Only Forever
Kimberly Cates
Chapter One
Ireland 1847
The glen was alive with dragons. Their greedy claws were disguised as wisps of twilight, their breath, plumes of mist, but Ashleen O'Shea knew they were there. She moved quietly along the burbling stream, her damp palms curling in the cloth of her novice's habit.
For as long as she could remember she had reveled in tales about the dew-sweetened Irish hills. Legends from the time druids glided through mystical woods. She had delighted in the stories of bold heroes and beasts a-haunting from the time she had run wild, an urchin with scraped knees and sun-gold hair, wielding a blackthorn-twig sword.
Yet today the games she had played so often held no allure. Now Ireland was being stalked by foes more terrifying than any Ashleen's imagination ever conjured. Hunger, fever and despair.
She had held them at bay for a year now—fended off their slashing talons and snapping teeth. But she could feel them closing in for the kill—eager, ruthless, relentless as death.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her blue eyes shifting to look at the distant stone walls silhouetted against the sky. The convent of St. Michael of the Angels had been a haven for the weary and the suffering for five hundred years. It had been as much a home to Ashleen as the tiny crofter's cottage on the mountainside where she had been born.
Still, as she peered across the glen to look at the ancient convent dread slipped down Ash's spine, and her mind filled with images of small, beloved faces with wide, trusting eyes. No, she thought, crushing her unease. Even the horrors afflicting Ireland could not break the faith within the convent walls. No famine, no fever could induce those within God's own house to turn away innocents who had sought shelter there.
"Psst! Sister Ashleen!"
The high-pitched whisper an arm's length from where she stood sent Ash's heart bounding. She gave a tiny cry as her gaze flashed to a gorse bush. Bright green eyes brimming with mischief peeked out at her from their shielding of brush.
"The dragon," eight-year-old Liam Fitzsimmons hissed eagerly, poking his crutch toward an outcropping of stone. "He's right over—"
"Liam's tattling, Renny!"
Ash gritted her teeth at the shrill, self-righteous cry as a blond-pigtailed girl of about twelve flounced into the open.
"He's telling Sister Ash where you are!"
"Shevonne," Ash chided, "Don't stir up tempests." But even before she spoke Ash knew the warning was futile—the girl delighted in sparking tempers, and the incorrigible Renny O'Manion was a painfully vulnerable target.
"Blast it, Liam! No fair!" A most undragonlike protest erupted from behind the boulders as a gangly boy with hair like fire and a temper to match burst from his hiding place. "You told her where I was! Three more steps and I could have devoured her right proper!"
"Consider me devoured, Renny." Ash felt some of the tension of moments before drain away. Her lips curved in affection as she remembered the boy's protests earlier that he was too big now to be playing at "baby games." Games he secretly adored as much as little Liam.
She ruffled the glowering Renny's hair. "In truth, Liam saved my life. You would have scared the soul right out of me if you'd leapt down from there."
"It was the best dragon lair yet!" Renny huffed, his chin thrust out at the pugnacious angle that had earned him more than his share of black eyes. "Liam's nothing but a scare-baby. Jealous because he wanted to be the dragon."
"Am not!" Liam cried, stumping out from behind the gorse bush. “I didn't care a pin if you were the dragon, because Sister Ashleen promised I get to be the monster next.”
"Not for all the swells in Dublin! I'll be dragon again, I will, because you spoilt my turn!"
Ashleen stepped between the boys and slipped an arm about each of them. "But if you are both dragons, who will be my handsome prince?" she inquired with a warm smile. "When we began this game you vowed I would win the hand of the Prince of the Night Wood if I were the fairy princess. And after the fright you lot gave me, letting me wander about waiting to be eaten, I expect my just reward."
Both boys blushed, flustered, and Ash couldn't stifle a grin. "What? Neither of you is eager to carry me off to your castle?"
"It's just that it's more fun to growl and snarl and have claws, even if it's just pretend," Liam explained earnestly. "The prince has to go about being noble. It's boring."
"You think it tiresome to rescue fair maidens, do you?"Ashleen laughed as she hunkered down, catching the boy's face gently in her hands. "Come back to me in ten years, Liam Fitzsimmons, and I wager you will have changed your mind."
Liam pulled a face, raking the preening Shevonne with a scorn-filled glare. "I shall never change my mind," he said with an eloquent shudder.
"Nor shall I!" Renny brandished a make-believe saber. "When I grow up I shall always be the villain! I'll dress in a black cape that swirls, and everyone will tremble when I ride past!"
Ash's smile faded a little, the boy's words unconsciously echoing Sister Bridget's dire predictions for his future.
