Chapter 27
éadha didn’t touch the little package under her tunic, but the thought of it carried her through a trying afternoon.
Senan was at his most viperish, keyed up about the ball and taking it out on anyone unfortunate enough to be near him.
By early evening his bed was piled with outfits he’d tried and discarded, years of craftsmanship and toil tossed aside like so many scraps of paper.
“How am I supposed to appear in public if you can’t even lay out a proper outfit?” he raged. “This is the Midwinter Ball on Lambay, not some goatherd’s campfire. Some of us have a Family name to uphold.”
The ball was the final big celebration before the Risen left for their dragon postings and éadha’s class began their training.
It was also Senan’s last real chance to pair off with someone before the humdrum of Matins and classes took over once more.
For all his power and his impeccable Family name, his vicious temperament frightened even the Family girls, schooled as they’d been since childhood in soothing the egos of vain and pampered Channellers.
He’d set his sights early on Linn, confident she couldn’t resist the logic of a match with the strongest male Channeller.
He hadn’t reckoned with her complete disinterest and that, as a Channeller female, she outranked him and couldn’t be bullied, impressed, or ordered by him to do anything.
Confused and thwarted by this unfamiliar impotence, as the days dwindled toward midwinter he turned to the Keeper girls, only to find he’d missed the boat.
The best connected were already spoken for or quickly paired off with Risen Channellers on Second Island.
Senan was one of the few left without a partner.
Only girls from minor Families and commoners like éadha remained, and Senan was never going to accept a consolation prize.
His best hope now was to detach a Keeper girl from another Channeller—something the Masters only permitted if the Families and the girl herself agreed.
So Senan, son and heir of the Family De Lane, found himself in the utterly unfamiliar position of supplicant.
On his best behavior, trying to win over girls he’d mocked and teased unmercifully throughout their time on First Island.
It did nothing for his mood in private as all his suppressed rage exploded in tantrums and punishments for éadha and his luckless manservant.
Those hours before the Midwinter Ball saw Senan at his most petulant and demanding.
Yet even though it would’ve made her life easier, éadha couldn’t help but be glad the Keeper girls were thwarting him.
To see that maybe, after all, there was some limit to what thugs like Senan could demand.
After storming his way through the afternoon, he shouted at her, “Pick up every single thing or there’ll be hell to pay later,” before sweeping out the door, resplendent in a white tunic embroidered in gold thread.
She tidied up quickly, conscious that every apprentice was expected to arrive in time for Master Dathin’s farewell speech to the Risen.
It wasn’t just the apprentices; the Masters and the Keepers emerged, too, from their studies, towers, and holds to say goodbye to the Risen and mark the beginning of the new semester.
It was also the only night all winter when Keeper students had the right to enter without waiting on the grace and favor of Channellers.
The room immaculate once more, éadha stepped out onto the terrace looking west to where the sun had just disappeared below Domhain’s mainland, its last rays catching on the distant towers of Erisen. Carefully she opened Seoda’s package and unfolded what lay within.
It was a bodice and skirt. The bodice had been pieced together from scraps of yellow and gold cloth of different hues, some embellished with sparkling stones, others plain and smooth.
It was in the shape of a Channeller combat tunic—bare arms, crossed at the breasts to bind them steady, fitted at the waist. The skirt was a single piece of the softest cloth éadha had ever felt, falling like water to the ground, so light it lifted at once in the sea breeze, ready to fly on the winds, white as a dove’s wing, as a wave top, as a summer cloud shining in the sunlight.
éadha slipped them on, looking at her reflection in the window.
She’d no shoes apart from her Keeper boots, but this dress was light incarnate; she’d fly to the ball on bare feet that didn’t need to touch the ground.
Fly she did, dropping soundlessly from Senan’s terrace, the air rushing about her, caressing her legs through the softness of her skirt.
She landed soundlessly on the farthermost balcony of the Banqueting Hall and stared down at the crowd below.
Later they’d disperse into the alcoves, out onto the terraces, but for now all were in the central rotunda for Master Dathin’s farewell to the Risen.
After the solemn blessing, glasses were raised and the music began, the talk built from a subdued murmur to a steady roar.
éadha stood detached at first, looking down from her hiding place, feeling immune from them all, as if the dress was a kind of armor.
But, she thought, she owed it to Seoda and her friends to show them their dress, the thing of beauty it was.
She headed down the circular stairs and slipped into a Fodder alcove.
Seoda was there with several of the usual presentables.
Now she knew to look for it, she saw the quick dart of Seoda’s eyes as she entered.
She bowed, holding the skirt out so they could see how it fell, smooth and shining to the floor.
“Thank you,” she mouthed. “It’s so very beautiful.” With the briefest turn of her head, Seoda flashed her a quick smile.
éadha was turning to go when she was knocked over by Senan pushing through the curtains. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” he began. “Here, let me help you up.”
Taking her hand, Senan pulled her carefully to her feet.
Only then did he meet her eyes, his own widening as he realized who it was, dropping her hand.
He stepped back and looked her up and down.
“Keeper, where did you steal that dress? Are you so fond of the holds you want to spend more time down there?”
éadha ducked her head, her mind racing. “My aunt is a seamstress at Ailm’s Keep,” she said quickly. “She made it from leftover scraps Lady úra gave her. I thought it right to wear it to mark the Risen’s departure, my lord.”
It was the right thing to say. Senan was counting on the Risen leaving to improve his chances of wooing a Keeper girl away from her soldier love.
He smirked and wagged a half-drunk finger.
“As long as it doesn’t give you any ideas.
Silk purse from a sow’s ear and all that.
I’ll be watching. Anything out of line, and I’ll confiscate it.
” He sat on the bench beside Seoda, dismissing éadha.
“I won’t need you for this one, but be around later. ”
Heart thumping, éadha took a goblet of wine from the nearest table and hurried back up to the curtained balcony.
Staring down at the revelers, she focused, trying to see how much power Senan was drawing from Seoda.
He couldn’t need much this early, but it was a bad sign if he was channeling this soon.
As she concentrated, she saw Ionáin enter the rotunda beneath her.
He looked tired as he always did these days, his fair hair straggly and unkempt, his fine tunic marked by wine stains that wouldn’t come out.
Ailbhe was shadowing him, putting a hand on his arm when he reached for a drink.
He ignored her, filling a beer tankard to the brim so it sloshed and spilled when he raised it to his mouth and drank deeply.
He looked around the Banqueting Hall as he did so.
For a moment his eyes met éadha’s, and she saw him take in her warrior’s dress before he turned away.
Leaning over to Ailbhe and her friends, he pointed them toward the Master Illusionist, who was just beginning to weave a dragon battle.
As soon as they’d turned away, he ran lightly up the stairs, two at a time until he reached éadha.
éadha’s heart lifted as it always did, as it always would, to see him so close after weeks of him passing her by each night, the familiar blue eyes for once staring straight at her with a look both intense and questioning.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Nothing,” she replied defensively. “Just watching the party.”
“I mean that dress.” That hurt. She expected no less from Senan, but she’d thought more of him.
He took her arm, his fingers hard, pulling her after him toward a long window behind them.
It opened onto a stone balcony; Ionáin pushed through the curtains and on out into the cold night air.
It was just starting to snow, white flakes tumbling down out of the darkness.
“Ionáin, what’s going on?” said éadha, confused.
But Ionáin said nothing, only stepping forward to encircle her waist with one hand while with the other he sent power out of himself so they both lifted up into the air.
They were already up high, the balcony looking straight down to where the winter sea crashed against the rocks at the foot of Second Island’s granite cliffs.