Chapter 28
Several hours later, éadha was sitting outside Master Joen’s private study.
She was still in the bodice and the skirt Senan had ripped, although someone had given her a Keeper cloak to partly cover it.
She hadn’t seen Gry since he’d been marched away, and Senan had been taken to his apartment.
Her power twisted anxiously behind her thought-wall.
She’d no way of knowing if he’d regained consciousness yet, if he’d registered her blast as well as Gry’s.
If she was about to be marched away, too, her true power revealed.
She had to fight down the urge to run. There was nowhere to run to on this island so far out on the Fiadh sea.
The study door opened, and Head Keeper Maebh beckoned her in.
It was a sunny, book-lined room overlooking the central courtyard.
Through the windows éadha could see the yews shading the central fountain as it plashed quietly in miniature echo of the sea’s ceaseless song beyond the thick walls.
Maebh took a seat to one side of Master Joen, behind an enormous oak desk and gestured to éadha to sit on the other side.
“Keeper éadha,” said Master Joen then, his face like stone. “We’ve brought you here to verify what Lord Gry and Lord Senan have told us about last night’s events.”
éadha nodded, too tense to speak. So Senan was awake, but what had he said?
“We understand Lord Gry intervened because he believed Lord Senan may have been pressing you too strongly. In his concern for your well-being, his full gift, which he was not previously aware of, was triggered.” Master Joen paused. “Is this true? Was Lord Senan pressing you?”
éadha thought of those frozen moments in the aerie, of Senan’s hand on her chin, his wine-soaked breath on her face, and she nodded once, jerkily.
“Yes, Master Joen,” she said, almost inaudibly.
She saw his eyes go down to the torn fabric of her skirt, taking in the bruising already visible on her thighs and jaw.
Beside him, she could see Maebh doing the same.
After a moment’s silence, Master Joen said, “Very well. However, you must not speak of this to anyone outside this room.”
éadha bowed her head, filled with a sudden relief. So Senan hadn’t registered her blast, only Gry’s. Her secret was still safe because of Gry.
Gry.
She lifted her head. “Master Joen, Head Keeper Maebh, what will become of Lord Gry?”
A look of irritation crossed Master Joen’s face, and he drew himself up as if to dismiss her, but the Head Keeper laid a hand on his arm and spoke kindly.
“Keeper, this is a matter for the Masters and not your concern. Suffice to say the ways of power have always had some fluidity. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with an apprentice Keeper whose power developed further into a full Channeller gift.
He’ll undergo a process of reconditioning with me in the holds.
If we’re satisfied, he’ll join next spring’s intake on First Island as a Channeller apprentice.
Whatever happens, though, he won’t rejoin your class.
” She paused before continuing. “As for you. Take your things to the empty Keeper dorm and sleep there for now, while Lord Senan recovers. You may take it your remedial sessions in the holds are also at an end. I’ll need you to focus on your Keeper duties for Lord Senan, especially as your class will now be one Keeper short. Do you understand?”
éadha understood there was nothing she could say except, “Of course, Head Keeper.”
“You may go now” was the only reply.
Dismissed, éadha made her way to her small room at the entrance to Senan’s apartment to collect her clothes.
As she slipped in, she heard voices echoing down the corridor, Senan’s among them, along with Coll’s, Eoghan’s, and Cormac’s.
As she stuffed her few things into her satchel, she heard Cormac say, “How’s the head feeling now? ”
“Nothing a good drink won’t cure” came Senan’s reply, sounding as brash as ever. “Pour me one, will you?”
There was the clink of glasses and a brief pause before Eoghan said, “When Master Joen talked to you, did he say anything about Gry?”
“Ha,” said Senan. “If it was my decision, I’d send him straight to Westport as Fodder for the dragon-slayers.
If they don’t it’s only because of his name and the fact House Críoch is the main waypost on the way to Westport, so the Masters can’t afford to alienate the Family.
But I can’t see him ever being released back into polite society.
I mean, does anyone seriously believe he ‘didn’t know’ he was a Channeller?
How could anyone ever trust that lying little Fodder-lover again?
Would you let him stand by you on a dragon patrol?
He’ll never be entrusted with Family lands now, no chance. ”
“I heard his aunt Hera was visiting friends farther down the coast, and her boat’s due in tomorrow morning,” said Eoghan.
“It’s a waste of time coming to plead for him,” scoffed Senan.
“I reckon even if he isn’t formally sent for Fodder, they’ll still channel him a bit while he’s down there.
Just to make sure he gets the message: you don’t embarrass the Masters.
” Senan chuckled. “That’d be fun, knowing I was channeling that sniveling Fodder-hugger in the name of his re-education. ”
“What about you, Senan?” asked Cormac then. “Time to make your move now Gry’s out of the picture?”
“With Linn? She knows the Masters and her Family won’t countenance a match with that Fodder-lover now” came Senan’s reply. “She’ll be outflanked and delivered to my tender care to breed lovely Channeller babies before the year is out.”
Unable to bear listening anymore, éadha slipped away, making for her new Keeper dorm.
Maebh had told her to go to the empty dorm rather than the one where the unassigned Keepers lived; maybe because she didn’t want them seeing Senan’s bruises.
It was now late morning, and she’d been awake for almost a day and a half.
She could feel the shock and the exhaustion waiting to overtake her, but she couldn’t let them.
Walking over to the white-plastered dorm wall, ignoring the ache from her bruises, she rested her hand against the stone and began trying, with everything she had, to find a thread down through the rock to where Gry was being kept far below. She needed to find him.
As she stood there, her eyes closed, her mind went back unbidden to the moment in the alcove with Senan when Gry appeared, ripping aside the curtain and blasting Senan away from her.
She thought of Gry’s face, how it’d blazed with courage and fury.
He’d been watching the whole time, she realized, staying all night somewhere in the Banqueting Hall after Senan called her away because he knew she was still there and he was protecting her.
éadha dropped her forehead against the unyielding stone as the realizations multiplied. Gry knew she’d chosen Ionáin, and he still chose to stay up all night and into the morning, watching over her. He’d been her bodyguard, and she didn’t deserve it.
Because of her, he’d outed the Channeller gift he’d worked so hard to hide.
Now for the sake of that one moment, he was going to have to be a Channeller for the rest of his life.
He’d have to spend almost another year on Lambay, and if Senan was right, he might even be channeled as Fodder.
It was too much. He’d given up too much for her.
Clenching her fists, she tried again, sending every scrap of her awareness farther than she’d ever sent it before.
Surely she’d be able to find Gry’s thread, to see if Senan’s boasts were true, if he was being channeled down in the hold.
But she could find no trace of him through the obdurate stone.
He was too far away, too well shielded. She could find nothing to hold on to.
Still she didn’t give up, moving to sit cross-legged on her bed and trying once more, not caring whether anyone might come in and see her.
All the rest of that day she sat, and on into the night, trying with everything she had to reach him. And she failed.
She finally passed out from exhaustion shortly before the sun rose.
As she slept, she dreamed Senan was gripping her arm, forcing her to keep for him while he drained Gry’s life force until he collapsed, unconscious.
She woke with a muffled scream of horror, her arms and legs flailing, and only then registered she was still in the bodice and skirt she’d worn for the ball.
The skirt Senan had ripped when he’d attacked her.
Shuddering with revulsion she pulled them both off her and flung them into the corner of the dorm, then caught sight of the bruises on her thighs and her arms, the marks in the shape of Senan’s thick fingers where he’d gripped and dragged her.
She hadn’t eaten anything since before the Midwinter Ball, and her stomach was empty, but at the sight of those livid purple marks, she still couldn’t stop the wave of nausea forcing her over the side of the bed and onto the floor to retch again and again, though nothing came up. There was nothing left in her.
Classes were due to begin again that morning, and she’d woken just in time for Matins.
But though she managed to dress herself in her Keeper uniform and shamble through the service and the introductory lessons, it was all done in a numb haze, without conscious thought on her part.
As if her mind was shielding her from the full horror of everything that’d happened.