The storm had passed, but the world still trembled from its memory.
Mist clung to the moors like breath on glass, and the air carried that fragile hush that follows thunder, the kind that feels like the earth itself is holding still. I stood beneath the old pine at the ridge, watching the horizon dissolve in gray and gold.
The dawn after the storm was always the most dangerous. Men searched for what had been lost in the chaos, cattle, weapons, brothers, and the woods stirred with the uneasy quiet of survivors.
But I was searching, too.
Not for men.
For moments.
Something had changed again. I felt it the way the forest feels rain before the first drop falls, a subtle hum in the bones, a thinning of the air.
Then, it came.
A pulse. A low, thrumming note that reverberated through the hills. The soundless cry of the veil being torn open.
Craigh na Dun had awakened.
I turned sharply, breath catching. For days I had waited for the alignment of the stars, the soft pull in the air that whispered soon. Now it was here.
Claire.
The healer had crossed through time.
For a heartbeat, I couldn't move. My legs felt rooted, my hands trembling against the bark of the pine. All around me, the world stilled, the birds silenced, the mist coiling like silver threads around the trees.
And then the whisper came. Not words, not sound, just a knowing.
She was near.
The wind guided me north, toward the circle's ridge. I followed, careful, silent, each step sinking into damp earth. The scent of heather and lightning lingered in the air. I had walked these paths so many times that the stones had memorized my steps.
But now… it felt different. The air crackled with something raw and new, a story about to be born.
When I reached the clearing below the stones, I saw her.
She stood in the middle of the glen, disoriented, hair tangled, one hand pressed against a stone as if to steady the spinning world. Her clothes were strange against the Highland wind, thin fabric that clung to her, torn at the hem, not made for this place.
Her eyes, clear, fierce, frightened, moved across the landscape as if searching for something she could not name.
For a long time, I only watched.
Claire Randall.
The woman who would change everything.
And yet, as I looked at her, I felt an ache, a pull so deep it seemed to come from before time itself. Two souls, bound by the same current, caught in the same web of impossible fate.
I should have turned away.
I should have stayed the shadow I had promised to be.
But the stones had other plans.
The moment she stumbled forward, the cry of hooves broke through the air. Redcoats, drawn by the light, perhaps, or by destiny itself.
"Not now," I whispered, eyes narrowing.
I moved through the trees, silent as mist, until I found a vantage point above the glen. I could see her clearly now, Claire running, breath ragged, skirt caught on a bramble. The soldiers shouted, their torches slashing through the fog.
And then, from the opposite slope, came the Highlanders.
Dougal's men, rushing like shadows in pursuit of prey. The clash of two worlds in one heartbeat.
The first gunshot rang out, splitting the air. Claire dropped, covering her head. For a moment, I almost broke from the trees. Almost.
But then he appeared.
Jamie.
Injured still, his shoulder wrapped hastily, his jaw set with that stubborn courage I had seen days before. He rode through the mist with Dougal's men, dismounting as they surrounded the woman.
Time folded upon itself.
The stories I had known, the pages yet unwritten, were happening before my eyes.
And I… I was watching history breathe.
I could not hear their words from where I stood, but I saw enough. Dougal's suspicion, Claire's confusion, Jamie's quiet defense. A flicker of recognition crossed her face when he spoke to her, as if, in that moment, she too felt the pull of something ancient beneath her skin.
The healer and the warrior.
The beginning of everything.
My throat tightened. I pressed a hand to my chest, steadying my breath. The air shimmered around them like a living tapestry, threads of time weaving and reweaving before my eyes.
I had waited for this moment. And yet, seeing it unfold, seeing her trembling, him bleeding, both lost yet drawn together, it was almost unbearable.
The forest around me stirred, sensing my unrest. The leaves whispered warnings. The stones on the ridge hummed softly, their voices low and sorrowful.
"Stay hidden," they seemed to say. "You are not meant to walk their path."
But how could I not feel it? The pulse that tied us all, the woman of healing, the man of fire, and me, the shadow between worlds.
They mounted their horses. Jamie winced as Claire tried, awkwardly, to help him. Dougal barked something sharp, and the group moved off, disappearing into the fog that swallowed the trail toward Leoch.
I stood there long after the last hoofbeat faded.
The forest exhaled slowly, returning to its breathless calm. Only the echo of what had happened remained, like ripples on a still pond.
It had begun.
The story that would consume lives, rewrite time, and alter the fate of Scotland itself.
And though I stood apart, unseen, I knew my thread was woven in it too. The Huntress of Shadows was no longer myth or ghost. She was witness.
Still, I felt the tremor beneath my skin, the warning that destiny gives to those who try to outpace it.
For each ripple in time has its cost. And the closer I drifted toward Claire and Jamie's orbit, the more the world around me would bend to keep its balance.
By the time I returned to my hollowed tree, the forest had gone still again. But the air shimmered faintly, like a pulse beneath the earth. I knelt before the small bowl of water I used for scrying, its surface quivering with unseen motion.
In it, I saw them both, riding through the mist, the glen fading behind them. The threads of fate shimmered between them like golden strands. But in the corner of the reflection, another shimmer flickered, dark, thin, reaching.
Not all who watched the crossing came from the light.
Someone else had felt it, too. Someone who knew what it meant when the stones awakened.
The air grew colder. My reflection rippled, blurred, and then steadied again, my eyes meeting my own.
I whispered into the silence, "The healer has come. The storm begins anew."
And somewhere deep in the night, the stones answered, not with sound, but with the faintest hum of agreement.
I closed my eyes and let the echo pass through me, a vow forming quietly in my chest.
I would remain unseen.
I would guard what must be guarded.
And when the time came, when the healer's light began to waver, I would step from the shadows once more.
But until then, I would watch.
Silent.
Bound to the rhythm of time.
The Huntress in the dark.
And the storm, my storm… was just beginning.