At least for this evening, hope glimmered along with the campfire. Perhaps enough time had passed for the wounds of war to heal. Perhaps Partholon would accept these disinherited children of mothers long dead.
Kyna’s familiar laughter drew her gaze. Fand lolled beside her, licking the little girl’s fingers, as well as her face, causing the child to dissolve into giggles. Brighid couldn’t help smiling in response. What an odd mixture they were-a wolf cub that should never have survived the death of her mother, winged children whose births should have killed their mothers, a centaur who had escaped from her mother…
No-Brighid clamped down on her negative thoughts. She hadn’t run away. She’d left and found a new people. She belonged with Clan MacCallan. So much so that the Clan Chieftain had sent Brighid on this quest to bring her beloved brother safely home. Brighid would complete her Chieftain’s charge-and she would figure out some way to get Cuchulainn’s stubborn soul to rejoin him in this world. She had been making definite progress. She had to remember Cuchulainn had been devastated by his loss and…
…And where was the damned man?
The Huntress’s keen eyes searched through those gathered around the campfire. Worry tightened her gut. What if he’d decided he couldn’t wait for the birth of Fallon’s child before carrying out her death sentence?
The warrior would be stripped of his rank and cast from Clan MacCallan.
Brighid sought Ciara’s winged figure, and found her not far from her tent, involved in an animated discussion with two female warriors. Grimly the Huntress made her way to Ciara. She did not wait for a lull in the conversation. Apologizing hastily, she pulled the winged Shaman to the side. “Cuchulainn?”
“I wondered when you would notice his absence,” Ciara said.
“Where is he?” Brighid struggled to keep her voice low and told herself it wouldn’t do to cause a scene by picking up the winged woman and shaking her.
“I heard him asking Fagan about the castle’s graves. I assume he’s there.”
“You assume! You mean you don’t know?”
“See for yourself.” Ciara nodded toward a wide, grassy passageway that intersected with the square courtyard. “Fagan sent him in that direction not long before you returned from your hunt.”
Before Brighid could start after him, the Shaman’s hand stayed her. “He is not going to kill Fallon. His thoughts are elsewhere.”
“Oh, now you can read his thoughts, too?”
“No. I can read neither his thoughts nor yours. But I do know that Cuchulainn’s honor prevents him from killing Fallon. You should know it, too.”
Scowling, Brighid pulled away and hurried down the torchlit passage. The damned Shaman was right. Now that she really thought about it, she knew Cuchulainn would never dishonor himself or his Clan by breaking his Chieftain’s sentence. Still, Cuchulainn shouldn’t be left alone with his dark emotions. Not after the incident with Fallon. He would just withdraw back into that hard shell of his. Ciara knew that!
The passageway spilled into an area that looked like an herb garden. A woman crouched down clipping sprigs of early mint gave the centaur a curious glance.
“I’m looking for the castle’s grave sites,” Brighid said.
“Follow the wall, Huntress. When the path splits, take the branch to the east. The graves are easily found near the wall, in the raised area that looks down upon the rest of the castle.”
Brighid nodded her thanks. Except for the ever-present sentries atop the thick walls, this part of the castle was deserted. Torches from the warrior’s walk above shed pale, shadowy light. When the wall turned to the right she felt the earth beneath her rise until it peaked in a rounded corner. The area was raised, and small tors had been mounded all along the wall. There were no effigies or carved tombs. Instead the Guardian Warriors had chosen to lay their dead to rest within man-made burrows.
Curious, Brighid slowed and approached the first hill-like mound respectfully. An arched doorway had been set into the side of it, and its gray stone was beautifully carved with knots in intricate forms.
“Fagan says that in the summer they are covered with blue wildflowers.”
Cuchulainn’s deep voice startled her. “Could you give me a little warning? What is it with you and Ciara? Do you enjoy scaring the sense out of me?”
“Sorry,” Cu said gruffly. “I thought you knew I was here.”
“I knew you were here, but not here.” She pointed to where he had stepped from the dark shadow beside one of the larger tors. “And just exactly why are you here?”
“Because of them.”
Cuchulainn moved aside. The grave’s door was decorated with a single carved design that Brighid instantly recognized as the Healer’s Knot-that of a huge oak interwoven with knots. Its branches reached high into the sky. Its roots dug deep into the earth. Yet all were woven together, signifying the interconnectedness of all things: earth, sky, life, death. And she suddenly realized what had drawn Cuchulainn here.
“Brenna’s family,” she said. “I had forgotten that she’d lived at Guardian Castle. I’m ashamed to say that I had even forgotten her parents were dead.”
“I never asked her about their deaths, or about the accident that scarred her. I was curious, and I meant to ask, but it didn’t seem as important to look back as it did to focus on our future. It seemed we had forever to unearth the past…” Cuchulainn’s words faded and he touched the symbol of the tree. “Did you know it was Brenna’s accident that caused the death of her parents?”
“No,” Brighid said softly, feeling a wave of sadness for her dead friend. “Brenna didn’t talk about the accident. I didn’t even know her parents were dead until the two of you became formally betrothed and you had to go to Elphame for permission to post the bans because Brenna had no living family.”
“I didn’t know, either. Just as I didn’t know that Brenna’s mother had been a Healer, too. Fagan told me the story. Brenna was ten years old, not much older than Kyna. She’d been helping her mother prepare poultices for a particularly nasty cough that was making its rounds through the castle. Fagan said she was a smart, happy child-but that she was always daydreaming and rarely paid close attention to her mother’s words.” Cuchulainn paused, swallowing hard as he remembered the shy, serious woman the gregarious child had grown into. He had seen only glimpses of the child still within her-especially after she’d accepted his love.
“You don’t have to tell me this, Cu,” Brighid said. “Not if it’s too hard.”
His gaze caught hers, hot and intense. “Yes I do! You’re the only one here I can tell, and maybe if I say it aloud some of the pain of it will go away.”
Brighid nodded, understanding his need to purge himself.
“Brenna mixed up the buckets. She was to put water in one and oil in another. It had been a cold day, and she had been standing too close to the hearth. The end of the shawl she tied around her head caught on fire. Brenna screamed and her mother instinctively reached for the bucket that was supposed to hold water and tossed it on the shawl.”
“Oh, Goddess…” Brighid breathed, horrified at the image of a mother setting her own child afire.
“Her mother blamed herself. Brenna was her only child, and her only child was dying horribly because of what she had done. Fagan said she went mad. That same day her mother doused herself in oil and set herself aflame. She left a letter saying she had chosen to join her daughter.”
Brighid felt her head shaking back and forth, over and over.
“Her father fell into a deep depression. He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. He didn’t sleep. He refused to visit Brenna. One morning not long after his wife’s suicide, they found him dead.”
“Poor Brenna, that poor child. To have gone through that terrible fire, and then to recover only to find that her parents were dead,” Brighid said. She shuddered. “What awful knowledge to have as a child-that your mother…and your father-”