Excerpt

HIGHLANDER'S CURSE
Pocket Books, March 29th, 2011

PROLOGUE
Berwickshire, Scotland
1296

This hardly looked a proper cottage at all, let alone the home to a seer of Thomas the Rhymer’s fame.

Colin MacAlister hesitated a moment to survey the ruined shack confronting him before dismounting.

Not even his own mother’s claim that his actions were those of a brash, untested youth had prevented this quest so certainly he wouldn’t allow something as minor as the unwelcoming appearance of this abode deter him.

False bravado, she’d accused. Have a care for the Fae, she’d warned. Respect the danger they represent.

He’d show her. His bravery was real. And as for the Fae? It was contempt he felt for them, not respect. He’d seen them with his own eyes this past year when they’d all but killed his brother. Drew’s body might have survived, but his heart, his spirit, they’d shattered that part of his brother.

There was nothing to fear from the Fae in this place anyway. They were too entrenched in their own arrogance to inhabit a place such as this. No, if the seer was here, he’d be alone.

Colin filled his lungs, slowly and with purpose, before forcing the air out again and with it, the doubt that plagued him. His determination bolstered, he tossed his reins over a low branch and headed for the door of the little hovel.

Perhaps the old man he’d spoken to back in the last village had been mistaken. Why would a man such as Thomas Learmonth leave his manor at Ercledoune for a heap of crumbling sod such as this?

No matter the appearance of the hut, he still had to try. He must find Thomas. He’d ridden too far and risked too much to give up now.

He’d but lifted his hand to knock on the door when it opened. A woman so old she looked as if her skin wrinkled in on itself stood before him.

“I seek Thomas of Ercledoune. Is he within these walls?”

She moved toward him, forcing him to take a step backwards.

“What is it that a strapping lad like yourself would have of poor auld Thomas?” She scratched her chin, staring at him with one eye squinted shut. “Not that I’m saying he’s here, mind you.”

“My business is with him and him alone. I’d warn you no to be playing games with me, woman. I’ve no the time or patience for it.” He hadn’t the luxury of time to waste on some lonely old crone.

“You’ve some nerve about you, lad,” the old woman cackled in her oddly accented voice. “Lonely old crone, you’ve pegged me, have you? And after the grand sum of no more than a mere moments’ acquaintance? You base that assessment on your vast years of experience and hardship, do you?”

A chill raced the length of Colin’s backbone as he at last met the old woman’s eyes. A green as dark as the hidden depths of the forest stared back at him, capturing him, holding him immobilized.

He’d not spoken those words aloud. He’d only thought them.

“You’re all too easy for me to read,” she murmured, the color in her eyes swirling as she spoke. 

“What takes you from me, my love?” a man’s voice called from beyond the door, breaking whatever power had bound Colin’s attention to the woman.

“Out of my way,” he muttered, the impetuousness of youth bolstered by need allowing him to push past her and into the room beyond.

What he found when he entered was in stark contrast to what he’d seen from the outside. The room itself was bathed in a warm glow of light coming from a large fireplace off to one side. Nearby, an old man sat in a richly cushioned chair, his hands resting on a polished table next to a stack of the finest, whitest paper Colin had ever seen.

The old man held a quill between ink-stained fingers, dipping it first into a little pot and then touching its tip to the sheet in front of him.

     “Thomas of Ercledoune?” Colin demanded, his tongue suddenly heavy in his dry mouth. It could be no other than the great seer himself.

     “Aye,” the old man answered slowly, turning a watery gaze in Colin’s direction.

     At last! Joy sparked in Colin’s heart.

Legend had grown around Thomas of Ercledoune, a seer who had accurately predicted the death of Alexander III. A man who, if those legends were to be believed, gained the gift of sight from the Faerie Queen herself.
     “You must tell me, True Thomas, will Edward the Longshanks be pushed back or will all of Scotland fall to his armies? Is there any hope for our freedom? I must know.”

     “Leave him be,” the old woman ordered stepping around Colin to place a protective arm over Thomas’ shoulders. “Your petty concerns of this world are of no consequence. Can you not see he’s exhausted and ill?”

     “All the more reason I must speak to him now, before it’s too late.” This might be his last chance to learn what the future held.

     “I order you to leave him be,” the woman stubbornly insisted.

     “Away with you!” Colin yelled, surprising even himself with his outburst. Whoever she was, she had no right to give him such orders. He wouldn’t be denied the knowledge he sought. Not now. Not after all he’d gone through to find True Thomas. “I must know my destiny. I’d hear it from his lips!”

     In front of him, the air around the old woman glowed green and her form shimmered as he watched. He rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he saw as her shape shifted from old woman to child to maiden.

     “Neither crone nor maiden, young upstart, but a queen who confronts you now.”

     Colin leapt away, grabbing for the sword on his back as he did so. To his amazement, he found himself unable to move, as if his hand had frozen to his weapon, his feet firmly stuck to the floor. He could not move any part of his body. He could, in fact, do nothing but watch the shimmering beauty draw close, her anger pulsing around her like a living rainbow.

     “It’s your destiny, you’d have, is it?” Her eyes flashed as her hand slammed down on the table beside them. “So self-important you are, you’d not even take care for feelings and health of old man? So self-important, you’d be rude to a helpless old woman. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

     She didn’t understand. It wasn’t really like that. He wasn’t really like that. He’d explain it all if only he could make his tongue work.

     Her eyes widened as if in surprise when she came close and placed her fingertips against his chest, directly over his heart.

     “And you, with the blood of the Fae coursing through your veins. Your behavior would be bad enough from a Mortal, but from one of my own?” She shook her head in disgust. “Well, pup, you’ll receive more this day than you bargained for. If it’s destiny you want, then by all means, it’s destiny you shall have.”

     The air he breathed went cold, his nose stinging like he’d stumbled into the glen on a snowy day. Around him, the room shimmered and wavered and his eyes tinted over with a green film as if he were trapped within a colored, pulsing sphere of light. He heard the woman’s words reverberating from somewhere outside that sphere.

     “You ask after the destiny of Scotland, but that’s not what you truly want, boy. No Fae’s destiny can ever be complete without finding his one true love, his other half, his Soulmate. Surely you’ve learned that much of your own people.”

     She was wrong! He was a warrior by nature and training. A warrior by choice. All he’d ever dreamed of was defending Scotland. By sheer force of will, Colin fought the Magic binding him, managing at last to move his lips.
     “No!” His voice was little more than a whisper. “Dinna need love.” Love was for women, gathering like hens in a warm solar, not for warriors like him. He had a much higher calling.

     “Oh you think so, do you, my rash child?” The Faerie Queen’s laughter tinkled around him, bouncing off the green sphere and echoing inside. “Well, we’ll just see about that higher calling of yours. Seems to me you’re but a youngling Fae in need of a lesson. And a lesson you shall have, a history lesson of your people. In the long ago, in the battle that split Wyddecol from the Mortal plain, Soul pairings were ripped asunder, leaving each soul a jagged half, crying out for its missing piece until it could once again find its own match. Only when the two halves are once again joined will a Fae feel complete. That finding is the true destiny of all Fae. A destiny you’d deny as you stand here before me.”

Lifting her arms, she placed one hand on either side of his head. “I call on the Magic lying dormant in your blood to rise up and I give you this gift, young Fae: from this day forward, you’ll feel all those Souls, each and every one. You’ll feel their sharp, jagged edges, seeing their anguish in your mind’s eye. You’ll feel their pain as they blindly call out for one another, even as your own need calls out, the need you deny exists. You’ll see the Souls which fit together. All of them. All except your own, that is, since you claim your own need is of no importance to you.”

“I ken yer anger, my love, but such a burden as you put upon the lad will drive him mad.” Thomas’ voice, floated through the haze. “Can you no see yer way clear to provide an escape from the millstone with which you weigh him down?”

“Very well, love, for you.” The Queen’s tone, caressing and warm, chilled as she turned her attention back to Colin, the green of her eyes swirling like a boiling cauldron. “Only by joining with your own Soulmate will you cease to feel the horror and pain of the great wanting.”

The Faerie Queen’s voice seemed to pierce his body, as if her words dove through his skin and into his very bloodstream. When at last she stopped speaking, the silence echoed in his head, beating against the inside of his closed eyes as loudly as the anxious pounding of his heart.

She released him then and he fell limply to the floor, lying there weak as a newborn babe when she walked away.

“Come, my beloved,” he heard her say over the scraping of a chair against the floor. “I’ve indulged your desire to stay in this world long enough. It’s time we returned to Wyddecol where your youth and vigor will be restored.”
Just as he thought himself alone, he felt her close, whispering in his ear. “I granted you an escape only to please my Thomas, and though you’ve angered me greatly with your impudence, I feel the need to tell you the whole of it, youngling. Since you swear you’ve no need for your own missing half, it should come as no serious disappointment to learn she’ll not be found in this lifetime. Perhaps my gift will allow you to learn the true importance of your destiny before your paths cross again.”

And then she was gone, the sound of his own shallow panting his only company in the stillness of the room.
How long he lay there, unable to lift even a finger, he had no idea. Perhaps he slept, but he couldn’t be sure. At last, his eyes flickered open and he pushed himself up to sit.

The room around him was dark and dank, smelling of animal dung and wet hide. The table and chair he’d seen earlier had disappeared, a roughly hewn wooden bench setting in their place.

He rose to his feet and stumbled outside into the light of afternoon to find his horse exactly as he’d left him, his reins still draped over the low branch.

With one last glance back at the little hut, he hefted himself up onto his mount and turned his horse away, back toward the village. Disappointment in his failure to find the answers he’d sought closed in on him, shrouding his thoughts.

Whether he’d really found Thomas of Ercledoune or only imagined the entire incident, he might never know. For the moment, he wanted to believe it had all been some bizarre nightmare brought on by sleepless nights and lack of food.

He had almost convinced himself that was the case.

The first twinges hit him just outside the village proper, sharp pains cutting against his consciousness. Jagged impressions of brightly shining lights, like broken sunbeams gone horribly wrong, they flittered through his mind. So many of them, one piling in after another until he lost count of the different shapes battering inside his mind, each of them pulsing, seething with the unrelenting agony of their own unabated loneliness.

He kicked his horse’s sides, demanding speed, through the village and beyond until at last the images began to fade.

It was then he knew the truth of it.

Those shards of light had been the souls of the villagers. Just as the Faerie Queen had said he would, he’d felt every single one of them calling out for their missing half. He’d felt their desolation and pain.

His meeting with Thomas of Ercledoune had been no trick of his imagination. Nor had his encounter with the Faerie Queen been a fantasy. They were all too real.

As real as the ‘gift’ she had given him.

As real as the curse he’d bear for the rest of his days.