Celtic Fire - By Joy Nash Page 0,1

brother is dead.”

Full Moon of Cutios, 117 A.D.

“Does the pain bother ye still?”

Rhiannon pressed her palm to her brother’s chest. Owein’s cheeks were no longer flushed. His breath came steady, with no hint of the rasp that had struck terror into her heart the night before. She searched for the pulse at his neck. It was slow, steady, and his skin was cool. That was good.

He shook off her hand. “The sickness be gone, little mama. Dinna worry so. I drank the potion ye brewed and your magick worked, as it always does.”

“The magick is nay my own. It belongs to Briga.”

“The Great Mother smiles on ye then, for when I woke my breath came easily.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Rhiannon’s heart melted as it had when she’d first held Owein in her arms fifteen winters past. She’d been a girl of nine and grieving for her mother, but the tiny babe had sparked a flame of joy. Russet curls so like her own clung to her brother’s neck, but his eyes were his own: bluer than the sky and sparkling with mischief.

She ruffled his hair.

“Nay, stop,” he protested, but his lips curved in a grin.

Rhiannon smiled back. Owein might have grown tall and muscular, with a man’s beard sprouting on his chin, but the lad who had hidden his face in her skirts was not yet completely gone. “How is the ache in that thick head of yours?”

Owein’s expression sobered. His gaze roamed the roundhouse, touching the center hearth and the high peak of the sloping roof timbers before he returned his attention to Rhiannon. “Tolerable enough,” he said with a shrug.

His seeming lack of concern did nothing to allay Rhiannon’s anxiety. “The night vision returned despite my spell,” she guessed. It was not a question.

“Aye. The same. Pain, then the dream. A raven in flight. Blood.”

A chill hand gripped Rhiannon’s heart. “An omen of death.”

“Perhaps not. It might just as easily be a prophecy of power.”

“Ye must tell Madog.”

“I’m afeared to,” Owein said. “He’s not been …”

“Not been what?”

“Not … right, somehow. He schools me in the wisdom of the Old Ones as always, but I sense … I dinna know. A wrongness.” He shoved his blanket aside. “Surely ye have felt it.”

“Aye,” she said. “I have.” For nearly two seasons, since the Roman commander’s death. She shivered, though the fire was warm. “I hoped the chill would fade with time.”

“It grows stronger.” Owein lowered his voice. “Madog visits the stones day and night. He talks to the skull.”

An icy finger clawed Rhiannon’s heart. She’d not been to the sacred circle since Samhain, when the Druid master had set the Roman’s dripping skull atop a spike within the ring of stones.

“ ’Tis not right,” she said, gripping Owein’s arm. “No soul should be imprisoned. Not even a Roman’s.”

“ ’Twill be worth my own soul if the Rite of the Old Ones brings Kernunnos to aid our warriors,” Owein replied grimly.

“Nay, do not speak so! Kernunnos is a dangerous ally. We are the Brigantes, the children of Briga. Madog would do better to seek the favor of the Great Mother. Not the dark powers of the Horned God.”

As if summoned by her words, Madog’s voice, strident but unintelligible, sounded from the yard beyond the hut’s doorway.

Edmyg’s booming speech answered. “— ’tis nay my fault.”

Owein scowled. “Nay, it never is. How can ye think to join with that hulking animal, Rhiannon? The entire clan knows Glynis is about to birth his bastard.”

Rhiannon’s hand stole to her flat stomach. “He seeks a son. I will not give him one.”

“If Edmyg wants a son, he shouldna take ye as his mate. But he will, because his lust to be king is far greater than his honor.”

“Madog blessed the match. Edmyg is the Brigantes’ greatest warrior.”

“Aye, and the tribe’s greatest brute as well.” The flash of a man’s anger showed in Owein’s young eyes. “You are queen, Rhiannon. He is nay fit to carry your cloak.”

“The clan chieftains have put aside their differences to follow him.”

“They’ll follow another just as well.”

“Nay. Niall has been dead less than a twelvemonth, but his memory is far from cold. If I do not accept my husband’s brother as my new consort, the chieftains will be at each other’s throats within a fortnight.” She shook her head. “ ’Twould be the greatest service to Rome I could perform. I canna risk it.”

Owein opened his mouth to reply, then fell silent as the hut’s wooden door