The Highlander's Prophecy: Highland Heroes, #4

By Fiona Grant

A daughter of Scottish spies who is 'touched by the fay'.

A dispossessed Laird, raised in secrecy by loyal servants.

And cruel rival clan leader who is determined to keep his spoils... 

Isobel Hay is the youngest daughter of Owena and Rory Hay, an unconventional couple that have been loyal spies for the King of Scotland all their lives.

Their two eldest children, Gavin and Mairead Hay, have also proved themselves brave and loyal in service to the king—but flame-haired, blue-eyed Isobel is different. Her family have always known that their strange young daughter has been touched by the fay, but they are ill-prepared when she is drawn into clan warfare surrounding the man she has always known she will marry—the rightful Laird Mackenzie.

Fergus Mackenzie was driven out of his home by the McGregors in a night of death and flames when he was but a child of eight summers, and hidden away by loyal servants until he is old enough to reclaim his heritage.

But on that dreadful night, so long ago, Fergus had a vision of a red-haired babe that he thought of as his salvation. Both he and Isobel, raised in different homes, have always known that they were meant to be together.

But ten weeks before Isobel is to wed Fergus, the warlike McGregors set fire to the Hay keep and steal Isobel away—along with her wee niece, Seona.

Now it is up to Fergus to unite the restive clans who may have reason to rise up against the McGregors and the Gunns, and rescue his Isobel before they decide she is of no use to them and kill her.

But will the clans support him? Are there enough of them? And... will he get there in time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Gem Publishing
• Release date: Dec 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781922772244

Book preview

Prologue

The great hall shone with firelight from the hearth, warming the cheerless stone room and its occupants; a silver-haired laird, his lady, and a handful of attendants sliding listlessly in and out of the shadows. Spread out on a rug before the fire laid a serious, dark-eyed lad of barely eight summers. He lay on his belly with his feet kicked up behind him, fiddling with an assortment of carved wooden animals. There was a great bear, muscled and looming in the firelight, and beside it an even taller stag with a rack of antlers that mirrored that of the beast whose head hung above the hearth. The lad’s father, Laird MacKenzie, sat above him now. He’d helped the lad fashion the beasts from a block of rough pinewood and was impressed by the bairn’s patience with the project. 

Fergus, he asked, his voice shattering the quiet. Do ye ken why your clan mounts a stag above Castle Leod?

The boy sat up, thinking seriously.

It is the fastest, father.

But what of strength?

It isnae as strong as my bear, the boy said, fingering his carvings lovingly. Or even a lion.

The laird leaned forward, his eyes bright. Ye never know for certain, laddie. The most peaceful of creatures can turn fierce if’n they have the right anger burning within.

Quite suddenly, the laird straightened as a dog when it scents its prey. His brow lowered as he stared at the door. 

Something is awry!

He rose to his feet, but there was no need to investigate. His intuition, already sensing the clash of metal on metal, was confirmed by the arrival of a breathless soldier and the ominous tolling of the castle warning bell.

My Laird, it’s the McGregors… the soldier yelled.

The boy Fergus scrambled to his feet, his eyes nearly black in the firelight. He had a reputation amongst the more superstitious of the servants for being uncanny beyond his years and strangely gifted with supernatural sight. Now he stood as still as the carved animals at his feet.

Father?

His voice was hollow in the vast room. There was a brief moment of silence he would ever after remember as his father turned to respond, but the laird’s words were cut off by a sickening crash of doors splintering off their hinges. The soldier who had delivered the shocking news was downed with an axe to the back of the head, and then a band of darkly-clad men poured into the room, their swords wet with blood. 

Fergus’ mother lunged for one of the crossbows hanging by the hearth, but before her fingers could close around it, an arrow sank into her throat, and she slid lifelessly to the ground. Fergus tried to run to her side, but his passage was intercepted by strong arms dragging him backwards away from the scene unfolding in the great hall. 

He screamed, but the deafening noise of battle and slaughter swallowed his voice. He glimpsed his father fighting valiantly inside a circle of attackers; the older man was knocked off balance, and Fergus glimpsed the flash of his sword arm, empty and flailing, before one of the clansmen delivered a death stroke.

While Fergus uttered a cry of despair, the strong arms dragged him down a hidden staircase that wound behind the dais, through the kitchen, and into the scullery. Fergus fought tooth and nail until his captor finally dropped him against the scullery well and hissed, Stop it! Tis me, laddie. We’ve got tae hide yer. It was Alys, his mother’s stout and dependable serving maid, and under her urgent gaze, the little boy stopped struggling enough to be spirited along the outer edge of the courtyard and into the village beyond. 

Fergus never in future days could remember exactly what that journey was like. The lad watched as though from the sidelines of a battle as the first few nightmare weeks after the attack blended one into the other. 

Only one thing stuck in his mind. After falling asleep, Fergus dreamed that the floor of the great hall was littered with small wooden animals, all stags, all beautifully carved, and all ablaze with flames from the hearth. Fergus looked beyond them, tears streaming down his face, and saw a basket with a pale green blanket. In the vision, he moved unharmed through the blaze and lifted the blanket from the rim of the basket. Inside lay a babe, a girl child, with a fine red fuzz of hair and solemn blue eyes. Fergus looked at the eyes and saw within them an age that seemed in ways older than his father, the departed laird. He drew back in fright at first but then drew closer, marvelling at the brave way the wee one stared back at him. 

He woke, weeping. Alys rushed to his side and listened to his mumbled explanation in silence.

The babe, he murmured into her bosom as she comforted him. I’ll meet her one day.

Silly lad. Ye’re half-witted with fright.

Alys, ye’ll not say that. The boy straightened with a fire in his eyes. The wee lass, she’s special.

He felt, even at his young age, that the child was linked to the tragedy, an unexpected source of redemption amid the blood and flames, but when he tried to tell Alys, she only muttered to herself that he’d always been a strange one. Then she kissed his dark curly hair and tucked him back under the covers, promising to stay with him until sleep had weighed down his eyelids again.

Alys was kind, and her husband Rohd, a Mackenzie warrior who’d gone to ground after the attack, treated the boy well, but the first years of living with them came roughly to the lad. He’d been counselled to keep his heritage close to the chest and avoid the other villagers. 

For months after the attack, he dreamed nightly of the bloody attack. Sometimes his mother’s wide eyes were all he could see; sometimes, it was the memory of his father crashing to the floor. Always there were flames licking at the upturned carcass of his wooden stag…

Rohd watched the boy fight the nightmares for months before taking matters into his own hands. Knowing it wasn’t safe to take the boy to his cousin, Tam Mackenzie, until the feud had settled, he began investing hours teaching the boy how to defend himself. Swordplay, the steady strength required to pull a bow taut, and how to unseat a sturdy horseman, all with the goal of delivering him to Tam when he’d grown to manhood and could defend himself.

Ye deserve my loyalty as yer father did, wee lad, he told him, ruffling his hair with rough affection. And like him, ye won’t have rest ’til ye’ve avenged his death and reclaimed yer own keep.

As the lessons progressed and the years passed, the flames in Fergus’ nightmares faded. His muscles strengthened, his hair darkened into long curls, and he grew to be a well-matched opponent for Rohd in their sparring sessions. But always, he remembered the girl-child, with whom he felt his life was inextricably linked.

Chapter 1

Something Long-Awaited

Isobel woke with the knowledge that the day held within in it the promise of something long-awaited. She’d left the furs at her window drawn aside, an oversight of her midnight stargazing the night before, and the maid building a fire at the other side of the stone room was grumbling softly under her breath about the chill.

Good morning to ye, she greeted the woman, who looked up in surprise at her mistress. 

The household staff shared many a joke about the solemn little daughter of Owena and Rory Hay. She was, after all, a strange sort, with wide serious eyes and a habit for speaking beyond her age. It was whispered in the lower town that the red-haired girl, now losing the softness of girlhood as she neared her fifteenth birthday, had the gift of sight. She roamed the castle halls late at night after unsettling dreams, and on more than one occasion, she’d been able to predict the future in paltry matters of house and family. 

Once, when she was but a wee thing, Owena found her crying in the garden over the