The days after the whisper of the stones passed in a strange, suspended quiet—neither past nor present, neither dream nor memory. I had built myself a refuge within the forest, but peace was a fragile thing. It trembled each time the wind shifted, carrying with it the sound of men, horses, shouts, the rhythm of pursuit.
By the third dawn, the calm broke.
I felt it before I heard it, the ripple in the air, the same pulse I'd felt when the stones sang. It was faint but insistent, like a heartbeat buried beneath the soil. Something, or someone, was drawing closer to my circle of quiet.
I stepped from the hollow of the great tree and wrapped my cloak tight. Mist curled low along the forest floor, ghosting around my feet. I moved with it, silent and unseen, the forest parting to let me pass.
The sound came first: men's voices, the clang of metal, the sharp bark of orders. Then, a gunshot. A horse's scream. And beneath it all, the sound of pain.
I moved toward it before reason could stop me.
Through the trees, I saw them, red-coated soldiers in pursuit of Highlanders. The smoke of musket fire drifted in ribbons across the glen, mingling with the mist. I crouched low, my pulse hammering in my ears. The battle was brief and brutal. When it ended, the soldiers moved on, leaving behind the broken remnants of what they'd hunted.
And there, half-hidden in the bracken, was him.
The sight of him caught the breath from my chest. His hair, a wild, copper flame in the mist. His shoulders broad, though one arm hung at a strange angle. His face, bloodied, defiant, and still burning with that strange, stubborn light.
Jamie Fraser.
I knew the name before I allowed myself to think it. The stories had found me even in my time, whispers of the laird's outlaw nephew, of the man who survived too much and yet refused to die.
But here, he was flesh and blood, and bleeding fast.
I stayed hidden behind the rise of a rock, my hand pressed against the earth to still my trembling. This was it, the first thread of the tapestry I had come to witness. The story that would change everything.
And yet, standing there, I realized something colder: I wasn't meant to be seen.
The forest seemed to hold its breath as I watched him struggle upright, one hand pressed to his shoulder, his teeth gritted against pain. He glanced around, wary, as though he could feel eyes upon him.
For a moment, his gaze turned toward me.
And in that heartbeat, I thought he saw me, not fully, not as one sees another in daylight, but as one senses a ghost passing nearby. His eyes narrowed slightly, his head tilting, and then, he blinked, as if the image had vanished.
I pressed back against the rock, heart pounding.
He could not see me. Not yet.
When he turned away and began limping down the slope, I followed from a distance, careful as shadow. Each movement stirred something deep inside me, a pull, an ache, a recognition I could not name.
He was wounded badly, the blood soaking through his shirt. Every few steps, he staggered. I wanted, God, how I wanted, to reach him, to offer what I knew, what I could heal. But to reveal myself now would unravel everything.
The forest whispered around me, echoing my restraint.
Not yet, it seemed to say. Not yet.
I watched as another man appeared through the trees, Murtagh. His presence steadied the air, the same way it had the night he'd found my hidden place and spoken my name. He said nothing as he came to Jamie's side, only took the younger man's arm and guided him forward with the grim patience of one who'd done this before.
Together, they vanished into the mist.
Only then did I breathe again.
I stayed crouched in the undergrowth long after they'd gone. My palms were damp with earth, my lungs filled with the scent of pine and iron. I knew what would come next, Dougal's men, the gathering at Leoch, the moment Claire would arrive and mend that same shoulder beneath the roof of a castle that did not yet know her name.
And me, watching from the edges of history, a shadow between centuries.
The sky began to weep by afternoon. I made my way back to the hollow tree, the rain whispering on leaves above me. My hands shook as I lit the oil lamps, the small flames throwing gold across the bark.
Jamie's face would not leave my mind, the stubborn tilt of his jaw, the flash of pain, the brief moment when he'd looked toward where I hid.
It had felt almost like recognition.
I pressed my palms to my eyes and exhaled slowly. I had waited for Claire's arrival. That was my purpose, the point around which all my steps had curved. But now… now there was another weight to the air, another strand in the web I had stepped into.
Destiny was not a single line. It was a storm, gathering, shifting, unpredictable.
And I was standing in its center.
That night, as the wind rose, I dreamed.
The stones hummed again, low and mournful. Between their echoes, I saw shadows moving through mist: Claire's hand reaching, Jamie falling, the glint of a blade, a flare of fire. And behind them all, my own reflection, half in light, half in shadow, fading from both.
When I woke, the forest was silent. My fire had gone out. Only the faintest trace of smoke lingered in the hollow.
I stepped outside. The rain had stopped, but the clouds hung heavy, thick with the promise of more. A raven perched on a branch above me, tilting its head as if in judgment.
"I know," I murmured to it. "I shouldn't have watched."
The raven croaked once, a harsh, knowing sound, and took flight toward the east.
I followed its path until it disappeared beyond the ridge. Somewhere beyond that line lay Leoch, and the lives about to intertwine there.
The ache in my chest deepened. I wanted to run to them, to change what was to come. But every instinct told me that interference was peril. Time was a fragile weave; one touch could tear it open.
And yet… I could not stay still.
By dusk, I was moving again, quiet as breath, tracing the paths between the glens, always near enough to see the glow of campfires in the distance but never close enough to be seen.
Once, I caught sight of Murtagh again. He sat alone on watch, sharpening his blade by firelight. For a moment, he paused, head lifting as if he sensed the same presence he'd felt before. His eyes searched the trees, and I knew if I whispered his name again, he would hear me.
But I didn't.
Not this time.
I watched him instead, this man of loyalty and silence, and understood that not all magic was made of light or smoke. Some were made of devotion, of duty that survived through centuries.
And I, what was I now? A ghost out of place, bound to the threads of fate, forbidden to alter them, yet unable to look away.
As the last of the firelight dimmed, I turned back toward the forest.
The storm was coming. I could feel it building in the bones of the earth, in the way the wind began to sing through the branches. The Gathering was near, at Leoch, at the stones, within me.
Everything was converging.
And somewhere in that coming storm, my place would be decided, shadow, myth, or something in between.
That night, before I closed my eyes, I whispered into the dark:
"Soon, Claire. Soon."
The forest stirred in answer, its breath cool and deep. Outside, thunder rolled across the hills.
And I knew, the storm had found me.