Chapter 1 #2
The two of them were standing so close together now their shadows on the wall behind them seemed to merge, waving and flickering in the firelight.
Staring at éadha, Ionáin’s voice deepened as he went on. “But, éadha, if I fail today and Huath takes over, you’ll need to run. Promise me—”
He never got to the end of that sentence because as he spoke, his bedroom door swung open.
The two of them sprang apart. In the doorway was Béithe, the white-haired housekeeper and Ionáin’s old nurse, balancing a tray filled with food.
She marched past the pair of them to set the tray down on a low table by the window.
“At least you’re half-dressed, young sir,” she said, her voice tart.
“But you might want to get the rest of the way there before your mother arrives in with the multitudes, looking to get those robes on you.” She turned to look at éadha.
“As for you, young one, you’ll have to get yourself out the way you came in before Lady úra gets here.
On with you now, and mind you come back in through the kitchen like a normal person. Magret’s looking for you.”
éadha knew Béithe was right. That, unbelievably, after a lifetime waiting for this day, their last moment had passed and there was no choice now but to face what had to be faced.
Still, though, she hesitated, turning back toward Ionáin. He was bending to pick up his tunic from the floor and didn’t see the look that came into her eyes as she said, in a voice far more urgent than before, “Ionáin, listen. There’s something I need to…”
But whatever it was she wanted to tell him went unsaid as Béithe caught éadha by the arm and hustled her back to the window.
“No. No more chat, young one. The time for that is gone. He’s to get ready now, and you’ve to go get yourself in position. On with you now.” éadha had no option but to go out of Ionáin’s window and climb back down the way she’d come.
Her last sight of Ionáin, as she lowered herself from the ledge, was of him approaching the heavy robes with his shoulders straight and squared, like someone getting ready to march to their own execution.
By the time she reached the courtyard, it was already overflowing with people from the local village.
As was the way for Family Reckonings, the whole village had been invited by Ionáin’s father, Lord Aedan, to bear witness to his son’s trial.
They milled about, men and women stiff in their best clothes, shushing their children as they dashed across the cobblestones, squealing excitedly.
The older men had clustered around the bonfires burning brightly now in the deep braziers, murmuring quietly as they warmed their hands on the flames.
Just as éadha reached the kitchen door, a head poked out. It was Magret, the choirmaster. “éadha!” she said, her voice exasperated. “Where’ve you been? I swear you’d be late for your own funeral. Come on.”
éadha said nothing, only following Magret in.
The kitchen was in an uproar, the wooden tables piled high with food, servants running in and out to reload silver platters with force-grown fruit and refill carafes with channeled wine.
Because the Ailm Family hadn’t had a Channeller since Ionáin’s grandfather’s time, it’d all been brought in specially for the Reckoning on carts from the white marble city of Erisen, across the plains of Rath and over the Blackstairs Mountains that separated Ailm’s Keep from the rest of Domhain.
The journey took weeks, but as the Family had no way to channel crops or force-grow fruit of their own, they had no choice.
In spite of everything, éadha had room for a flash of wonder at the sight of all this plenty laid out in the normally bare kitchen.
Mounds of luscious red strawberries, heaps of shining nectarines and grapes, all channeled by Master Growers, so the air was filled with the tang of fruit and the warm smell of freshly baked loaves and pastries.
It was more food than she’d ever seen; despite herself, her mouth began to water at the scents and sights around her.
Not, she thought, that any of this plenty was for her or the villagers outside.
It was too rare a thing for that. Rather, it was for today’s real guests, the Masters and the Families gathered in the Great Hall at the center of the Keep, all come to see if the Ailm Family would still be one of them by the end of the day.
Magret was steering her through the chaos, on toward the tunnel of dragonglass that connected the kitchen to the main Keep.
It was lit now by flickering candles set in dips in the marble floor along each side of the tunnel, their flames reflecting in the thick, wavy glass above.
About halfway down Magret paused, looking first up and down the tunnel before leaning in to éadha and whispering, “Have you your thought-wall in place?”
éadha frowned then nodded. “Yes.”
“Master Dathin will only be inches away when he reckons Ionáin. You need to be sure.”
“I’m sure, all right?” éadha interrupted. “Anyway, he’ll be focused on reckoning Ionáin—”
“Yes, but he’s so powerful…”
éadha’s expression was stony as she replied, biting out every word, “My. Wall. Will. Hold.”
Magret stepped back a little, her eyes widening at éadha’s sudden ferocity. After a brief moment, she nodded once, abruptly. “Very well. We should get into position.”
They continued on down the tunnel without another word.
Everything feels wrong today, éadha thought as they reached the end of the tunnel where it opened out into the Great Hall beyond.
Leaving Ionáin up in his room being forced into those awful robes.
Those ghouls out in the courtyard waiting to see if he’d fail.
All that food in the kitchen and none of it for the underfed people who actually lived in the Keep.
And now the Great Hall. For as long as she’d known it, it’d been a dimly lit, empty space with maybe just a single fire smoldering in one of the slate fireplaces that lined the wall, the wolfhounds asleep in a pile in front of it.
Today, though, it was bright with the light of hundreds of candles and overflowing with people and noise.
Directly in front of her rose one of the great yew trunks that held up the ceiling of the Great Hall, garlanded for the ceremony in fresh pine branches.
An ironbound spiral staircase wound around the trunk up toward the walkways that crossed the higher levels of the hall, lit candles set into each step.
Meanwhile, the flickering light from the bonfires outside shone in through the row of windows at the end of the Great Hall, bringing to life their stained-glass images: scenes of long-ago battles between dragons and Channellers, golden sunflowers being coaxed from the soil by a Channeller’s power, porcelain-white buildings towering above the tiny figures of the Channellers raising them.
In the center of the hall stood a wooden stage, a dais built specially for the Reckoning ceremony. The other members of the choir were already beginning to climb its steps, and Magret hurried on ahead to join them.
Directly in front of the platform, éadha could see small groups of the most important guests: the Channellers were marked out by the silver brooches on their tunics or cloaks, their Keepers by a wide silver wristband.
All the Channellers present were men, forbidding in the absolute security of their power.
Their Keepers, the holders of their power, almost all of them women, stood a little behind.
Some of the Channellers were heads of Great Families, dressed in rich cloaks and furs, while others wore the simple gray marking them out as a Lambay Master.
They were men who spent their lives on the islands of Lambay training the next generations of gifted youngsters, securing the Channellers’ rule over Domhain as they’d done for four centuries now.
Dotted among them were a few who wore the black of dragon-slayers.
If Ionáin passed his Reckoning, the gray-clad men would be his tutors for the next two years, each one a master of his art, the most powerful Architects, Growers, Illusionists, and dragon-slayers on all of Domhain.
If he failed, they’d be the ones deciding who got Ailm’s Keep after his Family was cast out.
Among them moved Lord Aedan, Ionáin’s father, tall and dark-haired, with the slim build Ionáin had inherited from him, dressed for the ceremony in the Ailm Family colors of silver and blue.
He quietly greeted each person, bowing deferentially to the Masters and the Channellers.
éadha saw, though, how they reacted to him: glancing at him and then away as if the very sight of him embarrassed them.
That’d been his life, she thought, ever since the day he failed his Reckoning almost twenty-five years ago, setting his Family on the path that led to today and his son’s own Reckoning.
Their Family’s final chance to prove the gift hadn’t died out in their bloodline.