Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series)

For David and our Children

I Love You

Copyright© 2012 by Jennifer Strong

Cover Art by Mackenzie Strong

All Rights Reserved. The reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the express written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Author's Note
     

For as long as there have been humans dotting the earth, throughout time and ages long past, there have been the outspoken few, the less arrogant of an inherently arrogant race, who have believed, wholeheartedly, that we are not alone in this world. That spirits and mythical beings walked among the masses, and that people unwittingly added to these beings on a daily basis with their own natural naivete, by following their own hearts, or their loins, as the case may be, although a great many were supposedly tricked into such action, or were stolen for the purpose. Treated as freaks by the unbeliever and the believer, alike, routed out of proper society as if they were every bane to mankind’s very existence, many of those soothsayers died, helped along by fanatical creatures who believed more in sacrificing the odd man out than in hearing the proof that there might actually
be
someone out there within the ever growing population; a friendly neighbor, perhaps, or Aunt Aggie on your mother’s side, or even the man or woman claiming to know things which others knew not, none were safe from death; everyone was suspect. It was easier for a man to kill the person who had proven themselves to be against the norm than to sacrifice his own child in the name of some God or another. A great many of these diviners were sacrificed for the good of man, dying as innocents simply because they were different. Such things have been proven over and over throughout history, and yet, the very reasons for why they were burned or drowned, or worse, the stories which they had believed in enough to repeat them, which they died for believing in, lived on long after the memory of the dead was forgotten.

The histories of elves and fairies, of giants and dwarves, of creatures who lived for the darkness or for the light, of anything that could be imagined as real, were closely guarded at one point, the holders of that ancient knowledge, the Druidic Line, keeping the secrets by memory rather than in scripts; a precious wealth of knowledge which they believed that none but the Chosen should learn.   

After a time, others took it upon themselves to record the seeming proof of other life out there in the form of poems and ballads; in stories, painstakingly written out in strange languages, of other beings, so closely related to mankind that they were able to blend in, when they chose; to go out amongst the people. Popular among all, the stories were filled with otherworldly creatures, many of whom had awesome powers, unnatural gifts, almost abnormal beauty. Unusual in that they were not normal, they were not human, and yet they were human-like, the stories were believed at first, the people sitting around warm hearths on chilly nights to listen to the myths so full of superstitious fears that they would, and still do, go to great lengths to appease the characters of which they, once again, came to believe in wholeheartedly. The unknown makes for a good story, and
what if
tends to add it's own special charm. 

Superstition is rooted in truth. Divining the difference between a story and the truth is difficult at the best of times; diving the truth in all of it’s aspects is near to impossible. Especially when faced with the well known fact that most people are not truly what they seem; most people do not live their lives out in the guise of happily ever after, and even the ones who try to make others believe that they have gotten that much out of their own meager existence upon this earth are usually deluded, and are simply too vain to face the plain truth that life
can
, and often does, suck on any level. Life is what you make it, after all, and any common, everyday fairytale may be just that, a fairytale, predictably full of goodness and light, always a happy ending to look forward to.

This is
not
your everyday fairytale.

If your mind is not wide open, don’t read my book. I can assure you that you won’t like it. In the words of my favorite person in the world, my husband, “Who knows what shit the mind will come up with?” This book is dedicated to my David, who will always be my very own, no matter how many people would like to claim him for themselves.

Hidden Jewel

Gaelic and/or Highlands Translations/Meanings

(with quite a few of my own bits thrown in for good measure)

Hope this helps!

Ailill
- Pronounced El
yell
for those who don't know that..... Ailill Bascna-Morna, named after ancient Irish Kings, the Fae Red Branch on her mother's side, and the more humanistic Black Branch on her father's side, respectively. She is also called Abby by most people- it makes her a little less Royalty, a little more 'common lassie'.

The Tierce or Triple Aspect
- any set of triplets born into either the Red or the Black Branch. In most cases I am referring to the MacDuff lads (i.e. Tiernan, Micah, Jacob) although the Mackenzie's (Declan, Galen and Donnelly) are also a tierce, of a bit lower rung on the royal ladder. The triple aspect is derived, as always, from my colorful mind, but the idea of it was a common theme in many tales of Celtic Mythology (i.e. Maid, Mother, Crone), and were usually women.

Hidden Highlands
- A figment of my own vast imaginings...this is the realm, beneath  the Isles, where the Fae went to live after they were beaten by the sons of Mil, and from where they developed a penchant for showing themselves to modern mortals quite frequently throughout the centuries, often becoming kin to the lesser beings by the sharing of their everlasting bloodlines. Faeries believe very strongly in free-love, after all.

Heartfire
- the castle and lands in which Fergus MacDuff, and those faithful to him as King, dwell in the Hidden Highlands. To Ailill, it is simply “home”.

Cachaileath na Sith
- Pronounced Kaheelee na She- Faerie Doorway, the mystical portals through which any with the “right” blood may enter and be near instantaneously transported to other lands or the Hidden Realm.

Caisteal
- castle
Muirnadhagh
- home by the sea (my own translation;) In the far Northwestern Highlands, nestled deep in the hills of the mount of jewels, Caisteal Muirnadhagh was the ancestral home of Ailill.

Drumossie Moor
- also known as Culloden, where the final battle between the Highlanders and the English was fought on April 16, 1746. (my characters highly prize the integrity and valor of those mighty Highland warriors, and fashion themselves after those men and women quite extensively, going so far as adopting even their good Scottish names and not a few practices).

Imbas Forasni
- the Second Sight, one of Ailill's 'gifts'

Ban-Sithiche
- Banshee(s?)

Alba(n)
- Scotland, Scottish

Tir na N'Og
- the Land of Eternal Youth or, if it's easier, Pagan Heaven where all great warriors go to await Rebirth and the final battle 'tween good and evil (i.e. the Faerie Realm and the Black Druid's mortal minions).

còir
- justice

Sidhe
- Faerie

Sidhe Banrigh
- Faerie Queen