Brighid’s Quest

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

She reached into her vest pocket and pulled out the turquoise stone. Holding it tightly in her fist, she closed her eyes. Think of it as a hunt, she ordered herself. It’s not that different. Today it’s a shattered spirit I’m tracking instead of an animal. Brighid drew in a deep, slow breath and centered herself. As she did each day before a new hunt, she imagined a powerful light originating deep within the base of her spine, and as she breathed out, the power flowed around her. When she drew her next breath she imagined breathing in the light and letting it fill her body; then she breathed out again, again filling the space around her with the brilliant, powerful light.

As she continued to center herself, she imagined where she would begin the hunt-and for a moment she faltered. Where was her prey? Usually she would cast her thoughts out to the surrounding forest, seeking the flitting spark that she could always Feel as distinctly different for each animal. Finding the creature’s light always showed her where to seek her prey. But Cu had looked exactly like himself-she had no idea what color his spirit light would be, or even if it had a light at all. Consequently she had no clue as to where Cu’s habitat would be.

Should she break her meditation and ask him about his favorite places? No…he’d come to her before. She hadn’t had to seek him. He’d visited her favorite place-the Centaur Plains. Feeling suddenly more confident, Brighid focused her mind on the homeland of her youth.

She didn’t know her spirit had left her body until she felt the warm breeze on her cheeks. Even before she opened her eyes she knew she was there-the breeze had told her. It smelled of tall grasses and freedom.

Brighid smiled, and opened her eyes. She had returned to the cross-timbers near her family’s summer settlement. She could hear the Sand Creek tumbling lazily through the shady grove of oak and ash and hackberry trees directly in front of her.

In her dream she had heard Cuchulainn’s laughter, and that had led her to him, so she stood quietly, listening to the caressing breeze. Hearing only birdsong, she sighed in frustration.

Track him, she reminded herself. The Huntress studied the ground. Nothing. How was she supposed to track a spirit?

Ask for help, child…

Etain’s voice whispered on the wind. Brighid started, and looked around her. She saw no one, but her instincts told her she was not alone. Etain’s presence was watching, and Brighid couldn’t decide whether that made her feel better, or even more nervous. Stop worrying and think! she told herself.

Ask for help…

She squared her shoulders and, feeling a little foolish, the Huntress called into the wind. “I’m out of my element in this particular hunt, and I could really use some help!”

The familiar cry came from above her, and she looked up, shielding her eyes against the bright spring sun. The golden hawk circled over her head. Brighid felt a rush of excitement. The bird must truly be her spirit ally.

This time no words formed in her head, but the hawk dipped its wing and changed direction, heading away from the Sand Creek and out into the grassy plain. Without hesitation, Brighid cantered after it, trying not to get lost in the sensual experience of moving through the waving grass. The plains called to her blood. She could run there forever. Dividing her attention between the land and the hawk, she increased her pace, moving from canter to gallop and taking fierce pleasure in the bunching of her equine muscles and the satisfying way her hooves struck the rich earth.

She would have galloped past him if he hadn’t called her name. Cuchulainn stood on a gentle rise. Hands on his hips, he watched her slide to a stop and then gallop back to him.

“So, I see you took the gelding away from me. Why? Afraid that he would beat you in a race this time?” Then his gaze purposefully lingered on the slick equine muscles of her hindquarters. “Are you slowing up, old girl? You are looking a little…healthy. What have you been eating?”

Brighid opened her mouth in shock. Was the scoundrel saying she was old and fat?

Cuchulainn tipped his head back and let his laughter roll, which caused the Huntress to scowl darkly at him. “Oh, Goddess!” He held his side, gasping between chortles. “You should see your face!”

“You should see yours. You look ridiculous laughing like a village fool,” she grumped.

Still chuckling, he flopped down on the ground, looking boylike and terribly young, especially when she contrasted this carefree warrior with the haggard, world-weary man whose body rested beside hers at MacCallan Castle.

“What shall we do today, Brighid? Go back to the creek and fish? Or, if you’d produce my horse we could track some bison. I’ve always wanted to hunt bison. Tell me, are their tempers as evil as my father says?”

Instead of answering, the Huntress studied him. She had been wrong when she had thought Cuchulainn didn’t have a light of his own. How could she not have seen it before? The warrior shone like a young, golden god. He was filled to overflowing with life and joy.

Cu needed this part of himself, and the young godling needed the strength of the mature warrior who had stayed with his body and chosen to cling to life and try to survive the pain of loss.

Undaunted by her silence, Cuchulainn smiled at her. “Fine. We’ll do what you want to do. It is your dream.”

“It’s time to come home now, Cu,” she said.

The warrior shrugged and jumped lithely to his feet. “It’s your decision-your dream. Of course there aren’t any bison there, but the deer are amusingly suicidal. Want to see who can bring one down first?”

“No hunting. No dreaming. No more pretending. It’s time to come home.”

He huffed out some air on a strangled half laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Brighid. Like I said before, it’s your dream. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Stop it,” she snapped, surprising them both with her vehemence. “This charade dishonors her memory. I understand grief. I understand loss. But I do not understand dishonor.”

Cuchulainn’s face lost some of its golden glow. “You’re not making sense.”

“Enough, Cuchulainn. You remember, I know you do. It’s time to face the real world. Back there we’re not rebuilding Elphame’s chambers. That was almost three cycles of the moon ago. Your sister’s chamber is finished. Much of the castle has been rebuilt, but you haven’t been there to see it. You’ve been in the Wastelands in self-imposed exile, grieving for Brenna.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

“No,” she said wearily. “I wish I were wrong. I wish I could undo it. But I can’t. You loved Brenna, and she was killed.”

“Why are you doing this?”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “When Brenna died, it shattered your soul. Since then part of you has been living and breathing and trying to cope with grief and guilt and pain. Trying to go on with everyday life. And I can tell you it has been damned hard for him because the part of his spirit that loves life-that’s filled with joy and hope and happiness-is here,” she spoke softly. “That’s what you are, Cu. A piece of a whole. Look inside yourself. You’re incomplete and you know it.”

He kept shaking his head back and forth. “No…”

He took a step away from her, but she moved quickly, covering the space between them, and put a restraining hand on his shoulder, surprised that he felt so real, so solid and warm.

“Not this time,” she told him. Brighid reached into her pocket and brought out the turquoise stone. She held it out to him on her open palm. “Whose is this, Cu?”

His face drained of the last of its color. He stared at the stone.

“Whose is this?” she repeated.

“It’s Brenna’s stone.” His voice had lost all of its youthful exuberance and he sounded like the warrior back at MacCallan Castle. “She said it was a gift from Epona.” He looked up at Brighid, his expression that of a lost boy. “She said it’s the same color as my eyes.”

“It is, my friend,” Brighid said.

“I loved Brenna,” he said slowly.

Brighid nodded. “Yes, and she loved you.”

“Brenna is dead.”

“Yes.” Brighid wasn’t sure what she had expected, but the calm resignation that settled over Cuchulainn’s face surprised her.

He was staring at the stone again. “I remember.”

“I knew you would.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Are you ready to come home now?”

He lifted haunted eyes to hers. “Why should I?”

“He needs you. You need him. And it’s the right thing to do, Cuchulainn.”

“Why doesn’t he come here? It’s nice here. There’s no pain. No death. No-”

“Have you seen Brenna here?” she interrupted him.

His body jerked. “No. Not yet. But maybe if I were whole again, then she’d come.”

“She wouldn’t come, Cu. This place isn’t real-not even by the Otherworld’s standards. It’s flawed, fake, pretend. Nothing here really exists.”

“How do you know?” His voice edged on desperation.

“You’ll just have to trust me, Cuchulainn. I would never deceive you. The man whose body lies beside me at MacCallan Castle knows that. Don’t you, too?”

His gaze stayed on hers, and she could see him considering. Slowly, he nodded his head. “I do trust you. Enough that I believe you’ll give me an honest answer to one last question. What is there for me to return to other than grief and pain and the pieces of a broken life?”

The importance of her answer pressed down upon her soul. Oh, help me…Etain…Epona…someone. Frantically her mind struggled for a well-worded, logical answer that would make her friend whole again. Should she mention his sister? The people of Clan MacCallan? How about the children he had obviously grown fond of?

Stop thinking, child, and Feel. You’ll find the right answer.

The words in her head were unmistakably Etain’s. Blindly, like a drowning man, she clung to them, plunging through the flotsam in her mind. When she spoke, the answer came from her heart.

“You will love again. That’s why you have to return. I think you might already be a little in love.” Brighid’s eyes filled with tears as her emotions overwhelmed her. “It’s not going to be easy, and it’s come from an unexpected place…” She thought of the beautiful winged Ciara and realized that “unexpected” was a definite understatement, but she took a breath and kept talking to the stricken warrior. “I don’t claim to know much about love, but I do know that it can make life worth living. Trust me, Cuchulainn. Your life will soon be filled with love and it will be well worth living again.”

As she spoke a change came over the warrior. The sadness in his turquoise eyes remained, but the despair lifted from them, and when he smiled his whole face warmed.

By the Goddess, he was handsome!

Her hand still rested on his shoulder. Not taking his eyes from hers, he covered her hand with his own and raised it to his lips. Shocked beyond words, Brighid could only stare at him. His gaze was intense, and it seemed the blue in his eyes had darkened. When he spoke his voice had deepened.

“Have you become a High Shaman, Brighid?”

She shook her head, wondering how she could feel numb and hot at the same time.

Cuchulainn laughed softly, a sublimely male sound that reverberated low in Brighid’s gut.

“I would say that a human man loving a centaur who cannot shapeshift is perhaps a little more than unexpected, but I do trust you, my beautiful Huntress. And I am now ready to come home.”

He believed that she was the woman he was falling in love with! Brighid opened her mouth to deny it-to explain-to correct his misconception and-

Bring him home, child.

Etain’s voice in her mind caused her mouth to clamp shut and her cheeks to warm. The priestess was right, of course. Now was not the time to explain to Cu that he was mistaken. Now was the time to get him home. Explanations wouldn’t be needed once he joined his body. Cuchulainn might not be ready to admit that he could love Ciara, but he knew the attraction was there. Just as he knew there was none between the two of them.

“Are we going, Brighid?”

She blinked and reordered her thoughts. Cuchulainn was standing very close to her, and he was still holding her hand in his. He smiled, looking suddenly shy. Oh, Goddess! He actually believed they were falling in love. She felt her heart compress and her stomach tighten, and for just a moment she let herself wonder what it would be like to have this warrior as her own, to forget that he was an unattainable man. She found that it wasn’t very difficult for her to do. Maybe it was because of his centaur father, maybe it was the fact that his mother was Epona’s Chosen, for whatever reason this man called alive feelings within her that no other male, be he human or centaur, had ever stirred.

It was just a dream-fleeting and impossible-but it tempted her…intrigued her… And she let it. For a moment, she let it.

Breathe him in, and bring him home, child.

Etain’s voice jolted her, and she felt her face heat again. She was supposed to be retrieving his soul, and instead she was indulging in ridiculous childlike fantasies. All while his mother was watching.

Cuchulainn laughed softly and laced his fingers with hers. “What is it? You look terrified.”

“I-I have to bring you home,” she blurted.

He nodded. “I’m ready. What’s next?” he asked, sounding eerily like the Cuchulainn who had burst into her bed chamber.

“I’m supposed to breathe you in.” Her voice was almost inaudible.

He cleared his throat and his hand tightened on hers. She thought that he looked suddenly, obviously, nervous. “I think there’s only one way to do that.”

“How?” she asked, but she already knew.

“Kiss me, Brighid. Breathe in my soul. Take me back to the land of the living.”

Her stomach clenched and she felt like her heart would explode from her chest.

Cuchulainn smiled. “Now you look like you’d like to run away.”

“No, I’m just… It’s just…” she sputtered.

His brows went up. “We haven’t kissed? Ever?”

She shook her head.

He sighed. “Of course we haven’t. Part of me is here-part’s there. And I’m still in mourning for Brenna…” He passed the hand that wasn’t holding hers through his hair. “I don’t imagine this thing between us has been easy for you.” Then he moved even closer to her and touched her cheek. “I apologize for being so broken. For making things even more complicated than they already are. Kiss me, Brighid, so that I can heal for both of us.”

He was a tall man, with a warrior’s honed muscles and breadth of shoulder. She only had to bend a little to meet his lips. Brighid stopped thinking. Cuchulainn’s golden light was back, and even when she closed her eyes she could see the brilliance of it, bright and burning. The kiss started as tentative. His lips were warm, and the taste of him reminded her of the grasslands that surrounded them-welcoming and sensuous. She opened her mouth and let her arms go around him as the kiss deepened. His body was hard and he seemed to fill not just the space around her and within her arms, but his aura enfolded her, just as his hands cradled her face. His tongue met hers and she felt an indescribable shiver of need ripple across her skin and lodge deep within her. His hands left her face to splay into her hair. When he moaned against her lips she felt the breathless, masculine sound like it was a caress.

I want him. I want all of him.

The instant the thought passed through her mind, she felt the change. The golden light against her closed lids disappeared. The warm, fragrant breeze was gone. The only thing that remained was Cuchulainn. His lips against hers-his hands in her hair-his body straining to meet hers.

Brighid opened her eyes. She was back in her chamber at MacCallan Castle. They were on her bed, facing each other. Cuchulainn was kissing her. Her body tensed, and the warrior’s eyes shot open. Abruptly, he broke the kiss. His hands fell from her hair at the same instant she disentangled her arms from around him. Mortified that she was breathing so heavily, she wanted to hurl herself off the bed and rush from the room, especially when the warrior made no move to pull farther away from her. With a shaky hand, she smoothed her hair back from her face. Her lips felt wet and bruised. Hesitantly, she met his eyes. They were as blue as the turquoise stone she still clutched in her hand, and just as impossible to read.

“Are you back?” she asked, surprised she sounded so normal.

“Yes.” His voice was rough. He sat up and looked down at his hands and arms, as if they were new to him, and then he ran his fingers through his hair. He stopped, feeling the length and tangle of it, and touched his face, which was rough and unshaven. “It’s such an odd sensation. I know that I’ve let my hair grow and that I need to shave. Or at least a part of me knows it. Another part of me is surprised.”

“I don’t think the feeling of being disconnected will last long,” she said, rising quickly from the bed and walking over to the table on which the wineskin slouched in the basket of food. She forced her hand open, and let the turquoise stone roll out of her palm, noting that it had left an almost perfectly round indentation on her skin. Moving methodically, Brighid reached for the wine, eager to give her hands something to do, and took a long drink. Then she glanced over her shoulder at him. He was still sitting on the bed, but he had quit studying himself. Unfortunately, now all his attention was focused on her. “You need to eat and drink to ground yourself. So do I.” She turned back to the food, breaking a hunk off the fragrant bread and chewing it between swallows of wine.

She could feel his eyes on her. She took another long drink and then, without looking at him said, “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding back there.”

“Misunderstanding?”

She heard him leave the bed and approach her. She busied herself with slicing off a thick piece of cheese.

“The misunderstanding about us. You-he-assumed that I was talking about us falling in love. You, the whole you, knows that’s ridiculous. I wasn’t talking about myself, I was referring to Ciara.” She glanced at him and looked quickly away.

“I’m not falling in love with Ciara.” His voice was carefully neutral.

“Love is probably too strong a word. I suppose lust or attraction or-” she faltered, shrugging her shoulders “-something else would probably have been more accurate, but love seemed like the right word at the time.”

Cuchulainn took the wineskin from her and drank from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I’m not lusting after Ciara. Of course I’ve noticed that she’s beautiful, but that’s where my notice has ended.”

“Oh.” Brighid had no idea what to say.

“Look at me, Brighid,” he said.

Reluctantly she met his gaze. Physically he didn’t look changed. Or at least not much. Maybe he stood a little straighter, as if whatever had been pressing on his broad shoulders had been lifted. There were no fewer lines creasing the edges of his eyes, and his hair, which was too sandy to match the auburn shade of his sister’s fiery mane, was still sprinkled with premature gray. The noticeable difference was in his eyes. They were no longer haunted and empty. And it felt to her like they looked into her soul.

“My feelings for Ciara did not bring me home. My feelings for you did.”

“We’re friends, clan members. We’ve hunted together and-”

The touch of his hand on her arm cut off her rush of words.

“Don’t deny what happened between us.”

“We kissed. That’s all.”

Slowly his hand moved from her arm to touch her cheek. “Why are you trembling?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I think you do.”

“There can be nothing between us except friendship, Cuchulainn,” she said, wishing her voice wasn’t shaking.

He caressed her cheek. Then he let his fingers trail lightly down the side of her neck. “That is exactly what my mind is telling me, too.”

“Then you shouldn’t be touching me like this,” Brighid whispered.

“The problem is, my beautiful Huntress, that right now I’m finding it difficult to think with my mind.” He moved closer to her and she could feel the heat of his body. “You see, what you restored to me was filled with passion and joy for life, and at this moment that part of me feels young and strong and very, very willful.”

Brighid forced her voice to be steady. “But that part of you will recede, and return to its proper place. And then where will that leave us, Cuchulainn?”

He blinked, and his hand dropped away from her body. He stepped back. She could see the struggle within him as his jaw clenched and he brought his breathing under control.

“I should leave,” he said abruptly. Before he turned away he looked down at the table-at the turquoise stone that rested there. With a jerky movement, he scooped it up and stumbled away from her. He stopped at the door and bowed his head. “Forgive me, Brighid,” he said without looking at her. Then he opened the door and was gone.

Brighid closed her eyes and tried to still the trembling within her soul.