Chapter Eight #3
Killian held Bréagha against him, looking up at the stars she had been gazing at moments before.
Aiden had wanted to follow but Marcus started asking him questions, so Killian took his place.
He wasn’t sure how Bréagha would react to him, so was surprised when she instantly melted into him and let her tears flow.
He had seen the stricken look on her face when she realized what had happened.
Lily had closed both books and left them on the table for Bréagha to read later.
They all knew however, that they’d been sent to fight some form of evil and lost, cut off from the Garden when their Portal Keeper was killed.
Bréagha now knew she hadn’t been thrown away but was treasured and left, to be protected the best way they could.
They’d even left Aiden behind as well, her own Sentinel, though neither had ever realized it until now.
After a few minutes, Bréagha stepped back and ran her hands over her face, wiping the last tears off her cheeks. “So sorry for breaking like that and destroying your shirt.” Killian smiled kindly.
“We all have our breaking points, and I have a closet full of the same shirt. A little water isn’t going to trash it.” She nodded and took another step back and another deep breath.
“Right. Well, we better get back in there and see what Marcus and Lily think of the doors.” Killian watched as Bréagha built her tattered walls back up.
She squared her shoulders and walked back into the room that had been taken over by his entire team and the Record Keeper elders.
He shook his head and followed closely behind.
If he hadn't seen the tears, he wouldn't have known how the news of her parents had affected her.
It didn't look like she had shed a single tear, her eyes clear with no swelling anywhere. She was just as beautiful as ever.
They both came to stand at the back of the group and watched Marcus looking at the carvings with a magnifying glass that he had gotten who knows where. He made notes in his little book and nodded at Aiden’s answers to his numerous questions.
Lily looked over at the pair as they entered, smiling softly at Bréagha, who gave her a small smile in return before turning back to the doors.
Lily caught Killian’s eyes, hers holding the question she wanted to ask, and he nodded.
Bréagha would be okay. She had her own Sentinel team behind her.
Neither Aiden, nor Killian and his team would allow anything to hurt her.
Lily nodded at his look and smiled before turning back to Marcus.
“This is incredible work, Aiden. It’s unfathomable that you would know to carve the different worlds, and the creatures you added with them.
How?” Marcus marveled as he continued to look over every detail.
While Marcus continued to look at the doors closely, Lily moved to the trunk.
She ran her fingers over the carvings and frowned as she tried to puzzle out the significance of the flowers.
They were repeated a few times around the trunk and always in the same pattern.
“I’ve seen that tree somewhere in the Garden, but I don’t recognize the flowers,” commented Roz as she came to stand beside the elder. Lily nodded.
“I think the others are specific to the other realms. I’ll have to look it up when I get back to the library. None of this is coincidence. Did Caius and Azara discover something we should know? Why didn’t they send word?”
“I don’t know. This chest was carved by a Magic Keeper with the wood from the Lunara tree that only grows in the Garden.
I know that much but nothing else.” Lily nodded again, making a note of what Roz said as well as making quick sketches of the other flowers to look up when she got back to the library.
“Lily? I think we have some work to do, and these guys need to get some sleep.” Marcus asked Cathal and Liam to put the doors back where they’d been.
He would’ve liked to take them with him, but he could see how important they were to Bréagha.
With everything that had happened the past couple days, he knew she needed to rest and have familiar items surrounding her.
He would come back and get detailed pictures later.
Roz stepped forward to say her goodnights along with Lily and Marcus and then portaled them back to the Record Keepers headquarters.
Killian and his team said their goodnights shortly after, including Aiden who lingered a moment, unsure if he should leave Bréagha alone or not.
One look at her exhausted face made his decision for him though.
He bent and kissed her forehead like he had every night for the past 24 years.
She smiled at him tiredly then waved him away.
He jogged to catch up with his new teammates.
Liam wrapped his arm around his neck and ruffled his hair.
Bréagha grinned as she watched her best friend walking away.
She turned back to her new home; she was too tired to give it as much appreciation as it deserved so she just turned all the lights off and headed back upstairs. She climbed under her worn old quilt, snuggling into the cloud soft mattress and drifted off into a deep dreamless, healing sleep.