20. Lorcan
LORCAN
Icame to the rest of the way on my knees, the cold bite of rough stone pressing through the thin fabric of a robe I didn’t remember putting on. Arms held me up on either side, iron-tight grips keeping me upright when my body sagged.
Everything was dark except a dim light seeping through the rough fabric over my head, clinging to my forehead with cold sweat.
My breath dragged rough in my throat, too loud, too hot, thick enough that I struggled not to choke on it. Under the musty smell of natural fibers was a hint of stone and melted wax.
The bag over my head was yanked away and candlelight stabbed at my eyes, a flicker of golds and shadows rippling across a circular stone chamber.
“Rise, Son of Cú Chulainn.”
A deep voice echoed through the space.
The hands hauled me upright before I could gather myself. My legs trembled as the room swam, resolving slowly into a cavernous room made of stone like a cave lit only by flickering candlelight.
Figures circled me, wearing long black hooded léine tunics, saffron belts glinting with gold threaded Celtic patterns, their faces hidden behind ancient gold masks, every curve and line etched with spiraling Celtic knotwork.
Something in those blank gold faces made my instincts scream.
I looked down to see they’d dressed me in charcoal gray, my own robe. A handful of others in gray scattered among the black.
Alistair stood near the front, the same black robe as the others, but his hood was thrown back, his face bare. The only unmasked man in the room.
He didn’t look at me. Instead, he spoke to the masked circle. “Tonight, we welcome my blood, my heir, though I had doubted this day would ever come.”
Heat crawled up my throat, shame and rage warring beneath my ribs. He spoke about me like I wasn’t even standing here.
“He struggled,” Alistair continued. “He floundered. He inherited his mother’s softness. But flesh can be corrected. Weakness can be killed.”
He killed her. He pushed her out the fucking window.
The chamber blurred at the edges, my rage threatening to consume me. I jerked against the grips on my arms, but the hands only tightened.
A few masks tilted toward me, as if cataloging the weakness Alistair accused me of.
Alistair stepped closer, the candlelight catching the steel in his eyes. “Tonight he finally proved himself.”
I could fucking kill him. Now. While he stood unmasked and close enough to touch. I could twist out of these hands and kill the man who had killed my mother before any of the masked figures in this chamber moved.
And then I would die in this room. They would elect another leader. The machine would keep moving.
Cutting the head off the snake had not worked with my grandfather. It would not work with him.
Not now, Lorcan. He will die but not today.
I held my breath until my vision cleared, the stone facade sitting back over my face as the masked men around me murmured their agreement.
A figure in a black léine and a gold mask stepped in front of me. “Hold still, son.”
Did I… did I recognize that voice?
I peered into his eyes even as he avoided my gaze, a brilliant blue, knowing I’d seen them before but unsure where. Who?
He pressed his thumb into an earthen bowl of ash, then smeared lines across my cheeks, marking me. The ash smelled like burned herbs and old smoke.
A low hum started somewhere in the circle, swelling until it vibrated in my teeth. The circle began to chant, voices layered and resonant beneath their masks.
“A Son does not falter.
A Son does not divide his loyalties.
A Son places the Family first.
His Brothers before the heart.
Our future before the self.”
The chamber fell still.
Blue Eyes stepped away and another masked man approached with a folded brown belt threaded with bronze Celtic patterns. He unfolded it with ceremony and wrapped it around my waist, the fabric heavy.
Alistair spoke over the rustle of cloth. “Distraction is the enemy of legacy,” Alistair said.
The hooded men answered as one, low and steady. “Only legacy endures.”
“A Son steers his line with a steady hand.”
“Steady hands. Steady blood,” the circle intoned.
Alistair finally looked at me. “A Son belongs to the Family before all else.”
The member tugged the final knot closed on the belt, making it hard to breathe. I swallowed, pulse pounding.
“As Cúchulainn was tested, so are we.” Alistair motioned behind me. “Turn, my son, and accept this ring as a symbol of your commitment to the brotherhood.”
The men holding me turned me to face him.
Alistair held the ring in his palm, made of a heavy gold band, the Sons signet etched deep into the head.
He took my right hand. His grip was warm and dry.
He had held her arm like this. Dragging her up the stairs.
I held still as he slid the ring onto my ring finger.
Thorns came out of the band the moment it settled. Three of them, maybe four, piercing the soft of my finger, sliding deep, locking into the meat.
I repressed my flinch and swallowed back bile.
Sadistic bastards.
There was no way I could take this ring off without tearing my flesh. Just as they designed it.
Blood ran down my finger and dripped onto the stone between my feet.
Alistair watched the blood fall.
“You belong to us now,” he said quietly. “There is only one way out of what you have just accepted.”
I held his gaze.
I know what you did to her. I will tear you and your precious Sons apart.
I smiled. “Yes, sir.”
The Sons ring bit hard into my finger while I crossed the Ravenwood grounds beneath freezing rain.
Every step toward the tower tightened the pressure already lodged beneath my ribs.
Nuala drinking the tea I’d laced.
Finn smiling at me across the table.
Liath waiting in the tower, believing there was still something left in me worth saving.
And underneath all of it, the truth about my ma.
My father killed her.
The thought kept moving through me in violent uneven waves no matter how hard I tried containing it.
I climbed the tower stairs, placing my feet softly, one hand brushing the stone wall for balance.
I didn’t want to wake Liath if she was asleep.
God knew she deserved one last peaceful sleep before I told her everything.
A selfish part of me wanted one more night before I watched her face change.
As I neared the tower room, voices drifted through the door.
I froze.
Liath was awake.
And she was not alone.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I pressed my ear against the wood.
It was a man’s voice.
A sick heaviness spread low through my gut. Who?
The voice came again.
“Didn’t think you’d agree with what he did to your friend… Oh. You didn’t know.”
My skin went numb. He knew about Nuala. Someone had been close enough to me to know what I had done this afternoon.
Someone she knew? One of the Sons? One of my friends?
Whoever he was, he was about to destroy the confession I had come here to make.
“Stop being cryptic.” Liath’s voice snapped. “Either tell me or stop playing games.”
The quiet was no longer worth keeping.
I shoved the door open hard enough for it to slam against the stone wall.
Both of them turned.
For one suspended second, my mind refused to assemble what I was seeing into anything coherent.
Deargán.
Alive.
He stood beside Liath near the window with rain-dark clothes clinging to his body and the firelight catching faintly against the edge of his pale phantom mask.
My heartbeat kicked so hard it jarred through my entire body.
“Lorcan!” Liath’s voice broke unevenly around my name as color drained visibly from her face. Her hand flew to her throat, then her eyes darted toward Deargán first before snapping back to me.
She kept this from me.
My heart shattered opened beneath my ribs.
Liath stepped directly between us, facing me. “Don’t hurt him.”
She was protecting him.
She thought I was the threat.
My vision narrowed to Deargán over her shoulder, my body flooding with brutal impulse.
One shove. The window was right there.
My right foot shifted forward instinctively and my shoulder rolled as my body prepared itself to drive him backward. To send him flying out from the tower window.
I froze, my muscles locking at the horrible familiarity.
No. I could not become him.
The murderous impulse reduced to a simmer beneath my skin.
Liath’s shoulders softened just a touch.
“Leave, Deargán,” she called to him over her shoulder. “Before you make this worse.”
Deargán went completely still, the good half of his face flinching, his composure cracking. “You’re sending me away.”
He had expected her to choose him.
“Get out. Now.”
Silence stretched tightly before Deargán swung one leg out the open window. He turned his dark glare directly at me before he disappeared through the window. “You should know, while you’re playing games with your father and his monsters, I’m stealing into her bed.”
Images flashed across my vision. Deargán fucking Liath in our bed while I was carving off pieces of my soul for her. Her moaning for him. Screaming for him.
A sharp twisting pain tore into my chest, turning my breathing ragged. My breath went short. The room tunneled. The next thing I knew, I was slamming against the stone wall, the windowsill beneath my hands.
Below me, Deargán moved fast and sure down the naked ivy stone wall around the tower. Like he’d done this many times before.
My fingernails scraped at the stone sill, my restraint crumbling to dust.
I’d cut him off. Then I’d kill him.
I spun toward the door, ready to sprint.
Liath stood in front of it, blocking me. Protecting him. Again.
My boots cracked against the floorboards as I closed the distance between us. “Are you fucking him?”
Liath recoiled. “Of course not.”
But trust no longer settled easily inside me. She had lied already. About him being alive. She could be lying about this.
“How long?” My voice cracked. “How long have you known he was alive?”
Liath’s throat worked visibly. “You would have tried to kill him. The mission needs him alive. He can help us.”
I stared at her like I no longer recognized the woman standing in front of me. Every word out of her mouth sounded impossible against the reality tearing through my head.
She lied to me. She protected him. She let me walk into this room blind while he climbed into our tower room night after night behind my back.
My shoulders sagged, my voice cracking. “You lied to me, Gray.”
The harshness in her face collapsed as she started forward, her arms sliding around my waist, tears already rimming her eyes. “I’m sorry. I swear, I was just doing what I thought was best.”
My arms came up to cup her face before I leaned my forehead against hers. One moment where everything felt right. One moment of relief before I shattered everything. “I’m sorry, too.”
Everything outside the space between us fell strangely distant.
I couldn’t rage against her secrets while keeping my own.
I had to tell her.