Redeemed (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #2) Read Online Free

power, Druid power, is gained by testing the elements of our Earth, our plane, through exhausting all variables and learning to control them for definitive use.”
    Kylah nodded, though she wished she had swallowed her pride and asked for a more simplified answer. “What sort of uses? What do you seek from this knowledge? This… Control?”
    He turned his head to stare at a row of strange tools all hung on hand-crafted hooks littering the far wall, offering what Kylah knew to be the unadorned side of his face. She yearned to uncover it. To make a study of it whilst his notice was elsewhere.
    “Truth is what I seek,” he murmured. “What else is there?”
    “Oh lots of things,” she ticked them off on her fingers. “Beauty, freedom, life, love, family—”
    His derisive snort interrupted her. “Doona be ridiculous. Beauty is but an illusion that subjectively changes with perception and cannot be trusted.” He gave her a pointed look, but continued. “Freedom, also a perception, can be granted and taken at the whim of another, generally one with more power. Same as life, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
    Kylah flinched.
    “And love ,” he scoffed. “Love is an indefinable, variant weakness that can be used against you.” He vehemently shook his head, upsetting the braids at his temple. “Nay, I want for none of those things.”
    Kylah couldn’t disagree with him on any particular point. Which unsettled her. All those “things” had been violently taken from her, by someone with a great deal more power.
    Except… “What about family?”
    A muscle flexed in his jaw, upsetting more of his mask. “I doona have a conception of what that word means, so I dare not speculate on it.”
    Kylah thought on her mother and sisters, a stab of remorse staining their last interaction. Though she’d lived, for lack of a better word, the last year through a haze of broken apathy, she’d not taken for granted the omnipresent love and support of her family. She couldn’t always pull her mind from the constant fog to interact with them. But in life, and death, they’d always done what they could for each other. Though at times she had to admit, it hadn’t always been enough.
    She closed her eyes, letting the pity she felt for the Druid overtake the welling of pain and terror that lurked below her surface, closer now that she’d called it forth in the cavern’s antechamber.
    “No family?” At her words a blast of helpless tormented rage hit her with an almost physical force.
    From him? Had to be.
    But the Druid merely shook his head and waved a hand as if to expel the word. “But truth. Truth is constant. No one can change it. It just is .” His voice rose, every word perfectly annunciated. “Whether we believe it or not. Accept it or not. Whether we’re ignorant of it or able to wield it. It remains as is. When it is tested, the outcome is certain. Every time. Without fail.”
    Kylah thought about his words. “If that is truth, then I believe love can be truth.”
    His eyes disappeared into his lids a second time. “Aye, well, we’ve already established that ye’re a fool.”
    “No we haven’t,” she corrected. “You’ve assumed that I’m a fool, but your theory has yet to be tested.”
    He stared at her with a face void of expression for a long moment, and then blinked. “Let’s just agree that the evidence suggests.”
    “Maybe so,” she shrugged. “But you can’t call truth until you have definitive proof after exhausting all the variables.” Kylah couldn’t hide her victorious smile. The first of its kind in almost a year. She thought she saw the corner of his own mouth twitch before he turned away from her, busying himself with the bowls.
    She had him. But was smart enough not to say so. Which, in her opinion, was a strong variable in her favor.

Chapter Four
    He couldn’t stand to look at her. It was too… She was so… Well, descriptive words had never served his purposes; therefore