Suddenly, she felt a tremor in the rock beneath her knees, a low rumble like that of an earthquake.
And somewhere she felt something… snap.
She closed her eyes, sent her senses desperately questing out towards Skye’s magic. And then she saw them. Black holes in the web. Unhealed. Corrupted. Broken.
No!she cried silently.I fixed it!
But she hadn’t. She might have broken the power of Njord’s corruption but her healing of the magic hadn’t worked. Despair washed through her, black and suffocating, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t lift her head for the agony of defeat rampaging through her.
The sounds of fighting were louder now, echoing off the walls around her. The raiders were only perhaps twenty paces from where she knelt, blocked by a line of Arran’s warriors who were fighting desperately to keep them at bay. They were so close she could make out the tattoos inked into the raiders’ cheeks—the same runes that had adorned the anchor stone. Her heart began to gallop in her chest, her breathing becoming hoarse and ragged with fear.
Then, even as she watched, two of Mal’s men went down, blood spurting and bodies crumpling. Three raiders burst through the line and sprinted forward with their weapons swinging.
Straight at Arran.
A scream ripped from Jenna’s throat as Arran stepped to meet thefirst of them. His claymore swung in a blur, taking the first man in the stomach, the second in the thigh, and then catching the third’s blade on his own, shoving him back with a powerful thrust of his shoulders.
But more men were breaking through the line now, first one and then another, and Arran was suddenly fighting desperately, fighting to keep them from her, fighting to stay alive.
“No!” Jenna screamed. “Arran!”
Magic gathered at her fingertips, hot and raging.
Your power must never be used for harm, her aunts’ voices said in her head.Only for the good of others.
It had been the song of her life, the unbreakable rule. But now she didn’t care. Arran was in danger, and nothing else mattered. What good was her power if she couldn’t save him? What was the point of any of this if she lost him?
She raised her hands, ready to send her magic crashing into the attackers and send them flying. But there was no room. Arran was too entangled in the melee, a confusing tangle of flashing blades and tumbling bodies. If she attacked now, she would likely hit him as well.
“Give it up!” a man with a tattoo down his neck snarled at Arran. “Ye canna win! Ye think ye can stand against the power of a god?”
“Njord has no power here,” Arran snarled back. “And neither do ye.”
With a furious burst, he sent a stinging attack at the man, claymore swinging so fast it seemed to be everywhere at once. The ringing of steel on steel filled the cave mouth as the tattooed man desperately parried the blows, being forced back step by step. Jenna knew very little about sword-fighting but even to her untrained eye, she could tell that Arran was a master swordsman. For such a large man, he was as light on his feet as a ballet dancer, and he moved and swayed, struck and pivoted with electrifying grace.
Arran’s blade caught the tattooed man’s and ripped it out of his hand. The man’s sword went sailing through the air and hit the cavewall with a clang. Unarmed now, the man crouched, eyes darting around as if looking for escape.
Arran swung his sword with all his might, a howl of rage and frustration bursting from his lungs. Had the blow connected, it would have taken the man’s head off.
But the blow didn’t land.
The tattoo on the man’s neck suddenly began to glow with a strange blue light. Then he moved so fast that Jenna couldn’t track his movement. One second, he was right in the path of Arran’s sword, the next he seemed to flicker and reappear inside Arran’s guard.
Time seemed to slow. Jenna saw the man’s hand reach to his waist and pull out a gleaming dagger. She saw him lunge at Arran. She saw the blade, razor sharp and deadly, move towards Arran’s heart inch by slow inch.
A scream formed in Jenna’s throat. She raised her hand slowly, so slowly—and the future suddenly burst upon her with the force of falling rocks. She was driven to one knee, enveloped in visions.
She saw a world without Arran MacLeod in it. She sawherworld without him in it. A world colder and darker for his absence. A life that fell so far short of what it could have been, a life empty of the light and laughter and warmth that could be hers if only she would acknowledge what she’d known all along.
She could not live without him. And why?
“Because I love him,” she whispered.
The admission washed through her like a summer breeze and instead of bringing the fear, the vulnerability, the weakness she’d expected, it brought instead something she’d not felt in a long time. Peace.
She lifted her head to the ceiling. “I love him!” she bellowed with all her strength. “You hear me? I love him!”
Do ye think I would have brought ye through time if ye couldnae do this? What ye need is already inside ye. Ye just have to find the courage to recognize it.
