Page 2 of Highland Guard
“No! Please, I need you, Papa. Do not send me away.”
“Forgive me,tesoro mio, but know this. I will love you always.”
“And forever,” Naomi rasped.
“Go now. Run and do not look back.” He hugged her one last time and repeated, “Guard the necklace and do not look back. Whatever you hear, do not look back.”
She nodded as her father gently pushed her through the opening that led underground. Naomi glanced up just in time to see his shimmering eyes as he stared down at her. He held the sword now in one hand and the shield in the other. His feet spaced apart, and he whispered, “I love you, my heart. May God be with you.” Then he swung the door closed.
Naomi turned and crawled through the darkness towards a tunnel that led away from the house and into the forest. When she appeared at the other end, she sprinted for the pathway through the woods. It was then she heard shouts and the dull clashing sound of swords.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not stop looking back. She stilled when she saw her father. But she was viewing him with fresh eyes. He looked like her papa, but this version was a warrior. He moved quicker than any man she had seen as several men in soldiers’ clothes came at him from all sides. But he moved effortlessly, cutting them down, turning and lunging, parrying, and ducking, moving in a graceful motion that belied the brutality of the battle he was waging. Gone was the gentle farmer who lived within the abbey's walls and taught her about peace and nature, replaced instead by a seasoned warrior.
To her dismay, the men kept coming. She knew her father would tire soon and cried when she watched them pierce his flesh with spears and blades. He had slain at least seven men before he collapsed to the ground.
Naomi was about to scream from her hiding place, she wanted to run to him, help him, and damn the consequences. But a firm hand clamped over her mouth. She tried to struggle, then realized it was Renzo. He pulled his hand away and whispered, “Come away, my friend. He is gone. Your father is with your mother and the angels now. We must go.”
Naomi shook her head as the tears streamed down her face. She willed her father to rise, but there was no more life in his body, she knew. She felt his passing like an irretrievable light had extinguished, plunging her world into darkness. And with it settled an inextricable grief, a pain so deep it would seem nothing could shut it out. Naomi's sobs were quiet but robbed of all breath. She had lost her entire world at that moment and wished she had treasured the times that came before it with a greater sense of urgency.
“Renzo? What will I do now?” she asked as silent tears fell.
Renzo gave her a sympathetic look then whispered, “You will keep breathing, my friend. You can survive anything as long as you just keep breathing.” Naomi nodded as Renzo wiped her tears, then he clasped her hand as they ran through the woods to find Father Nofri.
***
Chapter 1
1036 - Saddell Abbey, Western Scotland
“Keep breathing. Youwill survive. Just keep breathing,”Naomi Augusto chanted over and over to herself. As she hugged her knees tight and quietly rocked her body back and forth to stop another panic attack. Terrified by the two girls now circling her with wicked intent, she fought hard not to show it. Any sign of weakness worsened the abuse from her tormentors, Una Pringle and Eilidh Ruthven.
Naomi expected the attack ever since her friend, Yesenda MacDonald, stood up for her in the refectory.She sat in the center of a dank, abandoned cellar underneath the abbey. She bled from a cut to the arm inflicted by Una, and her back ached from the hard kick delivered by Eilidh.
“You think you are better than us just because you made a new friend?” Una asked.
“No, I do not think that,” Naomi replied.
