Born of Fire - Kella McKinnon Page 0,2

She was already beginning to have a sneaking suspicion, but now she had little doubt. There was one reason they had been on Clough Hill, and it was because she had promised her uncle she would bring him there so he could try out his latest math or physics, or whatever he did all day. But she had been humoring him. If she’d believed even for a second that it would work…

Nessa swallowed hard, and swung her gaze upward to the proof of his apparent success. An unfortunate blow to the head years ago had left her uncle with the mental age of a ten year old child, and a crazy, almost mystical kind of genius. Though she hadn’t believed he’d actually found a way to travel back in time when she’d gone with him into the passage grave, she was starting to believe it now. One moment they’d been in a tunnel at the top of an old hillfort near their home in Inverness, and an instant later she was gasping at the surface of a pool of water in an entirely different underground chamber.

Had she and Angus actually… travelled back in time? Any other explanation currently eluded her. Her uncle was a certifiably crazy… genius.

And how did she know they had gone back in time and not just through a tunnel to somewhere else in 21st century Scotland? Because people in 21st century Scotland didn’t tattoo intricate designs on their faces or wear long, belted tunics fastened with elaborate metal pins in the shape of fantastical beasts. And they certainly didn’t carry around what looked to be freshly decapitated lamb’s heads in shallow baskets, with the glazed-over eyes staring lifelessly up at the sky. She watched in stunned fascination as several more droplets of dark red blood fell and soaked into the worn earth below.

Angus pointed—quite rudely—at the heads.

“Look Ness, I think they were on their way to this well with an offering for the Goddess of the Underworld.” His voice held a tone of child-like fascination that she really wished she felt as well. But they obviously had problems, and she needed to focus. The way she saw it, this could go one of two ways: either they would be welcomed, or killed. And she really wasn’t ready to die at just twenty-four years old.

As it happened, they were standing face to face with a group of six women, each wearing an identical expression of stunned surprise. One of the women—who wasn’t holding a decapitated head—overcame the initial shock of seeing her and Angus emerge from the chamber, and after glancing at her peers—they obviously weren’t going to do anything—turned and started shouting to others in the distance, making a sweeping gesture with her arm high above her head, a thick gold armband glittering in the sun.

“Fetch the King! Now!”

Nessa’s ears perked up, her fear and confusion forgotten for a moment. The language sounded slightly foreign yet oh-so-familiar, like flashes of memory returning from a dream. For a moment the context was so wrong that she didn’t realize her mind had flawlessly translated their words. It couldn’t be… but it was. It wasn’t English they were speaking. It was Pictish. A language that in Nessa’s time had been dead for at least a thousand years. A language she had spoken for as long as she could remember. An echo of a time when the Highlands had been filled with the ancient and beautiful words. The King, the woman had said. Fetch the King…which King? When were they? A tiny spark of intrigue pushed away some of the fear. Maybe this was a world she knew, after all.

The woman, not satisfied that her call had been heard, turned and ran for help. As Nessa’s gaze followed her, she noticed for the first time a huge stone broch rising in the distance, and beyond it, the sea. The shape of the land as it jutted into the water was also familiar. She had been here before, many times. Burghead? The well…of course. Burghead had a well just like this, and had been a Pictish stronghold for hundreds of years. Had been. The last time she had seen it, it had been smattered with modern houses and quaint little streets, the broch only a ghostly shell of what it once was. She had been right here in January with Nathan to watch the Fire Festival, a ritual that had its roots in ancient times. The two of them had cuddled