Dragon's Moon (21 page)

“If my brother had listened to me about all the points of my dream, I believe we would have found the
Faolchú Chridhe
by now.” Ciara frowned up at Eirik as if it were his fault.

As far as he was concerned, that particular failing was for the best. “It is good that he did not then.”

Ciara flinched at his words and damned if he did not have to fight the desire to comfort her, but the slight incline of her head acknowledged their truth.

“We will fly to Balmoral Island tonight.”

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

—G
ALILEO
G
ALILEI

“Y
ou intend Ciara to ride on your dragon?” the Sinclair asked.

“Aye. Ciara has proven herself an adept rider.” And Eirik's dragon wanted her to ride again, craved it like the beast had shown desire for nothing else.

Lais scowled, his blond brows beetled. “You would have my…Mairi ride your dragon as well?”

“You could take her across on a boat,” Eirik offered, expecting Lais to refuse.

An eagle preferred to fly.

Besides, the ride to where the Sinclairs kept their boats for the crossing combined with the crossing itself would take several hours longer than direct flight. Even if the eagle was considerably slower than a dragon in the sky.

But Lais nodded rapidly. “'Tis a sound idea, that.”

It was a daft idea, but since Eirik was the one to recommend it, even expecting it to be dismissed, he refused to withdraw his words now.

“I will accompany Lais and Mairi in the boat.” Ciara sounded far too pleased at that option.

Eirik and her adopted father both said, “No,” at the same time.

Surprised that the vehemence in the laird's tone matched his own, Eirik let the other man explain it to his daughter.

“But why not?” Ciara asked just as Eirik had expected her to.

“From the moment you leave this keep and until you return to it with the
Faolchú Chridhe
, you will not leave the dragon shifter's side.”

Ah, the man wanted Ciara protected at all costs. 'Twas understandable. Not only was she the laird's daughter but she was princess of the Faol. The
Faolchú Chridhe
would be of limited use to their people without one of her blood to bring forth its full power.

“It is a matter of your safety,” Abigail said to her daughter. “Please do as your father asks.”

Ciara's eyes filled and she nodded without another word. Her love for her adopted family at least was not in question.

No one commented on the Sinclair's muttering that, “'Twas not a request.”

T
here was little Ciara needed for her journey to the Balmoral holding.

Laird Lachlan, her adopted uncle, would provide for all their needs on his island, but where their journey would take them after that, she did not know. Best to be prepared.

She attached a purse made of the Sinclair tartan and lined with leather to the chain she wore around her hips. Inside was a small knife, used mostly for paring vegetables but useful in other circumstances as well. She'd also packed a handkerchief, a packet of herbs to make a tea both good for calming and to pour over a small wound for cleansing, and her last memento of her brother, his ring.

Under the sleeve of her blouse, Ciara wore the arm
circlet of bronze her father had given her mother on their wedding day. She only took it off to shift. The etched image of two wolves rubbing noses and surrounded by intricate lines had always given her comfort. She needed every boost to her courage she could manage for what was to come ahead. Of that she was certain.

She'd fought the call of the
Faolchú Chridhe
for so long, giving in to it made her mouth dry with fear.

The fear shamed her and she would not give in to it.

Ciara added the short and very sharp dirk with the jeweled handle passed down by her great-great-grandmother. She settled the thin leather around her hips so it rested under her chain and the dirk was almost hidden by the small purse attached to it.

Then she opened the low trunk Abigail and Talorc had given Ciara when she first came to live with them. They'd told her to keep her treasures in it, and she had. Those she'd brought with her and the few she'd accumulated since.

She pushed aside the first Sinclair plaid she'd ever been given, just a shawl really. Abigail had explained that Ciara could wear it over her shoulders while still wearing the Donegal's colors as her skirt. It had given her the opportunity to show her loyalty to the Sinclair while taking her time to give up her old clan…the last link to her dead family.

Giving her that shawl was the first of many compassions Abigail had shown Ciara.

Underneath the shawl was a carefully folded plaid of the Donegal colors. Ciara had last worn it six months after coming to the Sinclairs. Abigail had presented her with a skirt in the Sinclair colors, a new, smaller shawl that barely covered her shoulders and pins of bronze stamped with the Sinclair crest to hold it to a new blouse so white, Abigail had to have taken great pains to bleach the fabric.

The laird's lady had also included a bodice of finely spun black wool and explained the clothing a fashionable mix of her homeland and the Highland colors. It was too many layers for a shifter to wear expediently, not to mention too English, but Ciara had found herself unable to tell the human woman such.

She'd merely spoken her thanks and come down the next morning wearing a similar outfit to the one she'd worn every day since. Abigail had made herself a matching tartan and bodice, showing the world they were family, if not by blood.

Ciara pulled out the Donegal plaid and laid it on her bed, then unfolded it to reveal the sword within. With emeralds the same deep green of those on her dirk and the size of her thumb decorating the hilt, it was easily more than half as tall as she was.

It had been her brother's, and their father's before that, and their grandfather's before that. She did not know how long it had been in their family, but the heavy bronze shone with years of care.

The raised images of a
conriocht
, a dragon and a griffin surrounded the grip. The
conriocht
was in the center, with a smaller emerald than the ones on the hilt above the beast's head. The dragon clutched an amber stone in his claws and the griffin had a deep blue sapphire under a forepaw.

The sword was heavy and solid, a fitting sword for a king, she'd always thought.

Ciara's knees turned to water and she sank to the floor beside the bed.

A sword fit for a king.

But surely if he was descendant of the original Faol kings, Ciara's father would have been laird. He had not been a leader, though. He'd been loyal to the laird before Rowland and transferred that loyalty to the laird that did so much to hurt the Donegal clan.

Her father had been long dead by the time Barr had taken over as acting laird of the Donegal clan at the order of Scotland's king.

And Galen had already been firmly under Wirp and Luag's influence.

Barr had rescued their clan from the leadership of an evil but powerful Chrechte, but not in time to save her brother. Barr had done his best to save Ciara though, and she would always be grateful.

She ran her hand over the
conriocht
on the sword. When
had the last true
conriocht
walked the earth? Had it been one of her ancestors? Had he been a good man, or corrupted by his lust for power like Rowland? How long ago had the wolves lost their sacred stone?

And how? Apparently, the Éan still had
their
stone, so how could the wolves have lost something so precious?

Had it been taken by the Éan, like her brother claimed? Or the other people of the Chrechte, the Paindeal…those that shared their nature with the big cats of prey.

The elders always said the stories of the Paindeal were myth, but then the Faol that did not hunt them had believed the Éan a myth these many generations.

Ciara grasped the sword, her hand butt up against the hilt. Oddly, the metal felt hot against her skin, though her bedchamber was still cool from the night's drop in temperature. It would not warm until later in the day when the sun moved to this side of the keep.

The sword should be cool as well.

Only its handle grew even warmer against Ciara's palm. And it could have been a trick of the light, though she was not sure how…but the emeralds on the hilt seemed to
glow
.

Ciara closed her eyes against this indication of Chrechte magic and a childhood in which she'd been kept in the dark about the truth of her ancestors.

Not only had her father wished she were a son, but he had hidden her family's history from her. Certainty that he had shared it all with Galen only made the ache in her heart hurt worse.

Because for all that Galen loved her, he had kept these secrets from her as well. He had not thought she was important enough to know the truth of her lineage.

Silent tears trickled down her cheeks as Ciara wished for the connection to her past they'd seen fit to hide from her.

Suddenly, she was no longer sitting on the floor of her bedchamber, but standing deep in a cave lit by several torches sticking out from the smooth stone walls. An old woman wearing nothing but a leather loincloth crouched on the ground in the center of the cave.

Her wrinkled body was marked with crude tattoos similar, but more simplified, to the ones the Chrechte marked themselves with to indicate their first shift, matings and positions of leadership. The plain outline of a wolf was tattooed over her heart. Though she was a woman, her arm was marked with a band like that of a pack alpha. Only hers did not have a wolf on it, but the symbol for the Creator, God.

Was she the spiritual leader then? A
kelle
, like the old stories told about, women who were both priestesses and warriors? Her muscles were defined, despite her obvious age, and she crouched with an agility-wrapped tension that spoke of someone prepared to leap into action at any moment.

A wicked-looking dirk dangled from a leather strap between her legs. And the air escaped Ciara's chest as she realized the
kelle
wore a bronze cuff on her arm free of tattoos. It was identical to the one Ciara wore, but without the intricate swirls that must have been added later.

When the old woman raised her head, Ciara saw the thin bronze circlet she wore in her long gray hair. Graced with an emerald that dangled in the middle of the
kelle's
forehead, it clearly marked her as Faol royalty of some kind.

She straightened and Ciara could see a leather-wrapped bundle held tight to her chest. Eyes the same color as Ciara's surveyed the cave, as if trying to see into the very shadows and looking through Ciara as if she were not there at all.

Each move, every line of the
kelle
's body spoke of determination and urgency. She turned toward the back of the cave and revealed a short sword, similar to the one Ciara treasured, strapped to her back. There was no sign of her age in the way she walked with strength and purpose, her head held high.

The
kelle
disappeared in the shadows, and as quickly as Ciara had found herself in the cave, she found herself back on the floor of her bedchamber.

Her eyes were open though she did not remember lifting her lids, and she stared at the wall opposite.

Her mind's eye could still see the
kelle
though and Ciara shuddered at the certainty she had just witnessed not only
a moment in the life of one of her ancestors, but the loss of the
Faolchú Chridhe
as well.

Her hand was still on the sword, but the metal no longer felt unnaturally hot. She released it quickly though, as if it could yet burn her. Looking at her palm, she saw no redness to indicate the heat the sword handle had generated.

She wondered where the sword the
kelle
had worn had gone? To another distant relative perhaps, another family within the Faol that might actually tell their daughters the truth of their past?

“What are you doing?” Eirik's voice came from the doorway.

Feeling like she was underwater, Ciara turned her head to see him. Dressed much as he'd been the first time she'd spied him from atop the tower, the dragon shifter filled her doorway, a scowl settled firmly on his chiseled features.

“I was…” Trying to understand her past, looking for proof of Mairi's claim Ciara was something more than she thought.

Eirik's gaze moved beyond her to the weapon lying exposed on her bed and his glare turned sulfuric. “You have a sword from one of the ancient Chrechte kings. Where did you get it?”

The accusation and mistrust in Eirik's tone hurt in a way Ciara refused to acknowledge.

“I did not steal it, and my brother didn't, either.” She would rather be standing for this conversation, but after the vision she did not trust the strength of her legs.