Highland Storm Read Online Free Page A

first. Even as a child, she had seen things others had not.
    Following Una’s gaze to the high shelf, Sorcha said, “Of course. I remember.”
    Una smiled ruefully. “Promise to keep it safe?”
    “I will! But Una—”
    “ Dùin do ghob somaltag .” Hush your mouth, child, the old woman said gently.
    Resolved to her task, Una tapped her ash wood staff upon the grotto’s stone floor and mist rose like smoke from unseen places. Along with the mist arrived a cold that seeped straight into the bones faster than a wet, cold rain. And yet despite the swirling smoke, the air grew stale—as though before a sweeping fire, sucking oxygen into its flame. Sorcha felt the change, and like a wary doe, prepared to flee.
    Only once or twice before had Una revealed herself before men. Each time there had been a wrath to pay. Next time would be her last. She stared at her young charge, willing Sorcha to remain.
    Never fear, child.
    The silky sound of Una’s voice slid like an asp through the misty cavern.
    Even as she watched, half expecting Sorcha to fly away like the moth, the girl’s shoulders began to relax. Behind her on the table, the scrying stone glowed a little brighter, its powerful magik seeping beneath the weave like diaphanous threads of light.
    Remove the tartan from the keek stane, Una suggested, but her lips never moved.
    Startled by the command, Sorcha snapped her head about to peer at the tartan, and turned a wary glance to Una.
    Remove the tartan, Una said again.
    Blinking, Sorcha’s hand lifted toward the blanket as though of its own accord, but cautiously. Una watched patiently as her fingers hovered near the cloth, waiting…
    Remove the tartan, she willed once again.
    Clearest violet, the girl’s eyes were luminous in the grotto’s warm light. Her gaze locked with Una’s, and Una smiled reassuringly, quite pleased. Sorcha might not realize what it was she knew, but, aye, she knew…
    Peer into the crystal and tell me what you see.
    Sorcha found her voice. “Truly?”
    The old woman tipped her chin but once.
    Tentatively, as though she feared it might be a figment of her imagination and that any moment Una’s staff would fly at the pate of her head, Sorcha’s fingers pinched the tartan. Silently, the old woman rose from the chair to stand beside her pupil at the table, moving more swiftly than her auld bones should have allowed. But if Sorcha sensed her advance, it did not appear to alarm her, nor did she turn to acknowledge the auld woman standing at her side. The keek stane now held her undivided attention.
    Anticipation became a living, breathing creature in the stone chamber. Una could see the misty tendrils of the bruadar —the vision —reaching out for the girl, like arms that longed to embrace her. Sorcha’s heartbeat ticked like iron tocks, each one in tune with the beat of Una’s heart. Una lent her the strength of the bruadaraiche—the dreamer.
    Quickly, as though she feared to change her mind, Sorcha tugged the cloth and the tartan slid off the keek stane , revealing a concave crystal from whence all the mist in the room seemed to emanate. All that remained trapped within the crystal shifted violently into desperate shapes.
    Una waited patiently for the energy to be harnessed, and then demanded, “Tell me what you see.”
    For a long moment, Sorcha’s gaze was inscrutable, and then, curiosity silenced the beat of her heart, and she slipped past Una, around the table so that she might better peer into the ancient keek stane.
    There inside the crystal, shapes began to coalesce… but this bruadar was not for Una, so she kept her eyes affixed to Sorcha. Illumined by the changing light of the crystal, the girl’s dark hair appeared as violet as her eyes. Her skin took on the translucent hue of a pearl. After a moment, Sorcha lifted her eyes from the crystal and met Una’s gaze.
    Una’s brows wiggled with amusement. “Speak. Tell me what you see.”
    “I-I canna be certain,” Sorcha