Chapter 1 #3
As she watched Ionáin’s father move among the crowd, it dawned on her the hall’s unfamiliar brightness was coming not just from the hundreds of candles below but from golden were-lights circling far above them, just beneath the dome of the hall.
Tilting her head back to stare up at them, she let out a small gasp of wonder and fear.
Wonder at the impossibility of those small yellow flames flying through the high air.
Fear in remembrance of the only other time she’d seen lights like these in this hall, just two days before.
éadha looked down again to see it was indeed the same man channeling these were-lights.
Lord Huath. Ionáin’s uncle, and the most powerful, most cruel Channeller on all of Domhain.
His white-blond hair unmistakable as he stood a little to one side of the dais, his pale eyes scanning the crowd while his right hand moved almost idly, keeping the were-lights flying above them all.
Beside him stood his Keeper, Treasa, a distant look in her eyes as she funneled Huath’s power, her fingers moving like someone working the threads of a loom.
She knew Huath didn’t need Treasa to be able to use power, but since the early days of channeling, Channellers had used Keepers to marshal their strength for them.
As she fought down her nausea at the sight of Huath, a murmur ran through the crowd. Lady úra had appeared at the top of the spiral staircase nearest Ionáin’s room. He was ready. It was time.
éadha slipped around the back of the stage, clambering up and pushing through the choir to her spot in the middle of the front row.
She’d made sure of it during rehearsal, once she’d worked out it’d be the one closest to Ionáin during his Reckoning.
Magret gave her a sharp look, but there was no time for anything else.
Lady úra had reached her place, and now Master Dathin, Ionáin’s Reckoner, was climbing the steps to stand on the stage just in front of éadha.
The senior Master on Lambay, he’d traveled all the way from the islands specially for Ionáin’s Reckoning.
It was not every day, after all, that the fate of a Family hung in the balance.
As Dathin took up his position just in front of éadha, silence spread across the Great Hall, stilling conversations and rippling outward into the courtyard where the villagers waited, wordless now too.
Ionáin appeared at the top of the stairwell, and with a sweep of her arm, Magret gestured to the choir to begin.
Their voices rose into the still air as he began his slow descent of the spiral staircase, his steps matching the beat of the first canto.
éadha watched as he reached the last step and walked through the crowd, his pace unwavering and his head erect, the gold of his hair catching the candlelight as he made his way up onto the dais until, with perfect timing long rehearsed, he turned to face the Master in the moment the choir fell silent.
Master Dathin was a bear of a man, bearded and massive in his heavy cloak pinned by a clasp in the shape of a silver dragon, marking him as a dragon-slayer.
Even in his Reckoning robes, Ionáin looked heartbreakingly slender beside him, his face gone paper-white with the strain.
Without a word, the Master placed his hands on either side of Ionáin’s head, preparing to step into his mind.
To éadha, invisible in the choir but just inches away from where they both stood facing each other in front of her, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the hall.
She watched as Dathin’s huge hands gripped each side of Ionáin’s face with a hold that couldn’t be broken until the Reckoning was over. This was it.
As the ritual demanded, the entire congregation bent their heads, the one concession to privacy for the young man on the dais before them.
Every one of them except éadha, who kept her eyes fixed on Ionáin, standing there in Dathin’s grip.
She saw his eyes widen and knew he was feeling the shock of the Master entering his mind.
Involuntarily he stepped back a little before steadying himself, closing his eyes and holding himself still as he’d been trained to do.
Still watching, éadha saw it—a small frown beginning to appear on Dathin’s face.
His brows furrowed, as if searching further for something he thought he’d sense right away.
The silence in the Great Hall began to stretch thin.
éadha’s heart started to hammer in her chest. She knew Ionáin must have power, but she knew him so well—in times of stress his instinct would be to go still, to go deep.
His gift could be hidden deep within him.
If he’d the true Reckoner’s skill, Master Dathin would surely eventually find it, but what if he mistook it?
What if he took it for a weak gift not worth cultivating or for the lesser power of a Keeper?
Anything less than a hallelujah in this moment would surely break Ionáin’s heart.
But still Master Dathin frowned. He wasn’t finding it, this gift he’d come expecting to find.
And éadha realized it was happening, right there in front of her.
The worst thing. The thing she’d never allowed herself to think might really happen.
Any moment now, Dathin was going to drop his hands and step back, shaking his head, and that’d be it.
The end. Of Ionáin’s dream of saving them all, of his Family, of Ailm’s Keep, of the only life she’d ever known.
And she understood that she couldn’t—she could not—let this happen.
She couldn’t abandon Ionáin, the person she loved most in all the world, to this fate.
And so instead, in that moment she opened her heart and made the most fateful decision of her life.
One that was to change her life, Ionáin’s life, and the life of every person in the Great Hall that day.
One that would, in the end, change the very fate of Domhain itself.