Scarlet and gold, gules and or, heart and lion, and he the stranger-in-blood who had no right to any of it. Not to his father's coat-of-arms, to the family motto, nor even to the name. Only the fire was his, hot and all-consuming, the flames ever reaching for him. If he stared into their shifting colors, he was lost. 'Tis but a dream, he told himself, struggling to be free of the invisible bonds holding him fast. He couldn't move. "Coinneach Odhar," his mother's voice chanted in Gaelic from beyond the fire. "Look and you will see. The blood runs true, from him through me to you." "No!" The cry was only in his head, he couldn't speak. He wasn't, he wouldn't be like Coinneach, that Ross-shire seer who died a horrible death a hundred years ago for his true prophecies. Wake lad! Banish the fire! Yet slowly, inexorably, his head turned toward the flames. His breath caught in his throat. He saw a valley, a golden valley with highlands beyond. A land of promise, a land beckoning, beckoning.
