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“I’m happy,” she replied. “It’s such a foreign feeling, I’m making certain I doona forget how it feels.”
“Know what you mean.” He strolled to where she’d left her bow and quiver, picked them up, and walked across the cave to hand them to her.
She tucked her empty flask inside the quiver and let him guide her to her feet. “Wonder if it’s still raining.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.” He ruffled her hair, and the two of them broke out laughing.
“Aye,” she said between bursts of mirth. “There’s so much joy, ’tis spilling out all over everything.”
“Are you complaining?”
She shook her head and dove into his arms for another hug before she looped her bow and quiver over a shoulder. For the barest moment, she let herself long for a life with him, with their son, but reality intruded and she reined in her yearning.
’Tis so much more than I had afore I met him, I’ll live each moment and treasure them. The future will be quick enough to assert itself.
****
Angus kept an arm firmly around her and led them back to the cave’s entrance. Night had fallen, but it had stopped raining, and the almost full moon lit a sky scattered with thousands of shining stars.
“What a glorious night,” she said and blew a kiss at the moon. Her moon.
“It’s like it was designed for us.” He felt light, buoyant, different. What he’d told her back in the cave was true. His life had changed in an elemental way when they made love. He couldn’t go back, nor did he want to.
She cocked her head to one side and looked like a girl for a moment. “We could return to where we entered this time period, but magic is closer to the surface here. I’ll bet we can summon the time shaft, and it’ll come to us.”
Angus believed they could do anything, but the words sounded hokier than hell, so he just nodded and lent a stream of magic to help. Now that the mystery of his origins was about to be laid bare, part of him wanted to surge forward; another part didn’t want to know.
The air around them came alive with power, pulsing and glistening as a portal formed a few feet away. “’Twas even quicker than I thought ’twould be.” She winked knowingly. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on the nodes, or we’ll overshoot Cathbad’s time.”
He nodded acknowledgment and followed her into the time shaft. He’d have to let go of his anger at Arawn to see his next steps clearly. Knowledge would give him choices, but he had no idea what he’d do with his freedom.
“Doona worry overmuch,” she murmured, and he understood she’d been in his head. “When we drop our preconceived notions, the proper course often shows itself.”
He held out his arms, and she nestled into them before hunkering next to a wall so she could keep an eye on their location. He remained standing. Good thing because they’d barely gotten going when she barked a word to order the shaft to stop.
“If we were in twelve hundred before, where are we now?” He extended his hands, and she gripped them and flowed to her feet.
“Seven hundred, give or take a few years.”
They walked into the dawn of a new day, and he wondered where night had gone. He’d never thought about how the time shaft bent and molded their journey before. He inhaled, filling his lungs with pure, sweet air from an era before men had a chance to pollute it with their ambitious plans for an easier future.
“Aye.” A rueful smile made the skin crinkle around her eyes. “I’ve always loved it in these earlier times, but the Celtic Council picks its location, and the others prefer the comforts of modern life.”
“Why not the future? I’ve gone there a time or two, mostly at Gwydion’s behest.”
“Och, ye doona wish to know. Some of us check from time to time, but each journey reveals something worse.”
“I didn’t find it much different from the time I lived in.”
“Because ye dinna go far enough forward.”
“True. Not more than twenty years or so, though I did catch the front edges of what looked like a major war.” Angus wanted to know more, but it’s not why they’d come here. “Where’s Cathbad?”
“Near the high court of Ulster, I presume.” She settled on a large flat rock, and the rising sun glinted off her hair creating a halo effect. Arianrhod patted the granite next to her and began unbraiding her hair, running her fingers through it to smooth it out. “Have a seat.”
“Don’t we need to be on our way to find Ulster’s castle?”
“I have a feeling Cathbad will find us.”
