Chapter 8 #2
From inside éadha there came a galvanic kick as her own power lit up inside her in recognition, and she would’ve bowed to the great beast, but already from behind her there were guards’ voices shouting, “Get down! Get down!”
With a sweep of its wings, the dragon immediately shot upward, wheeling about as it rose. Clenching her fist, éadha killed her were-light with a thought.
As it flew up, Lord Huath’s guards came racing over the top of the ridge and scrambled down to the water’s edge, readying their bows.
Lord Huath appeared at a run behind them and laid his hands on their arrows, power flowing from him until they glowed red and shot high into the blue sky, bulleting after the disappearing shape of the dragon.
But the dragon was already away, shooting up and over the next peak, lost from sight.
Lord Huath cursed, grabbing a bow and loosing one last arrow straight up into the sky so it plummeted into the lake, the waters bubbling and hissing with the heat of its passage.
“Did you see? The bitch was heavy; she must be due soon. We’ll have to send a hunting party,” he shouted.
There was a new urgency now as they began their descent.
Huath had to stay with the party while they were still in the mountains, but as soon as they reached the relative safety of the foothills, he and Treasa galloped on ahead to Erisen to assemble a full hunting party to try to kill the she-dragon before she could hatch her brood.
He was in his element, a fierce joy in him now the hunt was on.
All Channellers spent at least a year on the western borders after they’d won their staves on Lambay, patrolling for dragons, raiding out onto the islands to keep their numbers down.
It was difficult, dangerous work, for the dragons were cunning and ferocious, savage fighters when defending their colonies.
Huath had stayed on in Westport for years, and tales of his skill and ruthlessness as a hunter were legion.
With Huath gone, the mood in the group relaxed. They made good time, striking camp in the early evening, and as they were preparing to turn in, Ionáin picked up his bedroll and crossed over to éadha and Magret’s side of the campfire.
“Do you mind?” he said to Magret with a smile, nodding back to where the guardsmen were already settled into their bedrolls. “Everyone’s getting a little ripe on that side after a few days’ riding.”
“Of course, my lord,” said Magret, her tone polite, if a little wary.
Ionáin dropped his bedroll to the right of éadha.
It was the first time he’d been this close to her since the party in the Great Hall after his Reckoning.
But even though he hadn’t been near her, she’d still felt connected to him ever since that moment on the dais when she’d given him her power.
Now as he sat down beside her, she had the sense of everything being doubled, a kind of shadow bond beyond sight, mirroring the real, physical awareness of him.
He was still dressed in his riding leathers, the narrow-fitting pants tucked into his riding boots and his cloak pulled around him as he stretched his hands out toward the campfire.
Glancing across at her as he sat down, he said with a grin, “You look very calm for someone who was only just saved from being incinerated by a dragon earlier.”
éadha gave a small laugh before saying with a shake of her head, “She wasn’t going to hurt me.”
“What was it like?” Ionáin said, and then more quietly, “Truly?”
She looked across at him and in the same quiet voice said, “She was beautiful. They leave that part out of all the stories. How beautiful they are.”
In her mind she saw once more the sunlight glittering on the dragon’s scales as it dipped its head into the lake, and heard the single word it had called her as it reared up. Mahera. No one had ever told her dragons could speak.
“I’m sorry I missed your Reckoning,” said Ionáin then. “I was all set to go, but Mother said I shouldn’t be hanging about down in the village now I’m going to be a Channeller. I didn’t want to fight with her when I was leaving so soon.”
éadha looked at him. “It’s fine, don’t worry.”
“What was it like being reckoned by Huath?”
“Very strong,” said éadha, “but, after all, it’s only a keeping gift. It didn’t take him long to see it.”
Ionáin frowned. “Don’t say ‘only.’ I know it isn’t as strong as a Channeller’s—as my—gift, but you know how rare it is to have power at all outside the Families. And it means we might even be paired together with you as my Keeper. Like Erisen and Bríd.”
éadha’s heart thudded, but she kept her voice light as she replied, “If I remember rightly, Bríd sacrificed her life for Erisen in the final battle with the dragon Kaanesien. I wasn’t planning on dying for you.”
Ionáin laughed. “Hmm. I’ll have to tell the Head Keeper. ‘Keeper has attitude problem, lacks willingness to die for me.’ ”
éadha tilted her head back and laughed up at the star-filled sky, loud enough that one of the sleeping guards opposite stirred drowsily before turning over. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed this, the normality of Ionáin teasing her. He grinned before going on.
“Seriously, though, éadha, it’s going to be so much fun from everything Huath’s told me.
Giant halls just for creating illusions, combat yards and handball alleys for training, these huge studios where we’ll channel buildings out of stone, greenhouses where we’ll learn to channel every kind of fruit and plant there’s ever been.
I’ll be flying within the year, actually flying, can you believe that?
Huath said Second Island’s wilder than anything I can imagine, though Mother shushed him, saying we have to respect the Stages. ”
As he finished, Magret, who’d been sitting quietly listening to their chat, climbed to her feet.
“I’ll fetch our bedrolls,” she said to éadha.
“We should turn in soon.” And she headed over to where their horses were tethered for the night, on the other side of the rocks their party was sheltering against. Across the campfire, the guardsmen were all asleep already.
Left to themselves, the silence between éadha and Ionáin deepened, becoming charged as they both stared into the flames.
At the same time, éadha sensed the silver thread binding her to Ionáin grow taut, glimmering with the reflected intensity between them now.
After a little while Ionáin said quietly, “I’ve always wanted this.
More than anything. To be of use. Save my Family. ”
éadha nodded, staring straight ahead.
Ionáin shifted around to look directly at her, lifting his hand to catch her cheek and turn her face to look at him. In the firelight, his eyes were dark and his cheekbones shadowed as he studied her. “What I’m trying to say is I’ve always known I have to serve my Family. But you are mine.”
éadha felt her breathing grow shallow as his eyes roved over her face.
There was a fierceness and a clarity to him she’d never seen before.
She could feel it in the roughness of his fingertips where they pressed into the hollow of her cheek, holding her there even though there was nowhere else she wanted to be.
“Everything else of me they get. Everything but this. You. You are my one thing.”
With soft but irresistible pressure, his hand pulled her even closer, tilting her face up toward his so she felt his breath on her lips before his mouth descended on hers.
It was their first real kiss, and it had all the pent-up urgency of all the days since the fell, of the longing that’d built inside them since then.
Ionáin’s mouth on hers now was hard, demanding, full of an urgent desire as his lips crushed hers, claiming her in the few moments they had before Magret returned.
Her lips parted beneath his, kissing him back fiercely, and there was between them the same jolt as when their lips first touched on the fell, only this time they were ready for it, hungry for it.
At the same time, in her mind’s eye, éadha could feel the silver thread between them thrumming with the intensity of their connection, filling her head until she almost couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything but this moment.
And the sweetness of it, of finally letting go, letting themselves just feel and touch each other, quickly deepened, became something more intense.
As if the release of all that longing had only triggered another, deeper hunger inside them.
Ionáin leaned closer, his hand sliding behind her head to hold the nape of her neck, burrowing his fingers into her heavy curls, gripping them softly and pressing her closer.
éadha’s hands came up, in turn, to hold his face, glorying in finally being able to touch him.
Feeling the angular planes of his cheekbones under her fingers, her thumb stroking the softness around his mouth as he kissed her deeper and deeper still.
Desire roared up inside her, fierce and bright, like the sun flashing on the dragon’s wings earlier.
But from behind them came the sound of Magret’s footsteps, crunching across the stony soil.
Immediately they released each other, turning back to sit facing the fire as Magret reached them, though Ionáin left his hand by his side so he was just touching her fingers where they rested on the ground out of Magret’s sight.
Crouching, Magret began unrolling her bedding on the other side of éadha.
Taking the hint, Ionáin climbed to his feet to move a polite distance away from the two women.
éadha could still see him in the glow of the embers as he lay down, his forearm resting across his forehead as he stared up at the sky.
She lay back herself, unable to sleep, her body still flushed and restless as she stared up at the stars, too, and listened out for the sound of Ionáin’s soft breathing, so close by and yet just out of reach.
She was riding into the heart of the great lie that channeling was built on. A lie of power without price. And into that big lie she was bringing her own smaller lie: that the beautiful boy she’d loved her whole life was powerful too.
But in return for that lie, she was sleeping alongside Ionáin beneath the stars, she’d crossed the Blackstairs’ icy peaks, and a dragon had spoken to her beside a shining lake. That was enough and more than enough for now.