Chapter Seven #2
Jenna picked her way with care along the vale’s base, skirting around the edges of a small, tear-shaped loch and then through a thicket of twisted rowan trees. The hanging moss stirred slightly at her passing, a faint whisper rippling through the air, so gentle as to be almost beyond hearing.
Glancing behind, she saw that although Arran followed close behind, his shoulders were hunched and tense, his face a little paler than usual. Even Bran seemed wary, snorting and rolling his eyes as he followed his master. It seemed she wasn’t the only one affected by this place.
Finally, the rowans pulled back and they found themselves at the base of the outcrop from which the square of sandstone rose.
It reached up into the sky, taller than anything around it, and Jenna had to tilt her head back to look up at its summit.
Thorny bushes grew out of the rock’s sides, and she could see old bird’s nests in its cracked and pitted surface.
The place had a feeling of antiquity about it, as though she was looking at the exposed bones of the earth itself, old beyond time.
“Stay here,” she instructed Arran. “I’m going to go closer.”
He frowned but didn’t argue as she made her way to the base of the rock and laid her hands against the rough sandstone.
The shock that ran through her hand almost made her snatch her hand back.
It reminded her of the time she’d touched an electric fence when out walking with her mother as a child.
There was a kick and then a rush of sensation that ran right up her arm and into her chest.
If she’d wanted proof that Skye’s magic was real and wasn’t just folklore or superstition, this was it. The island was alive. The power beneath her fingers pulsed like a heartbeat, golden and shining in her mind’s eye.
In her time, in the twenty-first century, whatever magic had once been in the earth was weak and fading. People had forgotten the old ways, had forgotten the forces of nature that had once governed people’s lives, and now there were only a few hidden places where the magic remained strong.
But not here. Here it pulsed with a vibrancy that took her breath away and made her heart soar. It was so primal, so pure, so… so… alive.
The MacFinnan spellweavers of the past had not created the magic that protected Skye, she realized. They had merely molded it. They had used their own powers to shape it to their will and employ it to protect the people who lived here.
Perhaps she could do the same.
Closing her eyes, she reached down into the core of power that swirled in her chest and reached out with it to the magic that thrummed through the rock.
It was like stepping into a whirlpool. Her consciousness was suddenly grabbed and she was sent spinning, spinning away into the void, into ropes of shimmery golden power that crisscrossed Skye in an intricate web.
She struggled to keep hold of herself, to stop her consciousness being fragmented by the awesome elemental powers that buffeted it. But slowly, she brought the clinging threads of her being together.
How? she asked Skye. How do I help you?
She traveled farther along the web of power and saw that many of the links were broken, dark sections in an otherwise sparkling golden maze.
At the cardinal points of the net she saw points of swirling energy that locked the protective magic in place.
Some shone brightly, alive and vibrant, but others glowed dully, like the dying embers of a fire.
It was these points that were linked to the dark strands of the mesh.
Allowing her consciousness to drift closer to those dark strands, she probed them with her magic, trying to weave them back together, trying to make the magical web whole. It didn’t work. Her magic merely dissipated into the void and evaporated like smoke.
Damn it, she thought stubbornly. There has to be a way.
She poured more of her magic into those dark strands, feeling it flow out of her in a rush.
Weakness began to flood her limbs. Still, she didn’t stop.
There was too much riding on this for her to give in.
The people of Skye needed her, and she needed Arran’s payment if she was going to get home and fix her life.
So she gritted her teeth, reached deep inside herself to the magic that had lain dormant there for so long, and used it to weave a skein of golden threads across the dark strands of the magical web.
Or, at least, that’s what she tried to do. Her repairs held for perhaps a few seconds before they snapped and dissipated into the darkness.
In frustration, she pushed her consciousness ever closer to those dark holes in the magic. If she could just figure out—
But she moved too close. Suddenly the void reached out to grab her and she was falling down, down, down into darkness.
*
Arran did not like this place. Oh, he respected it of course, and as laird of this land he observed the expected rituals at midsummer and midwinter, but it still unnerved him.
If he closed his eyes, he fancied he could almost hear whispers just beyond hearing and feel the thrum of energies far beyond his ken.
The place made him feel small, like he was some insignificant speck in the mighty cosmos and that compared to the powers that slumbered here, his life was as fleeting and ephemeral as a butterfly’s.
He shifted uneasily, stroking Bran’s nose, and watched Jenna.
What was she doing? Not a lot, it seemed to the naked eye.
She was standing close to the rock, both palms pressed flat against its rough surface, with her eyes closed.
She hadn’t moved or spoken a word for the last ten minutes, although her eyelids fluttered as though she were dreaming.
He considered asking her what she was doing but then thought better of it. It was probably not wise to interfere with a MacFinnan spellweaver when she was doing… whatever it was she was doing.
Suddenly her lips parted and she let out a tiny gasp. Then she collapsed, puddling onto the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
A shot of alarm went through Arran and, dropping Bran’s reins, he ran to her side and knelt next to her, his knee sinking into the springy turf.
“Lass?” he asked urgently. “Jenna?”
She lay on her back, limbs splayed at awkward angles, her eyes closed.
She had gone pale. No, worse than pale. She had lost all color, and there was a faint blue tinge to her lips.
A rime of frost had formed across her eyes, her long eyelashes sparkling with silver.
He pressed a hand to her face then snatched it back when he found her skin was as cold as ice.
With a muttered curse, he ripped off the brooch that held his plaid at his shoulder, pulled the garment off, and quickly wrapped it around her, tucking it close like a cocoon. She flopped around like a doll as he worked but she didn’t wake.
The alarm turned to a spike of fear that turned Arran’s insides cold. “Lass!” he called, shaking her shoulders. “Wake up!”
She did not respond. Hand shaking slightly, he pressed his fingers against the icy skin of her neck and was relieved to find a pulse, although it was weak and fluttering like a trapped bird.
He looked around, searching for anyone who might help them, but they were alone.
Except for Bran, there was not another living thing in sight.
“What have ye done to her?” he shouted at the towering face of the rock. “What have ye done?”
His fear gave way to anger. Anger at his helplessness. Anger at whatever had done this to her. Anger that it was he who had brought her here and caused this to happen in the first place.
He had no idea how to help her. Battlefield wounds he knew how to deal with, but this? This was far beyond his expertise. He had to get her back to Dun Tabor, and fast.
“Hold on, lass,” he muttered as he scooped her up. “Hold on.”
He hurried over to Bran and draped the unconscious lass over the saddle while he mounted.
Once in the saddle, he rearranged Jenna’s inert form until she was sitting in the saddle leaning against him, with her head lolling back against his chest. She didn’t stir the entire time and despite the plaid that now wrapped her, he could feel the cold from her skin seeping into his chest.
He ignored it. The urgency boiling in his gut would have to be enough to keep him warm.
Clamping one arm firmly around her waist and holding the reins with the other, he kicked Bran into an urgent gallop.
Perhaps responding to his master’s mood, or perhaps just eager to get out of this unsettling place, the gelding needed no prompting, and little guidance from Arran.
At a breakneck pace they sped along the base of the glen and up onto the trail that led south to Dun Tabor.
He knew galloping at this pace was reckless but he also knew he had no choice.
Jenna was a dead weight against him, her head lolling with the movements of the horse, and he was sure he could feel her slipping away from him inch by slow inch.
No, he said to himself. I will not lose her!
With this determination burning in his veins, and pushing Bran to his very limits, they reached Dun Tabor in less than half the time the journey had taken them this morning.
He thundered through the village, Bran’s hooves sending up sprays of mud, Arran bellowing at people to get out his way, and then clattered through the gates and into Dun Tabor’s courtyard, not stopping until he pulled a sweating and lathered Bran up outside the doors.
Seeing his urgency, several of his men came running, including Mal, back from his scouting mission.
“What is it?” Mal asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Take her,” Arran barked.
He handed Jenna down to Mal, jumped to the ground, and then took her back.
“What happened?” the big man asked.
Arran ignored the question. Carrying Jenna up the steps, he yelled over his shoulder, “Fetch the healer! And send my mother and Ingrid to Jenna’s room immediately!”
Not waiting to see if he was obeyed, he shouldered the doors open, hurried across the entrance hall, and then took the steps two at a time. At the top, he ran along the corridor of the guest wing and kicked open the door to Jenna’s room.
Ingrid looked up from where she was fluffing the pillows on the bed. “Oh, my lord!” she cried, putting a hand to her chest. “Ye startled me—” She cut off as she spotted Jenna, her eyes going wide. “My lady! What happened?”
Arran laid Jenna on the bed, then tucked her under the blankets, pulling them tightly around her.
“Get a fire going and bring extra blankets,” he snapped at Ingrid. “She’s freezing!”
Ingrid jumped to obey and in only moments he heard the snap and hiss of flames behind him. He dragged a chair over to Jenna’s bedside and sat, pressing a hand against her forehead. It was still icy cold.
Ingrid hurried over, bearing extra blankets she had taken from a chest, and threw them over Jenna. The girl’s face was almost as pale as Jenna’s.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
Arran shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
Hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor outside and then his mother burst in accompanied by Martha, one of the keep’s healers.
She was a no-nonsense matronly woman with dark hair tied in a plaited coil at the back of her head who had tended to Arran’s scrapes and broken bones ever since he was a boy.
He was still a little afraid of her even now.
Martha took one look at Jenna laid out in the bed and snapped, “Everyone, get out of the way! Let me see my patient.”
Arran left Jenna’s side reluctantly, moving to stand beside his mother. Rosaline had an anxious expression on her face, and she was chewing on her bottom lip.
“What happened?” she asked in a low, worried voice.
“I don’t know,” Arran replied with a shake of his head. “She just… collapsed.”
His stomach roiled with anxiety as he watched Martha inspect Jenna.
The healer pressed her fingers against Jenna’s pulse points, hissing at the icy touch of her skin, peeled back her eyelids to look into her eyes, gently probed Jenna’s head with her fingertips, and pried Jenna’s mouth open to look at her tongue.
Next she peeled back the blankets and ran her hands down Jenna’s arms and legs before gently feeling her abdomen and then lastly pressing her ear against Jenna’s chest to listen to her heart.
Finally, she pulled the blankets back and straightened. “There’s nothing wrong with her as far as I can tell,” she pronounced, turning to Arran. “No signs of injury or disease. Whatever has caused this malady is something internal, something beyond my ken.”
“That’s it?” Arran snapped. “That’s all ye can say? Why willnae she wake? What can be done to help her?”
Martha met Arran’s furious gaze with a stern one of her own.
“She is a MacFinnan spellweaver,” she said softly.
“And she touches powers far beyond yer ken or mine. There is something of that going on inside her, and neither ye nor I can do anything about it. She will either wake or she willnae. Keep her warm. That’s all we can do. ”
She squeezed Arran on the shoulder. She will either wake or she willnae. The words cut through him like daggers.
“Leave me,” he said into the sudden, heavy silence.
“My son, Jenna must not be left alone. Perhaps I should—” began Rosaline.
Arran spun on the three women. “I said leave! I will stay with her.”
Martha looked as though she was about to argue, but perhaps sensing the storm within Arran, she wisely did not. “Come get me immediately if there is any change.”
Arran nodded tightly and watched as they left the room.
When the door closed behind them, he lowered himself into the chair by the bed and leaned forward, brushing a stray strand of hair out of Jenna’s face.
She looked peaceful, like she was only sleeping, but for the ice that had gathered in her lashes.
He wrapped his fingers around hers, ignoring the icy touch of her flesh. Her hand felt small and delicate in his big, ungainly paw.
“Come back, lass,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”