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 anear-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 areaat 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.
