Page 60 of A Celtic Vow
“I feel it.” He frowned and shook his head. “I never took the time to feel the rock in this cave.”
“Why would you have?” Her dragon eyes flared. “Either way, even if you had, I have a feeling it would’ve taken us both to feel this.”
His dragon eyes flared as well. “And both of us to open it.”
As though their combined inner dragons possessed a magical key, the rock wavered like a mirage.
“Look atthat.” When her druidess blade warmed at her side, she was compelled to step into the wavering rock. Better yet, through it because their cave at King’s Fall was on the other side.
“’Tis a portal betwixt the two locations,” Aodh exclaimed, joining her.
“What kind of portal, though?” She went to where the tree had been before and looked down only to find no sign of it. “Did we travel through time?”
“We had to have.” He leapt down and rested his hand over where they had planted the acorn, only to look up at her and shake his head. “There’s no acorn planted here yet, nor has a tree grown and died in this location.”
“So we’ve what?” There was only one viable conclusion. “Traveled even further back in time?”
“’Twould seem that way.” He rejoined her and shook his head again. “Though it doesn't feel quite like time travel. Similar but different somehow.” His gaze narrowed. “And it has changed considerably.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean ‘tis daytime out where we are,” he said, surprising her. “’Tis our dragon sight that allows us to see so clearly.”
He was right. “What onEarth?” She peered up at the hole the tree would someday grow through and saw nothing but cave ceiling far overhead. “What happened to this place?”
“It’s changed over the centuries.” He entered the adjoining cave that ran alongside the waterfall. A cave that should have been much brighter but wasn’t. “Changed considerably at that.”
“The exit that leads to the path along the waterfall is gone!” She shook her head. “Yet the waterfall’s still there because I can hear it.”
“Only it pours into another cave,” he said, as baffled as her. “A waterfall betwixt rock.”
“Quite the landscape change,” she said, unsettled. “But I guess time will do that.”
“It can.” He clearly sensed more to it. “Only I wonder.”
He didn’t need to elaborate. She sensed the same. “You don’t think the changes were natural, do you?”
“I don’t.” He looked at her in wonder. “Do you feel it, lass? Feel...me?Us but not us?”
Almost the moment he said it, the cave swirled away, and they stood somewhere else. This time they were outside, and it was clearly still daytime.
“Oh, myGod.” Constance stared up at the impressive wooden fortress in front of them and put a hand to her heart. “I know this place.” She shook her head at Aodh. “How do I know this place?”
“Because ‘tis where the entrance to the tunnel leading to King’s Fall is in my era.”
Aodh took her hand when the gates opened, only to reveal the fortress had been built around the rock already there.
“They arrive soon,” a man called out from behind them before a transparent warrior rushed by and spoke in an older form of Gaelic she somehow understood. “Tell our lord they are nearly here!”
“He couldn’t see us.” Almost the moment she realized it, they were standing inside the tunnel. It was markedly different than it was in Aodh’s era. Torches ran along the walls and rushes lay underfoot. “We’re witnessing memories from our last life, aren’t we?”
“Ta.”He gestured ahead. “Look, lass.”
“There it is,” she exclaimed when the warrior’s message was relayed and a servant in fine clothing headed into the very tunnel she’d fled down in her nightmare. Only now, it was in much better shape. Again lined with torches, it possessed tapestries and even carpets, however crudely made.
She was about to say more when a sharp masculine voice bellowed down the hall that everyone should ready themselves for the king’s arrival.
“If any do not please me during this visit,” came that same cruel voice, “’twill be my blade across yer throat!” He huffed as though disgusted. “That includes ye, daughter.”
