Raising his head to stare into the flames, Faolan’s heart grew leaden in his chest.Spirited her away.Years ago, Alec had told him that the goddesses had sent Ciara. The mouse had confessed this news to Faolan just before he himself had disappeared into thin air. Disappeared into thin air just as Maxwell had said Ciara had done.
Was it possible the goddesses had called her back? Could some of Alec’s words have held a hint of the truth? As he’d listened to the mouse’s words, Faolan had been certain he’d sensed an aura of dishonesty surrounding Alec’s tiny paralyzed body. He couldn’t bear the thought of this possibility. If the goddesses had truly taken her away, chances were he would never see her again.
Faolan stared unblinking into the fire. He didn’t look away from the crackling flames as he barked his orders to every clan member in the room. “I want every inch of MacKay land searched. I want my Ciara found.”
* * *
Ciara satat the edge of the glowing sea. She coughed as another stream of endless tears cascaded down her face. She lifted her swollen eyes to the sliver of moon drooping in the starless sky. Locking her arms around her legs, she hugged her knees tight against her chest. Maybe if she sat this way for a few centuries, she’d keep herself from shattering into a million shards of nothing but pain.
She hated this place. The water upon this plane lay motionless and dull, the surface as solid and smooth as a newly silvered mirror. It was as though the ocean held its breath, remaining silent out of respect for her sorrow.
She missed the rhythmic sound of the crashing waves like the lively ocean just below MacKay keep. The stormy sea there had been a sweet lullaby. The endless crash and swoosh against the rocks had comforted her as she’d drifted off to sleep in Faolan’s arms each night. The seas of Danu’s world teemed lively and wondrous. The seas here were bereft of any life or emotion at all.
“Ye will be allowed to return to that reality someday. ’Tis not as though the mortal’s world is lost to ye forever.” Brid stood behind her among the gray obelisks, her form swirling with the rising fog.
Ciara transformed her garb into the skintight leather jeans and black shirt she knew Brid found extremely distasteful. She fluffed her fingers through her now erratically short-cropped hair and colored it the faintest hue of purple on the very tips. She opened to every rebellious fiber that had ever pulsated through her body. She thumbed her nose at every civility her mothers had ever instilled within her. The goddesses had caused her the greatest pain. Ciara refused to be obedient and bow to their terms of her existence. They had given her love and then yanked it away. They had created the most painful, gaping sore in her heart she had ever known. She hated them and all they stood for.
With a defiant glance at Brid’s disapproving frown, Ciara bent to brush a bit of sand from her spike-heeled boot. “Whenever you decide to allow me to return, all I ever cared about will be dead and gone. There is no reason for me to return to that world. As far as I am concerned, humankind can all be damned and sizzle until they’re crispy in their self-made hell.”
Brid didn’t reply. She just stood regarding Ciara in her current enraged state. The goddess’s eyes narrowed and her mouth flattened into a firm disapproving line.
As though she’d read Brid’s mind, Ciara took a deep breath and returned to her rock on the shore. “Leave me, my mother. Before I anger you even more with the depths of my despair. Just leave me alone with my pain and sorrow before I lose what little restraint I have and dishonor whatever relationship we have left.”
Brid acknowledged Ciara with a gentle nod as her form faded from view. “As ye wish, Ciara. I shall give ye time to heal before I meet with ye again.”
Her throat tightened and a tear broke free to start another torrent of sorrow down her cheeks. Ciara looked up and whispered to the cold, unfeeling sky. “I will never heal from this pain.”
* * *
He burst into the room,almost tearing the door from its hinges as he banged it open against the wall. “Ciara! Thank the Powers they found ye. I feared I’d ne’er see ye again.”
The dark-haired woman didn’t stir. It was as though Faolan hadn’t spoken. She sat in the carved out windowsill and stared out into the night. She sat with her feet tucked beneath her, her hands folded in a passive knot in her lap. Even the slight rise and fall of her chest with each breath was almost impossible to detect.
“Ciara?” Faolan knelt at her side and slid her folded hands into his own. Her pale, delicate fingers were as cold as ice as if they’d suffered the fiercest of Highland winters. If not for the fact that she turned away from the window, Faolan would’ve thought he held the hand of a corpse.
This woman appeared identical to his beloved Ciara, until he looked into her eyes. Gone were the golden eyes flashing with a myriad of emotions and sparking with intelligence and wit.
Instead, he stared into the depths of a gray, vacant-eyed stare with a vague and out-of-focus expression. His blood ran cold as Faolan saw before him a woman who had somehow misplaced her soul.
He raised his hand to caress her cheek. As he spoke, Faolan’s voice caught in his throat. “Ciara? What has happened to ye? Who…or what has stolen your spirit?”
The silent Ciara turned back to her glassy-eyed stare out the window. She settled her body farther away from Faolan’s touch and deeper into the corner of the window seat. She refolded her hands in her lap as though Faolan hadn’t spoken a word.
Sorcha eased her way into the room and closed the door behind her. She coughed. A few moments later, she cleared her throat. At last Faolan turned, as the noises Sorcha made broke through the fog of his pain. The kitchen’s mistress stood in the middle of the room; her head bowed as she waited.
At his curt nod, she beckoned Faolan to follow her from the room. Sorcha glanced toward the silent woman staring out the window and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Faolan rose from where he’d knelt at Ciara’s side and followed Sorcha out into the hallway. He paused and glanced back at Ciara; with the vain hope she’d somehow sparked back to life. His shoulders slumped as he watched her lean her head against the edge of the window and reach out toward the rising moon. She still didn’t speak, just sat with one hand lifted toward the winking stars.
Sorcha eased the door shut behind them once they were out in the hall. She knotted her hands in her apron, with a sad shake of her head. “She has been that way ever since they found her.”
“Where did they find her?” Faolan whispered, his voice cracking with grief. His gut clenched as though he’d been beaten.
“At the base of the oldest oak tree of the wood. She was curled among the roots.” Sorcha almost wrung her apron into tatters with her kneading hands. “She’s not spoken a word. They couldn’t even get her to rise from the base of the tree. Maxwell had to pick her up and ride back with her cradled in his arms.”
Faolan balled his fists against the wall and pressed his forehead against the chill of the stones. The muscles of his back knotted with tension as he pounded the wall with his hands. “What is wrong with her, Sorcha? Can ye tell if she washarmedin any way?”
Sorcha pressed a comforting hand on Faolan’s shoulder. “She has not been ravished. And as far as I can tell, she’s suffered no physical harm. When Maxwell brought her to me, I bathed the grime from her body and dressed her in her gown.” Sorcha’s voice caught as she struggled to continue. “She’s like a bairn’s ragdoll. She never moved. Just laid there staring at something only she could see.”
