The children broke into spontaneous applause. Brighid drew a deep breath and turned to face Cuchulainn. The warrior had gone so pale that the dark smudges under his eyes looked like wounds. He was staring at her and it seemed his face had frozen into a harsh, painful grimace.
“That was cruel.” He ground out the words from between his teeth. In one fluid movement, he stood and stalked away into the darkness.
“To bed now!” Ciara’s voice hushed the applause and the children obediently started disappearing into the warmth of the tents, calling good-nights to each other and to the Huntress.
Brighid jumped in surprise when Liam’s little arms wrapped around her and he squeezed her with unexpected strength.
“That was a wonderful story, Brighid! Good night!” He rushed off in a flutter of wings, barely giving the Huntress time to call good-night to his back.
“You did the right thing.”
Brighid looked up at the Shaman who seemed to materialize from the fringes of the fire.
“I don’t think Cu would agree with you,” Brighid said.
Ciara went on as if Brighid hadn’t spoken. “Follow him. Don’t let him be alone right now.”
“But he’s-”
The Shaman’s eyes flashed with a flame-colored light. “He is not whole. If you care for the warrior’s soul, follow him.”
Flexing her powerful equine muscles, Brighid rose and left the campfire. Heading in the direction she thought Cu had taken she considered Ciara’s words. Of course she cared about Cuchulainn’s soul. He had been betrothed to her friend, and he was her Chieftain’s brother. She should care about him, just as she should want to help his shattered soul to heal. The centaur stopped short with a sudden realization-that had been it! What she had sensed that first night when she and Cu had discussed the New Fomorians-the tickle at the edge of her mind. She’d known then that something beyond Cu’s grief was affecting him. It had been his shattered soul, and something within her-that elusive, indefinable something she had inherited from her Shaman mother-had recognized the warrior’s loss.
By the Goddess, she didn’t want this! She had no experience with it. She had turned from The Way of the Shaman when she’d left the Dhianna herd. But the choices she’d been forced to make weren’t Cuchulainn’s fault, and if there was something, anything, she could do to help him, her problems shouldn’t compromise that help. But beyond all of that, Cuchulainn was in pain, and Brighid had never been able to stand by and watch anything suffer. She wished she hadn’t been made that way. It had caused her more than a little trouble. The centaur snorted in self-mockery. That was the ultimate in understatements. Her sympathy had caused her to leave her beloved Centaur Plains and her family and to break with tradition.
It had been the right choice. She was following the right path for her life. Now she would find Cuchulainn, let him know he wasn’t alone, and then do the only thing her Huntress training had prepared her to do. She’d tell him she’d take first watch so he could get some much needed sleep. Simple. Clear. Just as she preferred her life to be.
But where was Cu? By the Goddess, it was dark beyond the circle of tents and the campfire’s friendly light. Dark and cold. Brighid shivered as the insatiable wind licked against her skin. She would be damned glad to return to Partholon and the warmth of MacCallan Castle.
A muffled sound to her left brought her to an instant halt as she listened with the acute senses of a centaur Huntress. The sound came again, and she angled to her right, almost stumbling over Fand, who growled low in her throat.
“Don’t tempt me to kick you,” Brighid told the half-grown cub. Fand slunk off, casting a look at the Huntress that was partially contrite and partially a warning.
At least Brighid knew Cuchulainn was near. That cub was never far from him. Of course Fand’s semi-aggressive reaction also told her that Cu must be upset enough to have shaken the wolf into growling at a friend.
She almost didn’t see him. If the moon hadn’t cast its wan light through the veil of high clouds at the same moment Cu lifted his tear-streaked face, she would have walked right past him. But his tears had given him away. Damn it! She hadn’t expected him to be crying! She’d expected anger-let him rail at her and get it over with. She understood that. She could handle that. But as he turned toward her something totally unexpected happened. She felt a mirroring of his pain that was caused by more than their shared clan ties or even their friendship. She was reacting with a Shaman’s empathy and the knowledge almost undid her. Brighid wanted to walk away, to deny the inherited purpose that flowed through her veins, but she could not. That would be cowardly, and Brighid Dhianna, MacCallan’s Huntress, was not a coward.
“Cu,” she said softly, reaching to touch his shoulder.
He jerked away as if her touch scalded him. “Does it make you happy to cause me pain?”
“No.”
“Then why?” The warrior didn’t sound angry. He sounded defeated.
“You have to go on, Cu. You have to find a way to live without her. And you can’t do that by avoiding all mention of her.”
“How do you know?” Anger was beginning to stir the apathy from his voice. “How would you know anything about it?”
“You’re not the only man to have ever lost a loved one. Grief isn’t exclusive to you, Cuchulainn!” She quickly considered telling him her own story. But her gut told her not to make this about her. She was decidedly out of her element, so all she could do was follow her gut. “Look around you. How many of the hybrids have lost lovers or parents or children to suicide and madness? How is Brenna’s death more tragic than that? For the passing of two moons you have been surrounded by a people who have overcome losses that would have decimated any other race, yet they have done more than survive. They still find joy in life. You’ve seen it yourself. How has that not reached you? Maybe Brenna was right when she called you self-absorbed.”
With the lightning reflexes of a well-trained warrior, Cuchulainn’s dagger was unsheathed and pressed against the centaur’s neck. But she did not flinch from him. She held his wide, pain-filled gaze with her own.
“This is not you, Cuchulainn. The man I know would never take arms against a member of his clan.”
Cuchulainn blinked twice, and then stumbled back. “What am I doing?” With a growl he hurled his dagger to the ground and wiped both hands across his thighs as if he were trying to eradicate a stain. “I’ve lost who I am,” he said in an emotionless voice. “Sometimes I think I died with Brenna.”
A chill of warning shivered through the centaur’s body. “You aren’t dead, Cu. You’re shattered.”
Cu bent wearily and retrieved his dagger. “Aren’t the two really one and the same?”
“No, my friend. One involves the body, the other the spirit. And I’m afraid your trouble rests within the spirit realm.”
His bark of laughter was humorless. “That is something I’ve known for most of my life.”
“This is different.” Brighid sighed in frustration. “Damn, I’m doing a poor job of this!” She rubbed a hand across her brow, wishing her head wasn’t pounding in time with the beat of her heart. “I think you have a shattered soul, Cu. That’s why you don’t feel like yourself and why you’re not able to heal from Brenna’s death.”
Cuchulainn narrowed his eyes. “Is this more of that Shaman affinity nonsense you say you inherited from your mother?”
“No! Yes…I don’t know!” She rubbed her forehead again. “By the Goddess, you make my head hurt, Cu. The truth is I don’t know much more about Shamanistic dealings than you do! But I do trust my instincts. As a Huntress they have never failed me. Now they’re telling me that Brenna’s death damaged your spirit, so it is your spirit that must be healed if you are to recover.”