Chapter 2
Chapter two
NIALL
Never trust a witch , Niall remembered his grandfather saying years ago, during one of the many idle, idyllic springtimes which he had loitered away in his youth.
Niall, being young and arrogant and therefore all-knowing, had always rolled his eyes and dismissed Granda’s counsel as the silly ramblings of an old man gone softheaded in his later years.
There had been many such warnings from his grandfather – folklorist bits of advice, like ‘when the apple is ripe, only then will it fall’ and ‘flaunt the fat lamb, but not what has fattened him’ and ‘even brown hens lay white eggs.’
Niall had grumbled a good bit about the latter adage in particular, as Granda had followed up on this sage piece of advice by sending him out into the rain to help shovel out the chicken-coops.
He was a prince, after all, and princes did not dirty their hands with shite.
It seemed, however, that a king did nothing but do exactly that – metaphorically speaking.
“It’s not possible to hold Connacht without more allies.” Deaglán’s gloved hand clenched around his sword hilt at his side as he spoke. “The king of Leinster –”
“Former king,” Niall interrupted, a bit defensive. “My father deposed him.”
Deaglán shifted on his feet. “Clann MacMurchada,” he corrected, “has allied with Albion, their armies are even now lying in wait like a pack of wolves, waiting to pounce.”
Niall pressed his fingers against his eyelids, but before he could answer, his sister – the sister who had stayed – spoke, and his jaw clenched in anticipation. “Niall,” she said in her steel-edged voice. “Have you heard from her?”
His fingers drummed on the table. “You know I haven’t, Eilis.”
“We could use her,” she said. “As much as I loathe to admit it.”
It was true. Eilis had always hated Rory – bitterly, vehemently, and the situation must indeed be dire if Eilis was asking for her aid. “I know, but it is what it is. I haven’t spoken to her in years, have no way of even finding her.”
“What about the kestrels? As I recall, you were always able to communicate with one another easily enough through your little pets. I know that she took hers with her.”
She had. And Niall had sent letter after letter after her, launching his own falcon into the sky, begging for her forgiveness, for her return, but each time Molly had returned, alone and exhausted and bereft of any answering missive from her brother-bird.
He could still remember the day that their father had unveiled them, two tiny gray balls of fluff with milk-golden eyes, as gifts for the two of them, brother and sister, born on the same day, within the same hour of one another – born from two different mothers and a veritable ocean of green-forested mountain ridges between them.
“Eyases,” their father had said “Born from the same egg.” Niall had watched wide-eyed as his father’s palm stroked across the downy gray feathers of the shrill-chirping birds.
“A miracle, in defiance of nature, against all reason – like you.”
Rory, of course, had taken that as an insult, a slight against her, the bastard-born daughter of the king of Connacht and the princess of the vale of Inagh, but Niall had known what their father had meant.
It was miraculous, not only their twinned existence but their finding of one another, against all odds, united yet separate, a bond forged in defiance of custom and tradition.
Niall had loved his half-sister since the moment he met her, all those years ago, that pert-nosed girl with her guarded eyes that seemed to pierce beyond the surface of his too-short, skinny-shouldered exterior.
It deepened, blossomed, while sitting side by side, telling stories of warrior-poets and fairy-queens – two babes born almost a full province apart on the feast of Imbolc, and his love for her became much like that feeling of seeking just the right word to use in a poem, spending days wandering about his father’s halls, racking his brain and thumbing through dusty tomes, desperate for inspiration, only to wake up in the middle of the night and find it there, waiting on the tip of his tongue, the perfect beginning for a story that he hadn’t even known he was writing.
He had adored her, this missing piece of himself that he had never known existed, and she had loved him too.
Or so he had thought.
“I think that it’s time we admit that we are on our own, Eilis.
” Focus, he chided himself. Focus on the sister who is here, the one who had not abandoned him – focus on the realm who needed far more protection than he could give it.
“She’s not coming back.” He paused, dreading this moment, inevitable as it was, when he would be forced to tell them what he had done, either for their salvation or their ruination. “But she is not our only hope.”
Eilis leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed. “What is our hope, little brother?”
“I am almost five-and-twenty, Eilis,” he said mildly, “as well as your king. You should address me as such. And our hope,” he continued, ignoring the twist of her lips, “is what it has always been, since this isle of ours was first formed from the nothingness of the sea.” He exhaled slowly. “Magic.”
There was a moment of strained silence, and then Aden shoved away from the wall, pointing to the unfurled map on the table.
“We’re pinned in on all sides, Niall – my king,” he corrected hastily, and Niall heard his older sister scoff quietly.
“We’re on our own, sure now, and I know it seems like we need a miracle, and we do – but a real one.
No fairytales, no legends of heroes long past.” His palm came down to rest upon the western shoreline of the map, fingers brushing against the worn ink marking their home.
“We are facing annihilation, and your love for such stories will not be the thing that saves us.”
The time had come, Niall knew, to reveal his idea – you and your particular hare-brained, donkey-addled brand of idiocy, he could almost hear Rory muttering in his ear, in that grumpy way of hers, the voice in his head that he could never drown out, even after all this time – and he drew in a deep breath before lacing his fingers together behind his back, gaze fixed on the maps strewn across the table in front of him.
For Connacht, for his people, for the sake of his father and his mother, for his family’s legacy, he needed to convince them.
“I know,” he began. “And it is true, that our situation is grim. We are outnumbered, surrounded by superior forces, led by –” he swallowed “— an inexperienced and untried ruler. But that only bolsters my belief in this plan of mine. Magic is the only way that we can hope to win this war.”
“Other than – her – there’s been no magic in éire for nearly one hundred years, Niall.” Deaglán’s voice was gentle, a bitter contrast to his steely-eyed stare. “We don’t need false hope and fairytales. We need a flesh-and-blood solution.”
“I’m trying to give you one.” Niall rocked back on his heels.
“It’s two-fold, and there might be some fairytales involved, I’ll grant you that, Deaglán, but they’re tangible ones.
When we were children, Rory’s uncle used to tell us stories of the old éire, when the gone gods wandered the realm – wondrous stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the magical objects that they wielded – the harp and the purse of Dagda, the sword of Nuada, the spear of Lugh.
” He glanced at his older sister. “We used to tell you about them, whenever we would return from our visits to Inagh. Do you remember?”
Eilis’ brows narrowed. “I remember. They were stories, Niall, tales told to amuse children on rainy mornings. You can’t honestly believe in them.”
“Kieran would have known the truth. It ran in his veins, the magic of the gods, a drop of their power, as it runs in Rory’s.”
“We all saw her that day, Niall.” Eilis ran the tip of her nail along the edge of the table. “It was far more than a drop, and magic is a far kinder word than I would ever use to describe that horror.”
“There was another object,” Niall continued, ignoring her, ignoring the sudden stab of pain, of regret in his chest. “Do you remember what it was?”
Aden crossed his arms across his chest, frowning. “A stone, wasn't it?”
“Indeed.” Niall reached out and tapped the vague shape of an ink-faded marking on the far side of the realm. “The Lia Fáil.”
Deaglán looked up sharply. “The stone of destiny – the coronation sídhe of Tara.”
“That rock hasn’t roared for a High King of éire in centuries,” Eilis said. “If it ever did. It’s a legend, Niall, a myth.”
“Think of it though.” Niall leaned forward, his palms flat against the table.
“Our father tried to name himself High King of all éire for this very reason – to unite the realms so we could defend ourselves against other lands that might deem us an easy conquest. He died for that dream.” Niall pointed his finger at the map.
“Imagine though, if the magic of the lost gods spoke again and named a new High King of éire – imagine what we could do, united as one, a stronger éire than ever before. There is no army that could sail forth from the beaches of Albion that could prevail against us.”
A heavy silence greeted his words until his sister stood, her skirts whooshing against the floor.
“And you, I suppose, would be that High King? Let’s assume, for a moment, that this is an actual possibility, and not the last desperate gasp of a foolish boy-king.
How can you guarantee that this stone would even choose you? ”
Niall met her ice-cold gaze unflinchingly. “I have the purest of intentions, the best interest of éire itself in mind. It is a divine creation, Eilis. It will recognize my worthiness, and it will choose me.”
“It is far more likely to choose her.” Eilis was clearly furious, as much as she tried to conceal it.
“She has their magic, the sorcery of the lost gods. You don’t even share their bloodline, Niall, not like she does.
” Eilis shook her head, a single curl coming to fall across her shoulder. “This is a foolish, foolish plan.”
“This is no plan at all,” Aden grumbled from behind him, and Niall knew it was time.
He straightened his shoulders. “I said that it was two-fold. Would you like to meet the second half of my idea, the part that will guarantee that the Lia Fáil will choose me as the new High King of éire?”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and strode for the door, his palms clammy as he reached for the handle, gesturing to the hooded figure waiting in the hall.
She glided toward him, her blue-silk skirts swirling, her sea-glass eyes hidden beneath her hood.
Wordlessly, he gestured towards the council room, and she swept past him, that tantalizing scent of burnt sage and moonspice wafting over him.
Three pairs of suspicious eyes latched onto where they stood, side by side, and Niall pressed his hand to the small of her back.
“This is Aoife,” he said. “She can secure the Lia Fáil’s voice for me – for us.
” His gaze drifted towards where his sister stood, her hands fisted at her sides. “For all of us.”
Deaglán and Aden shuffled closer together, their hands drifting down to rest on their sword-hilts, an instinctive wariness towards the mysterious woman who waited so quietly at his side. “Aoife,” he said. “Meet my sister, Eilis, and our most trusted advisors, Aden and Deaglán.”
Aoife cocked her head, her face still draped in shadow underneath her hood. “And the other sister?”
Niall’s hand dropped away, as though she had burned him with the mere mention of Rory. “She is not here, nor will she be joining us in the future.”
“A pity, that.” With that, Aoife pushed back her dark gray hood, shaking out her golden-white locks of hair, and there was a collective intake of breath from the rest of the room, a hiss of shock and disdain.
Eilis jerked forward a step. “Niall,” she hissed. “Are you mad?”
It was the eyes that gave her away, Niall thought as he watched her smile in the face of their consternation and contempt.
It wasn’t the color that did it, although that in itself was stunning – the brilliant blue of the sea intermingled with sparks of teal-green and bright yellow hues.
It was the depths contained in the whorls of color swirling in her gaze, unfathomable and humming with a barely suppressed power.
He had seen the ocean once when he was a boy, but whenever he looked at the shimmer of her eyes, he could imagine himself there again, standing on the white strands of the beach, the endless roll and crash of the blue-green waves lashing around his ankles with a hungry, all-powerful caress.
There was no mistaking what she was when looking in her eyes.
“Niall,” Eilis repeated, her chest heaving. “She’s a cailleach.”
“I know.” He stepped toward his sister, glancing reassuringly at the tight-faced men who stood tense and still across the room. “It’s all right though. She’s a friend, and she’s here to help.”
Never trust a witch, Granda had warned him, and yet, he thought as she turned to smile at him with those ocean-swept eyes, he didn’t see how he had any other options left.