Chapter Twenty-One

Duncan checked the saddle straps on his pony as he discussed his plans with Mr. MacKiaran.

He and Fiona’s argument had been frustrating and fruitless and devastating. Since the idyllic setting had been thus spoiled, and they’d needed to move on to the MacKiarans regardless, they’d left, the silence of their journey stifling. Then, as the day wore on and the skies opened up, the silence had become unavoidable.

Now early morning mist coated the ground so thickly, he could barely see the toes of his boots. Inside, Fiona was deep in sleep, but he dared not linger, for any moment she might awaken.

Duncan cinched the last strap tight and stood. “Rest assured, I’ll be retrieving her in two days’ time once my affairs in Drumnadrochit are concluded. And I’ll reward ye handsomely for your trouble.”

Mr. MacKiaran waved it off. “No need. We remember her sister fondly, and glad we are to know she was successful in reuniting with your wife.”

That seemed ages ago, not a mere month.

Duncan swung up into the saddle and glanced down at the kindly man. “Regardless, I appreciate ye.”

Mr. MacKiaran tipped his cap, and Duncan thumped the sides of his mount. At first, he had been eager to leave for fear of Fiona awakening. He had no wish to discuss any more. He knew all he needed to know. Any time he looked at her, it only reminded him of his foolish heart. He couldn’t bear to be reminded further.

Distance. Distance was what he required. To harden his heart and his resolve so that her charms could no longer sway him.

But as the pony’s hooves beat time over the rugged landscape, taking him farther and farther from Fiona, the feelings of betrayal and hurt lessened, and in their place was a strange relief. The more he put distance between them, the more the relief grew. Soon he was congratulating himself for another narrow escape from love’s trap.

Fiona knew, as soon as she awoke in the loft of the crofter’s cottage, that Duncan was gone. The little shit.

Sure, voices drifted upward, the murmur of conversation, a kid’s squeal, the clatter of dishes, but she just knew he wasn’t down below or anywhere on the grounds.

He’d given her the slip. She’d curled up by the ladder overlooking the main room, not believing for one minute that he merely wanted to catch up with Mr. MacKiaran over whisky. He meant to leave as soon as she fell asleep. And he had. Because obviously she’d failed at the staying-awake portion of her brilliant plan.

She threw on her clothes, her breaths shallow and quick as she fought down rising panic.

Calm. She needed to be calm. She shook out her skirts and raised her hands out in front of her. They were shaking.

Okay, Fiona, no need to panic.

But…

No buts.

Panic wouldn’t help her find Duncan. And she also had to trust Mr. Podbury—and herself—because didn’t the legend already prove she solved this? Damn straight.

Showtime, girl.

Donning her super-strength big girl pants, she calmly swung one leg over the loft’s edge and felt for the first rung with her toes. And then she step-step-stepped down the ladder as if, la, this was any other morning!

Once down, she joined the lively family at their kitchen table where they placed a heaping platter of food in front of her.

“So, Duncan’s made an early start like he planned?” She needed to play it cool and not arouse suspicion if she was going to obtain answers.

“Aye, that he did,” replied Mrs. MacKiaran. “Left as dawn broke over the horizon.”

“Did he say how long he’d be in Drumnadrochit?”

The husband scooped a bowl of porridge for himself, the tap of wooden spoon against wooden bowl a dull thwop. He looked up. “No longer than two days. We’ll be keeping ye safe and entertained until then, don’t ye worry.”

She smiled. “Thank you.” She allowed some time to pass as they ate in companionable silence. When they finished, she pressed on. “I didn’t get a chance to explore much in the area last time, but what I’ve seen so far is quite lovely.”

Husband and wife beamed at her. “We love it.” She reached over and squeezed her husband’s hand.

“Is the land fertile?”

Mrs. MacKiaran stood and gathered the dirty plates and bowls. “Better than elsewhere, aye. We’re lucky, we are, to be living in the Great Glen.”

Fiona stood up with her empty bowl and helped Mrs. MacKiaran clean up. “What are some of the more interesting sites around here?” Since she couldn’t tag along with Duncan anymore, she needed to meet him at the spot where the legend unfolded.

Mr. MacKiaran sat back and folded his hands over his stomach. “Well, ye’ve been to the falls. We enjoyed that spot in our youth, didn’t we, wife?”

Mrs. MacKiaran blushed. “Aye. Good bathing to be had at Deàlrach Gorm.”

“Deàlrach Gorm?”

“Aye. The name us locals use for that pool.”

Yes. Duncan had said every feature had a name.

…where the dragon’s tongue meets the fork.

Could it be that simple?

She took a deep breath. “Is there a spot called Dragon’s Tongue?”

Mr. MacKiaran looked to his wife with a shrug. She shook her head. “Not familiar to us, no.”

Fiona settled back down at the table. “I heard there was a place near the castle where the dragon’s tongue meets the fork along the River Enrick.”

Mr. MacKiaran rubbed his chin, his eyes unfocused. Then he looked at her speculatively. “Ye’re referring to An Dràgoin Imlich, then?”

“Yes!” She nearly bounced in her seat. The Dragon’s Lick. That had to be it. “Do you know where that is?”

“ ’Tis but a half a day’s walk from here along the River Coiltie. When it meets the River Enrick, you’ll see it right before it spills into Loch Ness. The bank has an odd shape—looks like a tongue, it does.”

To The Dragon’s Lick then. This was it. She calmly smiled and thanked the couple, but her palms broke out in a cool sweat, and she sizzled with anticipation and trepidation.

Fiona threaded the path along the river, gripping the reins of Glenfiddich. It had been easy enough to leave the cottage. After all, the MacKiarans didn’t see her as a prisoner. She’d told Mr. MacKiaran that she’d aid his wife while she churned butter, and she’d told the wife she’d be outside picking flowers.

But as she trudged along the meandering river, green fronds brushing her thighs and calves as she passed, she…well, she didn’t know. For once the sun was shining without a cloud in the sky, the birds were chirping, the river bank was a glorious explosion of greenery and flowers, she was walking to her destiny, and…

She felt hollow.

Especially now that she cared more for Duncan than fulfilling the legend.

She untucked her necklace and fingered the silver and leather, tracing its familiar dips and bumps, but the peace and sense of purpose she usually felt eluded her.

She’d been so focused on her role to play—that she even had an exciting role to play in her family’s history—that she hadn’t truly understood what that meant.

All her life, she’d felt dwarfed by her family’s legacy, her family’s history. The only time she was ever seen was when she participated with her parents at the Highland Games or talked to them about family history.

But even that had felt…inadequate. Not enough. After all, she was only parroting back her family’s history and traditions—none of it was her. None of it made her feel as if she mattered.

Which would have been fine if she’d known what was inside her that made her special and she could break away from her family and strike out on her own like her sister had done.

But she didn’t know.

Until the shock of seeing Duncan’s scar and what it meant had worn off and she’d been like holy-shit-I’m-Fiona. The Fiona.

Fulfilling her destiny, saving her ancestor, should make her happy, right? It was what she wanted—a purpose, a role, a way to make her parents proud—and yet…

She wanted something else more.

Duncan.

And she couldn’t have him.

Because she hadn’t understood what a closed loop meant. Not until she wanted to chuck this destiny stuff for Duncan.

She had no choice.

Whatever she did, she’d already done. So there wasn’t really a choice to be made. At all. Mr. Podbury had explained it to Traci, and it sounded super-complicated, but the gist was that they’d successfully stabilized this version of their world into a closed loop.

So there’d be no changing the showdown’s outcome.

No changing Duncan’s role.

And that was what really stung. Not that she couldn’t change his mind. No. But as they’d argued, everything had closed in on her, as if phantom hands held her down, limiting her choices.

She couldn’t change Duncan’s role.

And she couldn’t change her own.

That was what a closed loop meant. It meant her and her ancestor survived, playing out the events to come exactly as laid out by the legend.

By being focused on fulfilling the legend, she’d failed to fully understand. Not until she wanted to refuse. Not until she wanted to choose Duncan over the legend and…couldn’t.

She’d thought he was The One. And while she’d feared what would happen to him with her ancestor, she’d naively banked on him surviving. And making her life with him and her sister’s new clan. That she could have both. Both the legend and Duncan.

Now the destiny she’d been excited about felt like another role she was parroting. It wasn’t her either.

And while she didn’t yet know how she fit into the world, she did know Duncan was a vital part.

But because she thought she could have him and the legend, she’d plowed right over him, and his feelings and concerns, to change his handling of the encounter to satisfy her stupid need to feel special.

And thereby damaged their budding relationship beyond repair. While she’d lain in the loft, she’d sifted through their argument. Especially his reaction—his jump to believing she’d manipulated him. There was an old hurt there. And his talk of manipulation and his near confession of whom he couldn’t forgive, led her to the only possible conclusion—Margery.

Somehow, Iain’s sister had hurt him badly. And if he couldn’t forgive the mother of his child because of how she’d manipulated him—Fiona pulled in a shuddering breath, which ended on a choked sob—he’d never forgive her.

Blackmail was a gruesome business.

Nothing made him feel lower than a common vole than sitting in a dark tavern, his shoulders hunched, as he conversed with this wiry specimen of a man, whose breath was so foul Duncan worried it’d rot off his own teeth.

The wretch held out his dirty palm after giving Duncan directions for his meeting with Campbell.

Duncan glanced at the palm and back at the man. “You’re mad, ye are, if you think I’ll be compensating you for relaying the information of a blackguard. You’re wanting payment? Take it up with Campbell.”

The man sputtered, but Duncan rose to his full height, allowing the chair to scrape across the floor overloud, and gripped his sword hilt.

That shut the tailor cum scoundrel up.

Duncan passed the tavern owner and flipped him coin to cover his own fare.

Outside, the late afternoon sun made him blink, and for a moment he felt a slight disorientation—such a nasty encounter had him expecting to emerge into the sinister dark of night.

He strode to the stables near the tavern. The sooner he settled this affair, the sooner he could settle his own life’s mess.

Thinking of Fiona, and his believing he meant more to her than a means to an end, still coated his tongue in bitter shades.

He rounded the corner of a low building and saw Mr. MacKiaran ducking out from the stable. The farmer caught sight of him and hastened over. “Glad I am to have found ye, Duncan.”

Premonition of trouble prickled up his spine with as much surety as when he’d fallen through that floor and knew it would be a long while before anyone bothered to find him, and that once they did, no one would care overmuch. “What’s amiss?”

“Your woman has run off.”

The prickle flashed into a hot flare of panic in his chest. “Fiona?”

“Do ye have more than the one, ye rascal?”

“Nay.” He schooled his expression not to show his rising panic. “How long ago did she leave?”

Mr. MacKiaran scratched his cheek. “We’re not rightly sure. After we broke our fast.” He wrung his hands and looked upon him with contrition. “I’m sorry we didn’t keep a better eye on her.”

“You weren’t her jailer, as ye well know.” They strode to the stables. “It’s a mind of her own, she has, with no restraint on its exercise.”

“Well, I’m hoping she doesn’t come to harm.” He gripped the pommel of his pony’s saddle and turned to Duncan, concern etched on his aged features. “Can I help ye in any way?”

“Nay. Return to your family with your mind at ease. Thank ye for seeking me out, though.”

They mounted their ponies, and Duncan asked, “Was there anything in particular she was talking about then?”

“She was curious about An Dràgoin Imlich.”

“What is that?”

As he suspected, upon hearing the description, he knew where Fiona had gone. For it was the same location he was to be meeting Campbell.

Which, he’d discovered when arriving in town, lay just outside the Jacobite line besieging the castle.

About which she’d also known.

The farmer watched him, worry for him and Fiona evident in his gaze and furrowed brow. It took all of Duncan’s self-possession to lend his voice a calmness he himself didn’t feel. “Fret not, MacKiaran, for that is where she’s gone. I’ll join her there.”

When they reached the point where they parted ways, Duncan thanked him a final time.

As he traversed the rugged landscape, anger at her and her designs at his expense soon dissipated.

Dissipated and shifted into worry. Especially since they were near the siege line.

She could run into some unscrupulous warriors, who’d take advantage of her, vulnerable, alone.

He gripped the reins tighter and clenched his jaw.

If anything happens to her…

He pulled in a sharp breath—if anything happened to her, ’twas his own fault.

Sure, she’d not been honest about her origins.

Was it surprising she kept something so momentous a secret until no longer able to do so?

He’d put the same features to her motivations as Margery and—caught off guard—lashed out in pain and confusion. Assumed she’d only come along for the sake of her ancestor. He still didn’t know for certain, but hadn’t he at least owed her a chance to explain? Couldn’t he have simply asked? Listened? Talked it out?

Curse his fool pride.

He’d kept things from her. He shouldn’t have judged her by a different standard or put her in the same light as Margery. If he’d not shut her out, if he’d told her the truth about Margery and the Campbell ancestor, they could have faced the trouble together like they had on the tidal island off the Isle of Skye. Now she was alone. Defenseless.

But what now?

Gavin had ordered him to kill this blackmailer. Too great was the threat to the clan’s—and Iain’s—reputation.

He yanked on the pony’s reins and stared, unseeing, as another realization drenched him, leaving him cold. And humbled. He’d been blind. Was not Fiona’s loyalty to her clan no less honorable than his own? After all, she was ignorant about her ancestor’s true nature. A truth he’d kept from her.

As he reached the River Enrick and turned toward Loch Ness, a new thought chilled him. If Fiona told the truth, he couldn’t kill this Campbell. For then he’d not be giving birth to the line that eventually birthed her.

Was that possible? Was that how this time journeying worked?