Page 44 of A Celtic Longing
“Is this not enough anymore then, brother?” a girl not much younger than him asked when she ducked into the cave. She eyed the wall before she took a tool out and started working at the stone. “Mayhap a few more to give ye comfort?”
“My heart went out to you, Liam,” Riona murmured, recognizing herself in the girl. Her eyes welled. “Somehow, you ended up going down the same dangerous path as me, and I was trying to...assuage you the only way I knew how.”
“So youdiddraw in that life as well,” Declán said, not all that surprised. “’Twas not all the result of reconnecting with Raghnall.”
“So it seems.” Riona shook her head. “Even though these aren’t drawings...not in the common sense anyway.”
“Nay.” Cian understood what they looked at. “But in a sense others would not understand if they stumbled upon them.”
“Yet I understand them,” Shannon whispered as the memory faded and she drifted closer. Her eyes shone the color of her dress again as her magic ignited. “The story they tell.” She ran her finger over the first one and closed her eyes. “This...you, Liam,” she shook her head, “us.”
While a part of him wanted to avoid the wall, run from it as fast as he could, another far bigger part couldn’t help but join her. Could not help but touch the same symbol as her. One he had touched countless times before but never understood it. Neverfeltwhat he did now.
“It means you met someone who enchanted you,” Riona said, narrating what they already knew. “Someone you knew better than to go near.”
“Someone forbidden,” Liam said softly. His magic ignited, and he caught a glimpse of Shannon in his mind’s eye in another time. “A druid sister to my sister.” His brows flew up in surprise. “And a friend to one of my fellow warriors.”
“Me,” Declán realized. “We had been friends from a young age.”
“That’s how we met, Liam.” Shannon ran her fingers over the next symbol. “You were there often, telling Declán as much as I told Riona they must part. They must forget their friendship.”
“Must forget what it was becoming.” Liam ran his fingers over the next symbol. “Yet it became less about trying to convince them....”
“And more about trying to convince ourselves,” Shannon murmured, running her fingers over the next. “More about trying to ignore that we were falling victim to the same.”
“Yet we kept trying.” Liam touched the next image. “Trying despite all the obstacles standing in the way.”
“And they weren’t just the obvious ones of me being forbidden fruit and all.” Shannon trailed her finger over the next. One that allowed a view of the great king carved into the wall. Sunlight seemed to ignite what almost seemed to be a wolf’s face within the carving. “There were other things at stake as well.” She suddenly felt outside herself. “Great things. Important things.”
“Hell.” Declán looked from the king to the symbol and saw it before Liam himself. “You were a king even then, brother. A king in our former life.”
The moment Declán said it, Liam felt the truth of it. The tremendous inner conflict of the ghostly young man who had sat against this very wall minutes before.
“What king?” He frowned. “What era?”
Shannon ran her hands over the next symbol, her surprise obvious. “One that came not long after the biblical coming of Christ.” She shook her head. “History isn’t recorded nearly as well about that time period in Ireland, but kingsdidreign.”
“Yes, they did.” Riona squeezed Liam’s hand. “And you absolutelywereone.” Her eyes grew teary again. “And a pretty amazing one based on how I’m feeling.”
“So you don’t remember anything specific?”
“Not yet.” Riona gestured at the wall. “But I did and will again.” She looked from Shannon back to him and nodded once. “When the time’s right, which I imagine will be after you two figure it out first.”
Liam sensed Shannon’s hesitation mixed with curiosity. He felt the same. Had they truly known each other so well that all of this would draw them back together? Had they loved each other that much from a young age like Riona and Declán had one another? Cian and Madison?
He was about to ask Shannon about it, what her inner druidess might be telling her, but Tréan howled in warning before he could. By the time they made it to the entrance, it was already too late. The king’s face was half underwater, and water had risen so high it gushed into the small cave.
Water that magic could not hold back.
A tidal wave rising from the sea.
“What the—”
Shannon had no time finish what she was going to say before Liam shoved her back against the rock and protected her the best he could against the wall of water that crashed into them moments later.
“No,” Shannon cried, surprising him when she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. When he sensed her terror at letting him go. “No!”
He felt the pain at his back. Fear of harm coming to her. Then nothing but her wail. A long, heart-wrenching wail that reverberated into the deepest part of his soul.
