are humiliated about the failed invasion of the Ring. They are malcontents. That is their nature. They are an obstinate people. I am from here, and yet I still don’t completely understand them. Then again, I’ve never felt much like one of them.”
“No,” Reece said, appreciating Matus’ honesty, “you have always been more like one of us. Sometimes I think you were born to the wrong side of the royal family.”
Matus roared with laughter.
“I think so, too.”
They walked and walked and Krog followed, several feet behind, closer than the rest of the entourage, and Matus glanced back and gave Reece a curious glance.
“Who is your friend?” Matus asked.
Reece grimaced.
“He’s not my friend,” he said.
“You got that right,” Krog chimed in.
“I told you to wait for me at the ship,” Reece said to Krog, exasperated.
But Krog ignored him, continued to follow, one hand resting on his sword hilt and looking all about, as if on the lookout for danger.
“I intend to protect you,” Krog said.
“I don’t need protection,” Reece said, annoyed.
“I intend to repay my debt,” Krog said. “And I don’t trust these Upper Islanders.”
Matus raised an eyebrow.
“Is your friend always this suspicious?” Matus asked, glancing back over his shoulder.
Reece shrugged, annoyed but resigned to the fact that Krog was uncontrollable.
“He’s not my friend,” Reece repeated.
They continued on their hike, and finally crested a small hill. From here, down below, Reece spotted, not far away, a small lake in the hills. He noticed a woman, carrying an empty bucket, kneel beside the lake and begin to fill it up.
Reece watched her, curious. There was something about her which seemed familiar, but he could not figure out what.
Reece took several steps closer, examining her profile, wondering how he knew her.
Then, she suddenly raised the bucket, turned and faced him. She was shocked to see him, and she froze.
She stood there, and as her eyes locked on Reece’s, the bucket slipped from her hands, splashing at her feet. She did not even bother to look down it.
Reece could not have moved if someone pushed him. His heart pounded in his chest as he stared into those yes, losing all sense of time and place. They were hypnotic. They were eyes he knew, eyes that had been embedded into his consciousness. They were eyes he had, for many years, dreamt of.
Standing there, hardly a few feet away, Reece was shocked to realize, was his cousin. Stara. The love of his childhood. The girl he would stay awake for, late at night, dreaming of. The girl he had never forgotten. The girl he had secretly hoped to marry most of his life.
There she stood, and now, she had grown into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
As Reece stared into her crystal blue eyes, however much he tried, he could not summon thoughts of Selese. All thoughts of the woman he was about to marry flew from his head. He could not help it. Reece was hypnotized by Stara.
And as she stared back, unmoving, her eyes perfectly still, crystal-clear, like the lake behind her, Reece could see that she was as equally hypnotized by him. Their love, the strongest thing Reece had ever felt in his life, so strong it pained him, had never died. It had never even faltered.
Reece forced himself to turn his thoughts to Selese, to their wedding. But standing here, before Stara, rooted to this place, all free thought was impossible. He was in the grip of something greater than himself, something he did not understand. As he stood there, he knew that fate had interceded, and that his life, and the lives of everyone around him, whether he liked it or not, was about to change forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Bronson sat in the feasting hall of his fathers, in the old McCloud castle, seated at the head of the long table, Luanda beside him. Seated up and down the table, on either side, were McClouds and MacGils, grizzled warriors all of them, each sticking to their side of the table, none, despite Bronson’s efforts, intermingling with the others. Bronson surveyed it all, and his head hurt. Nothing was going as he had planned.
Bronson, in an act of desperation, had summoned all of these warriors together for a feast, to try to bring them closer to one another, to hash out any differences. He had chosen representatives from feuding clans on both sides of the Highlands, and he had throne a lavish feast in their honor, replete with music, wine, and delicious food. And yet, thus far, the night had not been going well. They each stuck to their side of the table, talking to their own clansman, and ignoring the others. They were both so stubborn, like two kids refusing to look at each other. It had made for an awkward feast at best, and Bronson was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake to even attempt this.
This feast followed hours of festivities, a mini festival which Bronson had ordered to celebrate a wedding of a MacGil clansman to a McCloud bride. It was originally supposed to be a quiet, simple wedding, in a humble village on the MacGil side of the Highlands; but when Bronson heard of it, he insisted that the wedding be a huge, public affair. This was exactly what he needed, and he personally paid for the expenses of it, thinking this would be the perfect event to help bring the two warring sides together. This young couple was truly in love, and Bronson hoped that maybe their love and goodwill would spread to the people.
The day’s wedding, though, had been an awkward affair, with both clansman staying on their sides, and the disapproving families of the groom and bride not even intermingling.
It had spilled over to the feasting hall, and Bronson had figured that the mood would be more relaxed at night, after the wedding, after all the dancing, once the men relaxed with drink and a good meal.
And yet here they all were, late into the night, the McCloud bride the only McCloud on the MacGil side of the room. Bronson had tried many times throughout the night to break the ice, but nothing seemed to work.
“You had better do something,” Luanda whispered into his ear.
He turned and looked at her. She leaned in close, staring at him intently.
“This feast of yours is a failure. It is not bringing goodwill between them. And if this does not, nothing will. You must bring them together somehow. I do not like what I see.”
“And what is that?” Bronson asked.
“A war erupting between them both.”
Bronson turned and looked out at the room, and felt the tension in the air, and on some level, he knew she was right. Luanda had a talent for always seeing things for what they were.
“A toast!” Bronson screamed out, standing and slamming his mug on the table until the room quieted.
Bronson knew the time had come to take decisive action, to be a great leader. He had to set the tone for harmony between the two clans.
“A toast to two great families!” he boomed. “To two great clans, coming together in peace. It is amazing how love can unite us all. Let us all follow this couple’s great example and come together, from both sides of the Highlands, to create one nation, one Ring, in harmony with each other.”
The bride and groom raised their mugs, as did several on the MacGil side; yet no one on the McCloud side bothered to. Bronson realized that the MacGils were more open to peace than the McClouds. It was hardly surprising: having grown up amongst the McClouds, he knew them to be obstinate.
“I have a better idea!” yelled Koovia, standing amidst the McCloud clansman, slamming his mug on the table, his voice booming, commanding attention. He looked drunk, his face red with scorn, and Bronson did not like what he saw.
The room quieted, as all eyes fell on him.
