“Love’s the source of the light.”
“The moon’s the source of the light, and we can be glad it’s full wherever and whenever we are.” She turned a slow circle, searching shadows. “Is he near? Can you feel him?”
“If you can’t yet believe you love me, you should believe I love you. I’ve never told you a lie, or not one that mattered, in your life.”
“Connor.” She sheathed her sword, but left her hand on the hilt. “Have you lost your senses?”
“I’ve gained them.” He grinned at her. “It’s your senses lost because you haven’t the nerve to pick them up and hold them.”
“I’m the one with the sword so mind what you say about my nerve.”
He only kissed her before she shoved him away. “Not a weak thing in or about you. Your heart’s stronger than you think, and it’s going to be mine.”
“I’m not going to stand here, of all places, and talk nonsense with you. I’m going back.”
“That’s not the way.” Connor took her arm as she turned.
“I know the way well enough.”
“That’s not the way,” he repeated. “And it’s not yet time, as here he comes now.”
Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword. “Cabhan.”
Connor stilled her sword hand before she could draw, and took the white cobble out of his pocket. It glowed like a small moon in his palm.
“No. It’s Eamon who comes.”
She watched him ride into the little clearing, not a boy now, but a man. Very young, but tall and straight and so like Connor her heart jerked.
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He wore his hair longer and braided back. He came quietly astride a tough-looking chestnut who, to her eye, could have galloped halfway across the county without losing its wind.
“Good evening to you, cousin,” Connor called out.
“And to you and your lady.” Eamon dismounted smoothly. Rather than tether the horse, he simply laid the reins over its back. The way the chestnut stood, like a carved statue in the moonlight, it was clear it wouldn’t stray or bolt away from its master.
“It’s been some time for you,” Connor observed.
“Five years. My sisters and their men bide at Ashford. Brannaugh has two children, a son and a daughter, and another son comes any day. Teagan is with child. Her first.”
He looked to the cabin, then over to his mother’s gravestone. “And so we’ve come home.”
“To fight him.”
“’Tis my fondest wish. But he is in your time, and that is a truth that cannot be denied.”
Tall and straight, with the hawk’s eye around his neck, Eamon looked over at his mother’s grave again.
“Teagan came here before me. She saw the one who will come from her. Saw her watching while Teagan faced Cabhan. We are the three, the first, but what we are, what we have, we will pass to you. This is all I can see.”
“We are six,” Connor said. “The three and three more. My lady, my cousin’s man, and a friend, a powerful friend.” And since the boy was now a man, Connor thought, the time had come to speak of it. “Our friend Finbar Burke. He is of Cabhan’s blood.”
“He is marked?” Like Meara, Eamon laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Through no act of his own, no wish of his own.”
“The blood of Cabhan—”