Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 01] (23 page)

And—something wasn’t right.

He strode to the wall, where an enlarged map of the area was displayed. The valley. The secluded glade. The waterfall. All checked out.

But still, something grazed the outer edges of his brain. He searched further, stared at the ridge of trees beyond.

He remembered seeing that forest from a distance as he’d stood on the hill looking into that valley. But according to these maps, there was no forest. Just a line of trees and then another cursed mountain.

His brain clicked the image into focus. A chill slithered along his arms.

There
was
a mountain beyond those trees. But not anywhere near as close as this cartography suggested.

It was inconceivable such an error had been made. And yet the evidence was here, nailed to the wall and embedded in his mind’s eye.

He rolled up the map. There was doubtless a simple explanation as to why acres of forest had been omitted, but before he hauled in the scouts and cartographers, he’d double-check the area himself.

And it had nothing to do with the illogical sensation echoing through his bones that this glaring discrepancy had, in an inexplicable way, something to do with Carys.

“I need to meditate.”

Gawain shot Carys a probing look. “Meditate within the spiral, Carys.”

Carys glanced at the flawless blue sky, then around the green valley and approaching forest. Since leaving the Roman settlement, nerves fluttered incessantly in the pit of her stomach, danced through her veins and vibrated against her temples, making her constantly on edge. As if something not of the mortal world watched her with a malevolent eye.

“I need to be close to Cerridwen.” Then perhaps the eerie sensation of being followed, even though she
knew
they weren’t, would disperse.

“Cerridwen will come to you within the spiral,” Morwyn said, and gave her hand a comforting squeeze. But it didn’t comfort; it merely heightened Carys’s certainty that if she didn’t communicate with her goddess, and soon, she might never experience that immortal touch again.

Panic flared. She had to discover what Cerridwen had meant by those cryptic words,
only the future
, she’d uttered in Maximus’s quarters. And the most sacred place was Cerridwen’s Cauldron.

Reaching around Morwyn, she pulled the horse up and slid to the ground before her friends could voice another objection. “Cerridwen calls.”

“Then I’ll accompany you.” Morwyn made to dismount but Carys laid her palm across her friend’s thigh.

“I need isolation.” She couldn’t risk Morwyn discovering anything about Maximus, and who knew what Carys might disclose if she ascended into trance?

“Then I’ll remain outside the Cauldron’s sacred circle. But you shouldn’t go alone.”

“Morwyn.” Gawain’s voice held a note of warning. “If Cerridwen wants Carys alone, then she will protect her.”

Morwyn’s brow furrowed. “Something feels terribly amiss. I can’t explain, but ever since we left the settlement I feel as if a dark cloud hovers above us.”

“The Roman stench,” Gawain said, but Carys caught Morwyn’s eye and saw understanding dawn.

“Speak with Cerridwen,” Morwyn said, grasping her hand and squeezing her fingers until they tingled. “Find out how we can dispel this evil once and for all.”

Gawain growled in his throat, as if he had his own ideas how they could dispel their enemies, and Carys merely nodded. She couldn’t confide what she really wanted to ask her goddess.

“Come, then.” Gawain swung his horse around. “Let’s take the supplies back and be astounded once more at how Aeron believes our dwindling stocks have been miraculously replenished yet again. If he even notices.”

Morwyn shot Carys an odd glance, as if Gawain’s escalating antipathy toward Aeron both confused and concerned her, before she followed Gawain’s lead.

Carys pulled the blanket from her shoulders, sucked in a deep breath and headed upstream toward the spring. The sensation of encroaching darkness was palpable, and now that she knew Morwyn had also sensed the suffocating presence of something beyond her understanding, the need to seek her goddess’s advice became more urgent than ever.

By the time she reached the Cauldron, her heart pounded against her ribs with a combination of fear and exertion. Sinking to her knees, she opened her embroidered bag and sought the special root. She had no business having one in her possession, but the same compulsion that had urged her to collect the slivers of bluestone had also compelled her, on that memorable night, to sequester one from Aeron’s own stocks.

Her hands trembled as she prepared the concoction. She was being reckless. Perhaps selfish. But despite knowing she was breaking their laws, she continued with her task.

She trusted Cerridwen implicitly.Her goddess would protect her from discovery, both from her own people and any wandering Roman.

Aeron gripped the stone edges of the altar as a wave of impending devastation washed through him. The sensation was so sudden, so acute, it sucked the air from his lungs and sent splinters of ice ricocheting through his heart.

A cold sweat prickled his skin. His stomach roiled and bile scalded his throat, but no vision catapulted him into the heart of the phenomenon.

Children’s squeals shattered the moment and he dragged open his heavy eyelids and glared at the two culprits, who scampered from the cromlech as if Arawn himself had emerged from the Otherworld to silence their tongues.

He couldn’t take this for much longer. The cromlech was sacred. The cromlech was
his
.

Since the Roman invasion, the cromlech had become more social than sacred, as if his fellow Druids were forgetting its special significance to their way of life.

To him
.

But soon balance would be restored. They would once again take their place in the world. And the cromlech would, once more, become his personal refuge.

He closed his eyes, attempted to recapture the shimmering threads hovering just beyond the reach of his conscious mind. A darkness loomed, but it wasn’t a familiar darkness. Revulsion skittered along his nerves, caused the hair to rise on the back of his neck.

The scent of feminine malevolence drenched the encroaching fog, tainting him with the stench of millennia of matriarchy.

The Morrigan
.

Instinctively he ensured his true nature was concealed, the way he’d concealed his beliefs and convictions for the last twenty-five years. No Druid, no god, and most certainly not this goddess could discover his purpose until it was too late for them to do anything but bow to his will.

Her skeletal touch grazed his soul, but didn’t linger, as if she either was unaware of his presence or attached so little significance to him as to render him unworthy of further scrutiny.

Since the latter was inconceivable, Aeron knew it was his own formidable shields that protected him from the goddess’s all-seeing eye.

Sweat beaded his forehead. The Morrigan wasn’t searching for him. But she was searching for something.

For someone.

On the spiritual plane the black fog swirled, and for one heart-shuddering moment Aeron saw into the center of the Morrigan’s focus.

Chills raced along his spine, cooling the sweat on his skin, freezing the blood in his veins.

Hidden in the shadows of the trees, Aeron watched Gawain and Morwyn enter the sacred spiral. The other Druids thought him unaware of their excursions into the enemy lair. But why else did they imagine he’d allowed this passageway if not for the purpose of access when it came to replenishing their supplies?

He ignored the fact that the fracture had created itself in the instant he had released the great power from the bowels of the earth. His original intent had been to isolate them absolutely, but in the same way the spiral had failed to enclose Cerridwen’s Cauldron, it had also left this slice of the forest unprotected.

As if the spiral had its own agenda. But since Aeron was the master in this extended manipulation of the elemental forces, that also was inconceivable.

Carys wasn’t with her friends, but instinct told him she had been with them earlier. While he knew no Druid would allow her to go as far as the Roman settlement, he also knew he was alone in his condemnation of her escaping to the Cauldron as often as she did.

Therefore, Morwyn and Gawain had left her at the Cauldron on their way to the settlement. And she had to be there still.

Wrapping his cloak around his shoulders, he silently left the sacred spiral. The Morrigan, in a dark cloud of fury, searched for Carys. And could not find her.

He intended to discover why. On both counts.

Maximus reined in his horse and stared over the valley toward the forest. From his vantage point on the crest of the same hill where he’d stood only yesterday, the extent of the forest was beyond doubt. Looking down upon it, even from this distance, the tree canopy spread for miles.

He consulted the map. When he discovered who had charted this region, demotion would follow punishment. Such a blatant discrepancy between their intelligence and reality could cost lives. Roman lives.

Quelling his anger, he urged his horse forward. How many other areas did he need to double-check? Where the fuck had this particular cartographer learned his so-called craft?

Pulling up on a lower ridge, he once again scanned the surrounding area. An invisible fist punched through his heart as disbelief slammed through him, but still the message his eyes transferred to his brain made no rational sense at all.

He sucked in a deep breath, shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. But still the heat haze hovered over the forest—
what remained of it
—no forest at all, merely a wooded area as depicted by the map grasped in his fist.

His heart hammered against his ribs, sweat slicked his skin, and his mouth dried of all moisture, as if he’d just completed a marathon training session. But a training session was something tangible, something he understood.