CHAPTER 22
Evie hurried down the hallway and the winding stone stairs, Chloe on her heels. They crossed the great hall and headed to what they were now referring to as the tapestry room. When they rounded the corner, they saw the door already stood open.
Her sister halted and gave a questioning glance back to her. Chloe shrugged but when she heard Malcolm’s distinct voice, she knew who was inside.
He and Callum stood in front of the tapestries. Malcolm had his hands propped up on his hips while Callum stood with his feet shoulder width apart and his arms folded over his chest. They were both looking at the tapestry with the battle of the night of the Shattering.
The picture in the cloth depicted Moira and her two sisters standing high atop the crag with lightning around them. Moira held something in her fist, which glowed—the keystone— below them, the encroaching army led by Brodie MacDonald holding aloft his great axe.
It was the same great axe she had seen in the vision.
The same great axe that had glowed.
It was glowing in the tapestry.
Evie sucked in a sharp breath the moment she saw it. The men turned to her, not at all surprised to see her or Chloe there in the room.
“It’s true, then,” Evie said.
“Aye,” Callum said.
Chloe made her way toward the tapestry to get a closer look. She paused next to Malcolm, aware of the heat radiating off his body. Was he always so hot?
“This is what ye saw, lass?” he asked.
She nodded as she stared at the now glowing great axe. “It wasn’t doing that before, was it?”
“No,” Evie replied. “It wasn’t.”
“Is it some kind of message?” Chloe asked, something she’d wondered since she first had the vision.
“It could be. Maybe the Triple Goddess is trying to tell us something,” Evie replied.
“But what?” Callum asked. “Why show it now and not before?”
“I think it is a message,” Chloe said. “I think Bridget is trying to tell us something about the great axe.” She turned to face the others. “Why else would it be glowing?”
“There’s only one, well, three people who know the answer.” Evie’s gaze was on the Triple Goddess.
“They can’t exactly speak to us, Eve,” Chloe said.
But that was wrong. Bridget spoke to her in her head when she stood in this room alone. She was the one who had told her to guard the keystone with her life, that she possessed all the power of the stone.
“But,” Chloe added, “maybe there is a way to find out.”
“What do you mean?” Evie asked.
She reached into her pocket, brushing the surface of the stone with her fingertips.
The two times she had had the most powerful visions of the past, she had held the stone in her hand.
She pulled it out of her pocket and clutched it in her fist, thinking about how it felt when she had the visions. But this time, nothing happened.
She wasn’t sure how to make it work again.
“You’re trying to have another vision,” her sister said, moving closer to her. “Do you think you should?”
“I think I have to try. We have to know why it’s glowing, if it’s truly a message. And if it is a message, what it means.”
She cut a glance to Malcolm. His face was creased with concern.
“Are ye sure that’s a wise idea, lass? I saw the last two,” Malcolm said. “Ye dinnae fare so well during them.”
Something clicked inside her. He saw the last two. Yes. He was with her both times. The first time he was holding her hand. The second time she was wrapped in his arms.
She glanced down at the keystone resting in her scarred hand. Then she held her other hand out to him.
“Take my hand, Malcolm.”
He hesitated as he glanced from her open hand to her face, question flickering in his sea-green eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
“The last two times we were touching while I held the stone. I think that’s the key. I think we have to be touching each other while I hold the keystone to make it work. Because I’m the link to the past and…” she halted and swallowed hard, “you’re the link to me.”
Destinies intertwined. It was true, then. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, their fates were tied together.
“Chlo, are you sure about this?” Evie asked, concern edging her tone.
“No,” she said, honestly. “But I have to try. We have to know.”
She met Malcolm’s gaze as he reached for her. He grasped her hand as she closed her fingers around the stone.
And then it happened again.
The vision burst through her mind with forceful clarity. And there she was in the midst of the battle between three clans—Sinclair and MacLeod against MacDonald.
Brodie MacDonald held the glowing great axe as he cut down man after man.
The smell of death and rot and blood permeated the air with a pungent odor.
Dead littered the ground. Men screamed in agony.
Swords clashed against swords. Alexander MacLeod was losing.
Most of his men were dead. Padrig Sinclair was nowhere in sight.
On the crag, the Triple Goddess stood together. Moira in the center. Bridget to the left of her. The third sister, Athea, to the right.
Past, present, future standing together as Brodie MacDonald fought his way toward them.
Moira held the keystone aloft and whispered an incantation to the wind. The stone began to glow.
“Get that stone, lads!” Brodie shouted.
“You cannot think to defeat us, MacDonald,” Moira said, her voice even and calm. “I will destroy you.”
But Brodie MacDonald seemed not to care.
He lifted his great axe higher in the sky.
The words he uttered were lost to the wind.
The great axe exploded into life with a bright, white light pulsing upward into the night sky, illuminating everything around him.
Then he pointed it at the Triple Goddess.
Bridget and Athea went into action. The two moved to stand in front of Moira, clasping hands and using their bodies as a shield to protect her. The shot of power from the great axe went around them and then dissipated out of sight.
But only for a moment.
The space between Brodie and the Triple Goddess appeared to have ripped, pulling apart at the seams between them. Time and space ripped apart as the two women stood in front of Moira to weather the storm that came from the rift. Brodie pulled back the layers of time, causing a temporal disturbance.
Bridget’s voice boomed loud over the din of battle.
“Tell them, Chloe. Tell them what you saw here today.”
The vision ended. But there was more to that night than anyone knew.
Bridget continued to speak in her mind, telling her everything that had happened that night with sharp, quick words that pounded through her.
Words she didn’t have time to comprehend.
She sucked in a sharp breath, her lungs burning.
Her head throbbed with stabbing pain. She groaned.
“Lass?”
Malcolm. His strong arms were around her, holding her, cradling her against his chest. She still clutched the keystone in her hand. With her free one, she reached up to place her palm against his cheek.
“I know what happened the night of the Shattering. I saw it.”
Chloe was dimly aware that Evie was asking her more questions, but she felt as though she were in a tunnel. Far, far away from her and everyone. Even Malcolm. Her head hurt. She couldn’t think. Her eyes flickered closed. She allowed the darkness to overcome her.