The air in Leoch thickened in the days that followed, not just with rumor, but with the heavy, metallic scent of something about to ignite.
It clung to the walls, the tapestries, even the silence.
And I could feel it, the pulse of destiny quickening like a heartbeat too loud to ignore.
Geillis Duncan had begun to weave her fire.
I watched her from the shadowed corridors.
By day, she played the dutiful wife, soft-spoken, kind-eyed, her laughter as smooth as honeyed wine.
But by night, she moved like smoke through the halls, carrying vials of crushed herbs and folded scraps of parchment marked with sigils no one else could read.
She was calling to the stones.
And they were listening.
I had heard them hum again, faint but insistent, even from miles away. The same frequency that once sang to me now carried her name in its tremor.
It was dangerous, two echoes crossing the same threshold.
History was a tapestry; we were beginning to pull at its seams.
That evening, as the castle quieted, I climbed the narrow stair to the upper keep.
From the small window, I could see the flicker of fire in the distance, her cottage in the woods.
It wasn't the gentle orange of hearth flame.
It was the color of ritual.
I closed my eyes and felt the air shift. The forest was restless, its whispers sharp and breathless.
The stones of Craigh na Dun stirred in answer.
Something was being asked of time.
And the question terrified me.
Later that night, I found Claire in the courtyard, gathering herbs from the frost-dusted garden.
Her breath clouded the air, her hands steady even as her thoughts seemed far away.
"You've felt it too," she murmured, as if to herself. "The air feels… different."
I stood behind the well, unseen, my cloak drawn tight.
Every instinct screamed to speak, to warn her. But the smallest word could tilt the world in directions it wasn't meant to turn.
Instead, I whispered into the wind, knowing the forest would carry it:
"Stay away from the fire."
Her head lifted. She froze.
For a moment, her gaze moved across the courtyard, to the shadows where I stood.
Her eyes widened slightly, as if she sensed something, not a ghost, not a threat, but a presence that shouldn't exist.
Then she whispered, trembling, "Elara?"
The sound of my name broke something in me.
I turned before she could see my face and fled into the dark.
The next day dawned brittle and cold. A crow perched on the castle wall, watching me as I slipped beyond the gates toward the woods.
It followed, cawing sharply, as if to remind me that omens rarely came without consequence.
By the time I reached Geillis's cottage, the air was thick with the scent of burning sage and iron.
She was already waiting.
"You shouldn't have come," she said without looking up.
Her hands moved with practiced grace over a small wooden table, arranging bones, herbs, and a silver cup that gleamed faintly red in the candlelight.
"I came to warn you," I said. "You're playing with time."
Geillis smiled the kind of smile that did not belong to the present.
"Time is a thread, Elara. You pull one strand and another frays. But perhaps," she lifted her gaze, eyes bright, "some strands are meant to be rewoven."
She gestured toward the circle etched into her floor, chalk lines, strange runes.
"Tonight the veil thins again. The stones hum. I can feel it. If I ask the right question… I might find the answer I've been searching for."
"And what is it you seek?" I asked.
Her expression darkened. "Freedom. For all women bound by centuries and circumstance. For those of us trapped in times not our own."
I understood the hunger in her voice, that longing to shape one's own fate, to defy the cruelty of destiny.
But I also knew the cost.
"The stones don't give without taking," I said softly. "They demand balance."
She looked at me then, her fear momentarily bare beneath her fury.
"And what did they take from you, shadow-walker?"
"Everything."
Silence fell between us.
The fire cracked. Outside, the wind rose, carrying whispers that weren't entirely of this world.
Geillis drew closer, her tone a warning and a plea all at once.
"Stay out of my way, Elara. Whatever fate has marked me for, I'll meet it on my terms."
Then she turned back to her circle and began to chant.
The air thickened. The ground trembled faintly beneath my boots. The candlelight twisted, pulling toward her as though drawn by unseen gravity.
It was happening again, a summoning, a calling to the stones.
I reached for her arm. "Stop this..."
But before I could touch her, the world flared white.
When my vision returned, the floor was scorched, the chalk circle shattered.
Geillis knelt in the ashes, gasping. Her eyes had rolled white for a moment, then cleared, wild and terrified.
"What did you see?" I asked.
She turned to me, her face streaked with soot and tears.
"Fire," she whispered. "A pyre. They'll burn me, Elara. They'll burn me alive."
She clutched my wrist, nails digging into my skin.
"You have to stop it. You can change it, I know you can."
I shook my head. "The more we change, the more the world resists. You've already felt it. The stones are screaming."
Her grip tightened. "Then let them scream!"
She pushed away from me and staggered to her feet, trembling but resolute.
"If I must burn," she said, "then I'll make sure the flames remember my name."
That night, I walked back through the forest, the mist clinging to my cloak like mourning.
Every step echoed with the same truth: I had seen her death.
And now she had seen it too.
But prophecy, once spoken, cannot be undone.
Only delayed.
At the edge of the trees, I saw a light, a torch moving swiftly across the field. Claire.
She was heading toward the village, concern written across her face.
The paths were crossing again, perfectly, dangerously.
This was how the story was meant to begin, and how it would end in fire.
I closed my eyes and whispered to the wind, "Forgive me."
Then I reached out, not with my body, but with the sliver of power that still connected me to the stones.
The torch in Claire's hand flickered, sputtered, and went out.
She froze, startled. The wind turned her away from the path.
A single whisper carried through the trees: "Not yet."
She hesitated, then turned back toward Leoch.
Safe, for now.
I sank to my knees beneath the trees, trembling. The power in me was weakening, fraying at the edges.
To interfere was to unravel the fabric that kept me anchored here.
But to do nothing would be to let the fire claim them all.
I looked up. The clouds had split, revealing a single star hanging low, the same omen marked in Roslin's map.
The prophecy was moving forward.
The next morning, whispers spread through the castle like wildfire.
"Geillis Duncan," they said. "Taken for witchcraft."
I stood in the shadows of the courtyard as they dragged her away, hands bound, eyes blazing with fury and something like understanding.
When she saw me, or rather, sensed me, she smiled.
A strange, terrible smile.
And through the chaos, she mouthed one word.
"Run."
The echo of it followed me all the way to the forest.
That night, the stones hummed louder than I had ever heard.
The fire she had foreseen was no longer distant, it was already lit, waiting for her.
And for the first time since I had crossed into this century, I realized that the choice was no longer between fate and interference.
It was between silence and mercy.
I stood at the circle's edge, the wind tearing through my cloak, and whispered to the stones,
"Take me where I am needed. Just this once."
The hum deepened, answering.
Light flared, white, soundless, eternal.
And I stepped into it, knowing the moment I emerged, the world would no longer be the same.