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“It doesna matter. They’d know. Besides, the best strategy with my kin is facing things head on.” She straightened her spine. “Lead out. I think better when rain isna dripping down my neck.”
An odd look crossed his face, cynicism warred with anger. “Head onmay be your strategy. No one’s bothered to employ it with me.”
She didn’t waste words apologizing for the other Celts again. It wouldn’t change anything.
They cleared the last band of trees and came into a clearing no one had maintained for quite some time. Bushes pushed their way beyond the forest’s edge, and weeds grew thickly up to the gray stone walls of a manor house. From the feel of things, it had been deserted for many years. She glanced upward, counting five stories. The place was huge, but falling into disrepair, with stones missing from the walls. Ivy clustered thickly, maybe the primary thing holding the walls in place. She could only imagine what sort of shape the roof was in, but it shouldn’t matter, so long as they stuck to the lower floors.
Angus led her to a door mostly sunk into the ground and pushed it inward with a combination of magic and strength. “Careful,” he said. “This was the kitchen entrance, and steps are missing toward the bottom.”
She followed him, ending up in a corridor lit only by daylight from the open doorway. Arianrhod summoned a mage light and sent a small jolt of power to pull the door shut behind them. She added to her spell and obliterated evidence of their presence outside the manor house.
Angus was already moving away from her. He opened one of many doors off the corridor, and she shadowed him up stone steps and into an enormous room with fireplaces sunk into the wall at one end. Mice and rats scattered, heading back to wherever they lived when they weren’t cruising for food.
He stood in a doorway at the far end of the kitchen. “We need a smaller room,” he said. “Something easier to warm with magic, since fire’s not a good idea.”
Many doors and hallways later, he ushered her into a small, cozy parlor. Other than dust, the space seemed untouched by whatever had ravaged the remainder of the manor. She closed the door behind them and shucked her bow and quiver, laying them on an oaken side table. Even without deploying magic of her own, she understood.
“You spelled this room.” She brushed dust off a padded chair and sat on it.
“That I did. I haven’t been here for a while, but I spent enough time in this era, I needed a place I didn’t have to work on every time they sent me here.” He paused for a beat. “You didn’t ask, but I checked for Eletea’s energy while we were heading here. She’s still alive—very much so if the outrage spilling from her is any indication.”
Arianrhod chided herself. She should’ve done the same thing, but hadn’t. Of course it was easier for Angus, since he had the feel of the dragon’s energy, whereas she’d need to sort through many different dragon emanations, hoping she guessed right. Bending over, she wrung water out of her hair and set to work braiding it to keep it out of the way.
Angus dragged a chair over with one sodden boot and sat across from her. He didn’t say a word, just waited. The expression on his face—eager, hopeful, resigned, cynical—caught her heartstrings in a vise.
“How’s your mythology?” She quirked a brow and continued to work on her hair. Because it came to her feet, it took a long time to gather the silvery strands into braids.
“Fair.” He scrunched his face into a smile that lit his eyes from within. “You can answer questions if I have any.”
“Aye, that would be true.” She flipped the first of what would be four braids over one shoulder and went to work on the next section of hair. Either she told him—or she didn’t. There wasn’t any middle ground. Her earlier idea to feed him a half-truth didn’t play well. She had to live with herself afterward, and the look in his eyes would haunt her forever as it was.
“Waiting won’t make it any easier.”
“Nay, probably not.” She stopped with half her hair finished. “Do ye mind if I look inside you? ’Twill either support what I suspect, or it may yield something I dinna anticipate.”
“You have my permission,” he said, suddenly solemn.
She understood. He’d wanted this forever, but what if he couldn’t live with the answers?
Assuming I find something. Right now all I have is speculation tempered with some old stories. Mayhap true, but just as likely not.
She got to her feet and walked to him. “I’m going to place a hand on either side of your head. Doona fight me.”
He pushed his shoulders back and nodded sharply.
She took her time, gentle as she sorted through layers of ensorcellment no doubt placed by her kin, snipping strands as she went. She thought she recognized Gwydion’s handiwork. Ceridwen’s too. It had been important to whoever created the magical shielding that Angus not stumble onto the truth by accident.
When she was as certain as she was likely to get, she withdrew and exhaled in awhoosh.
“That bad?” Determination tightened his features into a mask. He clearly wanted to know what she’d found—no matter what it was.
Concern smote her, and she sank to the floor next to him. “Nay. Nothing like that. I found what I expected.” She stopped, hunting words. “’Tisn’t bad, yet I’m not sure quite what the knowledge will buy you. Ye’re descended from Cathbad and Nessa, mayhap their son, mayhap a grandson.”
His eyes widened, and he drew back. “The Druid seer and his one-time Irish royal consort?”
“Aye. It appears your mythology is sharper than ye led me to believe. Although Nessa was daughter to Eochaid Sálbuide, king of Ulster, ye’re close enough.”
Angus drew his brows together. “I don’t understand. Why hide that from me? It’s harmless enough.”
