She sat atop the hilled cairn, watching out into the lake. Her ancestors had been dead and buried on this hill for generations. Fortifications were built under and around their tombs. But not one drop of blood or split of hair or bit of bone was allowed to be harmed here. They were the real fortifications on this hill. Not the weapons or trap doors or mazes hid within.
She felt a disturbance in the trees. It shimmered like heat ripples in the air. She could sense his presence. The Hunter. They would have been friends if not for their families’ blood feuds. Bound together, a constant interlocked, interwoven spell of time. Mismanaged assets and family affairs, ruined women and children left dead. Empty castles that screamed with the blood of ancestors every time the wind rustled.
He was there again that night. He hadn’t seen her. But she had seen him. She was waiting on that hill for three days straight, since Ellen had come to her in another dream. She sat under the shade of the stone with her name on it. Waiting, as still as the stone itself.
It was too late. The Hunter was flung back across the cairn, before he could breach the perimeter of fallen and broken ash and yew she used to shield the graves.
He won’t be back, Ellen, she whispered to her sister. Not in this life, but in another. He’ll never harm you again. Living or dead.