So he straightened and flexed his fingers before tackling the next wine barrel. But even before he set his hands on this one, a shift in the air lifted the hairs on his nape. When the barrel started to move, rolling away with ease, his heart began to pound.
A flash of silver-blue burst from the top of Torcaill’s staff then, the brilliant light illuminating the ancient Pictish symbol etched deeply into the floor.
Two back-to-back crescent moons, just as he remembered.
Only now they glowed with the same bluish light as the druid’s wand.
Behind him, Gelis gasped. “The tomb,” she cried, hastening to his side. “I knew you’d find it!”
Valdar humphed. “Finding it doesn’t mean old Maldred is in there,” he scoffed, stepping forward to eye the carving. “I doubt we can even pry up the stone to look beneath it.”
“The stone will give way.” Torcaill strode over to them, his staff pulsing bright silver-blue. “The time is come. It would open now even if we hadn’t uncovered it. Somehow we would have known.”
Ronan shot him a look. “Now you say so,” he groused, the words escaping before he could catch them.
But the druid only lifted a brow. “Likewise, it was your task to search, my friend. The journey has been good for you.”
“Then let us make it better by putting it to an end.” Dropping to one knee, Ronan glanced at Hugh MacHugh and the Dragon.
“Come, lads, let us see if we can budge this stone. And Hector” — he called to the boy — “run and fetch a coal spade from the kitchens.”
Eyes round, the lad spun about and streaked up the stairs, returning as quickly with the requested spade. Ronan shook his head when the boy offered it to him.
“Nae, lad, you keep it,” he said, already using his dirk to pick at the seams where the stone slab was set into the floor. “When we hoist up the stone, I want you to thrust the spade into the crack, see you?”
Hector nodded.
But the moment Hugh MacHugh and the Dragon knelt to assist Ronan and all three men dug their fingers into the groove of loose grit Ronan had freed along the stone’s edges, the massive lid shifted, sliding upward and then sideways with the unpleasant screech of grinding stone.
Fully without the need of a spade’s leverage.
Itdidremain heavy.
“Now, lads!” Ronan’s muscles strained against the stone’s weight. “Heave to!”
And at last it came free, revealing an icy black void beneath.
“Hech, hech!” Valdar was the first to peer into the hole. “There is naught down there but — hell’s afire!” He jumped back when the Dragon held a torch above the opening. “Thereissomething down there!”
“The Raven Stone.” Torcaill lowered his staff into the opening, its shimmering light almost dim against the blaze of blue pulsing in the dark below. “Such light can be from naught else.”
“And Maldred?” Gelis pushed her way through the little knot of men. “He’s there, too, is he not?”
Ronan nodded and reached for her hand, drawing her to the opening. “See, he’s there and . . . blazing heather, look!”
Not believing his eyes, he looked on as the glow from Torcaill’s wand stretched toward the shimmering blue stone, the combined brightness revealing what he’d been suspecting for days.
Maldred the Dire’s mortal remains not only sat crouched against an enormous carved slab, his precious stone cradled to his breast, he’d died peering up at the opening.
A chill ripped down Ronan’s spine and he shook himself, the unexpected clutch at his heart changing everything he’d ever known about his clan’s ill-famed forebear.
His lady squeezed his fingers, her touch grounding him in a world set to reeling.I told you he wasn’t the fiend he’s painted to be, he thought he heard her whisper.
But he couldn’t be sure. Too loud was the roar of his own blood in his ears.
“I knew it,” he said, not missing Torcaill’s grim nod. “He had himself buried with the stone. Taking it alive into hiding to —”
“It was an act of deepest penance,” the druid finished for him. “I’ve suspected it for long. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy the stone, but he knew its power would be the end of his clan. So he did the only thing he could, sacrificing himself in the old way, for the good of all.”
