Chapter 47
XLVII
I brUSH EVER-LENGTHENING HAIR FROM MY FACE, GAZing across the lake toward the rising sun. Barely past dawn, the mist not yet burned away. The air bites. Winter approaches.
I run the gold coin along my fingers, then flick it into the water. It makes the smallest of splashes before sinking from view.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you make an offering to the Dia Domhain before, Leathfhear.”
I start at Conor’s voice behind me, then glare around at him. “Make some noise when you move, man.”
“I could have been Fearghus and you wouldn’t have heard me.” He grins as he stands beside me. Similar in size and build to me, though my missing arm makes us cut conspicuously different figures. “Finally realised that it’s a good thing to have the gods pleased with you?”
“Can’t hurt.” I’m dismissive, a little embarrassed, even with my friend. “Given the news that may come today.”
“Hm.” Conor examines me, then shrugs and flicks a coin of his own to the deep. We watch the ripples. “Can’t hurt,” he repeats.
We stand like that for a while, scanning the eastern hill line for movement. Seanna joins us. Then Miach. Then Fearghus, finally no longer limping from his wound. They each toss an offering, and watch in silence.
“There.” Miach spots it first, pointing at the motion on the horizon. Barely more than a black dot shifting through the still-lifting haze, but as soon as I see it I know it’s a figure cresting the rise. Alone, as expected.
He draws closer, and his white cloak resolves against the green of the hill.
“I’ll tell Tara.” I tear my eyes from the sight and head along the causeway.
Tara, as expected, is already training with her spear. She pretends not to care that the druid’s visit is today, but I know she is as anxious as the others. Perhaps even more so. For all her claims of wanting to be here, this kingdom means more to her than anyone.
She stops as I approach. “He’s here?”
“Five minutes.”
She pauses, as if considering just resuming her exercises. Then she nods brusquely. Steam rising from her sweating body. “Alright.” We start back to the crannog. “You have your questions ready?”
“I do.”
Tara and I have continued to develop a camaraderie, since our battle together.
Part of it has undoubtedly sprung from that shared experience.
Part, I suspect too, has been my attitude since.
I was stung by her accusations that night, without malice though they were. Mainly because I knew she was right.
So over the past two months, I have worked as hard at improving as anything I have in my life.
I rise before any of the others to practice my forms in solitude on the misty, torchlit banks of the lake.
Drilling again, and again, and again in constant perfect repetition, forcing muscles to learn what the mind already knows.
Every motion needs to be an instinct, in a fight. Even a breath’s delay will mean death.
And nothing has reinforced that truth more than my hours of training with Tara herself.
Dawn and dusk, we practice. Each day. At my insistence and though she was reluctant at first, she has not shied away from the task of improving me.
In fact, as a teacher she is in so many ways a younger Lanistia that sometimes I find myself smirking at the similarities.
Usually only to find myself hitting the dirt with fresh and painful welts moments after.
But it’s different, too. Less anger driving Tara’s brusqueness and unforgiving lessons. Maybe it’s being closer in age, or maybe it’s just her appreciation of my newfound dedication. But there’s a rapport there, now. A friendship.
“Do you think it will be war?” I ask it quietly as we head down the rolling hill, dew wetting our boots.
“If it is not, I expect we will be Called to prepare for it regardless.”
I keep my anxiety from my face, but she still senses something.
“I will tell them of your dedication, these past months,” she assures me. “The draoi will not refuse you.”
“But you still would.”
She smiles. Just slightly. “We have talked and I have chosen, Leathf hear.”
We join the others—including Pádraig, now, who looks as relaxed as always despite the others’ pensive faces—at the causeway entrance to greet the druid.
I immediately recognise the white-cloaked man, shaggy grey-streaked blond hair and blue eyes, face reddened by the sun.
Lir uses his rowan staff as a walking stick, clearly weary from his journey.
“The gods’ peace to you, warriors,” he calls as he approaches. His smile is genial but with an edge to it that immediately stirs the nerves in my stomach, looking for it as I am.
“Spirits grant you protection, Lir. We are glad to see you arrive safe, and are eager for word of what transpires beyond the valley.” Pádraig speaks formally.
My grasp of the language is fairly complete now, but I still occasionally encounter words or phrases I’m unfamiliar with.
“Please, sit with us and drink, and tell us the news.”
We file after Lir and Pádraig; I can see questions on the lips of all the others—including Tara, despite her affectations—but we are all disciplined enough to keep them to ourselves, even the younger among us.
The druid has travelled far, and showing him respect is far more important than the discomfort of a few more minutes in suspense.
Lir goes through the requisite blessing of the crannog; when he finishes, he exhales and turns to Pádraig. He can see our faces, recognises that we’ve been waiting anxiously.
He’s kept everything carefully formal up until this point, but now his expression is his answer. Full of grim apology as he nods around to us.
“It is war.”
MORNING MEALS AT THE CRANNOG ARE USUALLY BOISterous affairs, one of the few points in the day when we are allowed to relax and talk without care or discipline.
There is always someone boasting, or telling jokes, or eliciting shouts and laughter from raucous teasing at some recent embarrassment or another.
Today, as the smell of roasting boar wafts in preparation for the night’s festivities, we are silent.
Lir is telling Pádraig the news but he knows that it affects everyone here, and so he says it comfortably loud enough for us all to hear.
High King úrthuile passed from his long illness almost six weeks ago.
Rónán, long assumed to be his successor, announced his claim—as did Fiachra.
But before the regional kings could meet to vote, the Grove contacted Donnán, the senior druid in Caer áras, to demand—against all precedent—the location of Loch Traenala.
The announcement sends a wave of unease through the listeners, and not least me.
When we’ve quieted, Lir continues grimly.
He, as the only one entrusted with its whereabouts, refused to reveal it to Donnán, and instead went to King Rónán with the Grove’s petition.
A tense standoff ended in Donnán being expelled from the Caer.
Without a representative in his kingdom, the Grove immediately declared Fiachra’s claim for High King to be the only true claim, and that by rejecting their presence, Rónán was rejecting the gods themselves.
“The other kings have elected not to get involved, for now, but last night I received word that Fiachra’s forces have already taken the eastern plains,” he finishes, to a low rumble of dissenting disbelief from around the room.
“That shouldn’t be possible.” It’s Fearghus, not backing down despite a reproving stare from Pádraig at his interruption. “Our warriors are the finest in—”
“From all reports, the Grove are actively participating.” Lir is clearly deeply uncomfortable at the admission, and from the horror etched on the faces around me, I can tell it’s not something anyone here expected.
“How?” It’s Pádraig. Looking, for the first time, genuinely concerned. He sees the struggle on Lir’s face and gives an apologetic grimace. “We must know, wise one.”
“They are giving many warriors access to the nasceann. Far more than should be allowed.” Lir hesitates. “And some say that packs of alupi have also fought for them.”
Another murmur, this one almost a moan. Lir’s presence here helps, but they will still worry the gods are against them, now.
I feel the heat of their fear at the news, even if I do not have the same lifetime of superstition to fan those flames.
As well as another, familiar wave of frustration at not understanding how Will is able to be used.
Clearly it has different applications here to what’s known in the Hierarchy, but it’s more than that.
To begin with, who is ceding? And the Grove are commanding animals?
Gods. At least I understood the Hierarchy’s capabilities.
The madness of whatever the druids might be able to conjure on a battlefield is an unsettling unknown.
“Even so.” Lir’s gaze sweeps across us. “Your king has asked me to observe your students before we leave, to determine if any might be granted the nasceann. But all who are considered worthy are Called.”
Pádraig nods. “This evening as we mark Samhain, all who believe themselves ready will demonstrate their skill. Tara wears our torc; she will lead, and so she must choose those who will serve under her. We will honour our vows, Draoi Lir.” Expecting this.
We all did. It doesn’t stop the sick feeling in my stomach.
I glance over at Tara, who is gazing at the druid with a calm, accepting determination.
She won’t choose me to join her band, leaving me alone out of the older group here.
Free to speak to Lir, to forge my own path.
Even if I pleaded, I know my last two months have not erased my first, no matter my extra dedication.
And she knows I’m not the fighter I once could have been. It’s the right move.
But I don’t want it.
It’s been nagging at me constantly. I have no loyalty to her father, none of the fierce pride or love the others feel for their people and homeland.
But I do feel it for them. For her, and Conor, and Miach and the rest of them.
And the idea of watching them march off to battle without me, when maybe my being there could make a difference, makes my stomach twist into knots.
“Thank you, Druid. Please, eat. Rest while we prepare for Samhain. We all have questions, but they can wait.” He’s looking at us when he says the last, and we nod as one. With the Grove all but officially against him now, Lir has likely had to travel hard and at great risk to bring us this news.
“So old úrthuile went six weeks ago,” says Conor once Lir and Pádraig have departed.
“Maybe that’s why we haven’t had anyone come to find Fiachra’s missing raiders.
He needs all the men he can get.” Pádraig has had us increase patrols and keep permanent watches from the surrounding hilltops, but no one has seen anything unusual since that night.
I haven’t felt the pulse in my head again, either.
“Or he thinks whoever he’s after will be coming to him, now,” says Tara quietly, her gaze turning to me.
The others watch me expectantly. I take a breath.
They all know my story, all know Ruarc and the Grove want me dead.
Some part of me still recoils at the memory of revealing so much, but that reaction grows less every day; months on and the only consequence of that night is that they all trust me.
Completely and absolutely, in a way I am not sure even Emissa, Callidus, or Eidhin were ever able to.
I loved all three of them dearly. But they always knew, deep down, I was keeping something back.
“It could still be you they were after.”
“We’ve been through this. It’s not me. I’d be worth something to Fiachra as a hostage, but enough to send parties scouring the country to find me?
No. It had to have been Ruarc.” Tara holds my gaze.
“Just another reason you need to go with Lir, tomorrow. You need to find answers—and whatever is going on, it’s something to do with the draoi, not with us. ”
I don’t look away. Feel the gap between me and the others growing at the words. “I don’t care. Pick me, this evening. Let me fight with you.”
“No.”
“I am skilled enough. I am worth something in a fight.”
“It is not your skill or your worth, Leathf hear. It never was.” Tara cups my cheek in her hand. An oddly affectionate gesture of goodbye. “Your path and ours will just be different, for a while. It does not mean they won’t come together again some day.”
I watch her leave with the others. Feel as adrift and alone as I have since that first morning waking up in Gráinne’s hut.
Tara’s not wrong, but there’s more to it.
She still, deep down, doesn’t believe I really want to be there with them.
She still doesn’t believe I have a heart for the fight they are about to walk into.
But I know what I want, now, and it’s not just answers from Lir. I’ve found something here in this place. With these people. They mean something to me, something I haven’t felt since Suus. Something I cannot lose again.
This evening, I’m going to have to make sure they see that.