He did not lower his sword. “I think I’ll keep hold of it all the same if ye dinna mind.”
“Ye dinna need to fear me, Arran MacLeod.”
“How do ye know my name?”
She laughed, a bright sound like rain tinkling on the ocean. “It wouldnae be much good coming to speak to ye if I didnae know whoye are, would it? I heard yer prayer, lad.”
Lad? She looked younger than him. And what did she mean by that last statement?
“Ye… ye heard my prayer?”
She took a step forward, and Arran noticed that her feet left no impression on the sand. “I did. It was heartfelt and carried with it some of the power of the old ways. It’s a long time since I felt such conviction. And so I came.”
“Who are ye?”
“Dinna ye know me? My name is Lir.”
Arran’s heart skipped a beat. Oh, yes, he knew her. His childhood had been filled with tales of Lir and others like her. She was the Guardian of the Isles, so the tales went, and in times past, rituals and ceremonies had been held in her honor at the summer and winter solstices. Mariners still prayed to her, hoping to win her protection whenever they embarked on a voyage. She was a goddess of the sea, as beautiful and capricious as the ocean. So the tales said. But they were only tales, weren’t they?
“That’s… that’s… not possible.”
“Isnae it? If ye didnae believe, then why did ye pray?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Still holding his claymore protectively in front of him, he said, “What do ye want?”
Something like irritation flashed in those silver eyes. “The first thing I want is for ye to stop waving that bit of iron at me. Put it down, Laird MacLeod. I willnae speak to ye while ye hold it.”
He suddenly got the impression that although she might look younger than him, she was, in fact, very, very old. He felt like a boy being scolded by his tutor. Reluctantly, he sheathed his claymore in the scabbard across his back. He felt vulnerable without its reassuring weight in his hands, but what could a sword do against a goddess anyway?
“That’s better,” Lir said, giving him a beaming smile. Her hairfloated and swayed as she walked towards him, and it took all his courage not to back away.
She halted an arm’s length away and looked up at him. She was not as tall as he was—not many people were—and so she had to crane her neck, but even so he suddenly felt thathewas the smaller of the two, a child facing a giant.
“Aye,” she said softly. “I see it in ye. Ye have the courage to do what is necessary to save yer people.”
“I’ll do whatever ye ask of me,” Arran blurted. “If it sees my people and my island safe.”
She raised an amused eyebrow. “Dinna be so quick to agree, my laird. Ye may live to regret it.”
“I dinna care. I vowed to keep my people safe. Just tell me what I must do.”
“There is only one way. Ye must restore the magic that once protected Skye.”
Arran sagged, hope leaking out of him like a burst waterskin. “That’s impossible. Skye’s magic was woven by a MacFinnan spellweaver, and that line died out long ago.”
“Did it?” Lir asked. “Are ye so sure, my laird?”
“I’m sure.” After all, he’d scoured not only Skye, but Barra and Islay and even the mainland, searching for any trace of a MacFinnan spellweaver. He’d found none, and as the last of his scouts had returned empty-handed, the last of his hope had died.
“They’re gone,” he growled, anger in his voice now. “They’ve been gone for over a century, so dinna waste my time.”
“So impatient, my laird,” Lir said with a faint, mocking smile. “So sure, and yet so blind.”
“What do ye mean by that?”
“I mean that things are not always what they seem. Ye, of all people, heir to an ancient magic and guardian of many secrets, should know that. Ye didnae find any MacFinnan spellweavers inthistime.But that doesnae mean that they are gone entirely.”
She gestured behind Arran, and he turned to see an almost perfectly circular pool in the rocks behind him.
