Chapter 1
Isla’s POV:
The storm arrived like a quarrelsome chieftain—loud, ruthless, and impossible to ignore.
When the first thunder cracked across the glen, townsfolk muttered prayers to saints and curses to whatever restless spirits stirred in the sky.
But I, Isla MacRae, did not.
I have never been one to obey warnings, whether they came from men or from storms, or from the gods themselves.
I told myself I went out for herbs and that a healer cannot let weather rule her work–after all.
That was my excuse after all, and it would sound respectable enough if Grandmother or my uncle asked later.
The air had been humming since the wee morning, like a harp-string plucked but never fully silenced. But by dusk it thrummed inside my chest.
It was foolish, aye—but I’ve always had more defiance than sense.
The rain soaked me through before I’d taken even 20 steps. My cloak clung to me, my boots sank into mud, and my hair was snarled in wet ropes around my face, my red golden strands tnagled. Still, I pressed onward.
And the land seemed to lead me on it’s own.
It led me up the slope and over the ridge where few folk dared to go after dark.
I should have turned back. But instead, I kept climbing, until the storm led me into the hollow of the large uneven standing stones.
They loomed in the distance— older than clan feuds, older than the English wars, and older perhaps than sin itself.
Most folk wouldn’t set foot near them and in the past I had never felt drawn before but tonight for some reason…something stirred inside me, demanding that I make the journey.
The tallest stone shimmered in the pale bask of moonlight. At first I thought it was a strike of lightning but no. A glow pulsed from within, faint and green as spring water caught in the glow of moonlight.
I stopped breathing.
Everyone had heard the tales—Morag’s voice echoed in my mind even now. The stones remember, lass. They see what we cannot. But their gift is never free.
I have never been a lass to run from warnings, not even hers.
So I stepped closer.
The mud sank my boots further into the wet ground and the storm clawed at my cloak, but nothing could drag me back now. My hand rose to the stone and my fingertips brushed the front.
And silence.
The storm cut away like a knife. The world shrank to me, the stone, and the pounding of my heart.
My eyes were clouded.
Visions.
Warriors were seen locked in battle. A babe was seen crying in the dark. And at the heart of it was one man, shadowed with a face not seen. But I could see his eyes—those eyes. Steel. He turned as his gaze caught mine and for one impossible heartbeat, I felt seen.
As though he knew me.
The vision tore apart.
And I realized again I was in the storm as the rain stung my face and the wind howled back. I stumbled back and gasped as my hand burned cold still from the stone’s touch. The glow had gone out now.
“Saints preserve me.” The words slipped out rough and breathless from my mouth.
I swayed, dizzy with what I’d seen. My body shook, but I clenched my fists to force it back.
Fear is a hungry beast—it grows if you feed it. Best to starve it with stubbornness.
It was nothing, I told myself. A trick of the lightning.
But I knew better.
I had smelled the smoke, felt the heat of the flames, seen the man’s eyes and even heard the babe’s cry.
I spun on my heel and trudged back down the hillside.
Whatever curse lived in those stones, I wanted none of it.
By the time I reached the last few steps to my cottage, I was half drowned and more than half furious. Smoke coiled from the chimney, promising warmth, but I braced myself. Grandmother and uncle would soon to be upset for my journey.
Sure enough, as soon as I opened the door, my grandmother fixed me with a glare that could curdle milk. “By the saints, child, are ye daft?” Morag MacRae rose from her stool by the fire, her back bent with years. “Out in a storm like this? Ye’ll be struck down!”
“I was gathering feverfew,” I said, peeling my cloak off and hanging it by the fire.
Morag’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t lie to me, lass. Ye’ve the look of someone who’s seen more than rain.”
I forced my voice to become steady. “Ye see too much, old woman.”
“Aye and ye heed too little. Where did ye go?”
My jaw clenched. I should keep silent but silence pressed against my chest. “The stones. One of them… glowed. I touched it and “I saw things. A battle—a hall burning and a man.”
Morag closed her eyes in what looked like grief. “As I feared.”
“As ye feared? Ye knew this could happen?”
“What warning would change fate?” she asked. “The stones choose whom they will and when they do–there’s no turning back.”
“I want no part of it,” I snapped at her. “I’m a healer. My hands mend, they don’t destroy.”
“Want has naught to do with fate, lass. The gift—or curse—has claimed ye. Ye canna fight it now.”
I dropped my basket onto the table with a thud and the herbs scattered. “Watch me.”
I busied myself by laying them out and refusing to meet her eyes.
Whatever the stones thought they’d found in me, I’d tear it free. My life was mine and my own.
But even as I laid the feverfew in rows, the vision still gnawed at me.
Fire–blood—the babe’s wail. And most of all, the man’s eyes—blue gray and unrelenting, and burning with something I couldn’t name.
That night, I lay by the fire, staring into the dark as the storm rattled the shutters loudly.
Sleep came fitful and cruel.
I dreamed of the hall again.
I woke with a strangled cry, my nightdress plastered with sweat, as my heart beat like a wild animal.
The storm outside had quieted to a drizzle, but within me—it raged still.
I pressed my palms to my eyes and swore aloud. “I will not bow to this. I will not.”
But the words felt hollow.
Because fate— curse—gift—it had already marked me.
The stones had stirred, and I had answered.
And somewhere beyond the misty hills, a man I had never met had a path already tangled with mine.
