Dìlseachd - A Stolen Crown [Excerpt only] | NOW A PUBLISHED NOVEL

Chapter 1: A Forgotten Princess

FIONA McCurragh reined in her horse and paused at the top of the rolling hillside, looking out over the treeless glen. A misting rain fell from the clouded heavens, hiding Tor-na-Cruithne in the distance behind a silver veil. The rain was as soft as snow—though not as cold—and the fitful wind tossed Fiona's flaming curls about, carrying with it a hint of the bygone summer.

She fiddled with the bright sword at her waist, her fingers finding their position on the familiar hilt. But she did not pull it out. Not yet.

It was an old habit of hers to wait a few moments before she performed the stunt that her only sibling had once patiently taught her. Ever since he had passed away six years ago, she had relentlessly practised it—practised it to perfection, as if somehow she kept alive the memory of her beloved brother by doing so.

The rising foothills to the southwest lay dark blue and dim, dense drifts of fog hiding their peaks. Her horse, Sgàil, a grey gearran, tossed her silvery mane and gently played with the bit between her teeth. The mare's velvety nostrils twitched at the rain and heather-scent hanging between the heavens and the earth, the air heavy like the sense of fear and danger always lurking within Fiona's breast.

She pursed her lips, looking out at the vast, empty moorland. The ever-present bitterness, the longing for the old days that seemed only to be put at rest when she escaped into this verdant wilderness, threatened to overwhelm her senses before she rode on down into the glen. Even now, she could hear her brother, Douglas, saying, "No' yet, Fiona! If ye let it out now, ye willnae hae any left fer facing yer enemy!" No one had been willing to teach her weaponry as her brother used to.

She smiled grimly, the memory painfully precious, as all memories of her brother were.

Fiona clenched her eyes shut for a brief moment. The mere remembrance of her family's fate brought back so much grief that she hardly dared to think of them, and yet she had nothing else worth thinking of. She alone was left, the sole survivor of the McCurraghs, once the rulers of Scotland. The Danes had destroyed her family, slaying her brother with the sword and her father with grief; her mother, farthest from her mind, had died at Fiona's birth. And soon, unless Fate decreed otherwise, Fiona would join her family beyond the sunset.

Her eyes fluttered open as a warm gust of wind blew into her face, scattering wet droplets of mist on her dampened cheeks. Lady Nuith was only waiting until the right time to seize her crown by disposing of its last living threat—Fiona—thus carrying out in full the treachery begun by the Danes six years ago.

Fiona barely remembered it, barely remembered her father's marriage to the Danish woman, his attempt to bring peace to the war-torn country. She had been so distraught over her brother's death that everything else had only been a tear-stained blur. But she remembered the whispers, the concerned looks, and she remembered her father's death and what followed after.

Three years since then, she had been locked up in the east tower at Caerloch, once the capital of her father's kingdom, save when she was occasionally let out to ride on the moors where no one dwelt. She had no friends, and even the servants that she had known from birth had been sent away or silenced in ways she could only imagine.

Her crown stolen, her family murdered or conveniently dead, her existence forgotten by the Scots once loyal to her, Fiona had little hope of survival. Once Lady Nuith had a child by which to claim the throne instead of the Scottish princess, whom Nuith insisted was not the late king's daughter, it would be over. And since Nuith's marriage to the Danish Lord Erland, it was only a matter of time before the threat became tangible.

Life was never so precious as when one would soon be dead.

Fiona swallowed, banishing the morbid thoughts. She must focus, even as her brother had always said, and not let her bitterness get the better of her. Flipping her thick locks of hair behind her shoulders, Fiona leaned forward on her horse and whispered a few words in the mare's ear. Then she sat up straight and dug her heels into Sgàil's flanks, spurring her forward. Together, they raced onward towards a few scraggly and barren bushes beside a small burn, which still flowed this late in the year.