Page 43 of A Celtic Secret
“You think?”
“Definitely.” Madison’s gaze remained wise in that new druidess way of hers. “He needs someone to make him smile more often, and you need someone who can ground you some.”
“Groundme?”
Madison presented it another way. “Keep you safe from yourself?”
“I’m an Unnamed One,” she reminded. “So I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.”
She got where her sister was coming from, though. Her wanderlust had long been both a blessing and a curse. She’d discovered lots of interesting things over the years because of it but, by the same token, had ended up in trouble more times than she was willing to admit.
Silence settled between them as they left the castle behind and entered the woodland. Not only because they were taken by how alive the forest was to their kind but because they wanted to follow the men’s conversation.
Specifically, what Declán had learned behind enemy lines.
It seemed while Raghnall’s army was certainly substantial, bigger than they realized, Declán rightfully thought the far bigger threat was Raghnall and Siobhán.
“Every evening before supper, they religiously closed themselves away in an unusual rock temple built around a seaside cave and prayed to the gods,” Declán said. “Whilst that in itself wasn’t all that strange, what I felt coming from the temple was.”
He went on to describe how as far as he could tell in the few glimpses he’d seen beyond the heavy wooden doors, the chapel was more sinister in design than anything.
“Whilst ‘tis safe to say Raghnall’s men were wary of me,” he continued, “’twas only a matter of getting them in their cups before talk of the chapel eventually came up. How ‘twas only a place of worship for kings and those such as Siobhán for no normal man could handle the power within. Nor could they withstand the black roots that grew there.”
“Black roots?” Riona shivered. “Why does that sound familiar?”
Declán glanced back at her and frowned. “Does it, then?”
“It does.” And the answer why was just out of reach. “Like decaying roots, right?”
For a moment, she swore she smelled their pungent odor. Felt their darkness.
“’Twas described much like that by those who caught glimpses.” Declán fell back until he rode beside her. Worry brought his brows together. “How do you know this, Riona?”
“I have no idea,” she managed. “But I do.” She narrowed her eyes. “You felt the darkness coming from it, too, didn’t you? Heard the sounds....”
“I felt darkness,” he confirmed. “But heard no sounds.”
“Yet they were there.” She was convinced of it. “Eerie, echo-like chants and wails.” Another shiver went through her. “Like someone was being tortured.”
“So Raghnall never allowed you into the chapel, I take it, Declán?” Cian asked, falling in beside Madison.
“Nay,” he replied. “Soon, I was promised. Once the gods felt I had been there long enough.”
“So we must assume Raghnall did not trust you.”
“Mayhap not as much as I would have hoped.”
“And now comes his fury at what you did,” Riona murmured when she realized what she’d been absently drawing in her palm. “What you took from him.”
Something backed up moments later when several warriors appeared in the woodland ahead.
