“There’s a scrying bowl, Da! I found a spell in one of Grandmother’s books telling us how to use it.” Keagan circled his way around the room, his fingers trailing along the shelves as he walked. “If we can find the bowl and use the spell, I know it will show us what truly happened to Mother.”
Faolan stared at his son, heart aching and his gut wrenched with rising frustration. How could he protect Keagan from the truth the scrying bowl might reveal? “Keagan, my son, are ye truly prepared for anything the vision of the bowl might show ye?”
Keagan smiled, wisdom beyond his seven years glinted in his deep blue eyes. “It will be all right, Da. Ye must trust in your heart. Just help me find the bowl.”
ChapterFourteen
The moon spiked well past its zenith, the time before dawn where it shares the sky with the sun. It was the in-between time of darkness and light when energy is at its highest. Faolan and Keagan stood atop the skirting wall of the castle on the side nearest the sea. The steady beat of the waves on the rocks below vied with the roar of the winter wind as it whistled down from the mountains to the east.
They’d lugged an ornately carved pedestal up to the battlements. This was the first time in over one hundred years the obelisk had emerged from inside the keep. Faolan had hefted the intricately carved piece of marble, from an island far away, across his back. The stone of the pedestal rendered such a deep rich green it shone black in the fading moonlight. Striated with the faintest bands of yellow with lighter shades of green filtering up through the base, the marble reverberated with the life force of millennia. Atop the pedestal balanced a bowl of polished wood filled to the very rim with shimmering water. The water emitted an energy all its own, like quicksilver dancing upon glass.
Keagan stood with his hands on either side of the bowl. Faolan stood on the opposite side of the pedestal and covered his son’s hands with this own. With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, Faolan bade Keagan begin the ritual.
Dread and anticipation battled in Faolan’s heart. He yearned to know what had happened to Ciara and yet he feared to know the truth. Did she choose to leave them, or was she ripped away? Damnation, what would he do if she had chosen to leave of her own free will?
Keagan bowed his head and focused on the waters as they swirled beneath the fading light of the moon. He gripped the bowl and leaned forward, his lips moving as he silently mouthed the words to the memorized spell.
Faolan jerked, tensing as visions of Ciara shimmered across the surface of the water. Both Keagan and Faolan edged closer to the humming bowl of liquid silver as glimpses of the final scenes from Ciara’s life streaked into view.
Faolan tightened his hands over Keagan’s as he watched the images of his beloved wife. He couldn’t breathe for the pounding of his heart shutting off his throat. He ached for her. Gads, he felt as though half his existence had disappeared. He clenched his teeth as Ciara’s final moments on earth swam into view.
She rode behind Maxwell, her face streaked with tears, her hands clutching at the reins. Ciara clearly knew what was about to happen. They could see she felt herself ripped away from the realm. Finally, she had relinquished to the unseen force. She had straightened in the saddle and grimaced as though in pain. She had shielded her face with her arms. As her body had started to fade from view, Ciara had shrieked with despair. As her form had shattered into tiny particles into the wind, her cries had spiraled into a heart-wrenching moan that had echoed across the land. Maxwell had mentioned he’d thought he’d heard the cry of the death banshee on the day Ciara had disappeared. What he’d heard was Ciara’s breaking heart as her energy scattered to the wind.
“I told ye, Da! I told ye she’d never leave us. Not of her own accord. Mother loved us. They took her away. But we’re going to get her back.”
Keagan ripped his hands out of Faolan’s grasp and yanked an ancientsgian dubhfrom its sheath. With more anger than Faolan thought possible for a seven-year-old child, Keagan stabbed the blade deep into the center of the bowl.
With a firm nod, Faolan rested his hand atop Keagan’s where it still trembled on the ceremonial dagger at its hilt. “Aye, my son. We will get her back. No matter what it takes.”
* * *
The spikesof her heels clicked along the jagged passage, echoing throughout the honeycombed caverns running below the immortal’s plane. The hollow pings reverberated for what seemed like forever; they trickled like pebbles sorted through a sieve.
Ciara worked her way deeper into the caverns and examined the crystal columns with a selective eye. She wearied of this painful existence. If she embedded herself deep within the bowels of this world, she would become a crystallized shard of pain. Perhaps a few centuries shut down in this cave would dull this ache in her heart. There was no point anymore. These damned mortal emotions had ruined her. No matter how many eons passed, she would never forgive herself for opening her heart to Faolan or for bonding so eternally with her son.
The caverns splintered off into a myriad of directions, each section of crystals striated a different shade according to how much light filtered and reflected down through the uppermost crevices exposed to the sun. The smooth stalactites and stalagmites in this particular cave shimmered a soothing emerald green. Perhaps this was the one. She had always liked green. Perhaps sifting her energy into one of these crystal pillars would bring her the mindless oblivion she sought.
“It won’t work, Ciara. No matter the form ye take, they will never leave your heart and neither will the pain.” Alec’s voice echoed through the chasm like a nagging conscience hammering at the back of her mind.
Ciara didn’t bother to face him, just plodded deeper into the bowels of the cave. Her dispassionate voice resonated off the walls, as she nearly spat the words as though they burned her mouth. How dare the fool reappear now. He had deserted her when she needed him the most. “What made you finally decide to show up, Alec? The irresistible urge to do the I told-you-sodance?”
Alec grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her to face him, his eyes flashing with hurt and bitter recrimination. “Actually, I’ve been imprisoned within the goddesses’ keep. They spun my essence into a blackened veil of pain, suspending me there for…oh, I don’t know…about eight years now, while you raised your son and enjoyed the safety of your loving husband’s arms. I was being punished for trying to help you.”
Ciara jerked out of his grasp and shoved him out of her way. “I don’t believe you. If you’d incurred Brid and Cerridwen’s wrath, they never would have released you this soon.”
Alec knotted his hands into fists as he trembled before her. “I should take the form of a phoenix just so I could burst into flames and singe that hideous purple hair you’ve adopted! The only reason they released me was to send me here to check on you. Trust me. I’m sure I’ve not been forgiven so easily for trying to tell Faolan of their plan.”
Ciara searched his face for the vaguest hint of dishonesty, then collapsed to sit atop a jagged crystal ledge. With a shuddering sigh, she dropped her head in her hands. Could Alec be telling the truth? She’d felt the rift in all the energies. She’d sensed the imbalance when he’d not answered her calls. A shudder coursed through her body as she only imagined the pain he must’ve endured.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I feared they might have done something to you when you disappeared right before Keagan’s birth.”
As he scooted down on the ledge beside her, Alec shook his head. “Why are you down here having a pity party? Why don’t ye defy them? Ye’re powerful in your own right, Ciara. Why don’t ye return to the ones ye love?”
“I’m afraid I’m not as powerful as you give me credit,” Ciara answered with a bitter laugh. “I battered against the barriers they placed around my precious Alba until I collapsed into a bloodied heap. I’m no match for them, Alec. I might be an immortal, but I’m nowhere near the level of a goddess.”
As he traced his finger along a splintered crack running along the edge of the crystal shelf, Alec stared into the prismed green depths of the stone upon which they both sat. “Then there is no way to defeat them? There’s no way for ye to return and free your heart of this pain?”
With a sad shake of her head, Ciara rested her hand against a shimmering pillar as she whispered her reply, “I know of no way to beat them at this game. I have lost, Alec. I have lost it all.”
