Chapter 2 #2
She’d stopped going to the lessons at the same time she’d moved out of the Keep and into her uncle’s cottage—after Dara died, his father powerless to help him and no Channeller near enough to be able to save him, and everything changed.
There was a short silence between them while éadha watched Cú doing a lap of the plateau, going back again to sniff the wolf spoor.
Beside her she felt Ionáin digging into his pockets as if he were looking for something.
Then he poked her hip and, when she turned toward him, waggled his closed fist at her.
“Put out your hand and close your eyes.”
As she did, he dropped something hard and smooth into her hand.
As soon as she held it, before she even saw it, she knew it for what it was.
In the sunlight it glowed with veins of red and gold, too-bright colors for a winter-bleached hillside.
It was an amber shard no bigger than her cupped palm, a model of the White Tower of Erisen.
Tiny windows and arches all picked out on the smooth amber, as immaculate as it’d been the moment it was channeled by Ionáin’s great-grandfather a century ago.
He’d been a Master Architect, one of the greatest of his age, and had channeled this model as a toy for his grandchildren.
She stared at it for a moment then looked down at Ionáin. “Won’t your parents mind?”
He shrugged. “You know Father—he won’t care. And I doubt Mother would notice if I took an actual building as long as it wasn’t needed for the ceremony.”
“I don’t need a birthday present, you know. Truly.”
“We’ve been over this. I know you don’t need a present.
I want to give you a present.” He poked her in the hip again.
“You really are the worst person to try and be nice to, you know. Just so we’re clear: your proud independence is in no way compromised by this spontaneous giving of a gift that will not incur a debt of any kind toward me.
So go on, like we practiced. Just say thank you. ”
“But you’ll get into trouble.”
“Try it, go on, just for fun. Thank you, Ionáin. Thaaaank you.”
She looked across at him, his tawny, tangled hair full of burrs, his blue eyes laughing up at her from under his hand. Accepted the sudden clench of happiness that pushed her up onto her feet, where she gave an exaggerated bow from the waist with a broad smile and said, “Thaaaank you, kind sir.”
Ionáin scrambled to his feet, too, laughing.
Now he was standing in front of her on the ledge.
He swirled his hand as éadha began straightening up to face him, then said in his most pompous voice, “You’re most welcome, my lady.
And happy birthday,” before leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, but in the same instant, éadha lifted her head so that instead his lips dragged softly down the skin of her cheek and brushed her mouth.
And on that frozen rocky outcrop high above the Keep, everything stopped as the two friends pulled back and stared at each other.
He hadn’t planned to do it; éadha could tell by the shock on his face.
He’d just been caught up in the joke. But when his lips touched hers it hadn’t felt like a joke.
It felt as though he’d just swung open her heart, and now the space inside her was five times greater than it’d been before.
And he felt it too; she could see it in his eyes as the shock in them faded, replaced by a question.
A question her heart already knew the answer to.
For it was truth, that kiss. It made no sense, and she knew there was no room for it in his world.
But it was truth, and her heart wouldn’t let her deny it, not now he’d set it alight.
So she looked him in the eye and kissed him back, another soft brush across his lips.
And they were so warm and alive that she wanted only to be kissing him still.
But Ionáin flushed bright red and stepped back a little.
“Happy birthday,” he said again for there not to be a silence.
“Yes,” she said, and it was her turn for her cheeks to burn red as her mind caught up with what her heart had just done.
They both sat down again, though closer now, their hips almost touching, facing outward as the heat on their faces slowly cooled, and never in her life had éadha been more aware of another person than she was of Ionáin in that moment.
And though she knew him better than she knew anyone else, it felt like she was seeing him for the first time.
The line of his hip, inches away from her own.
The warm flush on his cheeks. His slender fingers resting on his knees, drawn up against the chill.
A shiver went through her suddenly at the thought of those same fingers touching her.
But even though reaching across that tiny space between them would’ve been the most normal thing in the world just seconds ago, now it felt like an impossibility. Because he’d kissed her but he’d also stepped back, and she didn’t know what to do.
Between them, the silence began to stretch until, in the distance, a solitary rider appeared on the avenue leading toward the Keep. Behind him, a cart followed.
Beside her, éadha sensed Ionáin stiffen. Glancing sideways, she saw he was glaring down at the rider. Quietly she said, “Red doublet, packages tied on the back. Spices for the feast?”
“Silk. More of the finest Erisen silk. Can’t have enough silk for a Reckoning,” said Ionáin, hunching his shoulders.
“It’s from the De Lane Family. Their son, Senan, passed two months ago, and they’ve been crowing about it ever since.
He’ll be one of the strongest apprentices this year, though one of the First Families have a son turning seventeen too.
Gry. Their Channellers are always really powerful. ”
Beside him, éadha took a deep breath, willing the new, unfamiliar tension out of her body, before going on. “How about the cart with the two big bundles getting stuck halfway up the lane?”
Ionáin rolled his eyes. “Feather beds for the Debruin cousins. We’d be shamed for all eternity if Lady Ferne sleeps on a lumpy mattress.”
“Blue with a yellow stripe, single rider on a fast horse?”
Ionáin sat forward abruptly when éadha said that, staring down at the new rider who’d just appeared on the lane.
“Those are the Manon Family colors. His twins, Coll and Linn, passed their Reckonings when they turned seventeen last month. Linn’s the first girl in five years to pass as a Channeller.
That must be Lord Manon accepting Father’s invitation.
As if any of them would miss the show of the year.
Come all, see the young lord bring glory or ruin to the once noble Ailms. If he fails, you can say you were there for the great fall of a Family. ”
Turning toward him, éadha held out the amber tower on the flat of her palm.
“But if you pass, you’ll be able to do this.
And go there,” she said, gesturing toward the Blackstairs and all that lay beyond: the white city of Erisen with its marble towers and the islands of Lambay where the Masters had trained generations of young Channellers for four hundred years.
Ionáin said nothing. It was the one thing he wouldn’t talk about, even with her. What’d happen if he passed. éadha understood. He couldn’t let himself think it. It meant too much.
As the Manon rider disappeared into the Keep, the silence between them turned heavier, and éadha could feel Ionáin slipping away from her, further away from that one shining moment they’d shared.
“I’d better go down,” he said, not meeting her eyes as he climbed to his feet. “They’ll be looking for me, to tell me about the Manon letter.”
As he stood, she wanted to put out her hand to him, as if she could somehow reach past all these things pulling him back into his world.
But it was too new, too wordless, the feeling that’d swung open in her heart when their lips met.
She didn’t have the words yet to try to hold him, only the longing he wouldn’t go.
So she said nothing, just nodding as Ionáin jumped lightly to the ground.
Raising a hand behind him in farewell, he disappeared down the slope, Cú loping devotedly alongside him. éadha hadn’t the heart to call the wolfhound back. She’d get the sheep down on her own.
Instead of making a start on it, though, she sat on, staring at the spot where Ionáin and Cú had disappeared as the sun faded behind the hills and the mist reclaimed its old ground.
It felt colder with them gone, the chill needling through her layers, but still she didn’t move, her hand cupping her chin so her fingertips were touching the spot where Ionáin had kissed her.
It’d only been a few seconds, but she could remember every curve and dip of his lips where they’d brushed against hers.
The heat of it and the sense of something new coming alive.
It was almost dark when she finally roused herself to begin rounding up the flock for the long trudge back down the fell. But as she started a head count, she heard a panicked bleat from the far side of the hill by the drop down to the quarry. Breaking into a run, she raced toward the sound.
As she sprinted, ahead of her she heard the rushing sound of stones giving way, followed by the flat thump of a body hitting rock.
She skidded to a stop, only just keeping her own balance on the loose stones, and peered down.
The yearling must’ve wandered too close to the edge and slid right off the shale, over the drop.
It’d been saved only by a narrow outcrop that jutted out about six feet down.
Now it was lying on the ledge, unmoving but still breathing, winded by its fall.
Directly beneath it were the steep pits of the quarry.
As soon as it tried to move, it would surely topple over the edge and fall to its death.
Throwing herself down flat on her stomach, éadha strained downward toward the trapped animal, stretching her staff out as far as it went, trying to hook the creature’s neck.
But it was just out of reach. She needed to get closer.
Cautiously she inched forward over the loose shale, but as soon as she did the stones began to gather speed beneath her.
She only just managed to push herself out of the rush as a hail of pebbles went tumbling down, clattering off the ledge below.
Her heart thudding with the terror of almost going over the edge, she dropped her head. “Stupid, stupid, how could I be so stupid?”
Sitting there mooning over one impossible kiss while the animals she was supposed to be minding went wandering off. How could she lose one so cheaply with food always short? They’d all be so disappointed in her—her uncle, Ionáin’s father, even Ionáin. No. She couldn’t bear it. She wouldn’t bear it.
Even as she thought that, she seemed to feel an echo of the sensation she’d felt earlier when she’d kissed Ionáin, of something within her coming to life.
It was almost completely dark, winter’s night coming on quickly as she lay there on the gravel, the first lights shining up from the village below.
Jamming one hand under a tiny outcrop for a grip, her arm shaking with the effort of clinging on, she swung out over empty air, trying again to reach the yearling.
The rush of the air beneath her brought her back to the silent swoop of the morning’s falcon.
Hanging there, half suspended in darkness, the world about her seemed to narrow to a falcon’s flight.
In that moment she became the hunter. A creature of instinct, hunting for the power she so desperately needed, and there, from one heartbeat to the next, there it was.
A living silver thread, shining out in the darkness.
Even as she saw it, beyond thought she knew the way of it, reaching out with her awareness for that silver thread and pulling it hard into her.
As she did, the world went white around her, then snapped back to black as inside her head a star exploded.
Life filled her, shining, pulsating life pouring into every cell of her until she must surely burst with the effort of holding it in.
She let go of her handhold, dropping fast and hard through the winter night to land on the narrow ledge where the sheep lay.
It was just starting to come around. She caught it up with one hand.
Panic-stricken, it kicked every part of her, fighting to get free.
But she gripped it easily, impossibly, and climbed with it back up the vertical cliff.
Not until she’d reached the fell top once more did her knees buckle, the shining energy that’d poured into her suddenly spent.
She collapsed onto the shale at the cliff edge, the sheep writhing out of her arms and scrambling, bleating, back to the herd.
For a moment she lay there, panting, staring up at the dark sky where the constellation of the Sídhe, the Old Ones, had appeared low on the horizon.
Her mind was strangely calm, as if what she’d done had happened on a level below conscious thought, and she hadn’t caught up yet with its simple impossibility.
But the sheep were milling about anxiously.
There was nothing for it but to haul herself carefully back up onto the grass and shepherd the flock on down the fell side, the dark path between the starlight and the firelight.