Page 79 of A Celtic Vow
When her vision hazed red with her inner dragon, she lowered her forehead nearly to the ground and held out her dagger with the handle resting in one hand and the flat of the blade in the other. “To prove its loyalty,myloyalty, I give you my druidess blade. A dagger empowered by not just me but my sisters.”
“As ye claimed ye would.” She heard the hesitation in Siobhán’s voice. “Yet why would I trust a dagger touched by druids that despise me? Trust anything given to me by ye when ye so recently turned my warriors to yer side?”
“Didn’t you want me to do that?” Constance glanced up, properly startled. “What better way to show my sisters and their unknown kings that I was completely allied with them?” She narrowed her eyes a little. “As I’m sure you suspected, a lot was starting to come to light.” She glanced from her dagger to Siobhán ruefully. “Especially what happened when I hid my blade at the base of the tree at King's Fall.”
“I was surprised by that,” she granted. “And grateful that it reconnected us, however obtusely.” Not quite done with their previous subject, her eyes narrowed as well. “Only for ye to vanish soon after, which tells me ye had someone powerful protecting ye. Someone, I sense remains a mystery even to ye.”
“They are a mystery,” she concurred. “Nonetheless, I gained more power to lend you because of them. So who knows? Perhaps they were on your side, too?” She nodded once and spoke truthfully however unfortunate the revelation. “What Idoknow is you can trust me because I’m part of you. And I know you feel it. Felt it the minute Aodh’s fire ended me in my last life. Felt it when our coven’s magic became involved.” She cocked her head. Hoped her lie rang true. “Because truly, how else would I have been able to tap into your magic to hide my blade?”
“Very true,” Siobhán said softly. “’Tis telling.” Her gaze dropped to the blade and narrowed. “But did ye find love again with yer monster in betwixt? Because ye did have a soft spot for that vile thing.” A sly grin curled her lips. “A vile thing thatImade.”
“No, thatImade,” she nearly spat but kept it buried deep.
She wanted to wrap her hands around Siobhán’s throat. Embrace her dragon and end her here and now. Tear her limb from limb for sleeping with what she considered such avilething.
She knew better, though.
After all, good things come to those who wait.
It didn’t matter that Siobhán had nothing to do with creating the dragon Aodh had become in this life. She only saw her role in it. How she’d made him into a monster in his last life to see what Constance’s incarnate would turn him into. Only saw how she had triumphed in the end when she followed them to the future. When she saw an opportunity to become most powerful because she was part of King’s Heart. Part of those who died in its creation, therefore stronger for what she had taken from them.
“Aodhisvile.” Constance pulled from what she felt when she first traveled back in time. “And I see that in this life.” She shook her head. “He’s nothing but a monster.”
“Yet a monster with the same eyes as ye.” Siobhán tilted her chin this way and that, studying said eyes. Trying to see inside them. “I would think that appealing to the beauty I created. He might be pitiful, but he’s of your breed,ta?”
“He isnotof my breed,” she spat. “He’s disgusting.” She sneered. “Nothing like he was in our last life.”
Which would make sense considering she peered through the spectrum of Siobhán’s hatred now. Carried a piece of her.
Siobhán’s dark, oil-slick eyes lingered on her face for a moment as though searching out the deepest parts of her soul. As if she felt her out with probing magic. Looked into the deepest parts of her. Would she see what Constance hoped? Would what she knew ultimately save Ireland and protect her?
Because it all came down to one thing.
One truly unexpected thing.
Rather than wait with bated breath, she did her best to breathe perfectly normal until, at long last, Siobhán nodded once and accepted Constance’s dagger. She took a few steps back in stunned awe before a slow smile curled her mouth when nothing happened.
Nothing other than a look at how powerful the blade had become.
“Iknewit was possible,” Siobhán whispered, admiring the dagger. The four colors that shimmered through it. “I knew yer powers and the healing abilities ye possessed in that life would benefit me too.” She chuckled and shook her head. “To think I merely wanted to control a dragon before when I could have this.” In control of its power now, she sheathed the blade and held her hand out to Constance. “And ye by my side, for ye are more special than most, lass. Always have been. Always will be.”
She could only hope so because she had just handed over one of the most powerful artifacts ever to exist. One that could very well see Siobhán win this war and change Ireland’s history.
“I missed ye.” Siobhán cupped Constance’s cheek and, for a flicker of a moment, looked at her like she had back at the beginning before darkness corrupted her. “More than ye can imagine, sister.”
“And I, you.” She meant it, too, because shedidmiss the Siobhán she first met. How kind she initially seemed. And, truth told, as much as she’d been corrupted and however disgusting her actions in their last life, if not for her, Constance and Aodh would have been lost to each other. Between his father's ambitious plans for him and the Unnamed Ones, he would have never gotten close to her again.
So it was easy enough to lie and say, “I look forward to starting over and following you as you become so much more.”
Siobhán only heard the truth. Felt the truth. Because it was. More so by the moment. More so the longer she possessed the blade, and Constance lost her connection with it. Lost it as her powers slowly seeped into Siobhán.
“Ye truly are to be trusted, are ye not?” Siobhán marveled at the power becoming hers. “Enough that we will pray together.” She urged Constance to follow her. “Pray and finally invoke what will finish my four rival kingdoms once and for all.”
This was what Constance had been counting on but still fought nausea when Siobhán brought her into the chapel of black roots built into the rock beside her castle. Still nearly dropped to her knees and wept at the sight of the sooty, decrepit roots climbing along the rock. The same ones she and Aodh had glimpsed at the bottom of their tree. These weren’t part of any tree that could be seen, though. Just a rancid, oily twist of infected roots that had grown into an altar of sorts.
“It seemed we were of the same mind,” Siobhán said. “Because I, too, planted an acorn from King’s Heart.” She slid Constance a slippery smile. “Only mine did something far better.”
“So it seems.” She looked at it in mock awe before glancing at Siobhán. “Might we pray at it?”
