to her stomach to see the number of Druids from her home who had been killed. If only she had known sooner, Broc and Fallon could have brought them safely to the castle as they had done with Reaghan and her village.
She wondered what could have prompted them to leave their home. The Druids Broc had saved were in the castle, and Sonya couldn’t wait to look for Anice. Her sister would have the answers to the questions that plagued her.
But it would have to wait. Sonya needed to gather her magic, and push aside her fear. There were those who would need to be healed, and everyone would expect her to use her magic.
Sonya had to make sure she was able to heal them. She wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye if she couldn’t. A tremor of foreboding raced down her spine, but she refused to listen to it.
She stepped over decapitated wyrran and dead MacClures as she checked a Druid for life. “Another gone,” she murmured.
As she stood, Sonya caught sight of Broc slowly falling to his knees beside a Druid. He raised his haunted gaze to Sonya. The hurt, the grief she saw reflected in his depths propelled her forward.
Sonya lifted her skirts and hurried toward him. When she neared him, she paused at the torment etched on his face. The way he held the Druid, as if she were the most precious thing in the world, caused a flare of envy.
“Sonya, she needs you,” Broc pleaded, his voice breaking with emotion.
Sonya pushed aside her jealousy. And then she saw the face of her sister. All the hope, all the joy she had been holding inside to share with Anice shattered in an instant.
It was all Sonya could do to suck in a breath to her starved lungs. Sonya covered her mouth with her hand, unable to believe it was her sister.
“Sonya!” Broc bellowed. “Use your healing.”
Sonya knelt beside her sister and put her hand on Anice’s chest. No breath moved in Anice’s body. “I cannot help her, Broc. My magic does not work on those already gone.”
“She’s no’,” Broc stated. “Heal her.”
Sonya rose, her knees threatening to buckle for a second time that day, and took a step back. Anice had spoken of a Broc, but Sonya had believed her sister had invented him. How wrong she had been?
“How do you know my sister?” Sonya asked.
“Heal her,” Broc said, his voice low and menacing. “You cannot allow Anice to die when you have the magic to help her.”
“She’s beyond my magic. She’s gone.”
Broc hugged Anice to him. “You failed her, Sonya!”
His words were like flails on a whip, striking at the most tender places inside Sonya. What was worse was that Broc was right. She had failed. She could have saved her sister if she had not been hiding in the dungeon.
Sonya looked up at the imposing structure of MacLeod Castle. She didn’t belong there anymore.
She backed away step by step from Broc, but he paid her no heed. His attention was on Anice. The gentle way he smoothed away her sister’s hair from her face was like a dagger to Sonya’s heart. Broc had known her sister.
And he had kept it a secret from Sonya.
What a fool she had been, to have any feelings for the Warrior. She had thought him brave to spy on Deirdre and risk his own life. She had been deceived. In the most heinous of ways.
At the village Sonya turned her back on the castle, on the life she had hoped to build there, and dashed into the forest.
Galen rubbed his temples as he sat beside Reaghan in the great hall. It was difficult for him to see her up and moving about as if she hadn’t had a spear in her spine just a few hours earlier.
While he and the other Warriors had cleaned their land of dead wyrran and MacClures, Reaghan and the Druids had seen to the wounded.
Now, they all gathered in the hall to hear what Reaghan had to say.
“You remember everything? Through all the years?” Galen asked, still unable to believe it.
“Aye,” Reaghan said. “Each ten years when the spell would work, it was like a wall went up in my mind, blocking everything. With my spell shattered, those walls are gone.”
Marcail shook her head in wonder. “How did you survive dying?”
“When we were in the dungeon using our magic to heal Odara I heard chanting.”
“Ah,” Marcail said with a smile. “It’s beautiful, is it not?”
Reaghan inhaled deeply as she thought of the soothing cadence of the chant. “While I heard the chant, I also heard my father. He poured words into my mind, words I couldn’t understand. It took so long to unlock a few, but I knew he was trying to tell me how to break the spell. Then I found Braden gone.”
“And you left the castle,” Galen said.
“I did,” Reaghan admitted. “I think the spell began to break as soon as we left Loch Awe. It broke a little more when I used magic against Mairi, and then again when I used the magic for Odara. It was while I lay dying, my mind drifting to a realm I otherwise probably couldn’t reach, that I realized how to end the spell.”
Camdyn asked, “Death?”
“Nay. It was magic. I called forth my magic, all of it. I must have done it right before my last breath left me.”
Isla smiled and folded her hands atop the table. “Very potent magic for sure.”
“And the spell?” Cara asked. “It had to have been a very powerful spell.”
Reaghan sighed and leaned against Galen. She was so glad he was near. She was glad the spell was broken, but it brought back memories that would pain her for a lifetime.
Fallon shifted in his chair. “Maybe you should start from the beginning, Reaghan.”
Reaghan looked to Galen and then around the table at the Druids and Warriors who waited to hear what she had to say. “Long ago Druids were as common to Scotland as heather. There were large groups as well as smaller groups. The larger the gathering of Druids, the more magic.”
“Aye,” Isla agreed.
“My village consisted of over four hundred Druids,” Reaghan explained. “We were the largest. And the ones most hidden. Our home was in the valley of Foinaven Mountain and shielded many times over by magic. If you didn’t know the way or the magic needed to gain entrance, you could never find it.”
Duncan whistled. “Are there still Druids there?”
Reaghan reached below the table and locked hands with Galen. “For centuries we lived in quiet seclusion. Every so often a Druid would come to us for protection.”
“Protection from what?” Quinn asked.
“Deirdre. Her power was growing faster than any of us could have guessed. We thought we had time to combat her.”
Ramsey crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. “You had something to use against her.”
It wasn’t a question. “We did. Every one of our Druids knew. It was a secret shared because everyone had used their magic. Somehow Deirdre was able to sway one of the Druids to her side. Deirdre learned we had a secret, but what, she didn’t know. Though the spy had been swayed, at the last moment, he must have realized what he had done. He took his own life before he could give Deirdre more information.”
“But the worst had already been done,” Arran said.
Reaghan licked her lips. “Deirdre had learned of our location. She came with her wyrran. So many were killed. Deirdre didn’t realize that any one of the Druids could have told her what she wanted. She and her wyrran murdered so many. Others, afraid of what Deirdre would do to them, took their own lives.”
Galen’s hand squeezed hers, giving her comfort with such a small gesture.
“What happened next?” Fallon urged.
“There were only a handful of us left. My father and I along with two very young girls and their parents. The girls were too young to know of our secret, but it didn’t stop Deirdre from taking them. The parents…” She paused to clear her throat. “The father died fighting the wyrran, and the mother threw herself from the mountain.”
“Which left you and your father,” Galen said.
