1
Brodie
The grassnever liked me much. There were Druids who could gaze upon the rippling fields of grass and see between the individual blades everything that Gaia, Mother Earth, had laid out for them. They could focus on the quiet grandeur of the meadow, and it would speak to them as it gently swayed back and forth in the wind.
But I wasn’t that kind of Druid. The grass never spoke to me. Nothing ever did—not the soil beneath my feet, the wind in my hair, or the trees that stood like solemn sentinels at the edges of the meadow. I was Gaia’s forgotten child, the man who knew nothing of the ways of the earth goddess, and could never seem to earn her favor. She would let me draw upon her power, but she never saw fit to speak to me.
Not until last night, when I saw the woman.
Running a tired hand through my shaggy copper hair, I stared at the grass again. I still couldn’t believe it had actually happened, and when I’d least expected it. I’d been walking home, through this very meadow, when the blades had parted, giving me a glimpse of the future. I’d squinted hard, watching the grass dance in the breeze, brimming with power from Gaia herself. She had allowed me to harness that power last night, granting me the first vision of my life.
But tonight, she did not deem me worthy.
“Well, damn you too,” I muttered, scowling. I would have spit on the ground, but that would have only angered Gaia, which wouldn’t help my cause. I didn’t know why she’d chosen to bless me with a vision last night, and then take that sight away, but I knew one thing in my very bones.
If I wanted to help the woman I’d seen, I was going to have to find her myself.
I knew I shouldn’t be so cross with Gaia. The sight didn’t come to all Druids—in fact, it came to very few of us. Perhaps a handful in a generation were blessed—or cursed, depending on how one looked at it—with visions of the future handed down by the earth goddess herself. No one would ever think that I might be amongst the chosen handful. As far as the Druid community was concerned, I was nothing special. A fatherless disappointment who was generally more concerned with bedding women than with mastering the energies swirling all around us.
Not that I didn’t hold a few tricks up my sleeve. But my lack of ambition did not make me very popular in Druid circles. I never thought I would regret my preference for fun over book learning and practice. Not until last night…
“What are ye doin’, son?” Agnid, the woman who had taken me in when I was a bairn, asked from behind me. I turned to see her standing just a few feet away, her deep blue cloak ruffling in the wind to reveal the homespun dress beneath it. She was a kindly soul, with ginger hair laced with silver and a round face lined with good humor. I liked to think I’d gotten my own sense of humor from her, rather than the parents I’d never known.
“I’m contemplating this fool of a task Gaia has laid out for me,” I grumbled, and she laughed.
“Son, ye must not complain so.” Agnid lifted her hands to my face, her powder-blue eyes soft and kind as they always were. She wasn’t my mother, not by blood, and yet she’d cared for me as her own since the day my own mother had died. “I dinnae ken what task Gaia has set out for ye, but ’tis an honor to be chosen. She has faith in your abilities, as I always have.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “But perhaps too much faith if she thinks to give me such little information to work with.”
“The earth goddess works in mysterious ways.” Agnid dropped her hands from my face. “She brought ye to me, did she not? Even though not a drop of Druid blood flows in my own veins.”
I took her hand in mine. “Ye ken very well that has never mattered to me,” I said fiercely. Agnid didn’t have the sight, but she was a healer, and connected to the earth in a way most never would be. She had taken me in when no one else would because I was a bastard. My mother had died in childbirth, and my father had been banished from the Mystic Moors for a crime that, to this day, I still did not know the details of. The Druid High Priest had brought me to Agnid when I was a wee babe. She lived just beyond the Mystic Moors, close enough that I could still visit the Druids for my lessons, but far enough away that the taint of my family sins could not sicken them.
It had been hard, living with a foot in both worlds. As I had Druid blood in my veins, they were compelled to teach me their ways, if only so that I wouldn’t accidentally harm others. My easygoing nature had won me friends in my youth, and softened up the teachers toward me some. But the prejudiced looks that followed me every time I set foot in the Mystic Moors, the hidden refuge tucked away in the Highlands beyond human reach, was precisely the reason I’d never been ambitious as a Druid. It was clear that I would never fit in. I was different, and whether that was because of my father, or something else entirely, I did not know.
But Agnid had never treated me as though I was different. She treated me as though I belonged, and I would always be grateful to her for that.
“Yer such a good lad,” she said, tears in her eyes now. “Always with that hellion smile on yer face, no matter what life throws at ye. That must be why Gaia chose ye for whatever mission she has decided to send ye on. She sees yer strength of character. She kens that ye will not be swayed, regardless of the forces bent against ye.”
I pressed my forehead against hers. “I wish I had yer confidence,” I murmured. “But I don’t. If Gaia wants me to save some girl, why won’t she just tell me where she is?” I kept my voice even, but I was vibrating with frustration inside. It was my motto in life not to get too attached to things, to approach issues with a carefree nonchalance. But when that vision had hit me, when I’d watched that woman fall into the lake of fire, something had changed inside me. Indescribable pain and horror had filled me as I watched her scream and writhe, watched the skin and flesh sizzle away as her bones burned into nothingness.
She’d been beautiful and fierce, dressed in leather, a bow of glowing blue energy in her hand that had not saved her from the fall. And though I’d never seen her in my life, a connection had sprung up between us in that moment, strong as the thread that bound my life to this world. Just the sight of watching such a bonny lass, so full of life and fire, fall to her death had made my soul cry out in agony. I could no more leave her to that fate than I could choke off my own windpipe.
Agnid only smiled. “Journeys start where they start, Brodie.” She clapped a hand on my shoulder before turning to stare out at the meadow. “The butterfly doesna ask why it must begin as a caterpillar on a tree. It just must, and so must?ye.”
“Yer sayin’ I’m a bug now?” A smile crept across my face despite myself.
“Aye, but a bonny one.” She reached up and pinched my cheek. “One I’d say is destined?fer?more than he’s willing?to credit. Ye dinna think ye were going to stay in the Moors forever, did ye, lad? A man must make his way in the world. That’s what makes him a man, and I ken in my very bones that by Gaia’s good grace, yer going to be the kind of man who makes an old woman proud.”
A reluctant grin passed over my face. “I dinnae see an old woman,” I teased, kissing her cheek. “Just a bonny lass who sees too much good in me.”
“Well, someone has to.” Chuckling, she turned away. “Go on now, then, and when ye finally become a butterfly, you come back to yer mother.”
After that parting remark, she headed back to our humble house on the hill, leaving me alone with the grass.
2
Arabella
