The world shifted again, subtly this time, like a long breath exhaled through the folds of time. The stones no longer hummed. The wind that once carried their song now whispered in silence.
I stumbled to my knees, my palms pressed against the cold grass. The air was wrong, too clean, too wild, too untouched by the century I came from.
And yet, I felt it, the echo. A soft, reverberating pulse that wasn't mine.
Someone had just fallen through.
Claire.
The name came not from memory, but from knowing, from a deep, inexplicable tether I had always felt with the one destined to change everything.
I rose slowly, the heather brushing my skirts, and scanned the circle of stones. The air shimmered faintly near the cleft where I'd once felt the pull strongest. I reached out, my hand trembling, but the veil was still. Closed.
"Too soon," I whispered. "Or too late."
A raven screamed overhead before darting into the clouds. I pulled my cloak tighter, the wool still carrying the faint scent of smoke and fear. My heart thudded, not from terror, but from certainty.
I was no longer in my own time.
The hills around Craigh na Dun seemed larger, their slopes more feral. Gone were the roads, the fences, the distant hum of machines. There was only the wind, ancient and alive, moving through centuries like breath through a sleeping giant.
I crouched near the stone I had touched, tracing its grooves. My fingers brushed something faint, like the dying hum of a heartbeat fading from the world.
"She's here," I murmured. "But not yet."
That night, I didn't dare descend the hill. I built a small fire within the curve of two stones, its light hidden from sight. From my satchel, I drew a parchment, creased, cracked, the ink smudged by my travels.
It was the map. Roslin's map.
The markings matched these hills, though the script dated centuries before my birth. And there, in faint Gaelic, circled twice, was a single line:
"The healer shall come through the stones when the stars hang low over Craigh na Dun."
I lifted my gaze to the sky. The stars hung westward, shifting slowly. Three nights, perhaps four, before the alignment was right.
If I was right, I was standing on the edge of fate itself, days before history would begin to unravel and remake itself.
But fate, I knew, was never kind to those who looked too closely.
By morning, the mist rolled in heavy and silver. I made my way down the slope and into the woods below, vast, ancient, humming with unseen life.
The moment I crossed beneath its shadow, I felt it, the forest watching me. The air thickened, cool and damp, wrapping around me like breath. The canopy bent slightly where I passed. Moss cushioned my steps. The wind softened into a hush, as if swearing me secrecy.
The forest, I realized, had chosen me.
And in its heart, I found the tree.
It rose like a cathedral spire, ancient beyond reckoning. The trunk was wide enough to shelter a cottage, its bark coiled into spirals that glowed faintly in moonlight. A hollow opened at its base, dark, deep, inviting.
"This will do," I whispered, stepping inside.
Here, I built my home.
Using what little I carried, the fragments of science, the pulse of knowledge, I crafted what I could. Glass jars for tinctures. Scraps of metal turned into small instruments. Vines and bark shaped into shelves and walls.
Inside the hollowed trunk, I learned to build light. Tiny orbs, no larger than my palm, born from oil, reflection, and flame. They floated in soft rhythm with the pulse of the tree, illuminating the air in amber hues.
The forest seemed to hum in quiet approval. It never intruded, never broke the fragile peace between us. It was as if nature itself had folded its arms around me and said: Here, you may begin again.
The great tree became my fortress, my chapel, my exile.
I studied everything, the plants, the soil, the strange metals buried near the roots. Herbs that glowed faintly in moonlight, flowers that closed when touched by human skin. Every night, I tested, mixed, distilled.
The forest was a living experiment, and I its quiet observer.
Science had not abandoned me. It had simply changed its language.
And through that new tongue, I began to understand the balance between creation and fear, the very thing that had once condemned me.
Time moved differently there. Days folded into one another. I learned to recognize the rhythm of the land, the rustle that warned of approaching riders, the silence that meant the world beyond was drawing close.
Once, I heard their voices. Two hunters, passing through the edge of the glen.
"She haunts this place," one whispered.
"The Huntress of Shadows," said the other, clutching his talisman. "They say she vanished in smoke before Colum's men."
Their words carried both awe and dread. And I listened, unseen, a smile curling faintly at my lips.
I had become a story.
And a story could travel farther than any blade.
The myth of the witch in the woods grew like moss, soft, creeping, unstoppable. They spoke of a woman cloaked in mist, whose light could be seen between the trees on moonless nights. They said I could call storms. That the very earth hid me when danger came.
Fear had become my armor.
The more they feared me, the safer I was.
One afternoon, near the stream where I washed, I sensed movement. The forest held its breath. I ducked behind the reeds, heart steady.
It was Dougal's men.
I recognized his gait even before I saw the glint of his musket. They drank from the stream, unaware that the water still shimmered with the remnants of my concoctions—herbal oils, faint and harmless, but enough to scent the air strangely.
Then Murtagh appeared.
He lingered longer than the others, his gaze sweeping the glen like a man tracing a memory. He crouched by the water's edge, touched the ripples where my hand had been moments before.
For a moment, I thought he felt me there.
"Ye've grown too still, man," Dougal barked, impatient. "It's just a stream."
Murtagh didn't answer. His eyes lingered on the forest's edge before he finally rose and followed them.
Something in me stirred. A name escaped my lips before I could stop it.
"Murtagh…"
He froze. The air between us stilled.
He didn't turn. But I saw his hand twitch toward his sword, then fall away.
"I ken that voice," he murmured softly. "And if ye're truly what they say… dinna show yourself."
His tone was not of fear, but of warning.
Then he was gone.
The forest exhaled again.
That night, beneath the hollowed tree, I couldn't sleep. I lay awake listening to the wind thread through the branches, whispering secrets I half understood.
The myths spreading through the Highlands were no longer mine to control. Each tale, each frightened whisper, was a layer of armor, and a prison.
But perhaps that was what I was meant to become.
Not a woman. Not even a witch.
A shadow.
Watching, waiting. Protecting a destiny that had not yet begun.
Three nights.
Claire would come through the stones when the stars hung low.
And when she did, the world would turn again, spinning me further from what I once was, and closer to what I was meant to be.
I drew my cloak tighter, listening to the forest hum around me.
The myths were right about one thing.
I had vanished with the smoke.
But what they never knew… was that I had learned to live within it.