Susan Wiggs - At The Queen's Summons

“So now all I have left is this.” She turned it over and pointed to some etchings on the back beneath the pin. “I’m quite certain I know what these symbols mean.”

“Oh?” He grinned at her earnest expression.

“They are Celtic runes proclaiming the wearer of this brooch to be the incarnation of Queen Maeve.”

“Indeed.”

She shrugged. “Have you a better idea?”

He angled the brooch so that the sunlight picked out every detail of the etching. He started to nod his head and gamely declare that Pippa was absolutely right, when a memory teased him.

These were no random designs, but writings in a different alphabet. Not Hebrew or Greek; he had studied those. Then why did it look so familiar?

Frowning, Aidan found parchment and stylus. While Pippa watched in fascination, he carefully copied down the symbols, then turned the page this way and that, frowning in concentration.

“Aidan?” Pippa spoke loudly. “You’re staring as if it’s the flaming bush of Moses.”

He handed back the pin. “It’s very nice, and I have no doubt you are Queen Maeve’s descendant.” Absently, he tucked away the copy he had made. “Tell me. You faced starvation many times rather than selling that piece of gold. Why did you never try to pawn or trade it?”

She clutched the pin to her chest. “I will never give this up. It is the only thing I belong to. The only thing that belongs to me. When I hold it in my hand, sometimes I can—” She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Can what?”

“Can see them.” She whispered the words.

“See them?”

“Yes,” she said, opening her eyes. “Aidan, I have never told this to another living soul.”

Then don’t tell me, he wanted to caution her. Don’t make me privy to your dreams, for I cannot make any of them come true.

Instead he waited, and in a moment she spoke again. “This idea has consumed me ever since Mab died. I must find them, Aidan. I want to find my family. I want to know where I came from.”

“That is only natural. But you have so few clues.”

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