Chapter Five

E thne hurried through the door, bracing herself for what she knew awaited her.

"Praise the Almighty!" Rhona jumped up from the stool beside the fire and pulled her into a crushing hug. "We feared ye surely dead," she said through gasping sobs.

"Ethne! Come to me, child," Mama weakly ordered her from the narrow cot in the corner. She lay back against a pile of rolled blankets, a bag of rags, and what few pillows they owned, securely propped into a sitting position, her eyes red and her cheeks shining with tears. "What have ye done, daughter? What foolishness have ye brought down upon yerself?"

"No foolishness, Mama." Ethne slid Mama's gnarled hand into hers as she knelt at the worried woman's bedside. "I discovered it is the cursed chieftain I've fed since last summer. Chieftain Wolfe MacDanua. Not some wandering cripple. I mean to end this curse once and for all."

"The MacDanua," her mother repeated in a horrified whisper. Her lined face crumpled with misery. "Oh, Ethne. No, my dear, sweet lass. Say ye didna listen to the entirety of the pipes' killing song."

"I have, Mama. And when the wicked one comes, I mean to best her and free the MacDanua." Ethne squeezed her mother's hand. "I love him, Mama, and he loves me."

Mama closed her eyes, but her tears came faster. The scarred side of her face became an angrier red. "Ye canna break the curse, child."

"Every curse can be broken." Ethne refused to let everyone else's disbelief veer her from her course. "Ye've said so many times." She rose from her knees and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning closer, willing her mother to believe. "I just need ye to tell me anything ye think might work. I will try them all."

Mama shifted with a heavy sigh and wearily shook her head. "Ye canna break the curse, Ethne."

Ethne stood, too anxious and driven to remain seated any longer. "I dinna ken a thing about witchery, but I remember every story ye've ever told about the wicked one and yer hateful mother. How they hurt folks. Their cruelties to ye. Especially when ye protected me from them. I'll use the holy water ye stole to christen me with. There's salt in the crock on the table. Rhona got us some silver just the other day, and I'll pry the horseshoe from our doorpost so's to have a bit of iron to be sure. Can ye tell me anything else I might use?" She hurried to the dried herbs hanging beside the hearth. "Sage! I've got a bit of sage too, and there are rowan sticks in the corner."

Her mother shook her head while staring down at her hands fisted in her lap. "None will work, my precious daughter. Not against Morrigan-the-wicked's evil."

"Then what? Tell me, Mama. What?"

Mama lifted her head and gave Ethne a sad smile. "Same blood but a pure soul sacrificed for a lie told," she answered quietly. Her watery blue eyes took on a faraway look. "I am the last. Morrigan-the-least. Daughter to Morrigan-the-lesser. Granddaughter to Morrigan-the-wicked. The tainted blood ends with me."

"She means herself," Rhona said in a horrified whisper. "To break the curse, ye need her blood. Her sacrifice."

"That makes no sense," Ethne said, even though the truth of it soured her stomach and made it churn. For the very first time, Mama's reciting her ancestry, and the saying that always began it, finally made sense. "No lie has been told. Wolfe told me his wife knew of his adultery and never forgave him, even though he begged her and spurned the Morrigan forevermore."

"He is not the one who lied," Mama said. "The wicked one made a false blood oath with him. Swore to bring his dead wife back. Promised that the son newly seeded in his wife's belly would be born healthy and whole and someday lead Clan MacDanua. But instead, she cursed him to become the deadly piper of Tarbat Ness and made him prisoner to the haunted mist of the Highlands." She shifted with a heavy sigh. "That is why ye need blood from the Morrigan line to break the bond. Ye need me."

Ethne sank back onto the stool and hugged herself, unwilling to believe that losing her mother was the only way she could save the man she loved. "There has to be another way. The tools I spoke of. Evil canna withstand them."

Mama leaned forward and gently tapped Ethne on the chest. "What does yer heart tell ye, child? Always listen to yer heart. Have I not told ye that as well?"

"I am listening to my heart, Mama. I love him." Then she caught hold of her mother's hands. "But I love ye too, and am not willing to lose ye. I willna choose between ye. If I canna have ye both, then I will battle the Morrigan alone and take my chances."

"Ye willna lose me." Mama smiled, her eyes clearer than they had been in years. "Ye will free me."

Ethne almost choked on a sob as she shook her head. "No. Ye've raised a verra selfish daughter. I canna bear the thought of losing ye. Not this way."

"Ye would rather I die a slow, painful death from this poisonous sickness eating me alive?" Mama pointed at the battered black trunk in the corner. "The narrow wooden box in the bottom. Bring it to me, child."

Ethne rose and backed away, shaking her head. "No. I will not fetch the athame." Instead, she snatched a cloth sack off the hook beside the door and started gathering everything she needed to battle the evil curse. Salt. Holy water. Silver. Iron. Sage. She wished they had a prayer book or a cross. A cross—she could make one with the rowan sticks and some leather strips.

"Ethne!" Mama smacked the wall beside her bed, making a loud pop. "I forbid this nonsense, ye ken? Do as I've told ye. Now."

Ethne ignored her and turned to Rhona. "Daren't ye help her harm herself, understand? I can do this without our losing her."

Rhona stared at her, cast a nervous glance over at Mama, then turned back to Ethne.

"Swear it, Rhona," Ethne demanded.

Rhona gave a weak nod, then bowed her head.

Not happy with her friend's hesitant response but knowing it was as good as Rhona could give, Ethne charged out the door, cringing against Mama's shrill cries. Everything in her wanted to turn back, run to Mama and hug the dear woman tighter than she had ever hugged her before. But she couldn't. Not with Mama determined to die so that everyone else might live.

Never would she slaughter her precious mother like a sacrificial lamb on the wicked one's altar. Nor would she wait for the evil Morrigan to choose the time to strike. Armed with her sack of weapons, she would summon the witch's vile wickedness when the mist returned.

When she reached the ruins, she slowed. Wolfe had gone silent as a stone when she promised to save him. The hopelessness in his gaze had shouted that he believed all was lost. But all was not lost. Ethne refused to believe that.

"Chieftain MacDanua," she called out as she moved deeper into what had once been the courtyard. He'd not given her permission to use the intimacy of his first name in anything other than her thoughts. He didn't answer, but she knew he was there. Somewhere. The ruins held him prisoner.

The details of his poor wife came to mind. The east tower. The troubled woman had jumped to her death from there. Ethne gathered her skirts higher and picked her way around the piles of crumbled walls and blocks of stone. The east tower looked out across the sea. If the lady had dropped from the parapet, she would have met her end on the stone slabs covering the shoreline. Ethne needed to wage war against the darkness there, where the blood oath had been dishonored with Morrigan's lie.

She slipped through a crack in the wall and climbed down to the rocky strand beneath the tower. Shielding her eyes, she looked up at the parapet. Which section of the rounded wall had Lady Aria jumped from?

"She landed there, Ethne. On that slab," Wolfe said from behind her.

Ethne turned and gave him an encouraging nod. "Then that is where all this suffering will end, my chieftain."

"I would have ye call me Wolfe before ye learn to hate me." Flinching with pain as he made his way across the rough ground, he hobbled to her. "Ye must not do this, Ethne. Go from here. Surely, if ye travel far enough away, the curse will fail to find ye." His gaze sharpened with pleading. "Ethne—please."

She couldn't resist a victorious smile. "See? If ye were a wicked man or a selfish man, ye wouldna worry about me or feel remorse for anything." She boldly rested a hand on his shoulder. "We all make mistakes in this life. Ye were never given the chance to atone. When ye tried, the wicked one imprisoned ye with the curse."

"I would not have ye suffer because of me, lass. Can ye not see ye've made me love ye? I canna bear what the devil woman and her killing mist will do because ye helped me. Because ye cared."

"I love ye too," Ethne said. "And ye need me."

"Ye love a cripple? A man weak and worthless?"

"Nay—I dinna love a cripple who is worthless. I love the kind, courageous man I see before me." She opened her sack and carefully placed its contents on the waist-high shelf of stone where Lady Aria had met her end. "I need to make a cross from these rowan branches. Can ye hold them in place while I tie them?"

"Aye, since ye refuse to listen." He leaned against the squared-off rock and rested his staff against his shoulder. "Why rowan?" he asked as he held the sticks together as she instructed.

"Witches dinna like rowan. That's what Mama always said." Ethne lashed the wood together and knotted the leather three times.

"Dark clouds are coming." Wolfe cast a worried frown at the sky. His scowl deepened as he scanned the sea. "The water churns harder with the rising wind. 'Tis creating a maelstrom." He caught Ethne's hand and squeezed, then bared his teeth, his face filled with imploring. "The demoness senses ye, and she comes before sunset. Run, Ethne. Afore it's too late."

"I will not." She pulled free, took the salt, and sprinkled it in a circle around him. "No matter what. Stay inside this circle, ye ken?" She handed him the horseshoe and the pieces of silver. "And hold tight to these. All these things will protect ye."

He tried to shove them back into her hands. "No. I need ye protected. Not me."

Taking a step back to dodge him, she touched the mark on her throat and lifted a small, stoppered urn. "My different- colored eyes, my mark, and this holy water will send her back to the hell from which she came. I need nothing more."

"Ye are wrong, Ethne!" her mother declared from close to the base of the tower.

Panic shot through Ethne like lightning. She turned and spied her mother clinging to Rhona, lashed to her friend's back like a bundle of sticks. Rhona had her arms looped under Mama's knees and hitched the old woman higher onto her shoulders as she picked her way down to the shelf of stone.

"I had to bring her," Rhona said in a tone imploring Ethne to understand. "She begged me to pack her here before it was too late. She's ready to be free of her pain, and now that ye've found the MacDanua, she yearns to make amends for the evil her grandmother did."

"But she will die," Ethne said, the words catching in her throat.

"Stop talking about me as if I am not here," Mama said. She patted Rhona's arm. "Set me on the stone, lass. 'Tis where the blood oath was dishonored."

"All of ye must go," Wolfe said, stepping out of the protection of the salt circle. "Go now, afore it's too late. Leave the Morrigan to unleash her temper on me. I am the one who started this feckin' mess."

"No, my chieftain," Mama said with a determined frown. "The blood oath was false. Ye were tricked. This evil is not of yer doing." She pointed a crooked finger at the rock. "Set me on the stone. Now."

Sidling closer to the large, weathered shelf, Rhona leaned to the side until Mama released her hold and slid down onto the stone. The frail woman held out her hand. "My athame. Hurry! The evil comes."

Ethne scrambled up on the rock and knelt at her mother's side. "Let me be the one to fight her. I beg ye—dinna spill yer blood."

Wolfe crawled up beside them, placing himself between them and the sea and clutching his staff like a weapon. "All of ye go. Now! Hurry!"

The wind howled louder, and the sea raged. Roiling clouds blackened the sky, and the deadly mist spilled across the water toward them. Ethne tried to pry the ceremonial dagger out of Mama's hand, but her mother held on to it with surprising strength.

"Death is not the end, my precious daughter," she said, shouting to be heard over the approaching storm. "'Tis only a new beginning."

"Mama, no. Please." Ethne hugged her mother tight and buried her face in the curve of the old woman's neck just like she'd done as a child.

Mama gently stroked her hair. "It will be all right, sweet lass. I will always be with ye."

A torrent of wind and water hit them, nearly dashing them off the ledge. The high-pitched keen of the angry squall rose to a horrendous howl. The air grew heavy and smelled of brimstone. It stung their flesh like fire. Lightning flashed and thunder shook the ground.

"Same blood but a pure soul sacrificed for a lie told. For the good of all. For the harm of none. So let it be spoken, so let it be done. So mote it be!" Mama shouted, then shoved the long, lethal blade of the athame deep into her breast. Still clutching the hilt, she rolled forward and sagged over the stone. As soon as her blood dripped upon it, the black sky splintered with blinding shafts of light and the earth trembled.

The east tower rumbled and swayed from side to side, then collapsed, sending chunks of stone hurling down around them.

Ethne pulled Mama close and covered her as best she could. Rhona dove in to huddle over Mama too. Something solid and warm pressed across Ethne, shielding her like a wall of flesh. Wolfe. No longer the half-blind, twisted beggar but returned to the form of the breathtaking man she had witnessed playing the pipes in the mist.

An enraged shriek split through the tempest, then deafening thunder rolled the darkness away, making way for the light. The sea calmed, and for the first time in as long as Ethne had visited the ruins, the wind died down to a peaceful breeze. But her sorrow far outweighed her joy that the curse was finally broken. Mama was gone.

Wolfe rose and moved away, as though sensing Ethne needed this time with her mother.

"Oh, Mama. How can I go on without ye?" She cradled the precious woman close. Mama had always been there, always protected her. The breeze rippling through Ethne's hair reminded her of Mama's reassuring caress.

"I will always watch over ye, my precious daughter." Mama's whisper rode the wind. "Know that I am at peace and in pain no more. Just as I wanted. Dry yer tears and live on, sweet lass."

"I am so sorry, Ethne," Rhona choked out between sobs. "She was in so much pain. When she begged me to carry her here, I couldna refuse. Please forgive me."

Ethne wrapped an arm around Rhona's shoulders and pulled her close. "Hush, dear sister. I understand." She sniffed and forced a sad smile. "Ye are my only family now. How could there ever be anything but love between us?"

Wolfe moved closer, his head bowed. He crossed himself while casting a sad gaze down at Ethne's mother. "God rest her soul," he said, his tone reverent and thankful. "Yer mother was not Morrigan-the-least, Ethne. Her headstone shall read, Morrigan-the-greatest– the mightiest of selfless souls , and we will make sure our children and our children's children know of the sacrifice she made."

"Our children?" Ethne repeated, her heart daring to lift the slightest bit.

"Aye, my love." He gently scooped Mama up into his arms. "We willna let yer mother's sacrifice be in vain. Come. Let us lay her to rest."