Celtic Fire(82)

“A man. Dead.”

“Roman or Celt?”

Owein waited for the scene’s fragments to coalesce. “I canna … Nay, wait, I See him more clearly now. Roman, I am thinking.” Rhiannon’s captor? Owein couldn’t be sure. The picture faded.

“Good.” Madog rose and paced a circle about him. He chanted the ancient prayers, his form a shadow on the landscape of Owein’s vision. “Look beyond, lad. Ye have Seen what will be. Now See what can be, and the path to it.”

Cautiously Owein extended his mind and touched the mist. In the past he had never sought to birth the images that rose in his mind. But Madog had told Owein that his Sight revealed only a small portion of things to come. The larger part of the future could be shaped by those who had the favor of Kernunnos.

As Owein did.

Madog’s steps tightened, forming a spiral of which Owein was the center. “See, Owein.” He halted before him and lifted a frantic mountain hare overhead. “See the defeat of our enemy.” The Druid’s shadow arm slashed. The hare shrieked.

Hot blood spilled over Owein’s bare shoulders and ran down his back. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the sweet scent of the hare’s life, drawing strength from his animal brother’s sacrifice. It was the way of things. Blood was spilled, power gained. It could not be otherwise.

The mist swirled. Images rose and vanished like puffs of winter breath. A man, wounded. A woman’s face—Rhiannon? Her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

And blood. Always blood.

Owein’s breathing slowed as he plunged deeper. The flash of Madog’s Druid sword. His own hand on the hilt. The tip poised at the throat of a dark-skinned man. This time the man’s features were unmistakable. It was the Roman commander. The foreign dog who had defiled the queen of the Brigantes.

He would die by Owein’s hand.



“Rhiannon is gone, Luc. Left me in the forest with both our mounts. Took me half the day to find my way out.”

Despite the fact that Lucius had anticipated Rhiannon’s flight, Demetrius’s words sliced like a finely honed battle sword. “I told you she would run,” he replied wearily.

Demetrius lowered himself onto a stool on the opposite side of Marcus’s bed, but Lucius didn’t dare meet his friend’s gaze. He stared instead at his son’s limp hand clasped in his own rough palm. The boy was quiet now, having finally thrashed himself into a fitful slumber. Aulus hunched at the foot of his nephew’s bed, silent and watchful. In the shrouded stillness of the sickroom, Lucius almost imagined he could hear the soft susurration of his brother’s breath.

“You were right,” Demetrius said finally. “As always. Yet I still find it hard to believe.” He shook his head. “I was sure she cared for the boy.”

“She cares only for her freedom. No doubt if she had given you an herb, it would have been a poisonous one.”

“You cannot believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

Demetrius’s eyes showed his worry. “You look terrible, Luc. Like a man bound in Tartarus.”

Lucius felt far worse. “A sojourn in Hades would be an improvement.”

“Go to your chamber and get some rest while I look after Marcus. I’ll call you if … if there’s any change.”

“No.” The word came out more sharply than Lucius intended. “No. I’ve been absent for most of my son’s life. I cannot turn from his death. It won’t be long now.”

Demetrius fell silent. He rose and adjusted the shutters, allowing a bit more light into the chamber, then resumed his seat. Lucius lifted Marcus’s hand and laid it gently across the boy’s chest. Then, since that position looked too corpselike, he repositioned it on the cushions.

He sat there, unmoving, watching his son—the future of his family’s line—fade before his eyes. “What was I thinking, bringing Marcus to this wretched scrap of wilderness?”

“The boy begged to come north,” Demetrius replied. “Don’t torture yourself with what might have been. He could just as easily have fallen ill in Rome.”

“No.” Lucius’s fist slammed onto the low table beside him, overturning a goblet of wine. “I am his father. It was my duty to ensure his safety.”

“No one can foresee what the Fates have woven,” Demetrius said. “We can guarantee nothing, not even our next breath.”

They lapsed into silence. After a time, footsteps sounded beyond the door, but Lucius didn’t bother to rise. No doubt it was Candidus, bearing yet another tray of food that Lucius wouldn’t even glance at, let alone eat.