Page 55 of A Celtic Vow
“Ye need never thank me for such a thing,” he replied. “Ye’ll have me when ye’re ready and no sooner.”
While she understood it, she still felt bad and nearly said as much but became too enchanted by the pond and its waterfall. By the continued sense of peace she felt churning in the otherwise turbulent water where it crashed down.
“That’s where your crown is at King’s Fall,” she murmured, stating the obvious. “It’s such a different feeling there, though. As though a king is being crushed. As if the weight of his crown is too heavy. Or maybe that he's being punished for something.”
“I never saw it like that.” He helped her down a steeper part before they continued. “I saw it as a crown that stood strong against all. That would not succumb to....”
He trailed off when their young transparent dragons bounded by them, laughing until they rolled the rest of the way and crashed into the water.
“C’mon,” her young dragon cried, rocking from wing to wing as she tried to tread water. “Let’s go plant it!”
“’Tis not that way,” young Aodh insisted, trying to keep up. He flapped his wings, but that only made matters worse, and he sort of belly-bounced on the water.
“As you can see and likely remember, I was never much good with my dragon,” Aodh muttered. “It was a long, hard process without an older dragon teaching me.” He winced and chuckled when her young dragon’s wing caught the water, and she sort of somersaulted before continuing on. “It seems yours wasn’t much better off.”
“It wasn’t.” Once again dumbfounded by all this, she shook her head. Baffled that she had forgotten so much. Forgotten how much she had adored his young dragon. “But then, I don’t think I ever shifted anywhere but here in medieval Ireland with you.” She nudged him and offered a wry smile as the two young dragons fumbled their way along. “No wonder considering we were two peas in a pod.”
Yet she felt the undying affection between their dragons. Their immense friendship. True love before it blossomed into something more intimate.
“So why are they heading for the waterfall rather than going north?” she wondered. “Why when we’re clearly going to plant the acorn that led to the tree at King’s Fall?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and narrowed his eyes, clearly shocked by where their young dragons went next. “But it seems they do.”
Chapter Eighteen
AODH COULD NOT imaginewhy their young phantom dragons had vanished into an area to the right of the waterfall but knew they had to follow. “It makes no sense, lass.” He shook his head. “There’s naught back there but an icy cave. Nothing back there, but....”
“What?” she urged when he trailed off, confused. “What is it,mo thine? Husband?”
He might be caught unaware by what he suddenly sensed at the waterfall, but he enjoyed her calling him both of those things. That they came so naturally.
“I sense that things I have long thought were one way might, in fact, be another.” He couldn’t help but look at her with adoration. To be thankful she was still here with him when what happened at King’s Heart had been more terrifying than he’d let on.
She had stopped breathing altogether.
Been completely lost to him and her sisters.
