chapter 24
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
—LAO-TZU
Her hands trembling, Ciara reached out to touch the leather covering on the dais. It had been made by warrior priestesses who had served their people with love and loyalty unto death centuries past.
She tugged experimentally at the corner and found it surprisingly soft and supple under her fingers. “Let us each take a side and slide it off onto the floor.”
Eirik and Lais followed her direction without comment and the cover was removed without incident.
A reverent curse slipped from Lais’s mouth as both Ciara and Eirik stood in shocked silence at what had been revealed.
The dais top was not the gray slab she expected, but a green stone marbled with amber lines unlike anything she had ever seen before. It had been polished to such a sheen, the fire from the torches was reflected on its surface.
The waist-high pedestal it sat on was almost as large as the dais top. At least six feet long and three feet wide, it did not look like it was going anywhere to reveal a secret passage.
“The carvings on the pedestal are similar to the ones we found on the hillside,” Eirik said thoughtfully.
They were, though the symbols were all connected by knot work similar to the marks worn on the biceps of the Chrechte who led their brethren.
As one, the three dropped to their knees to begin examining the dais for the symbol of healing. Ciara found it in the center of the long side facing north. “I’ve found it, but there’s no indentation like on the larger one outside.”
“There is a mark for healing on this side, too,” Eirik announced a second later.
Lais said the same as Ciara was already scooting around to the side they had not checked yet. This one did not have the healing symbol on it; instead there was a carving that matched the one on the handle of her brother’s sword. Only in this carving, the conriocht’s stone was missing, though the dragon and griffin’s gems were set in place.
Ciara pressed her emerald to the spot and nearly fell backward as the floor beneath her feet began to move. Eirik was there in a second, his arm protectively around her, his grip on her tight, the message crystal clear. She was going nowhere without him.
The floor stopped moving and Lais swore with great reverence. “Well, will you look at that?”
The floor had opened up to reveal a set of steps in that strange green marbled stone leading below.
“The kelle said the Faolchú Chridhe was deep in the earth.”
“That is deep enough,” Eirik said.
Indeed it was. They could not see the bottom of the steps.
“I will guard the entrance,” Lais said.
Eirik nodded and turned his attention on her, his focus stern. “I will take the lead.”
“The stone is calling to me.”
“But your safety is my responsibility.”
“It won’t do the Chrechte any good if we don’t get the sacred stone.”
“Make no mistake, our people may need the stone, but your safety is of every use to me whether or not we retrieve the Faolchú Chridhe.”
First he’d called her his love and now this. Had she been wrong? Did her stubborn dragon mate care about her as something more than a means to an end for their people?
“I will follow you.”
“You will.” He turned and descended the stairs.
Arrogant, wonderful dragon.
The steps ended, but the passageway continued downward until it opened into a cavern that glowed with the strange green light of her dreams. The smell of water warned her before the torch Eirik carried revealed a small stream they would have to cross. The smell of minerals and steam rising from the stream indicated it was fed by the same type of underground spring as the other sacred Chrechte caves.
Without warning, Eirik swung her up with one arm so she dangled above the floor.
She cried out. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying you across. The water may well be too hot to touch.”
He was right, but she hadn’t even considered it. Concentrating on what her wolf senses were telling her, she realized the water was indeed very hot and could well have burned her badly if she’d tried to walk across the shallow stream.
Eirik made the crossing with a single leap of his long legs. He set her down on the other side. “Your father said there are other caverns like this, but it seems magical to me.”
“To me as well,” she whispered, her eyes taking in details her mind had difficulty comprehending.
The cavern was about half the size of the one above with dome-shaped walls that glistened with moisture and glowed with that odd green light. The ground was earth pressed flat, the scent stale with minerals she did not recognize.
A tall pedestal made of that foreign green stone stood alone in the center of the room. And on top sat an emerald the size of Eirik’s fist.
“We found it,” she said in a voice that barely made it past her tight throat. “We really did it.”
Her knees went weak and she would have fallen, but Eirik was there, holding her up, kissing her gently while his arms were granite hard around her. Giving safety, security and certainty that she was not alone and never would be again.
She took several deep breaths before taking a step forward, and then another. Her traverse across the cavern was tortuously slow, but her legs were more wobbly than they’d ever been.
They reached the pedestal together, Eirik’s strength still supporting her.
“What will happen when I touch it?” she asked, frightened and exhilarated all at once.
The call of the stone was so strong her hands were lifting toward it even now of their own accord.
“I do not know.”
Her hands curved around it and the oddest feeling surged through her, her entire body buzzing like a hive of bees. Then the image of wolves slinking through the forest flashed before her eyes. She did not know how she was so certain of it, but she knew these were MacLeod soldiers and they were close.
“We need to go; they’re coming.”
Eirik didn’t ask who or why, he simply dropped the torch and then picked her up securely in his arms. She clutched the Faolchú Chridhe to her chest as he rushed back across the underground stream and headed back up the tunnel.
She didn’t protest him carrying her; the buzzing under her skin had not diminished and she did not know if she could stand on her own, much less run.
They broke out of the dark into the huge cavern and found Lais already gone and all the standing torches extinguished. A single handheld torch gave off a dim glow from one of the tables.
Eirik ran right past it.
Ciara gasped, “We need the light.”
“We do not. You are wolf, I am dragon.”
She wanted to argue further, but his sense of urgency was her own. Whatever his Éan warriors had told him via the link he shared with them, and he would be explaining that one sometime very soon, Eirik was determined to get out of the hillside as soon as possible.
Once they reached the narrower part of the passage, he set her on her feet. “Put the sacred stone in your purse.”
It barely fit, but it wasn’t going anywhere from the snug enclosure, either. “It is done.”
“Take hold of the back of my kilt.”
She did, gripping tight in the near-suffocating darkness. Then he started to move. “Do not let go.”
“I won’t.”
It took far less time to reach the opening than it had coming in, but the sounds of Chrechte engaged in mortal combat spurred them both to faster movement.
Once they broke out into the moonlit dell, the smell of blood hit Ciara. The air was redolent with it and she could not help the skip in her heart that it might be from their brethren.
Lais and Vegar fought the MacLeod wolves in their human forms, their prowess testament to how well the Éan trained for battle. Even the healers.
The Faol had all shifted for the fight, but even with their three wolves, they were seriously outnumbered by MacLeods.
Eirik spun to face her and then lifted her with strength even beyond a Chrechte so she could sit high on a stone jutting out from the side of the brae. Her perch was precarious, but no wolf was going to reach her, not even a Chrechte.
“Stay.”
“Fight,” she countered.
He nodded and turned, already drawing both swords. He killed two wolves with a single powerful downward arc.
The fighting grew too close for him to use his swords and he sheathed them, his hands shifting to dragon’s claws.
The Sinclair and Balmoral soldiers fought hard, but there were three well-trained Chrechte warriors from the MacLeod clan for every one of theirs. One of the wolves came toward her, taking a running leap at the hillside. His claws clicked as they hit the stone; he almost caught purchase but slid back down the brae.
Not wanting to draw attention from the men fighting for their lives and hers, she did not make a sound. But she drew her dirk and held it as Talorc had taught her. The wolf tried to reach her again, this time making it a little bit closer.
Another joined him, a huge brown cur that was too heavy to get any kind of purchase on the stone with his claws at all. Then he shifted. With a face lined in cruelty, a body honed by war and only a couple of inches shorter than her mate, he sent waves of dread through Ciara.
“Come down, little Sinclair spy, and we might let you live.”
She tucked her feet closer to her body and made sure none of her skirt hung over the side for him to grab. “Call your dogs off and you might yet survive this night.”
“You’re on our land, Sinclair bitch, and I’m sure the MacLeod will be very interested to find out why.”
“He won’t hear it from me.”
The other wolf shifted and approached the ugly-mouthed warrior. “Give me a hand up, Ualraig, and I’ll get her down quick enough.”
Ualraig didn’t have the opportunity to answer because Lais skewered him with his broadsword, pulling it back in a manner that destroyed any chances the other Chrechte had of surviving the wound. “That was for Mairi, you vicious bastard.”
“That slut?” Ualraig scowled, the scent of blood and other body fluids so strong Ciara wanted to vomit. “She deserved what she got.”
“So did you, it looks like to me,” Ciara spat down at the unrepentant Chrechte.
Lais bent over the dying man. “Aye, our princess is right. You’ll burn in hell knowing an Éan sent you there, too.”
She didn’t know what role Ualraig had played in Mairi’s beating, but if Lais found the man a personal affront, it hadn’t been minor.
Having shifted back to his animal, the smaller wolf attacked Lais from the side, going straight for his throat. Ciara screamed her warning and Lais spun just in time. The wolf’s jaws grazed his shoulder, but Lais punched up with a strong fist and sent the beast flying from him.
It was a Chrechte though, not a normal wolf and it was back in moments, fighting Lais while another tried to scale the brae and get to her.
Eirik raked his opponent’s body with his dragon’s claws, drawing a spray of blood, before spinning away and rushing to take a position below Ciara.
Can I talk to the wolves the way you talk to your Éan? she asked him across their mate-link.
No surprise at her knowledge came through their connection. Perhaps. With the stone.
And perhaps she’d go into a vision if she touched it with her bare hands again, but the flash of the coming trouble the first time had been brief. And while touching the stone had left her body weak with strange sensations, it had not knocked her out like her vision with the sword had done.
She’d have to risk it regardless. Artair was limping from a terrible wound to his thigh, Everett had a gash on his shoulder, Vegar bled down his torso and Lais was in mortal hand-to-hand combat with a wolf. There were several dead already among the MacLeod, but a few more well-connected strikes and her friends were in serious danger of losing one, or more, of their own.
She pulled the Faolchú Chridhe from her purse and held on to it, concentrating on her connection to all Chrechte through it. She was prepared for the buzzing sensation below her skin and the heat the stone generated in her hands, but she nearly fell off her perch when her mind connected to Artair, Everett and his brother. She could not read their thoughts any more than she could read Eirik’s, but she felt their emotions and knew instinctively their minds were open to hearing her.
Withdraw from combat, she ordered them. Eirik can’t shift to his full dragon and cast fire with you in the way.
She said the same thing to her mate via their link. She could not read one emotion in the maelstrom coming from him, but his soldiers withdrew and the Sinclair and Balmoral wolves followed.
He must have done as she suggested and ordered them back.
They all looked like they were running, only to double back and herd the MacLeod soldiers into a tighter formation. It wasn’t a bad formation for doing battle, but as fodder for dragon fire? It made them twice as vulnerable.
Eirik stripped and shifted with a speed that astonished her and then cast his fire in wave after wave after wave.
When it was over, not even the smell of charred flesh remained because nothing was left but a fine powder of dust.
“This time it will be the Fearghall wondering what has happened to their brethren in the forest,” Vegar said, his gravelly voice laced with dour satisfaction.
Put the stone back in your satchel and climb on my back, Eirik ordered inside Ciara’s mind.
“But I need to close the cave entrance, so the MacLeod doesn’t find it.”
Drop the small stone to Artair. He can do it. There was something in Eirik’s voice inside her mind that made Ciara want to comply without arguing.
A few moments later, Artair had closed the entrance to the cave and he and the other warriors were doing what was necessary to remove evidence of their presence on MacLeod lands, including speaking the Chrechte words of passing and sweeping the ashes of the fallen Chrechte into the stream.
Ciara realized it was probably the same one that fed the underground cavern and thought it fitting. Enemy, or not, every Chrechte deserved to be given proper send-off of their ashes. Being scattered in waters sacred to their ancestors seemed only right.
When she said so to Eirik through their mate-link, he did not respond but simply waited for Lais to hand her his clothes and weapons before taking to the sky.
They flew much faster than a horse could gallop, or even a Chrechte wolf could run, even faster than they had ever flown together. Ciara had to hide her face against his neck to protect it from the sharp bite of the wind and there was no joy in this flight. Only single-minded purpose.
They reached the sacred caves on Sinclair land as the sun rose over the morning mist.
Eirik was silent as they walked into the caves together. He headed unerringly for the chamber of mating and dropped his weapons and clothing that he had not bothered to don after shifting onto the ground. Without a break in his stride, he walked right into the pool and submerged himself completely in the steaming waters.
Ciara removed her clothing as she waited for her mate to reemerge. He stayed under long enough that she was completely naked and growing worried when he exploded out of the water, sucking in a big lungful of air. Droplets cascaded off of him, getting her and stone surrounding the pool wet.
His head down, he stood there heaving.
She slid into the water and waded over to him. Laying her hand on his bicep, right over the deep blue tattoo that proclaimed him prince of his people, she asked, “Are you all right?”
He didn’t reply, just stood there, his breathing an irregular pattern that in any other person would mean they were crying. And then she understood.
“I am sorry,” she said softly, not knowing what other words would matter.
“You did not kill them.”
“It was my idea.”
“It was a good one. Refusing to take my full dragon form put our warriors at risk.”
“But fighting other Chrechte in battle is not the same as incinerating them with your fire,” she said, voicing her new understanding of the man she’d mated, married and loved with the very depth of her being. “Killing Galen and Luag that way hurt you as much as it hurt me to see it.”
“He was your brother.”
“He was a Chrechte who had surrendered his honor to the idea of being superior.”
“I am the protector of my people.”
“And that day, Fidaich and Canaul needed protecting. Just as last night, our soldiers needed your dragon. The MacLeod numbers were too high; we might have won the battle but the cost would have been great.”
Finally, Eirik’s head lifted and their gazes met. His face was wet, but not all the moisture was from his dip in the pool. “I am dragon, but I am also raven.”
“One has the instincts of a predator, the other does not kill.” Her heart ached for him and her desire to protect her own emotions disappeared under that pain. “I love your dragon, Eirik. I am grateful, so very grateful for the strength and power he gives you. I love your raven, too. Without instincts from your bird, you could become like Fearghall, but you never will.”
“And me? Do you love me?” Eirik asked as if it really mattered to him.
It certainly mattered to her and she would never lie about it. “I do, so very much.”
His head dipped again, his voice coming out gravelly. “From the moment of my birth, I have been taught to know my responsibility to my people, to all Chrechte.”
“I know.” Not releasing her hold on his arm, she laid her other hand over his heart. “This beats with it.”
His head came up then, his amber eyes fierce with emotion. “It used to, but now it beats for you. My mate. Last night, you told me to shift and your intent was to save our warriors, but all I could think about was keeping you safe and if annihilating the MacLeod soldiers was necessary to do it, then I would cast fire.”
“You have to keep me safe for the future of our people,” she tried to soothe him, her own heart stuttering at the thought it could possibly be more than that.
Suddenly, his hands were on either side of her face and their gazes were locked with primal messages arcing between them. “I saved you for me. You are mine. You will always be mine and you will always come first. Before my warriors, before my friends, and God forgive me, even before our people.”
“But you…that’s not…”
“I love you,” he said in ancient Chrechte and the air around them crackled.
Pure white light flashed between them and burning heat seared her breast, right over her heart. Then the air was still, the light gone and she looked down at Eirik’s chest, certainty mixed with utter disbelief roiling through her.
But she was right. He now wore a mating mark right over his heart. His hand dropped from her face to trace the spot that had burned so sharply only moments before on her breast. “You are marked as my other half.”
“You are marked as mine.”
“For eternity.” It wasn’t just her desire, but the truth. The symbol for it enclosed his mating mark and she was sure her matching one.
“My dragon will have to kill again, in protection of our people.”
“And I will be here with you to wash away the pain.”
“With your love.”
She nodded. “With my love.”
And that is exactly what she did.
Abigail, who knew much from her correspondence with a learned abbess, had once told Ciara that the philosopher Aristotle had maintained that love was composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Ciara thought maybe the ancient philosopher had been part Chrechte, but certainly he’d gotten one thing right. Because her soul was forever entwined with Eirik’s and ’twas most definitely love.
For no other power on earth would have been great enough to break through the walls of fear she’d erected around her heart so many years ago and give her hope for a future that might even one day include children.
It took several days to find the ancient chamber of the Faol, perhaps because Eirik and Ciara were content to spend more time in the sacred caves affirming their love than searching. That, if nothing else, convinced Ciara that Eirik had spoken the truth when he said she was of utmost importance to him.
The cavern was not actually hidden so much as forgotten. Deep in the earth and down another one of those narrow, very long passages, it looked exactly as it had in Ciara’s vision.
“I suppose the Faol stopped coming when there was no Faolchú Chridhe to lay hands on,” she mused.
Eirik frowned and shook his head as he lit the torches on the walls in the stone chamber. “I’m sure Fearghall encouraged any but his chosen few to forget it and the sacred stone’s existence.”
“Whoever decided we did not need to perform our sacred rites because we no longer had a stone to bless them stole so much from the Faol.”
“I am sure the kelle will help you remember them,” Eirik comforted Ciara.
“She did say I would see her again.”
“And you will.” Eirik smiled. “I have the feeling the ancient kelle will be a lifelong friend and mentor for you.”
“You may be right, but as wonderful as that prospect is…” Ciara reached up and kissed her mate, her husband with all the love that welled forth from her heart for him in a continuous fount. “It cannot compete with the certainty I will spend that lifetime with you.”
Eirik’s eyes glinted with moisture she would never comment on as he gave her the brilliant smile she’d seen first the night he admitted his love for her. “Nothing can compete with that truth, faolán.”