Chapter 6
Spring rain fell softly overnight, warming the frozen earth, filling the gardens with the rush of meltwater. The ice on the lake cracked, and inside the Keep, the final preparations began before the sun had even risen above the horizon.
Ionáin’s Reckoning day had arrived.
éadha spent the night sleepless, staring up at the ceiling of her loft.
After another chilly afternoon in the forest with Magret, she’d finally come by the trick of creating a strong thought-wall.
How to fire a small spark from within herself, drawn from belly to heart, using it to power a mental barrier woven of thoughts and memories.
Now as she lay in her bed, unable to sleep, she methodically bricked in her power behind a thought-wall, though she could still feel it, her silver fish flickering in the depths of her.
Above her the rain had stopped, and the stars visible through her loft window were beginning to fade.
It wasn’t long now until sunrise. She pushed herself upright and thought of Ionáin looking out at the same sky.
Of all the times she’d woken at this hour in his room over the years, back when she’d been his scáth, his shadow.
It started because of the nightmares, the ones that began after a visit from Huath when he was eight years old and his uncle had gleefully explained to his small, worried nephew exactly what was going to happen if he and Dara failed their Reckonings.
How the Family’s entire fate rested on them passing.
For years after that, barely a night went by without Ionáin waking soaked in sweat and screaming from some nightmare of a failed Reckoning.
Of the Masters turning away from him, shaking their heads sternly, of soldiers hammering on the doors of the Keep, come to remove him and his Family from their home.
úra, though, had been more focused on caring for Dara, driven by the unspoken belief their firstborn son was the Family’s better chance.
That they needed him more. So Béithe had made up a small bed for éadha on the rug in front of Ionáin’s fire so at least he wouldn’t be alone when he woke screaming in terror.
He’d listen for her soft breathing as she lay there by the fireplace and, reassured, drift off to sleep again.
On the very worst nights, when sleep deserted him completely, she’d climb in behind him, resting a hand on his back, and together they’d watch the stars fade outside and the sun climb above the horizon.
Two small souls, finding a home in each other the rest of the world wasn’t inclined to give them.
éadha’s throat caught as she sat there, thinking of him alone in that room now.
How lonely, she thought, to know in his bones at the moment of his Reckoning that his Family had never seen him as anything other than a means to an end.
Not a person, never even really a boy, only ever their last hope.
She knew then she had to go to him. To let him know there was at least one person he mattered to, no matter what happened today.
So she pulled on her cloak, hoisted herself out through the loft window, ran to the oak tree, and climbed up to Ionáin’s window where he let her in, to sit on the window ledge and listen to him try to find some bleak humor in it all while deep inside her power twisted.
In rage, in frustration at this self-imposed helplessness, at the impossible price of her vow to Magret.
How could she leave this boy she loved more than anyone else on this earth and not fight for him with everything she had?
And then it was too late. Béithe was there hustling her back out, and then everything seemed to happen in a blur of short, unstoppable moments, each one following the next until there was nothing left for éadha to do but to take her place in the front row of the choir, her heart already hammering, the blood pounding in her ears as their voices rose in song to begin the ceremony.
To watch as Ionáin, his face drawn but determined and so heartbreakingly beautiful, came down the spiral staircase to stand in front of Master Dathin.
To see the hope mixed with terror etched on his face as Dathin gripped either side of his head and he closed his eyes, accepting his fate—and feel in that moment how all the air seemed to go out of the hall, as if every person in the room was holding their breath in desperate anticipation.
To be the only one still watching when the frown appeared on Master Dathin’s face as he searched Ionáin’s mind and realized he wasn’t finding the gift he’d come expecting to see.
To understand, as her heart began hammering in her chest, this was it. That it was happening—the worst thing. Any second now, Dathin was going to drop his hands, shaking his head, and it’d be the end of everything.
And in the end, it wasn’t really a choice because, after all, she couldn’t, she couldn’t leave Ionáin there to fail, alone before the world.
She could see the thread leading to him, shining in her mind’s eye, right in front of her.
So, quietly, instinctively, she opened her palm to touch Ionáin’s robe in front of her, and she focused on the power buried deep inside her, the molten core of her gift, so that from belly to heart her power surged.
But this time, instead of earthing it in a thought-wall as Magret had taught her, she threw open the doors of her heart, urging it on out of her toward Ionáin.
Released from behind her wall, her gift flew, rocketing out of her along the link from her palm into Ionáin.
She felt it steady him, fill him. She poured all of her love, all of their shared life into him and saw Master Dathin’s head shoot up then in astonishment before he dropped his hands to his sides and turned, beaming, to the assembled crowd to shout the formal words of finding.
“Rejoice, all of you! For the gift is with this young man. May all his days be filled with power, and may all who hear this give of their strength freely that his power might be great, to the glory of his days and of Domhain!”
An enormous cheer rose through the Great Hall, resounding to the domed ceiling above while Magret swept the choir into the “Song of Rejoicing.”
éadha, meanwhile, had dropped her link to Ionáin as soon as the Master’s head went up.
And if anyone had been watching her, they’d have seen her eyes widen in shock as she stared down at her empty palm.
They’d have seen her voice fail so she could only mouth along the words as her mind caught up with what her heart had chosen.
As it hit her what she’d just done, what she could never now undo.
But no one was watching, and no one saw éadha’s shock because every eye in the place was on the golden-haired boy radiant with relief. As éadha watched, Ionáin’s parents stepped forward, kissing him on each cheek, followed by members of the wider Family.
Then Master Dathin formally summoned Ionáin to Lambay.
“Ionáin, of the Family Ailm. You have been reckoned and found gifted. In the name of the Masters of Lambay, upon whose authority I speak, I hereby requisition you as one gifted in the ways of channeling, to report to Lambay soonest, there to be trained in its arts.”
As she watched with growing horror while Master Dathin told the world Ionáin was gifted, all éadha could think was that it’d been such a small thing, what she’d done.
A reaching out to her friend. But now even as she watched, it was growing huge.
Bigger than her, bigger than Ionáin, her little lie becoming fact, the foundation stone for a new reality where everyone believed Ionáin was gifted and the Keep was saved.
It was all going too fast, and she wanted to scream to them all, “Stop!” but in the same moment she couldn’t.
The word wouldn’t come. She couldn’t do it, not in front of them all like this, exposing Ionáin, exposing herself.
It was all going too fast; she needed to think; she couldn’t think, there in the heart of it all as the choir sang and the crowd cheered.
The formal words spoken, the festivities could finally begin.
In front of her éadha saw Ionáin’s mother directing him toward the long line of guests pressing forward to congratulate him, each one to be greeted and thanked.
Meanwhile, she stood invisible in the choir as it sang on, songs of praise and thanksgiving.
Nothing about ending or regret, she thought, no gesture toward the innocence soon to be lost in the brutality hidden at the heart of the Channeller’s art.
It was only and all about the power, the getting and the glory of it.
At the entrance to the West Wing, Master Dathin’s Keeper took up position beside Treasa, the two women nodding coolly to each other before concentrating on their Channellers’ calls.
So began a display of the Channellers’ art as hadn’t been seen in the Keep in a generation, as Dathin and Huath each sought, genially and with impeccable manners, to outdo the other.
Children were lifted and swept up to the ceiling, shrieking in terrified delight.
Rainbows arced from one end of the Great Hall to the other, only to dissolve into multicolored raindrops that evaporated before they could touch the elegant outfits of the guests below.
Images of dragons were chased by hunters across the ceiling; fragile snowdrops opened their petals at the guests’ feet.
At last, the songs were done and éadha released.
Seeing this, Ionáin came rushing over, catching her up in an enormous bear hug and twirling her around.
In all their life together she’d never seen Ionáin as he was in that moment: blazing with such relief and happiness he seemed to shine.
Setting her down, his arms tightened around her, one hand flattening into the small of her back so she was pressed against him as he whispered in her ear, “I want to kiss you so much right now,” and éadha felt a shiver go through her body at the hunger in his voice, the brush of his lips against her ear.
He pulled back and looked her in the eyes, his own so endlessly blue in the golden were-light.
“You’ll wait for me? When I’m away on Lambay?
Everyone says the time goes quickly; two years and a few dragons, then I’ll be home again… ”
This was her chance, there in the still center of the Great Hall.
She could see it almost as if it were happening, as if she’d split in two, and one part of her was taking him by the arm and leading him out into the courtyard.
Out there it’d be chilly and quiet, just the two of them alone together.
She’d look into his eyes and tell him what really happened in those flashing moments up there on the dais.
How her power had flowed into him so just for that moment, her gift became his gift and then Master Dathin declared him a Channeller.
But there the vision stopped, and her heart failed her.
Even in her mind’s eye she couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t make herself picture the joy on his face dying as she told him that in the very crisis of his life she’d made a lie of him, of who he was.
So, after all, she didn’t speak, there in the still center of the crowd, only hugging him back instead. The next instant Ionáin was gone, swept away on a wave of well-wishers cheering his gift and his name.