rubbing noses and surrounded by intricate lines had always given her comfort. She needed every boost to her courage she could manage for what was to come ahead. Of that she was certain.
She’d fought the call of the Faolchú Chridhe for so long, giving in to it made her mouth dry with fear.
The fear shamed her and she would not give in to it.
Ciara added the short and very sharp dirk with the jeweled handle passed down by her great-great-grandmother. She settled the thin leather around her hips so it rested under her chain and the dirk was almost hidden by the small purse attached to it.
Then she opened the low trunk Abigail and Talorc had given Ciara when she first came to live with them. They’d told her to keep her treasures in it, and she had. Those she’d brought with her and the few she’d accumulated since.
She pushed aside the first Sinclair plaid she’d ever been given, just a shawl really. Abigail had explained that Ciara could wear it over her shoulders while still wearing the Donegal’s colors as her skirt. It had given her the opportunity to show her loyalty to the Sinclair while taking her time to give up her old clan…the last link to her dead family.
Giving her that shawl was the first of many compassions Abigail had shown Ciara.
Underneath the shawl was a carefully folded plaid of the Donegal colors. Ciara had last worn it six months after coming to the Sinclairs. Abigail had presented her with a skirt in the Sinclair colors, a new, smaller shawl that barely covered her shoulders and pins of bronze stamped with the Sinclair crest to hold it to a new blouse so white, Abigail had to have taken great pains to bleach the fabric.
The laird’s lady had also included a bodice of finely spun black wool and explained the clothing a fashionable mix of her homeland and the Highland colors. It was too many layers for a shifter to wear expediently, not to mention too English, but Ciara had found herself unable to tell the human woman such.
She’d merely spoken her thanks and come down the next morning wearing a similar outfit to the one she’d worn every day since. Abigail had made herself a matching tartan and bodice, showing the world they were family, if not by blood.
Ciara pulled out the Donegal plaid and laid it on her bed, then unfolded it to reveal the sword within. With emeralds the same deep green of those on her dirk and the size of her thumb decorating the hilt, it was easily more than half as tall as she was.
It had been her brother’s, and their father’s before that, and their grandfather’s before that. She did not know how long it had been in their family, but the heavy bronze shone with years of care.
The raised images of a conriocht, a dragon and a griffin surrounded the grip. The conriocht was in the center, with a smaller emerald than the ones on the hilt above the beast’s head. The dragon clutched an amber stone in his claws and the griffin had a deep blue sapphire under a forepaw.
The sword was heavy and solid, a fitting sword for a king, she’d always thought.
Ciara’s knees turned to water and she sank to the floor beside the bed.
A sword fit for a king.
But surely if he was descendant of the original Faol kings, Ciara’s father would have been laird. He had not been a leader, though. He’d been loyal to the laird before Rowland and transferred that loyalty to the laird that did so much to hurt the Donegal clan.
Her father had been long dead by the time Barr had taken over as acting laird of the Donegal clan at the order of Scotland’s king.
And Galen had already been firmly under Wirp and Luag’s influence.
Barr had rescued their clan from the leadership of an evil but powerful Chrechte, but not in time to save her brother. Barr had done his best to save Ciara though, and she would always be grateful.
She ran her hand over the conriocht on the sword. When had the last true conriocht walked the earth? Had it been one of her ancestors? Had he been a good man, or corrupted by his lust for power like Rowland? How long ago had the wolves lost their sacred stone?
And how? Apparently, the Éan still had their stone, so how could the wolves have lost something so precious?