Riona Read Online Free

coming up the hill.” Kieran repeated the O’Cuillin cousin’s account as though trying to convince himself. “They were conjured by their druids, no doubt, to cover the real threat approaching from the other side. He and his men rushed tomeet them and were lost in the bloody fog.”
    “It was as much a spell as you are a princess! I saw no one. Colga was trying to cover the fact that he’d wet himself in fear when the Scots charged. I shudder to think the same cowardly blood runs in my veins. My uncle is a fine smith, but his son has more ambition than courage to carry a battle out.”
    “Maybe not.” Lost in thought, Kieran watched a small gold crest fly to a perch in an oak. Immediately it set upon some unsuspecting insect. Boldness might also be a prerequisite of manipulation. “Soon as he realized the trickery, he brought his men back to our aid.”
    Colga wasn’t the sort to attack directly. The only time the young O’Cuillin bested Kieran in training, he’d taken weasel-like advantage of Murtagh’s shout for the exercises to cease. Kieran didn’t know what hit him until he regained consciousness with Colga bemoaning how he’d not heard the champion’s bellow to quit.
    “Colga will likely become the new chief.” Kieran cast a speculative glance at Bran. “Unless you’ve a mind to challenge him.”
    “Me?” Bran burst into laughter. He almost sounded like Heber. “I’d rather cast my vote for Riona.”
    Kieran almost smiled. Heber had been as merry as he was large in stature. His younger sister was fiery. Heber would tease and laugh. Half his size, Riona would launch into him, eyes spitting blue fire, her wild raven hair a flying mantle over her face and shoulders. How the young men in Murtagh’s charge loved to tease her. The heir to Gleannmara’s throne was no exception. Kieran even took bets on how easily he could flush the flawless porcelain of her delicate face with color enough to shame the roses in her mother’s garden.
    If he were not king of the tuath and overlord of Gleannmara’s various clan lands, Kieran would allow Riona to rule her clan holdings. Educated as well as her brother, O’Cuillin’s daughter had the judicial, academic, and spiritual strength of an able ruler. Even now she increased her education and spirituality at the abbey of Kilmare, where she awaited Heber’s return from war. But Dromin needed a strong-bodied chief as much as a wise one—one who could muster the clan warriors and lead them in battle as Heber had done.
    The rule went by right to the nearest male kin of the same father or grandfather, according to the clan’s vote. Their cousin Bran would be fine, if he’d apply himself. The only other choice was Colga, unless the O’Cuillin clan chose someone of a more distant relationship, thus breaking three generations of the O’Cuillin rule. It pained Kieran to return Gleannmara’s debt to Murtagh and Heber with such a loss.
    “Besides, I record acts of heroism. I don’t perform them.” Bran plucked at the velvet case containing Aingeal, his harp. The strings responded with muted indignation, straining to agree with their master.
    “You could sing the heathen out of his paint with such a weapon,” Kieran suggested wistfully. Much as the part of him nurtured by his Christian upbringing yearned to think otherwise, he knew now there was little difference in the druidic power of satire and the priestly power of prayer. Not believing in them rendered them useless. To Gleannmara’s young king they were no more threat than that insect the gold crest had devoured earlier.
    “As I recall, a blade was not an ill fit for your hands when you plied yourself to it. ’Twas you that taught us the sword song.”
    The sword song was something Kieran did believe in. Not every warrior performed the deadly orchestration to an unheard melody of weapon and limb. It was irony that a cleric’s son heard the blade sing through the air, each movement making a different