She bowed her head in deference. “I am Nora, or rather Eleanora. Named for the ancient queen.”
“And you’ve come to fulfill Aine’s Prophecy.”
Nora swallowed but then nodded.
“Like me, you have already known death,” Orla said, her ghostly eyes widening. “Yet somehow you are still alive. How can this be?”
Subconsciously, Nora touched the bandage around her throat. “My body was kept alive by the soul of my cousin until the piece of my soul that I had given to her returned to my body and I was able to breathe again.”
“Was your death a sacrifice?”
“I took the place of my cousin Elea. The heir. We were captured by the Kauls and I was stabbed by the king. I bled to death in chains. That piece of my soul is forever lost.”
Faster than any human could move, the soul of Orla grabbed Nora’s neck over her hand. “Yes, I see the marks of your sacrifice are all over your body. Such loyalty! Such devotion! So different than myself. No wonder that you brought down my mountain.”
“What did you do?” Nora couldn’t stop herself from asking as she dropped her own hand from her neck. She’d longed to know her whole life what Orla had done to be condemned like her sisters.
Orla’s wraithlike hands tightened around Nora’s throat. It didn’t hurt, but she felt a coldness sweep through her entire body. “I tried to kill my sister Eimhir.”
“She deserved it. She betrayed you.”
The soul of Orla released Nora and turned away. “Eimhir made a grievous mistake, which caused the death of our eldest sister, Aine. If I would have forgiven Eimhir, I could have saved us both. I could have killed the leader of the Kaulish raiders. I had given my blood oath to Eimhir as well as Aine. Instead, I let my anger consume me until it cost me my life. . . . I was shot in the gap between the shoulder plate and the breastplate. The arrow pierced my already blackened heart.”
Nora felt the heat rise in her face. She had also let anger grow in her heart. Elea’s slights and taunts over the years had bored their way into her very soul. Her cousin had begged for her forgiveness, but a lifetime of wounds did not disappear with a few words.
“I see the same anger in you for the daughter of Eimhir,” Orla said. “She has treated you poorly because she is jealous of your gift, of your dead grandfather’s preference of you, and the love of the man who gave you a piece of his soul. My sister Eimhir was the same. She was furious at our mother for giving her such a small gift compared to mine and Aine’s. I have often wondered over the centuries that if I had listened to Eimhir, then we could have forgiven each other. How different it would all be. I could have raised my two young daughters. I could have lived a full life with my husband and gone with him to the afterlife to the realm of the Eternal Kingdom. But I could not forgive, and instead, I have spent five hundred years all alone in a mound of stones—all the stones as hard as my own heart. Close to my sisters but never able to see them. Hear them. Touch them. I have long ago forgiven them.”
Nora clutched her chest, feeling the reassuring beat of her own heart. Was such an end on the path she was on? Despite her anger, she had done everything that she could for her cousin. She had sacrificed and defended Elea time after time from the assassins her father sent. But she hadn’t forgiven the words that Elea had spoken.
Words were the most powerful weapon of all and cut cleaner than any knife.
“My mother’s armor is now yours,” Orla said. “With it you must defend the Yakuran people from all enemies within and without. If you are faithful to Màthair and your blood oaths, no arrow can pierce your skin and no sword will prevail against you.”
Nora placed her scarred and bloody right hand on her heart. “I swear I will defend Yakura with all the strength that my body possesses.”
Orla placed her wraithlike hand over Nora’s. “Your strength is not in your arms but in your heart. The purer your heart, the greater your strength will be.”
Nora could only nod.
Orla smiled and it was like a flash of lightning. “Goodbye, Nora.”
And with that she flew through the stones of the mound, leaving Nora alone with the armor. Slowly, piece by piece, Nora put the celestial armor on. Hoping. Praying that her heart was strong enough to forgive and that her body was strong enough to fight.
36
ELEA
Nora did not forgive her, and Elea couldn’t blame her cousin. Eimhir’s mountain was the only one that had yet to fall. Elea had failed not only her cousin by her words and deeds but her ancestor. She had not performed a sacrifice worthy to release Eimhir from her blood oath. Still, she opened the door to the cairn with her bloody hand and placed it on the trigon etched on the sarcophagus.
A figure floated through the stone. She looked so young. As young as Elea. And not at all like an evil person. Or a betrayer.
“You must be Eleanora,” the voice said, sounding like a whisper on the wind. “Here to fulfill the prophecy and to fix my mistakes.”
Elea shook her head. The air was thick with the smell of verbena and lemongrass: grief and regret. “I have failed you, Eimhir. Your mountain still stands. I cannot free you with my blood. Even though I wish that I could. I have made too many mistakes. I have not lived up to my birthright. I’ve let down the people closest to me. I have betrayed them with my words and my actions.”
“You are not responsible for my mistakes or for the mountain that shadows this cairn. I built it myself, stone by stone, by my bitterness. My vanity. My envy. My pride. My lust.”
The same sins that Elea had. Vanity over her beautiful hair, now shorn. Envy that Nora was the favorite of their grandfather. Pride that hadn’t allowed her to ask for help. Pride that had caused her to send Gerard away despite his loyalty to her and her own growing feelings for him. Desire for Matteo, whose heart clearly belonged to her cousin, even if the treaty said that he was to be hers. Elea had created her own mountain.