“A warrior queen led the battle, but she lost.” A chill ran over her skin. “That battle was famous for having women as the last line of defense. They fought with the men.”
She looked around the place with new eyes. She had seen this place, then, but she’d probably never been inside. To go inside as a Celtic woman would have spelled disaster, the kind that she’d now feel if she’d been there. No, she’d probably looked upon it from afar, maybe even from on the hill.
“I was one of those women, Cadan. But which one?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Diana trudged up the wide wooden stairs to the second floor of Cadan’s house. They’d just returned from the ruined Roman fort and she was beyond ready to fall into bed. Even the wind had more energy than she did; it roared as it hit the house and dragged along crevices formed by windows and eaves. It would carry a storm, she was almost certain, and that suited her mood perfectly. Maybe it would drown out the chaos in her mind.
She finally had a lead. If she hadn’t been the warrior queen—which she wasn’t, since there was nothing regal or particularly warriorlike about her—she must have been one of the soldier women who’d chosen to make up the last line of defense between the Romans and the Celtic children and homes. She did have that dream about protecting her daughters, after all. She could almost see it. It...fit. A bit like an awkwardly large coat, but it fit.
Diana flicked on the light switch as she walked into her room. Just as she reached the bathroom door, a voice from behind said, “Nice sword.”
Shock dropped her stomach to her toes as her fist tightened on the sword she’d taken to Verulamium. She whirled around to see a lanky, dark-haired woman reclining in the big wing chair in the corner. The chair had been out of her line of sight when she’d entered the room. A scruffy black cat lounged by her side.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” She worked to make her voice brave.
“I’m Esha. And this—” She pointed to the cat who’d started to clean himself shamelessly. “—is Chairman Meow.”
Diana’s heart slowed its gallop. “You’re the one who made the portal for Cadan and me to go to Verulamium.”
“Yep.”
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Not Cadan?”
“No. You, specifically. He’s not going to come up here anytime soon, right?”
At her words, the cat lowered the leg he’d stuck up into the air while grooming and sauntered toward the door to peer out. Double weird.
“I don’t think so, but you never know.” Diana decided not to be afraid of the woman who’d done nothing but help her. And who, most important, wanted to speak to her specifically. As if she had information. “Why did you want to talk to me? Do you know who I was?”
“I don’t know any details, and even if I did, I’ve been warned against giving you too much information. But I think I have some clues about your task. And those, I am gut certain you need to know.”
“How? And why are you telling only me and not Cadan?”
Esha eased the door closed. “Cadan and Warren—that’s Cadan’s boss, by the way—both know who you were. Cadan won’t tell you, Warren won’t tell me. The only other people who know are Aerten, Warren’s boss, and Lea, the Historian. You met her when you first came to the university, remember? Anyway, Aerten is too high ranking for me to contact, but Lea is my friend and gave me a few pertinent details.”
Diana felt a scowl crease her forehead at the confirmation that Cadan and this Warren guy were keeping things from her. Any control she tried to exert over her life was slipping through her fingers and they weren’t helping. “Why?”
“Because I asked her.”
“No, I mean why do you care who I was?” Diana doubted that Esha was a Good Samaritan intent on helping her discover herself.
“Something in the Edinburgh underground has gone wrong. Really wrong.”
Diana listened with a growing oh shit feeling as Esha explained her ability to sense evil and the afterworld hell that was trying to break loose from somewhere in Edinburgh’s underground.
“What hell did you say it is?” Diana asked.
“Erebus. I think that fixing the portal could be your task, and that you should come to me as soon as you remember who you were.”
“Why do you think it’s my task?”