PROLOGUE
“Leona! Wait!”
Laughing, Leona turned to Conn in the hallway, her long golden hair swinging over one shoulder with her sudden change in motion.
“I beat you!” she grinned at him, blue eyes slanting in merriment. “Why must I wait?”
“Aw, Leona...” Conn protested. He shook his head, looking ruefully after her as she ran, laughing, up the hallway and burst into the solar. Conn followed her into the room. At sixteen, he was a speedy runner. He still did not seem as fast as her.
I'll beat him! I will...
“Leona MacConnoway,” a stern voice shattered her musing.
“Mother!” Leona stopped in her headlong rush, blue eyes round with surprise.
Alina MacConnoway, seer and lady of the castle, compressed her lips into a thin line, hiding a smile. “You were looking for something?”
“I was hiding!” Leona protested. “From Conn!”
Alina smiled. “Oh. Well, perhaps now you are here – hiding –” she paused to hide a smile, “you can tell me what you would like to wear for the upcoming winter gathering.”
Leona flushed, her chiseled face with its high cheekbones reddening with pleasure. “Yes! I'd forgotten.”
“Well, then,” Alina said, voice teasing. “Since it's such a trivial event that you forgot, I suppose you don't have any idea what to wear, then?”
Leona stamped her foot. “Oh, Mother!” she said, exasperated. “Stop teasing. You know I have an idea of what I would like to wear to the gathering.”
“I do,” Alina smiled, a proper smile this time. “And I hope we have something that will suit your needs.”
“Aw, Mother,” Leona smiled, giving her tall, slender mother an affectionate hug. “You spoil me.”
“Maybe,” Alina admitted. “But it's only spoiling if you're spoiled. And you, my dear, are quite lovely. Inside and out. Come on; choose something.” She waved a hand at the chests of costly fabric that lined the walls and stepped back to let Leona look through them.
Leona bent over the chests, perusing the piles of brightly-colored, costly fabrics packed inside them. She smiled as she ran a finger over costly velvets, the colors forest green or autumnal gold or woodland brown. She knew exactly what she wanted. She was sure these chests, with their precious cargo – sometimes from lands so far away it took years to reach this country – would contain it.
“There!”
She felt her cheeks lift in a delighted smile to have seen it. The perfect dark blue. She went to it and lifted it from the chest, feeling the smooth fabric, cold like water, under her long index finger. She held it up, a questioning look on her face. “This, Mother? Please?”
Alina smiled. Again, her grave, solemn face lit up in a smile. “I did think it might be that. Yes. Of course.”
“Oh, Mother!” Leona ran to her, flushed and happy. Impulsively, she embraced her, reaching up to kiss that cool porcelain cheek that smelled, as always, of rosewood and some darker scent – iris, perhaps, or myrrh – that scented her mother.
Alina smiled. “It looks beautiful,” she said gently.
“Oh, Mother,” Leona said again. She clasped the fabric to her chest, feeling a little frisson of delight as it slid in oiled folds through her fingers. She was excited.
The gathering was the biggest event of the entire year. Though Dunkeld Castle, her home, was the venue of many balls and parties all year, the single most important one was the gathering. All her kin would be there. And all the local gentry too. Here, she would have a chance not only to see her cousin Joanna and her baby, but the local eligible lords. She was sixteen and it was not too soon for her to be thinking about marriage. Not at once, of course, but gatherings were the place where arrangements were made and promises given. They were a place to find partners. To shine in the dances, and to flirt and be merry and have fun.
Leona, loving dancing and happiness, was the center of most parties. And she loved them.
“Who will you meet here, I wonder?” Alina said, as if she’d heard her speak thoughts aloud.
Leona flushed. “It doesn't matter, Mother,” she said quickly. “I'll marry Conn.”
It was what Aunt Chrissie – Conn's mother – had decided. Not really Leona's aunt, she and Conn were not truly cousins, though they had been raised together from birth. They were the same age and had grown up together. They had grown up knowing that they would wed.
Alina laughed. “I know you always say that.”
Leona scowled. “I mean it, Mother.” Then she bit her lip, recalling who her mother was. The seer of Lochlann first; now the seer of Dunkeld- she did not speak lightly. “Why do you ask?”
Alina frowned. She put her hand to her forehead, swaying a little where she stood. Like a column of ivory, clad in dark velvet, she had become even paler and seemed somehow more delicate.
“Mother?” Leona asked.
“I see something...complicated, my daughter,” she said gently. “I do not know what it is I see. But you will travel many waters and there are many paths ahead before you come back.”
Leona felt her heart clench with fear. “Mother?”
Her mother swayed, and then her black eyes focused once again on her daughter. She blinked; then she smiled. “Sorry, Leona,” she said gently. “I was miles away. Shall we find Amabel and see if she can help cut this for your gown?”
Leona looked at her hands, heart thudding in her chest. “Yes, Mother,” she said gravely. She felt as if a fist of ice had clutched her heart. She wanted to question her mother; ask her what she saw. However, she did not wish to question the Sight. Moreover, she knew that her mother would likely not recall what she had said. It was often so, with the Sight. She had told her. Leona had the duty now to remember the words and, if they could be made sense of, to seek the sense behind them.
A future with many paths. Many waters to be traveled, before she came back.
Still shivering, holding the fabric to her chest, she followed her tall, regal mother from the room.
She would try and find answers. How many ways could she understand a future of many paths?
She sighed. It would all become clear in time.