Her accent was subtle, but then it was likely she’d had to hide or suppress it her whole life for fear of being discovered.
Nicole stepped up onto the ruins beside him as the Druid stood across, the dolmen separating them like a war table.
Beyond were glimpses of the Druid city, sprawled through the trees. Ruined stone monuments, great tree-crafted temples, a civilisation lost to time, its great artworks overgrown.
‘You’re telling me, you’re related?’ Nicole asked. ‘By blood?’
‘We share the same mother. Deichtine of Ulster. High Druid and sister to King Conchobar.’
Pain lanced through Kyan’s gut, his chest.
It couldn’t be true. They were dead. All of them. He’dseenit.
But he analysed her and, now she’d said it … he could see pieces of his mother in her. She didn’t have the same dark hair, but she had the singular freckle below her left eye that he’d forgotten. Even the forest-coloured eyes they shared.
Gods– they were tiny details, but they made his mother feelalive again, even if this girl’s features were sharper, her energy more daring.
Sister.
He gripped Nicole’s waist, both for his own sanity and so he was ready to move her out of harm’s way. Her hand came up to his reassuringly.
‘So, you’re the girl from Estwood’s woods,’ the Druid said to Nicole. ‘Failinis told me he liked you.’
Warning bells pealed through Kyan’s mind as Nicole stiffened. ‘Who is—’
The wolfhound jogged past them to sit beside the Druid. She stroked its head with sure, pale fingers.
‘He watched over you while you were there, though he spent more time lazing in the pub disguised as a much smaller dog than he did fighting creatures, didn’t you?’ The dog’s large, intelligent eyes set on Kyan. ‘Did you think so few creatures came to your town by fluke? Failinis scared off a fair few from entering the boundaries whenever I was … indisposed.’
Kyan felt silent as a standing stone and just as rigid.
He had a sister.
A little girl who’d been left, perhaps for dead, amid the bodies of his people.
‘If you’re one of them, how did you survive?’ His question was quiet.
The Druid smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘When the Druids realised someone – something –was coming for them, they knew they had a limited amount of time. So they funnelled the rest of their collective magic into me, and the creatures of the forest helped me escape.’
‘And the Romans?’ Kyan asked. ‘Later, in Anglesey?’
‘What did you think? We all just upped and died? No. No matter how the Romans tried to massacre us, they did not succeed. At least – they didn’t get every last one.’
No. She was the last one.
Kyan felt his head start to shake. ‘When were you born? I came back before she died, I would have known—’
‘I was born when you were away. I was … unusually conceived, so I was kept a secret.’
Was it possible? That he had asisterand she’d been transformed by the unimaginable weight of an epic magic, and fled when he wasn’t far behind?
The thought was a blade, driven into his stomach and twisted.
‘Prove it,’ Nicole said.
The Druid didn’t get defensive. Instead, she smiled slightly as if their reactions reminded her of something; pleased her. ‘What do you want to know? How our mother could enchant a horse from twenty paces? That she had a few threads of purest silver in her hair? I’m not sure you would have seen them by the time you came back from training.’
‘I saw her,’ he said, his voice rough, tight.
