Children of the Moon 04 - Dragon's Moon

through what was left of the day and the night that followed to reach the hill. It had gotten its name from the tree split by lightning that still grew by some miracle on its summit. Her da had claimed the place was blessed.
    Since his ashes mixed with its soil, she thought it was sacred anyhow. Ciara spoke the words of Chrechte passing in a broken voice as the wind picked up what remained of her brother and took it to join their father.
    It was late morning of the next day before she reached their cottage and could inform her mother of Galen’s death.
    Ciara told no one of the dragon. Only that Luag had led her brother into danger and she had come upon both of them dead in the forest. She told her clan she’d prepared and lit her own funeral pyres and they’d not doubted her.
    She was her da’s daughter after all and he’d been known as one of the most stubborn men in the Highlands. Luag had no family to complain of her actions or question whether she had spread his ashes as she had her brothers.
    Ciara did not volunteer the truth, for the heart still burning with anger and pain in her chest said he deserved his final resting place.
    Mum showed no reaction to the news, seemingly oblivious to what Ciara’s words meant when told of their loss.
    Ciara realized her miscalculation when she found her mum dead the next morning, the bed soaked with her life’s blood and cuts too deep in her wrists for even the Faol to survive.

Chapter 1

He is king who fears nothing; he is king who desires nothing!
    —L UCIUS A NNAEUS S ENECA
    Land of the Éan, Highlands of Scotland
    1149 AD
    “Y ou are certain this is the right path you take?”
    At his grandmother’s voice, Prince Eirik Taran Gealach Gra turned from his contemplation of the forest below. One day soon, this view would be naught but a memory for him. He refused to grieve the consequences of a choice he had made for the good of the Éan though.
    He was their prince. It was his duty.
    Bowing his head, he greeted the raven shifter whose hair was still more black than silver despite her many years. “Anya-Gra.”
    Grandmother she might be, but she was still the spiritual leader of the Éan and the oldest member of the Triumvirate.
    “I cannot help but think you give up too much for the sake of our people.” Troubled brown eyes in a face lined with concern met his.
    Now was not the time to question the decision he had made and the three members of the Triumvirate (including his grandmother) had approved. They had known this day was coming since he had refused the ceremony that would declare him king of his people, sovereign over their lands.
    To accept the role would have prevented the Éan from joining the clans honorably before Eirik’s death. At the time, his grandmother had counseled against jeopardizing the future of their people that way, though she had insisted he take his father’s name as was custom.
    Anya-Gra herself had declared that the good of their people demanded sacrifice. Eirik had agreed and he had made that sacrifice, becoming the first Prince Eirik not to be named king. Now she balked at him making another forfeit they both knew to be necessary.
    “You agreed the Éan need to join the clans to survive; when it was first spoken of, it was your idea.”
    “Aye, but at the cost of your leadership of our people?” She shook her head.
    “I do not cede leadership of the Éan; I only give up the daily running of a clan. It is the only way. I will not kill a clan chief just so that I might play political leader.”
    “Why not? You are a dragon.” Eirik’s younger cousin asked as he joined them on the platform outside what had been home to the Éan royalty for more than two centuries.
    A home among the trees, reachable only through flight; none of the humans that lived among them had ever seen inside its walls. And in less than the passage of two full moons, he would no longer see it, either.
    “Fidaich, who would you have me kill in battle for his position?” Eirik demanded of his favorite kin. “Those who have fought beside our people these past seven years, protecting us and helping us to find a way out of this secret life in the forest? The Sinclair? Buchanan? The Donegal maybe? I would have to kill my own brother by marriage to take that clan’s leadership, not to mention one of our own.”
    For Crispin, the laird-in-training under Barr, would surely challenge Eirik should he do the unthinkable and kill the acting laird and man married