Chapter 13
So began Purification, physically the toughest of all the Stages they’d face on First Island.
From the first, their routine was relentless, with every moment of every day scheduled, from the clanging instant the temple bells hauled them out of bed before daybreak for Matins until they collapsed exhausted after the Vespers ceremony in temple each evening.
Each morning after Matins they stood for an hour in silent meditation.
Fiachna and her Keepers patrolled the ranks of sleepy novices with bamboo switches, swishing them smartly across the back of anyone found dozing.
From there they marched to the shore below First House and straight out into the freezing waters of the bay, swimming a half mile out and back.
Soaked and shivering, they then staggered up the beach and onto a ten-mile circuit of the island.
Up into the hills and through the forests behind First House they ran, along narrow animal tracks and over fallen trunks.
They trained in handball and staff combat, the stone yards at the House’s northern end filled with the thump and clack of yew staffs as they learned to whirl, feint, and strike in readiness for the power that’d one day pulse through the long staves.
The training came more easily to éadha than most, hardened as she was from years of herding.
Even so, her back was often raw from the swoosh of Fiachna’s switch, quick as a snake to catch her nodding off.
She knew it had to be harder for Ionáin, but he gave no sign of it, throwing himself into the training with a determination she’d never seen in him before.
But though they all quickly became fitter and faster, the Masters were relentless, upping the intensity every few days so no matter how much stronger they became, the exhaustion never lessened.
Yet they all persevered through the stiffness and the pain, drawn on by the siren song of power for those who made it through.
Despite the exhaustion, éadha never lost sight of her real mission: to supply Ionáin with her powers once their lessons in channeling started.
From the first day’s training she was studying the routine, trying to work out when she could get closest. She’d need to stand right beside him—like she had at his Reckoning—so no one would see the strength flowing down the silver thread between them.
She realized immediately Matins was no use.
He was too far away on his red velvet seat with Masters all around him.
Meditation was too heavily supervised. The daily run, she thought, was her best bet.
Fiachna ran with them, but the apprentices always ended up strung out along the course.
The Keeper novices started behind the Channellers, but she was faster than most of them.
It wouldn’t be difficult to pull ahead mid-run, she thought, when they were deep in the forest, and come alongside Ionáin for a few moments.
But it was hopeless. Every time she tried to drift ahead, she only ever managed to pass one or two Channeller stragglers before Fiachna spotted her and snapped, “Keeper éadha. Fall back,” and as she slowed, Ailbhe and her friends would overtake her on either side, ramming her with their shoulders so she stumbled and went sprawling on the muddy track while they ran on.
As the only male Keeper, Fiachna made Gry start last to ensure he wouldn’t overtake even the slowest Channeller.
He’d often catch up with éadha as she picked herself up from the mud, silently reaching down with one hand to help her back on her feet then running alongside her for the rest of the circuit, matching her pace easily.
Each time he did this, she quickly checked her thought-wall, all her senses alert to whether he was trying to probe it.
She never felt anything; there was just the sound of his steady breathing as he ran beside her without a word.
It threw her, though, more than she liked to admit.
She told herself it was because she was scared he suspected her after that first day in Matins.
He was watching her maybe, to see if she made another slip, and that was part of it, but it wasn’t all of it.
It was him, too, his presence so close beside her.
Something about him unbalanced her, like a pressure, like he took up all the space just by being there.
And deep inside her, she could feel her silver power twisting in response to him.
As though it wanted to reach out, past her thought-wall toward the young man running alongside her, and she couldn’t understand why.
She pushed it down, far behind her thought-wall, and ran on, never saying a word.
Afternoons were given over to demonstrations in the main arts of channeling—Building, Growth, Combat, and Illusion.
They saw towers of ivory and gold raised up around them by the Master Architect, only to be sent flowing back into the earth at the end of the demonstration as if they’d never existed.
Watched as the Masters staged a battle in the air above them, using their yew staffs to send balls of white-hot fire shooting at each other, weaving golden nets of power as traps for the unwary.
In the second week, it was the turn of Cathal, the Master Grower, to demonstrate his art in a sun-dappled greenhouse at the southern end of First House.
He was an older man, white-haired and slightly stooped, though éadha could see how readily the power still flowed through him.
The apprentices clustered around him, the Channellers in front and the Keepers behind.
Ionáin was standing with Coll and Senan; Senan looked bored, as he always did when the lessons didn’t relate to battles and killing things, while Coll’s narrow face was intent as he watched the Master spread his fingers wide over a pot packed with earth.
Beside him Ionáin was just as focused, his gaze never leaving the Master’s hands.
éadha could imagine how much this meant to him, witnessing the very power that’d bring plenty back to Ailm’s Keep.
Closing her eyes then, éadha sensed the soft pulse as Cathal sent power snaking into the soil, the tickle of the seeds’ answering start as they heeded the call to live, sending out their tiny shoots, drinking in the life Cathal was pouring into them so they shot upward, pushing aside the soil, their tendrils wavering in the air, blindly seeking Cathal’s fingers, following them up, up, twisting around his fingertips as leaf after leaf fell open like a skirt falling to reveal the tiniest, roundest tomatoes shining on the stems.
“So life begets life,” murmured Cathal as he lifted out the tomatoes and passed them around.
As the tomato burst on éadha’s tongue, it tasted of summer, of color, of magic; inside, her buried gift twisted in longing, sharp like a needle pressed into her side.
But she gave herself a mental shake. With everyone distracted, this was her chance.
Moving soundlessly, she slipped closer to where Ionáin stood.
She’d almost reached him, too, when Fiachna’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Step back, Keeper.”
As she did, Ionáin glanced over his shoulder, and for the first time ever, she saw in his eyes a mix of irritation and, worse, embarrassment.
Beside her, Ailbhe and Muir sniggered while Coll nudged Ionáin.
The back of his neck had gone bright red.
Of course he didn’t understand what she was trying to do.
All he could see was her embarrassing him in front of his friends.
Standing there, éadha boiled with frustration, but underneath there was a growing fear. Because she was beginning to realize that what she’d thought was the simplest thing—to stand beside her oldest friend in all the world—had become something almost impossible.
The demonstration ended, and the Keepers stood in their usual line with their heads bowed so the Channellers could leave the greenhouse first. Peering up from where she stood, éadha saw that Ionáin was staring straight ahead as he passed her, his jaw still set in annoyance.
“It’s this place, you know. It changes people.”
It was Gry. He’d dropped back to the end of the Keeper line to walk out with her.
Stung, éadha retorted, “Not Ionáin. You don’t know him.”
Gry snorted. “Especially Ionáin.” éadha glanced across at him. “That’s what this place is for: to change people. Make them into good little Channellers. If they don’t change, then Lambay is failing. And it never fails.”
In that moment éadha wanted to scream at them all.
At Fiachna for her manic vigilance, at Ionáin for being so focused on being the perfect Channeller apprentice he couldn’t seem to look at her anymore, at Gry for somehow always seeing more than he should.
She needed to get away, and so she didn’t reply, hurrying on ahead instead to get changed for Vespers.
As she pulled on her robe, she pushed down the gnawing fear.
So the Code meant she couldn’t get close to Ionáin in daytime.
There was still the evening, the short window after Vespers and before lights-out when they were free.
And Ionáin was a Channeller, not bound by the Code like her.
He could come and go as he pleased, and from the very first, many of the Channellers had used that privilege to come visiting before lights-out.
Some, like Senan, were only interested in using their visits to flex their new status, turning up unannounced at bedtime for what he called “inspections.” éadha, Ailbhe, and the other girls had to drag themselves back out of bed and stand to attention, their heads bowed, as Senan sauntered up and down the line, peering at each in turn while their legs shook with tiredness.
éadha’s power, blocked away behind her thought-wall and unused since the day she’d arrived on Lambay, would begin to churn inside her as she stood at the end of the line.
She had to fight to keep it down as Senan’s flushed, excited face loomed over her.
“So, goatherd,” he’d say to her as she stared straight ahead, not meeting his eyes. “You look tired this evening. Training not going well? Breeding will tell, you know. The lower orders just don’t have the stamina, my father always says. What do you think, goatherd?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know, what?” he’d say, satisfaction creeping into his voice at catching her out.
“I don’t know, my lord,” she’d correct herself, keeping her voice toneless, though inside her power was raging, longing to strike out at him. “I am sorry, my lord.”
Others were more discreet, calling to ask out particular girls and going walking with them in the dusk as the evenings lengthened and spring eased toward summer.
Gry hadn’t been joking when he’d called First Island a Family mating zoo.
Couples were quickly forming. It was all the girls in éadha’s dorm ever seemed to talk about.
Who was seeing who, who’d broken up after hooking up, which were the most likely long-term pairings.
Ionáin, though, was one of the few Channeller apprentices who didn’t come at all.
Not once during Purification did he come to see her.
For the first while, as she watched other apprentices appear night after night, she told herself he was exhausted.
Or he was focused on his training, determined to wipe out his Family’s shame.
But he didn’t look exhausted in lessons or as he tumbled past her each day in the pack of Channellers brimful of excitement and entitlement while she and the other Keepers stood aside for them, their heads dutifully bowed. He didn’t look tired at all.