Chapter Thirty
After she and her sisters had had their fill of food, Brianna retrieved her cloak and headed out of the keep to the stables.
She wrapped the cloak tight around her shoulders and was grateful for its warmth as she crossed the green.
Overhead, the sky was overcast with heavy white and gray clouds.
The wind was still cold and, despite the warmth of the woolen cloak, chilled her to the bone.
As she entered the stable, she saw Jamie talking to one of the stable hands. When he saw her, his face lit with joy and he gave her his famous knee-melting smile.
“Ah, there ye are, lass.”
He examined her for a long moment as he approached her, looking her over as though decades had passed since he’d laid eyes on her.
“Your hair…” he said.
She reached up and ran her hand down the thick braid Roslyn insisted on. “Yes, Roslyn did it for me.”
He started to reach for her, but then dropped his hand.
“You don’t like it?” she asked.
“I’m no’ used to seeing it like that,” he said.
“Roslyn said it would keep my hair from being snarled with tangles.”
The woman was right, of course. Standing there, the wind whipping around her, would surely cause more gnarled knots.
“I like it better the other way. Long and loose.”
She flushed, the heat rising to her cheeks as her mind went utterly blank. Thankfully, she didn’t have to think of a response. He motioned to the two horses he had saddled and ready to go.
“Are ye ready to ride?”
“Yes.”
Though he tried to help her, she didn’t need it as she stuck her foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself onto the back of the horse. He looked impressed as he then mounted his own horse. Then they were away, heading out of the castle gates.
Brianna gripped the reins tight in her hand as she peered across the expanse of land.
The wild, untamed landscape still took her breath away.
And though she missed her sun-drenched beaches and her Caribbean breezes, she knew that was not her life anymore.
That was her old life—her old self—and here, now, she had been renewed.
She was in love with this land, not to mention the man riding next to her.
“Jamie, there are castle ruins not far from here. Maybe an hour’s ride. Do you know it?” She cut him a glance.
“That’s Castle Caelnar,” he said.
“Could we ride out to it?”
Confusion etched his features. “Why do ye wish to see ruins?”
She shrugged. “I just do.”
Of course, there was no way she could tell him the truth. He would never understand because he didn’t remember.
When he looked as though he would refuse her request, she hastily added, “Please, Jamie. It would mean a lot to me.”
He relented. “All right, then. If it means that much to ye, let’s go.”
Jamie turned his horse in the direction she knew to be the ruins. She had ridden there once—on the back of a horse with John MacDonald—so she only remembered the way the direction felt as they headed there. It was definitely into the wind, the wind that now whipped through her.
They rode on, making small talk, as though they hadn’t shared a near-death experience with each other. She wondered if he still had the scar across his palm. She hadn’t noticed when they were together in her chamber. All she noticed was how wonderful his roughened palm felt against hers.
In the distance, she saw the ruins perched on the cliff, reaching for the sky. Her heart tumbled around in her chest. When she chanted the words and altered the timeline, she’d thought she recalled seeing the walls return to normal. But the castle on the cliff was still in ruins.
Excitement burned through her. She wanted to hurry.
She wanted to see if that flat boulder was still there with the symbol of the keystone carved into the top.
She cut a glance to Jamie, who rode at a normal pace, his gaze forward.
She recalled the day she’d raced him to the keep, when she’d kicked her horse into a full gallop and headed over the rocky terrain.
It was exhilarating to ride like that. And it would be again.
“The ruins are ahead,” he said.
She gave him a wicked grin. “I’ll race you.”
Before he had a chance to reply, she kicked her horse into a full gallop.
“Brianna—”
But his words were lost in the wind. She hunched down toward the neck of her horse as its hooves pounded the ground, sending up dirt clods in its wake. She snuck a glance over her shoulder to see that he was closing in fast. He was grinning from ear to ear and loving every second of the chase.
When they were near the slope leading up to the ruins, she slowed the horse to a walk and then a halt. She was windblown. Her cheeks were chilled but she found she couldn’t stop smiling. He pulled to a halt next to her.
“I win,” she said, sounding breathless.
He laughed. It was a glorious sound deep in his chest.
They left the horses to graze in the grassy area at the base of the slope and headed up to the ruins.
Jamie was beside her, keeping pace with her hurried steps.
Her legs burned with the exertion. Her breath see-sawed in and out of her.
Her nerves jangled through her, her palms breaking into a cold sweat.
The moment she stepped through the crumbling wall, her heart stopped. She stood there staring around the ruins and remembering the horrible, ugly battle with MacDonald and the strange, dark creatures pouring out of the opened portal from the Realm of Chaos. That night was terrifying.
“Are ye all right?” he asked, his voice soft near her ear.
“Yes,” she said on a breath.
Even though it was only days ago, the ruins showed no signs of a battle. No red-stained earth. The ground was not littered with bodies. It was as if it had never happened.
But it had. And the two of them were there together.
She moved deeper into the ruins. One peaked wall stretched toward the sky. There was no roof here. She recalled every moment from that night with such clarity, it was as though she relived it.
Then she saw it. The low boulder with the smooth top.
She hurried toward it and dropped to her knees in front of it.
Though she saw no lines, she stretched her hand out to touch it.
The stone was warm—a strange sensation on such a cold day.
There was a groove. She traced it and realized, though she couldn’t see it, the Celtic symbol with the circle through it was there.
“I was here. It really happened,” she whispered.
She flattened her palm on it—the one with the fading burn lines—and closed her eyes and smiled.
It was enough for her to know the boulder was there with the symbol.
Enough to know what happened that night really did happen.
Enough to know the Triple Goddess allowed her to keep her memories of that night, of Jamie, and everything else that had happened here in the past.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Lass?”
Jamie’s voice was right behind her. Then his hand was on her shoulder. She removed her hand and stood, turning to him. Question burned deep in his eyes.
“What is that?” He nodded toward the flat boulder with the Celtic symbol faded in the stone.
“I…” She turned her head to look at it, wondering how to explain it to him. “Maybe I’ll show you.”
She clasped her hand in his and, on impulse, pulled him toward the boulder.
She stepped up. He dutifully followed. The moment his second foot landed on the top of the flat surface, the wind gusted around them, lifting her braided hair.
She heard voices on the wind. Hers. His.
Voices from that night when everything changed.
When the wicked breezes had pummeled them and the dark creatures invaded.
And she chanted the words that had closed the portal.
It’s working, lass!
She gripped both his hands, hard, looking deep into his mesmerizing eyes. There, she saw the confusion with a hint of fear as he tightened his hands on hers. She saw he heard his own voice on the wind and he didn’t immediately understand. And then their last words echoed back to the both of them.
Jamie, I—
What? I cannae hear ye, lass!
Jamie, I love you. I will always love you no matter what happens.
The wind howled through the ruins, whipping around them in a ghostly wail before dying as suddenly as it came.
Silence settled over the ruins, thick and humming with something unseen, something ancient.
Yet, they still stood there, their hands locked together, the heat of his palm anchoring her, tethering her to this moment.
Her breath caught as she saw the flicker in his gaze—the sharp glimmer of realization, of memory returning like a tidal wave crashing over him.
His fingers twitched against hers. His pupils widened.
Then, with a sudden jolt, he stumbled back, his hand raking down his face, leaving a bloodless trail as if pushing away the impossible truth clawing into his mind.
“Och, God’s teeth,” he said, his voice low and urgent. Then he spun back to her with an expression that told her he saw, he knew, he remembered.
He rushed toward her, taking her in his arms. His lips found hers in an urgent desperation that seared through her.
A kiss that sealed forever between them.
A kiss that said he understood, he heard, and he would never let her go.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she was unwilling to wipe them away.
A sob broke from her as she let them slide down her cheeks with happiness and pure joy, and when they broke, she gasped for air and clung to him.
“I remember. I remember it all,” he said with his face buried in her hair. “The portal. The keystone. You.”
She buried her face against his strong chest, inhaling the sweet leather and heather scent that was all him. Her arms were tight around his waist, holding him as though he were the only thing tethering her to this world. He pressed a kiss against her temple.
“You love me.” His words were deep, rumbling against that broad chest.
“I love you,” she whispered back, though she wasn’t sure he’d heard her muffled words.
He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands and looking down at her with unfathomable love and quiet tenderness. It rendered her speechless. He smiled, then, those dimples carving into his cheeks like she’d seen so many times before but never quite like this.
“Since the moment ye appeared in those tapestries, I waited for ye.” He whispered the words against her lips, featherlight. “I loved ye from that moment. I’ll love ye until my last moment on this earth.”
His vow was sealed with a kiss. Deeper this time. They tumbled to the ground, their arms tangled together and bodies pressed close. And there, in the shadow of the ruins, he pledged his love forever to her and she to him. There would be no more parting. No more lost moments. Only this. Only them.
Always and forever.