Lady Nellie Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Book of Lady Tara: Prologue

  Book of Lady Tara: Chapter 1

  Lady Nellie

  Highland Magic Series

  Verlin Underwood

  Eatan Publishing House

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Verlin Underwood

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Eatan Publishing House

  United States of America

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to all my dear Readers.

  To You.

  It has been a pleasant journey for me in all my writings for this Scottish Highland Magic Series. And I hope you will also find pleasure in reading them.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Book of Lady Tara: Prologue

  Book of Lady Tara: Chapter 1

  Also by Verlin Underwood

  About the Author

  VERLIN UNDERWOOD

  A big hello to all my respected Readers. I live in a small town in California, US and I have always been fascinated by the history of Scotland and the highlanders. My overflowing creative juice has led to the incorporation of paranormal and a touch of magic into my writing style.

  I hope Readers will enjoy my books, as much as I’ve been enjoying writing them.

  What also makes me happy is to see you Readers get in touch with me and share with me your thoughts on my books. I would love to hear from YOU!

  [email protected]

  Prologue

  1334

  Burrach Castle, Scotland

  Malcolm Lyall was a foolish man.

  Una expected him to be at least a bit brighter than her own husband, which really was not much to ask for.

  But here he was, refusing her. A leannan sith. Nobody had refused her before. Her enchantment was supposed to be infallible. Irresistible.

  At first, she knew not what to do.

  Oh, yes, she could easily kill the lot of them quicker than they could blink, but where was the pleasure in that? Her kind could live for a very long time, and she would much rather watch the Lyalls suffer slowly.

  But she still wanted him, as foolish as he was. So, she was gracious enough to give Malcolm one last chance, but he still resisted. It had been a feat to just lure him out of his castle walls. Was her magic not strong enough?

  She took a deep breath and summoned her will to strengthen the magical cord that she’d wrapped around Malcolm’s person until he was close enough for her to feel his breath on her skin and smell his woodsy, masculine scent. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly as though to inhale his essence, pulling the cord closer to her until his lips were just a hair away from hers.

  Just a kiss and the enchantment would be sealed. He would be hers, and she would be his. Her lips parted and she closed her eyes, feeling her heart race. A giggle rose in her throat like she was a lass experiencing her first kiss.

  But it never came.

  Her eyes flashed open and met Malcolm’s own, dark and angry; his face filled with disgust. Una watched in despair as the magic cord broke in tiny pieces, as though it were made of glass.

  "I am in love with my wife," he told her, backing away with his arms extended, palms facing her like she was some beast to lunge at him. "I am in love with Alison. My wife."

  No, he is supposed to be in love with me. Rage filled her veins with pulsating magic. "Curse you, Malcolm,” she spat. “Curse you an’ your family."

  Malcolm lowered his arms and eyed her. "What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously. "What do you mean, ‘curse?’ Are you a fairy witch?"

  To her pleasure, she could hear the panic as he said the word “witch.” She laughed at him. "Oh, aye, I'm a witch. You made a foolish mistake, Lyall. You can turn around an’ run, or you can stay right here an’ agree to lay with me."

  "You jest," he responded uneasily. "You canna scare me with your silly threats. I am not betrayin' my family."

  So, this is how it’ll end, Una thought mournfully, although she was itching for retribution.

  “Malcolm Lyall, you have created a grave offense to the Unseelie Court. You, your wife, an’ daughter are now cursed. If any of you leave your estate, the rest of your family will die. So be it.”

  She rejoiced at the pain in his face as she recited the curse and the look of terror as he witnessed her true form: terrible and hideous. Her body grew to the size of a birch tree; her fingers were now claws and her eyes depthless hollows in her long, ghoulish face. Gone was the bonny woman she wore as a disguise. Now, indeed, she was a monster.

  Malcolm turned and fled. Yes, let that frighten him. That is what he deserves.

  She touched her face, surprised as her fingers felt wetness on her cheeks. Tears? She was quiet now, but her words still rang in the air, reverberating through the hills like church bells.

  So be it.

  Chapter 1

  1349

  Burrach Castle, Scotland

  God save us.

  The snow had not stopped its relentless descent for three full days. During this time, Laird Malcolm Lyall, along with his beloved wife and daughter, huddled next to the hearth, burning what dry wood they had left in their sodden cellar.

  “You cannot stay here any longer, Fanella," Lady Alison told her daughter. Her voice was raspy like she had swallowed a goblet of sand from the beaches of Lorne—not that Nellie remembered the beaches nor the sea, though she had dreamt oft of visiting them.

  Despite the cold air that seemed to leak through the castle walls and seep through under the doors, her ma’s golden hair plastered to her face and pillow from feverish sweat. Her throat swelled, looking as though she had swallowed an apple whole, and her eyes rolled
to the back of her head as she struggled to keep consciousness.

  Nellie's father looked no different as he lay in bed beside his wife, but he was silent, perhaps farther down the road towards death. "Once this storm passes, leave. Find help."

  Fear gripped Nellie's heart. Even with the curse hanging above their heads for all these years, she never wanted to imagine life without her ma and da. But they had no more food, and despite how much Nellie prayed and cared for them, she doubted her parents would live longer than a week.

  “Promise me you will, Nellie.”

  "I promise I will, ma," Nellie told her gently

  The sun rose on the fourth day, but her parents did not. The long-missed sunlight streamed in from the stained-glass window of Saint Brigid that her mother commissioned before Nellie was born. The light shone on the two longtime lovers as what looked to be a blessing from the saint herself for their now eternal slumber.

  As she kept quiet company with her parents, Nellie listened to the migrating grouse moors calling as they searched for berries left uncovered by the snow. A soft drip from a melting icicle kept time as the morning turned late. Tears did not come, and neither did full belief of what she now had to do.

  Her mother words rang through her ears: "You cannot stay here any longer..."

  Summoning her courage, she kissed both of her parents on their foreheads and took her da's breacan and draped it over the two of them, whispering a prayer.

  Still, tears did not come.

  Nellie did not have much. She already wore her warmest wool tunic and leggings and securely pinned her own white breacan around her shoulders with her mother's brooch that she took from her parent’s bedroom. It had been a gift to Lady Alison from Laird Malcolm Lyall on the day of their wedding—when the Lady of Northumberland married a barbarian (as Alison’s family described it), or rather, when a great Scottish laird married a pompous sasunnach, as Malcolm himself put it. Both were two opposites, and both loved each other till the very end.

  And now, they're together in Heaven, Nellie thought. They did not deserve this. Tears welled up in her eyes, but they did not spill over. She promised she’d go, and if she finally gave in to crying, she feared she would never want to leave Barrach Castle.

  Laird Lyall's lands were vast, but mostly rocky with poor soil—not very good for any large-scale growing of crops. Their profits had been in the herding of sheep and highland cattle, but when the laird’s clansmen fled for fear that they, too, would be cursed, they took their own share of the livestock with them. They left Malcolm Lyall with little more than a dozen sheep and cattle.

  A few chickens gave them eggs most mornings, and the vegetables Nellie and her ma grew along the castle gave them some sustenance whenever they had a successful harvest. Even a few attacks from roaming wolves did not deplete the Lyall's rations. All it took was one long, hard winter.

  The rains came first, and an unknown leak in the cellar spoiled most of their preserved food and water. Their livestock's food rotted. The chickens perished first, and the Lyall's had no choice but to slaughter the emaciated cows and sheep before all the meat left their bones, thus leaving the Lyalls with naught.

  But it was hardly enough.

  Nellie walked through the empty, cavernous halls down to the kitchen. She could barely remember a time before the curse when these halls were filled with people. Warmth would emanate from the great hall as feasts accompanied music, dancing, and laughter. When Nellie was supposed to be asleep, she would sneak into the kitchen. The cooks promised not to say a word as she was fed sweet meats, watching the gaiety in the hall, looking forward to being old enough to dance with a handsome clansman.

  But that time never came.

  When Nellie reached womanhood, her mother urged her multiple times to leave them at Burrach Castle, to let her and Malcolm die so that Nellie could live a normal life of a Scot. But the girl couldn’t think of a life without her parents nearby.

  "There is naught for me out there," she had told her ma multiple times. "I am staying here." She still had nothing out there beyond her father's lands. No extended family, no connections, no knowledge of the land except for the vague geography of Scotia gleaned from a moldy map hanging in her father's room.

  Nellie sneezed and cursed softly under her breath. She never would have thought a simple sneeze would give her such fear, but she had seen how quickly it had taken her parents. Will it take her, too? That would be ironic.

  I’m sure the leannan sith would have a grand time knowing how the Lyall’s finally met their demise.

  She put the last of the dried meat and an old apple in her leather bag. She slipped her dagger into her boot, a gift from her father when the wolves made their den nearby to stalk their sheep and cattle.

  "If you’re gonna keep goin' outside with these wild beasts around, you better have somethin' to defend yourself," he had explained to her, holding the dagger for her to take. He always had a brusque manner about him, but in the deepest of his being, Malcolm's heart was softer than even her ma's. He never talked much about what happened to him with the leannan sith; in fact, he had become a shadow of his former self ever since the curse was set. What is there to do for a laird if he has no men? No king to defend?

  She felt comforted by the cool steel of the hilt against her leg. Thankfully, she’d never had to use it. Hopefully, she never would. Unless I find that leannan sith, Una. I would gladly send this dagger through her heart for what she did to my family.

  The prospect of revenge was the needed push for her to leave the castle. It was her first time in more than a week that she had stepped outside. Despite the morning sun, the freezing air hit her like a wall and she was already shivering as she trudged through the snow to the stables. She spotted the birds she heard earlier flittering from tree to tree. The birch branches were heavy with white powder, but the snow sparkled in the sun like the rarest of diamonds. It was too bonny of a day for such heartache. It seemed like the world was mocking her.

  Old Lily, the mare Nellie owned since she first learned to ride, was shifting uneasily in her stable. She knew that change was in the air. Nellie rested her head on the mare's muzzle, noticing how much Lily's ribs showed, along with the hollowness in her eyes.

  They must match the hollowness in my own, she thought as she gave Lily the apple. We are both walking ghosts.

  Lily munched happily as Nellie mounted her, her stomach growling for even a small bite of that apple. "I apologize," she told her companion, "but we must leave. Mayhap where we will go, it will be summer all year ‘round, with apple trees and oats for any time you want them."

  She gently squeezed her legs against Lily's side to get her to walk. The pace was slow, for the snow was still high, covering the road that led out of Lyalls’ lands. However, Nellie knew the road from memory and led Lily towards it. Often, she dreamed about leaving down this road to explore the Highlands, but now that she actually was doing it, she felt apprehensive.

  When the curse was still fresh, Malcolm set out stakes along his land to protect a wanderlust girl from venturing too far. It was a physical boundary line that she knew even at that young age would be fatal for her family if she were to cross it. Many a time, she would stand just a few steps away from the stakes, wondering what it would be like to stand on the other side, as though the stakes held a portal to another world. Now that Nellie was coming up to the stakes, the tops just barely peeking out of the snow, it all seemed so dismal and unexceptional.

  She took a deep breath as she guided Lily to walk past the boundary.

  Nothing happened. Did she suspect some sort of benevolent fairy to appear to congratulate her on her bravery? Of course, nothing would happen. The spell was broken the moment her parents died. Now, Scotia was hers to wander through. If only she had the same desire to travel as she did when she was a lass. Now, she would trade all of Scotia for her parents to be alive again.

  Childish wishes. Nellie closed her eyes for a moment, trying to picture her da’s o
ld map. If she remembered correctly, there was a town to the southwest. She had visited there as a wee lass with her father on a trip to collect his tenant’s rent. As she recalled, the town was on disputed territory with a neighboring clan whose name she could not recall. After a battle, during which her father was nearly killed, he relinquished the land to the rival clan.

  It was a massive loss in profits. Really, it was just the beginning of the demise of Clan Lyall. We are cursed in more ways than just one.

  But after fifteen years, would the village still be standing?

  A cough ruptured from her chest and Nellie doubled over until the spasms ceased. Dear Lord, was she coming down with the same illness her parents had?

  "Hurry please, Lily," she coaxed the mare.

  The sky was covered in a thick, impenetrable fog. Although she was high up in the hills, she had no way of determining whether she was going east or west, or what direction the sea was in. The road could’ve been curving for as much as she knew, but everything was covered in a sheet of snow.

  Just keep going. That is the only choice I have. I am bound to come across something, someone.

  They made their descent from the rocky hills that entombed her parent's castle. The snow—thank God—was turning into slush, which then turned into soggy, wet grasslands. Still, she was chilled to the bone and was worried she'd fall off of Lily from shivering too much. She could not feel her legs and her fingers gripped Lily's mane so tightly that she was probably cutting her fingernails into her skin, although she was too numb to feel it. Lily was not faring well, either. Her head hung low to the ground and her rheumatic pace grew ever slower.