed hard against her chest as she tried to regain her breath.
“Trust me.”
He pushed the stone into her bleeding hand. With her heart in her throat, she stepped onto the flat boulder and closed her hand around the keystone. The moment she did, it vibrated so hard it sent tremors up her arm, to her shoulder, all the way through her.
“Jamie?”
He whipped a dagger from his belt, sliced his hand, and reached for her. “Take my hand. We must hold the keystone together.”
But as she reached for him, an arrow thunked into his shoulder making him fall back a step.
A shriek escaped her throat as he watched him nearly fall, then regain his footing.
He turned toward the assailant, rage on his face.
Without blinking, he snapped off the shaft, emitted what sounded like a war cry, and lifted the dagger.
A sudden wind whipped around her, tangling her hair.
The portal remained open, the creatures pouring in, and all around her the sounds of swords clashing, men screaming.
The smell of death and blood permeated the air.
And, strangest of all, the black creatures seemed to ignore her standing on the boulder with her fist glowing.
She didn’t understand that. Light seeped from between her fingers as her entire body hummed in concert with the keystone. Then, the light pulsed. The low hum grew louder and louder until it vibrated from her throughout the ruins.
Some instinct told her to lift her hand to the night sky. She punched it upward, a scream of terror ripping from her lungs.
And then a warming presence was behind her, surrounding her. The Triple Goddess appeared in a shimmering form. Athea to one side, Bridget to the other, Moira in front.
“Close the portal, Brianna,” Moira said, her words drifting to her on the wind.
“I don’t know how!”
She heard her name on the wind. Her eyes filled with tears—from the wind or her emotions, she didn’t know which.
She blinked them away, searching through the melee for Jamie.
And then, she saw him. He’d stabbed the man he’d been fighting and then bolted for her.
His brothers were right behind him, fighting all those who tried to stop him.
Fighting the dark creatures trying to attack them.
When he was within reach, he stretched out his hand, bloody from the cut. She held her bloodied hand out to him, the keystone resting in the center. He clasped his hand over hers, sealing the stone between them.
A surge shot through her to him and up his arm. His face contorted in momentary pain as he acclimated to the strange sensation cascading through him. He clenched his jaw, the muscles ticking along the edge.
“The portal,” he said through clenched teeth, his words nearly lost on the wind.
“How do I—”
But she never finished. The Triple Goddess moved before her, their hands clasped forming a shimmering, bright line as though a barricade existed between the two of them and the Realm of Chaos belching its evil.
Their images swirled into one, spinning into a glistening vortex.
That vortex twirled toward her and then punched through her with such violence she wobbled on her feet, nearly tumbling off the boulder.
Jamie’s grip tightened on her and then…then she was overcome with a strange sensation.
She heard a mellifluous voice in her head.
Blood warms to blood. A maiden’s grace. A warrior’s heart. By the light and will of ancient power, I command this chaos gone forever.
A pause, then Moira’s voice. Say the words, Brianna. Close the portal. Shift the timeline.
But if she shifted the timeline…what, then, would happen to her? To Jamie and to her sisters?
“If I do, then what? Will they be safe?” Her voice was raw and ragged, the wind taking away the words the moment they left her lips.
All will be as it was once before. Before the Night of Shadows. Before the Shattering. Chant the final words and save this world from Chaos.
She repeated the words. Before her, the portal began to stitch back together, the seam of light closing.
The battle continued to rage around her as indecision flashed through her.
Ahead of her, she saw Malcolm and Callum fighting alongside another man she didn’t know.
But when he turned just so, he had eyes the same color as hers.
He had a shock of red hair, reminding her of Evie.
His face was covered in a faded red beard.
His tartan pattern was different from that of the MacLeods or the MacDonalds.
Was this, then, the laird of Clan Sinclair?
“It’s working, lass!” Jamie’s words were battered in the raging wind. Still, she heard him.
Now, shift the timeline, Brianna.
She glanced at Jamie, who was focused on the closing gap in front of them. She squeezed his hand to get his attention.
“Jamie, I—”
“What? I cannae hear ye, lass!”
Her hand tightened on his as she angled her body toward him. “Jamie, I love you. I will always love you no matter what happens.”
But the wind stole her words. He didn’t hear her. She didn’t have a chance to say it again, as she turned back to close the portal and watched as the last few dark creatures tried to squeeze through to wreak havoc on this world.
The words came to her mind in a flash and she knew this was it. This would forever alter Time.
“Threads of time I weave together as Past and Future stitch forever. Now shift this timeline to what once was; forever mended with no more flaws.”
Her hand never left Jamie’s but before her, the earth’s rotation spun faster and faster and faster, until there was nothing but a smear of light before her.
The black, evil creatures that had come from the Realm of Chaos disappeared in a puff of onyx smoke.
The sounds of the battle dimmed. The walls of the castle ruins changed and shifted.
What have I done?
It was the last and only thought she had before the earth cracked beneath her feet as though an earthquake rumbled.
Jamie was ripped away from her. She no longer felt his hand in hers.
The shimmering light of the Triple Goddess jerked out of her, the images of the three women hovering over her, and then Brianna tumbled to the ground.
The last thing she saw were the spinning stars overhead and then nothing at all.