Warrior's Moon

lead is a MacLeod, garnering the support of the clan is another thing entirely. Uven’s betrayal of Caelis and the proof of that betrayal found in both you and your children will be enough to sway most.”

“Both children?” Shona asked Caelis.

“The very fact that mo breagha does not carry my blood is an affront to our bond that can be laid squarely at Uven’s door.”

“What did you say, Da?” Marjory asked in her child’s mixture of English and Gaelic.

“I said you are my daughter.”

Marjory beamed up at the big warrior. “You are my da.”

“Aye.”

“My da, too,” Eadan claimed firmly.

“Absolutely,” Shona answered at the same time as Caelis said, “Aye,” in his deep warrior’s voice.

Happy with their agreement, Eadan went back to his food. Marjory, who ate small bites provided by Vegar, continued to play with her doll, once again content to ignore the adults around her.

Audrey had turned pensive as they talked and Shona grew worried.

“Is aught wrong, dear friend?” she asked in a side whisper.

Audrey looked at Shona and then Vegar and back to Shona. “What will become of us?”

Shona did not understand the question. Did Audrey mean her and Thomas? The Sinclair had promised to train Thomas in the ways of the Chrechte and Audrey was now married to Vegar.

Sudden melancholy overcame Shona as what these realities actually meant to her. Was she to lose the rest of her family as she had lost first her mother and then more recently her father?

“Caelis,” Shona said through their mating link, not sure what she expected her mate to do to help.

But the thought of losing both Audrey and Thomas was untenable.

“We will travel to Balmoral Island with them,” Vegar said to Audrey. “Afterward, I will go with Caelis to challenge Uven. I am to be his second.”

Audrey’s expression showed as much relief as Shona felt. They were not to be separated.

* * *

Despite her earlier words on the subject, Marjory was surprisingly content to get on a horse with Caelis so they could make the journey to the sacred caves for Audrey and Vegar’s mating ceremony. Her daughter resisted riding with Shona at all, however, and made something of a production of switching between Caelis’s and Vegar’s mounts.

Both warriors were infinitely patient, making sure that Eadan felt as welcome as his younger sister. The five-year-old spent as much time with the warriors on their mounts as on his own horse. And somehow, both men remained vigilant to surrounding dangers, even though the contingent riding toward the caves was large.

Thomas accompanied them, of course, as did the laird and his entire family, even the new babe. A full company of Chrechte soldiers surrounded them, including four wearing the MacLeod colors, ensuring that Audrey’s mating ceremony would be better attended than any wedding she might have had back in England.

Pleased for her friend, Shona was nevertheless confused.

She understood Prince Eirik and Ciara coming. Apparently as Vegar’s prince and celi di of the Faol, both would play part in the ceremony.

Neither Vegar, nor Audrey, however, was a member of the Sinclair clan. While Vegar was clearly welcome in the Sinclair keep, he had not sworn fealty to its laird.

So why had the man and his family come? For the Sinclair to take his small children—Chrechte or not—from the keep, even on his own land, was to put them at risk.

Shona would have asked Audrey if she knew the reasoning behind such unexpected witnesses to her mating ceremony, but the younger woman was clearly lost in her own muddle of nerves and bemusement.

“You have worn a most perplexed expression the past hour,” Ciara noted as her mare drew alongside Shona’s.

“I have lived the past six years in England, I know, but still I cannot make sense in my mind of your family’s attendance to this mating ceremony.”

“We will also be performing a welcome-to-life ceremony for my baby sister. In ancient times, they were done for all children born of Chrechte blood, but we have lost many of our old ways. We are seeking to renew them now that our sacred stone has been returned to us.”

“Oh.” That made a great deal more sense to Shona. “Would it not be better to wait until the babe was older?”

“Possibly, but my dreams have told me that the stone must be returned to the sacred caves on MacLeod lands. Father prefers to have the ceremony before we take the stone off his lands.”

Shona did not understand the whole import of the sacred stones, but she knew they had special meaning to both the Ean and the Faol.

“Did you not just bring the Faol’s sacred stone back to these caves?” Shona asked, more confused than ever.

“Yes, but now both sacred stones, the Clach Gealach Gra and the Faolchu Chridhe must be united in the chamber of the celi di.”

“The Ean’s stone is to be moved as well?”

“Aye. Anya-Gra will send her successor to live among the MacLeod and serve as celi di for the Ean from there.”

“Who is Anya-Gra?”

“Eirik’s grandmother.”

“That would make her queen of the Ean?” Shona asked.

“No,” Ciara answered, adding to Shona’s muddied thoughts. “She gave up her claim to rule in order to serve as celi di, just as Eirik’s sister, Sabrine, gave up hers in order to become a protector of the clan.”

“Isn’t she married to the laird of the Donegal now?” Shona tried to remember the things Caelis had revealed to her about his world thus far.

“She is, but before that she was a warrior.”

The thought of a female warrior was surprisingly pleasant to Shona. “Why doesn’t Eirik live with her clan?”

“As prince of his people, he does not officially belong to any clan, though he wears the Sinclair colors on occasion.”

Shona had noticed that the man wore a leather kilt rather than a plaid. “As your mate, he chooses to live with your family?”

“He chose the Sinclair clan before we met. It was destiny.” Ciara smiled. “He and my father have a rapport that makes it possible for a prince to live in the same keep as a very stubborn laird.”

“That is good.” Privately, Shona could not imagine it.

The Sinclair did not strike her as an easy man to live in the vicinity of, even if you were willing to swear fealty and submission.

“We spend a great deal of time traveling to the other clans where Ean have made their homes,” Ciara said as if reading Shona’s mind. “It helps.”

“Ah.”

Ciara smiled. “Yes, ah.”

“You do not mind traveling so much?”

“I miss my family, naturally, but we do not have children, so it is not a great difficulty. I enjoy the relationships I have built in each of the clans over the last year. And I have as much a responsibility to them as celi di to the Faol as Eirik has as prince of the Ean.”

There had been a shadow in Ciara’s voice when she mentioned children. “You have not conceived, but you and Prince Eirik are sacred mates, are you not?”

“We are.” Ciara grimaced. “I do not know if I will ever have the good fortune to bear a child. The celi di who mentors me in my visions does not think so.”