Chapter Nineteen
“IT’S BECAUSE OF yourbrother.” Riona could feel the magic she had woven into these trees years ago. Magic she had no idea she could use back then. “My arrival marked danger to animals not from me but from Aodh.” She eyed the sky. “Danger from his dragon.”
“’Tis not what I wanted to hear.” Declán frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She nodded, frowning as well. “Which likely means he’s under Raghnall’s possession.”
“Can Raghnall make him shift, though?”
“All signs point to yes, so best to assume so.”
“’Tis ironic, is it not?” he said. “That Raghnall would erect such a mighty wall when Aodh was beyond it?”
“The timing does seem suspicious,” she agreed, sensing what Declán wasn't saying. “You think he might have been lured. That going to greet his warriors was just a ploy.” She narrowed her eyes and thought about that. “Who would have the ability to lure him away, though? Who would...” She frowned when it occurred to her. “Tell me he wouldn't have been foolish enough to go to Siobhán if she reached out to him?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” He met her frown. “Though one would wonder why she didn't do it whilst he was still on Raghnall’s land. ‘Twould have given them their dragon then and there.”
“Right.” She shook her head and continued through the woodland until she made her way to one of the narrow exits in the curtain wall she had claimed only certain people could fit through when the time was right. “These must have been difficult to build.”
“They were,” he confirmed. “In fact, they required magic.”
“I believe it.” They were only wide enough for a child or slender woman to slip through. She understood why, too, when she felt her own magic wrapped up in the one closest to her. “These are for druidesses only.” She glanced back at him before she sidled inside. “Me and Madison, I’d say.”
She was baffled by how much she had known ahead of time. That she somehow knew Madison would be here.
“No one’s been able to enter these, have they?”she said into his mind the further in she went.“I feel the safety net in place to keep them out in case they got trapped.”
“That’s right,”he replied.
She felt his concern for her but knew he held back from asking her to be careful. Understood that she needed to be here. Explore and make sense of things. The tunnel ended in a slightly larger area with heavy metal bars, so these were definitely strategic locations.
She sidled back out and continued making her way along the curtain wall with Declán until they came to the stone tunnel that snaked out into the woodland.
“You could ride a horse through here,” she commented when Declán lit a torch, and they made their way down it. “Not too practical. What’s the point of portcullises and gates if people can infiltrate from here?”
“’Tis harder than you might think.” He explained how thick the walls actually were. How protected, yet again, they were by magic. “Then there’s that.” He gestured ahead at what appeared to be a portcullis, only it was much thicker. “No one, even my brothers and I, can get through it.”
She studied the bars. “Didn’t they wonder why you built such a thing?”
“They did, but I told them ‘twas just something I sensed I had to do.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Much like many things about our castle.”
“It’s good they didn’t pester you more.”
“’Tis not generally our way.” He shook his head. “But then, we haven’t spent a great deal of time together over the years. I’ve seen Cian but not so much the other two. Aodh and Liam saw more of each other until Siobhán came betwixt them.”
“Well, here’s hoping that changes after all this,” she said. “That if you’re lost to history, then we’ll all be lost together.”
He nodded in agreement and eyed her curiously as she felt the bars. “You sense something about them,ta?”
