CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Kyan
‘DO YOU THINK THE DRUID COULD HAVE BEENHERE, THATday?’ Kyan asked, the wind lashing his dark coat.
Callum stood a few feet away on the same rise, surveying the inky expanse of the Welsh island of Anglesey and the distant lights that winked along the night-drenched coast.
Before them, around the burial mound filled with standing stones and past a drop of silver rock, glinted the dark Irish Sea. If the view had been clear, would he have seen Ireland across the water? Kyan could already feel its distant call, like a lost song on the salt-snapped wind.
A song of gods and heroes, and a home reduced to ashes.
Callum made a thoughtful noise. ‘I think you’d be the best equipped to tell me.’
But Kyan had been so used to putting his past away, he could recall only pieces of it.
After the Druids of Ireland had been slaughtered, ones in Anglesey were targeted by the Romans. It had been a battle fraught with magic, the hot spray of blood, the metal ringing of weapon on weapon, and the unearthly scream of the Druids. The resulting fear from the Roman forces had flooded the island with a stark, driving scent that had hit Kyan like a tidal wave.
Until the soldiers breached the beach and started hacking.
Until they nearly won.
Now, the forests were long gone. Not just thanks to that night andday, but to the world’s steady march onwards and the cloaking of supernatural history into fable and myth.
But the feel of it was still here, that low thrum of natural power; beating subtle and deep in the damp, loamy soil. It was cool against his skin as he knelt and dug his fingers into the earth, seeking that thread of magic.
Kyan took a breath and fought the urge to keep the memories suppressed like he’d been trained to do, even as it tested something raw and vulnerable inside him, like the edge of a blade, pressing too hard against that tender, secret part. But he let it press, and press, until it bled.
There.
Like he’d tapped into a hidden vein in the soil.
Magic.
It wasn’t as subtle as he’d expected. It felt like the tremor of a plucked string, which didn’t move unless it was triggered, played.
Which meant someone had been here.
Kyan rose, rubbing the dirt between his fingers, and followed the pulse as his heart beat a little faster, then headed up the sloped path into the circular burial chamber of Barclodiad y Gawres.
The first lopsided stones in the entrance tunnel were green with algae. A metal gate barred the rest. Callum tossed him the set of keys they’d got from the local keeper. As he unlocked it, he tried to recall the snippets of the Druids’ blood rituals he’d seen as a boy, done in secret woods as sacred rites. He remembered more about the stars, divine words and the thrum of magic in the earth that pulled up andoutinto the waiting Druid’s palms.
Despite his mother’s status and power, he’d had his first transformation young, so was sent off to the palace at Emain Macha, then later to train with Scáthach, instead of learning the Druids’ ways.
Inside, the stones continued, more clustered beneath the domed ceiling above. Callum’s phone torch caught the swirls and patterns in the stone, but Kyan’s eyes were drawn to the blood on the dolmen. Not ogam, but an almost reverential mark. So different to the slaughter in London and so distantly familiar it prickled a strange duality along the nape of his neck. Fear, and … relief? Shock? It was so strong that he scanned the tomb’s dark curves for watching eyes.
This could be the result of a fake Druid, a creature, or even ahuman capable of seeing through the varnishes over the stones. But it wasn’t just the dark stain that convinced him otherwise, it was the echo of a magic he hadn’t felt in around two thousand years – not even at the sacrifice.
His throat constricted, his fingers hovered over the stone.
His mother had felt like this.
His people, his childhood. The most sacred and safest parts of his life.
The Wake had been right. He was the only one who would know for certain if there was a Druid still living, having clawed their way through time. This blood, this magic, was the confirmation he needed.
One Druid had survived, despite all the odds.
And the deep green of Ireland lived in their magic.
