Chapter 9
The east wind whipped the waves into white tops that curled and collapsed at their feet as éadha and Ionáin stood, staring out to Lambay First Island.
Magret had left their party earlier that morning as they passed the gates of Erisen while Huath’s guards sat on their mounts behind them on the sand, waiting until they crossed to First Island before they departed.
The island’s shoreline was densely wooded, the only sign of human habitation a narrow stone dock directly opposite where they stood.
As they watched, a gray figure appeared.
He walked up to the water’s edge holding a yew staff out in front of him, and after a few moments, there came the massive, grinding sound of tons of rocks lifting themselves from the seabed to form a slender stone walkway running from shore to dock.
Water poured off the rocks as they settled inches above the waves.
From behind them a deep voice spoke. “Come along. The way won’t stay raised long.”
It was a second man, also wrapped in Master’s gray, riding up to them on a silver cob, followed by three other riders.
All three looked about seventeen, but there was no time for introductions as the Master was urging them to keep going, onto the landbridge.
Ionáin and éadha swung up onto their horses to follow them, picking their way gingerly across the stones, which were slick and slippery.
éadha’s mount was nervous, whinnying as waves splashed across the path and hit her legs, and it was a relief when they reached the dock, where Ionáin leaned in and whispered, nodding toward the man who’d raised the landbridge, “That’s Master Irial.
Uncle Huath told me he always meets the new apprentices.
He used to be in charge of Westport postings until he got badly burned saving a Keeper from a dragon. ”
“Welcome, apprentices,” said the Master in a clear, ringing voice. “I’m Irial, and this is Master Odhran. You’re the last of the new class to arrive. Now come.”
With that, he swung up onto his own mount and led them onto a curving path that climbed steeply away from the jetty, up under the trees, with Master Odhran following them.
éadha thought she glimpsed a wagon similar to Huath’s Fodder wagon behind some bushes, but it didn’t follow them.
As they rode, the roar of wind and waves faded.
It was so quiet she could hear birdsong and the muffled clop of hooves on the matted forest floor.
Here and there they saw the remains of fantastical buildings half fallen in, branches threaded through what once were windows, roots snaking down crumbling stairs.
After a short climb they reached the end of the tree line, where the ground fell away beneath them into a deep half valley that flowed out into a sandy bay.
On either side, forest stretched down to the sea, while before them a carpet of grass unrolled down the hillside to fetch up against the walls of First House, cupped in the valley and facing away from them out to sea.
On their ride across the plains of Rath, Ionáin had told her how First House was channeled originally by Erisen the First Channeller before being made over to the Masters as a training school in the shattered years after the Channeller wars.
A hulking gray building raised to withstand winter storms, it formed a long rectangle with narrow outstretched wings at either end, creating a sheltered space between the House and the valley side.
Nestled there éadha could see south-facing greenhouses, while at the northern end, still deep in shadow, were handball alleys and battle-yards for combat training.
Staring down at its great gray walls, éadha felt her stomach clench in fear.
This wasn’t a place to be bargained with or withheld from.
In its terrible strength, it demanded her soul.
She wanted to turn and run, back through the forest, across the landbridge, and not stop running until she was back in her aunt and uncle’s cottage, sitting by the fire, listening to them weaving a day from small deeds and unwavering love.
Then Ionáin’s voice broke into her thoughts and with it her reason for being there, on a windy hillside, with the might of Domhain’s Channellers assembled below her.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder as he urged his horse into a canter. “Time enough for daydreaming of epic victories when we’ve settled in.”
With a nudge éadha sent her horse down the hill after him.
A little later they arrived through a stone archway into a stable yard where groomsmen took their mounts, and the two Masters led them on into First House.
Inside it was unexpectedly bright and warm.
Circular light wells pierced the ceilings to make alternating pools of light and dark; candles flickered in bell jars set in recesses along the walls.
A long corridor opened out into a round central hall paneled in oak and topped by a dragonglass dome.
It was already almost full of people, a mix of gray-robed Masters and new apprentices.
Log fires burned in enormous slate fireplaces set at intervals along the walls while above them were-lights circled just below the dome.
Food was set out on rosewood tables in the center.
Piles of freshly channeled strawberries and soft purple plums, warm bread with mounds of butter, hot chocolate drinks steaming in silver cups.
éadha had to resist the urge to gawk. Apart from Ionáin’s Reckoning, she’d never seen so much food.
Beside her, she saw Ionáin’s eyes widen, too, before he checked himself to say only, “Not bad,” before stepping into the room.
Following more slowly, éadha picked up a cup of fragrant hot chocolate.
As she did, someone called Ionáin’s name.
It was a lanky, dark-haired young man dressed in navy pants and a sheepskin cloak.
His long hair was tightly tied back, which only made his narrow face appear more angular, all sharp edges.
Alongside him stood a girl, strikingly similar in looks and almost as tall, dressed in hunting gear.
“Hey there, we heard about your Reckoning; it’s all anyone is talking about. Is it true you almost knocked Master Dathin over, your power flare was so strong?” said the young man, grinning at Ionáin.
“éadha, this is Coll and his sister, Linn, of the Manon Family. Our grandparents were apprentices here together,” said Ionáin, who’d gone bright red. “And they should know better than to listen to gossip. Of course I didn’t knock Master Dathin over. I was just glad to pass.”
Another voice broke in. “Well now, if it isn’t the most exotic and wonderful twins. I bow before your mighty power, my lord and lady.”
The speaker was large, florid, and fair-haired.
Even at seventeen, the big man he would become was evident in his thick neck and broad shoulders.
He was dressed in furs and sweating already in the warm room.
“Good to see you too.” He nodded to Ionáin.
“Family back from the brink, eh?” His eyes flickered restlessly about the room to the other new arrivals, already beginning to coalesce into small groups of twos and threes, before coming back to rest on éadha.
“Well, well, could it be we’ve another girl Channeller, Ionáin? ”
“Don’t be daft, Senan. This is éadha; she’s a Keeper and we’re all very proud of her,” said Ionáin. éadha said nothing.
“Strange,” said Senan. “I thought I sensed something.”
éadha tensed, suddenly petrified she’d let her thought-wall slip. But Senan had already lost interest. “Never mind. It must’ve been someone else. There’s so much power sloshing around this place, it’s hard to read it.”
“…Thirty-seven, thirty-eight.” Coll was counting quietly under his breath.
“I’d say forty all in as there are bound to be stragglers,” he said before turning to Ionáin and smiling.
“The Masters must’ve been mightily relieved when Ailm’s Keep came good at the last moment with a Channeller and a Keeper.
Makes the numbers a little less dire this year. ”
Ionáin grinned. “As if it was ever in doubt. Good hearty stock, us northerners.”
“My, and don’t you bounce back quickly too,” drawled Senan. “It’s as if you were never away. But my cousin’s class ten years ago had twenty-five Channellers. What do we have—fifteen, and the rest just Keepers?”
At that moment Coll caught Ionáin’s arm to point him toward another apprentice, and as he turned away, Senan stepped in a little closer to éadha, murmuring, “We might need to start thinking about allocating more than one Keeper girl to a Channeller to get the birth rate up, eh, little Miss Not-Channeller?”
éadha stared at him in confusion. Senan, though, just raised an eyebrow at her before drifting off across the room, helping himself to fruit, and nonchalantly greeting other students.
She was left standing unnoticed while Ionáin chatted and laughed with Coll and some other apprentices.
Watching him, all éadha could think was how this place fit him, like he’d pulled on a coat made specially for him.
Seeing her standing alone, Linn stepped a little to one side of the Channeller group.
“Don’t mind Senan,” she said quietly, her voice kind.
“He can be a little direct. I know it’s all very hierarchical here, but I still think you’re lucky to be a Keeper.
I doubt I’ll be so much as allowed outside on a wet day; you’ll have much more freedom. ”
“Why wouldn’t you be allowed outside?” asked éadha.
“Linn’s a Channeller,” said her brother, Coll, seeing the two of them talking. “The first girl Channeller for five years. She’s worried she’s going to be handled with kid gloves until the Masters have married her off to some nice Channeller boy to make lovely Channeller babies. Isn’t that right?”
Linn rolled her eyes at her brother. “Once I can use my power, I’d like to see them try.”