Golden light from Cameron’s torch flickered through the darkness of the cairn. Mariam’s heart sped up. Excitement wedded with fear as she looked around. The flat, rectangular stones that made up the walls of the cairn were high, supported with thick columns and lintels of basalt rock, keeping the stones overhead from collapsing in upon them.
The fecund scent of ancient dirt and undisturbed air filled Mariam’s senses as she, Cameron, and Nessie moved deeper into the chamber. The twisting, dancing light illuminated a space that appeared much larger within than from outside. At the back of the chamber beside Nessie was an overly large black cauldron. Arranged in a circle around its base were eight orangish-brown urns. “The ashes.” The words echoed off the walls, reverberating back to her.
“Does any of this bring forth any memories?” Nessie asked.
Everything in Mariam went still as she took in the scene and let it sink into her soul. “It’s not so much a memory as it is a feeling.” She felt the spirits clinging to this place; she felt their energies. Mariam turned to look about the cairn, almost expecting to see those who had gone before her emerge from their ancient sleep.
“On this isle in the past, magic was treated not with fear but with reverence,” Mariam said, remembering something her mother had once told her. It had made no sense then. It did now. “My sisters who came before me were much sought after for potions and healings, to attend both births and the end of life. They were seen as guides from this life to the next.”
“That’s right,” Nessie said, as she dropped her gaze, hiding her expression from Mariam. “You are here to return magic to the world.”
“How am I to do such a thing? I have no skill but harnessing the wind. I have no training.”
“I will help you.”
“How can you do that? Did my mother tell you how?”
Nessie pushed her veil back, exposing her face. The ugly, red scar that stretched from Nessie’s hairline to her jaw was gone, and instead of a smashed nose and a drooping eye, a face fully formed and beautiful stared back at Mariam. The red hair that had hours ago been faded was now a pure white, and the back that had previously hunched now stood tall and straight.
Mariam gasped. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am. You have always known.” The woman before her laughed, the ghostly trill sounding more familiar than foreign to Mariam’s ears. And yet she refused to believe what she saw.
Cameron’s hand drifted to his sword. “Explain yourself.”
“I have returned to my home, my haven, and the source of my own magic.”
“Impossible.” Mariam felt the ancient stirrings that emanated from the white-haired woman and trembled. “You are dead.”
“I was close to death after your father threw me over the cliff’s edge and on to the rocks below. But my magic has always been linked with the sea—the water—and the waves rose up and carried me away. They brought me back here, to the isle, and healed me over the course of many years.”
Mariam shook her head. “Nay, it cannot be. My mother never would have left me alone with that monster.” Nay, this had to be a trick, or a trap—anything else was impossible.
“Do you remember when I gave you that necklace?”
Mariam wrapped her fingers around the shell at her neck. “The night before you . . . left.”
Nessie nodded, her expression serious. “I knew he would try to kill me and I wanted to leave you with some protection. The shell, and the magic it contains, protected you. It did not stop his abuse, but he could never go so far as to kill you, at least not until it broke and the magic disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you reveal yourself to me when you first came to Ravenscraig? I needed a mother,” Mariam said, reeling from shock and wonder and anger. “I spent fourteen years alone with that man. Tormented. Afraid. I mourned you when you left. I cried and cried until he beat the last tears out of me.”
Her mother winced and dropped her gaze to her feet. “It took years for me to heal. And then once I did, I was frightened to reveal myself. My magic healed me, but I could not use it against that man or everything in me would have shifted from white magic to black.”
“I didn’t want your magic.” The confession caught in Mariam’s throat. “I wanted a mother.”
Her mother looked up. Pain reflected in her gaze—pain Mariam knew all too well.
“What eventually brought you back to me?”
“When the king placed you in the care of Cameron Sinclair, I could no longer stay away.” Her mother reached out, taking Mariam’s hand from the shell into her own. “I don’t ask you to forgive me. I only hope that someday you will understand. I could be your servant, your champion, your friend, and now your guide, but I was never meant to be your mother ever again.”
Mariam shivered.
Her mother offered her a soft smile. “You have become the woman you are today because of the adversity you suffered. That suffering is at the core of our calling. We are goddesses of nature, descended from Brānwen and the house of Llyr, the daughter of the sea god Manannán. It is our destiny to release mistreated women and men from bondage and bless them with new beginnings.”
“What about me? I wanted a new beginning. Or didn’t that matter to you or our ancestors?”
“The ancestors are here to help you now, to guide you. That’s why you had to come to the isle.”
Mariam pulled away from both her mother and Cameron to scrub her hands up and down her arms, not knowing what to believe as another shiver coursed through her. In the torchlight, the black metal of the cauldron gleamed, and in the silence, Mariam could almost hear the heartbeats of her long-dead ancestors encouraging her to let go of her fear and her anger and embrace the task at hand.
As she looked down at the eight urns, something inside her leapt to life. Not just the desire, but the need to return some light to the world that had suddenly been pitched into darkness. She was connected to these ancient ones—eight urns, meaning eight ancestors. Her mother was not here with the others because she left the isle, but she would have been the ninth. And Mariam, as her daughter, was the fulfillment of the legend. Was her mother right? Had she needed to experience suffering of her own in order to bring her to this moment? The physical scars of her father’s abuse were slowly fading. Were the scars on her soul fading as well because of Cameron?
Mariam lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes misted with tears at the love and caring reflected in the gray depths. She swallowed back the lump that rose in her throat. For years she had hidden herself away from others, fearing not only that she was somehow damaged, but also that her father’s cruelty would spill over into her own actions. She’d kept herself hidden away, cloaked in darkness to keep the sunlight at bay.
Mariam stared at the man before her, feeling dazed by both his presence and the words he had said to her only moments ago. You are my heart. His words had filled her with a bright light that had nothing to do with magic—and yet, they were the most magical expression of love she had ever heard. With the expectation of nothing in return, he offered her the warmth and the security she’d sought all her life and never expected to find. And without her mother’s absence in her life, she never would have ended up at Ravenscraig. She never would have met Cameron. Everything would have been different.
She didn’t want different. She wanted what she had now—in this moment with this man and her mother—light and warmth and love.
“Mariam, I am sorry,” her mother said, her voice edged with sorrow. “I didn’t realize how deeply I hurt you by keeping myself hidden away. Can you ever forgive me?”
At the pain in her mother’s voice, all of Mariam’s resentments faded away. “There is nothing to forgive, Mother. You are right. I am who I am because of my past. It is the search for my past, my present, and my future that brought me here to this moment. And now it is both you and I—along with our ancestors—who will free those who are suffering. It is our duty and our purpose in this life.”
“You remember.” The words were filled with awe.
Mariam shook her head. “Not all of it, but enough to know that in order to get started we must move the urns and the cauldron out into the moonlight.”
It didn’t take long to move the urns out of the cairn. The cauldron, however, proved to be much more difficult. It was too massive for Cameron to lift on his own, and even with the women helping, they barely shifted it.
Her mother collapsed against the side of the cauldron, trying to regain her strength. “It would be easier to move the rocks of the cairn to expose the cauldron to the night than to move something that weighs more than a mountain.”
“How are we to do that?” Mariam asked from the opposite side of the cauldron.
“With magic,” her mother said straightening. “My magic controls the waves. Yours the wind. So, in order to keep us all from drowning, I suggest you summon the wind.”
“How?”
“Call the wind to you. Feel it rise inside you as you stretch out your hands. Once you have the will of the wind, you can direct it to do whatever you choose. Now that you are at the seat of your power, you will feel stronger than ever before.”
Mariam nodded, remembering the feeling of harnessing the wind from her earlier attempts. But having more power behind her magic might be dangerous. “Both of you should wait outside. I do not wish to harm either of you if something goes wrong and the roof collapses instead.”
Cameron looked as though he might object, but then he nodded. “Since our time grows short, and if that is the only way, then so be it.” He took her mother’s arm, leading her toward the entrance of the cairn. “We will be right outside if you need us.”
When she finally stood in the chamber alone, Mariam lifted her hands toward the doorway. She drew a breath in silent encouragement, then in her mind she focused on the wind until she could feel it rushing past her, swirling around her, filling her with its power. She drew strength and breath from the element of nature until it became a part of her. Her heartbeat leapt as the wind swirled around her, waiting to do as she commanded.
“Tame each gust of wind and ask it to do your bidding,” her mother shouted through the doorway over the howling wind.
In response, Mariam lifted her hands toward the ceiling above her and willed the wind to do her bidding. To her amazement, one by one, the stones lifted and fell away until the cauldron was bathed in moonlight.
“Now release the wind,” her mother directed.
In her mind, Mariam quieted the gusts of wind until only a gentle breeze remained. She lowered her hands and turned to meet Cameron’s steady gaze. His expression was one of utter amazement.
“You are stunning,” he said, his voice filled with amazement. “It is as though the wind is part of you.”
Mariam didn’t understand until she looked down at herself. Her plain green dress had changed into a brilliant green, like that of the heather after a rain, with gold spirals etched across the surface of the long, flowing gown. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders, but it was not still, instead it fluttered about her shoulders as though enchanted by the very wind she had summoned. It wasn’t her gown or hair that brought a sense of wonder to curl in her chest though, it was the fact that her fingers glowed with a light that came from inside her.
She swayed unsteadily, somewhat drained from the effort it took to summon the wind, but she was nowhere near as weakened as she had been the other times she had done the same. Cameron was at her side in a heartbeat, leading her beyond the remnants of the cairn. “What is happening to me?”
“You are becoming your true self.” With a motion of her hand, her mother summoned a wave from far below. The water curled over their heads and hovered there. The moon cast a pale stream of light to cut through the water, highlighting it in an otherworldly green glow as it touched her mother’s white hair before returning to join the other waves in the sea. As the water beaded on her head, Mariam’s mother’s ragged black garment changed to a shimmering blue with silver shells etched into the fabric. Her white hair streamed out behind her and the same fantastical glow illuminated the older woman’s fingers.
Instead of filling Mariam with awe, the sight of her mother so altered by her magic filled her with unease. Mariam’s gaze shot to the eight urns at her mother’s feet then to the sky overhead that roiled with not just the darkness of night, but the arrival of the ash cloud that had blanketed Ravenscraig before they had left. Pain came to her chest and tightened her throat, making breathing difficult. “Did all of our ancestors have to go through this same trial as I do now?”
“Nay. They were all born here on the isle.” Concern filled her mother’s eyes. “There is something more I must tell you.”
“There is more?” Mariam’s whole body shook as dark, ominous clouds of ash roiled above them. Ash started to fall, lightly at first, then with greater intensity.
“It is why you had to come here. It is why the ancestors are here . . . to save you. Because you were not born on this isle, the good magic—the white magic—that flows here has yet to bind itself to you. For the isle to give you the gift of white magic instead of black, you will have to sacrifice what it is you hold most dear before midnight on the dawning of your nineteenth year.”
It was almost midnight. Fear rose up inside Mariam, as thick and as rich as the power she felt simmering in her veins. It was a battle between the woman she had become over the past week versus dark magic that was already in her soul. She hadn’t been wrong about fearing she would be like her father. But to sacrifice something—someone—she held dear . . . She couldn’t do it. Not even if it meant she would be like the man she despised.
Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. She looked into Cameron’s eyes and saw the reflection of a witch staring back at her. The stirrings of darkness erupted inside her, instantly at odds with the person she had longed to become.
“Fight it,” Cameron said, coming toward her, through the magic that swirled at her feet. “This is just one more battle for you to win.”
“I will never do anything to harm you.” For he was the person who mattered most to her.
Her thoughts moved back to her dream.
Death. Her own.
Mariam swallowed roughly. She knew what she had to do.