Chapter 6 #2
“Oh!” Niall beamed. “We’re twins then, in a way.
” He hesitated, studying her for a moment.
“My older sisters – our sisters, I should say, Eilis and Eimear, you met them – they don’t have much to do with me, because they’re bigger, so I always thought, what if I had someone else, who could be my friend?
A twin, even, because we’ll always be together, always be the same age –”
“You’re babbling,” she said. “I don’t like babbling.”
He nodded, heart pounding in his chest. “I’m sorry. But I wanted to let you know, how sorry I am, that you were taken away from your home. You must hate the lot of us, but Rory – I do not hate you, not at all.”
Rory’s gaze latched onto his, something strange churning within the depths of her fathomless gray eyes. “Perhaps you should,” she said. “If you were clever, that is.”
She looked at him as though she were issuing a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down into the dirt between them, but he merely shook his head. “Oh no, never. I couldn’t because – well. We’re twins! Of course we must be friends!”
Rory stared at him, seemingly at a loss for words. “You’re a strange boy,” she said after a moment. “But I suppose you and I might try it. Being friends.”
“Yes! And we could be heroes together – could ride together across éire and fight in wars and slay monsters and be heroes! Couldn’t we?”
“We could,” she said slowly. “But you would have to convince your father to allow me to return to the vale.” She smiled, a little too brightly. “For a visit, of course. So that we might hunt the witch.”
Niall clapped his hands with delight. This new sister, he thought, was much more fun than Eimear and Eilis.
They never wanted to play heroes with him, both of them far too grown-up and serious to gallop about in the dirt and the fields with him, sparring with tree branches and writing poems about finches.
“I will,” he said “Convince him. Of course I will.”
“You mustn’t tell him why,” Rory said hurriedly. “He’ll never let us go if he knows we mean to hunt down a cailleach.”
“I won’t, I won’t.” Niall grinned, hugging himself with happiness. “So you don’t hate me now?”
For a moment, Rory stared at him, then she reached out and ruffled his hair with her hair. “You’re a sweet boy,” she said, a little sadly, he thought, as though it pained her to admit it. “No, I don’t hate you – so long as you do your part and help me go home.”
“Only for a visit. You must come back to Soghain with me after we kill the witch.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “A visit.” Her hand dropped away from his hair to pick up the book left lying the straw. “Would you like to play now?” She asked, waggling the book in invitation. “Would you like to be Cúchulainn, and I shall be the Mórrígan, when they fight?”
“Ooh yes! Can you crawl in the dirt, like an eel, as the Mórrígan did, or howl like a wolf?”
She pushed to her feet, brushing the stray pieces of straw from the folds of her skirt. “I don’t know,” she said. “Can you be brave enough to fight the goddess of war and death when she stands before you?”
“Yes!” He bounced up, jumping with excitement. “Yes, yes! Let me go get my sword!”
He was so happy as he ran back to the castle, grinning at this unexpected gift the universe had given him – a built-in companion, a friend of his own exact age, a friend with which to play heroes and bárds.
His sister would be the best friend that he had ever had, and they would be heroes together always.
Forever.
The sound of Eilis’ shrill tones and the panicked voices of Deaglan and Aden roused Niall from the memory. “Niall,” Eilis was saying, hands outstretched as she pleaded with him. “You must listen to me. This witch will betray you, she will betray all of us, do not do this –”
Next to him, Aoife made a wordless sound of amusement. “Don’t be frightened, little princess,” she said in that melodious voice of hers. “I don’t bite. At least –” She turned towards him, a gentle smile curving along her face. “Not any longer. Isn’t that right?”
Niall flinched, the memory of her sharp white teeth gleaming in the sunlight, the sound of her screams echoing dully in the stone-walled cottage hidden high among rocky ridges of the Mhám Toirc.
“Aoife means us no harm,” he said, as forcibly as he could while the reminder of how very close he had come to death at her hands still shivered in his mind.
“I sent word to her, some time ago, about the danger facing us, facing her and her kind, as well, should Albion and the traitor MacMurchada have their way.”
“Niall,” murmured Aden, staring stone-faced at Aoife, her hands clasped in front of her, humming a wordless tune as though she hadn’t a care in the world. “How can you be sure?”
“I made a vow,” said Aoife dreamily. “As did your king.” Her eyes glowed, brilliant blue and sea-green and lemon-bright. “And now we are both far stronger than we were before, so long as we keep our word.”
“She’s right, Eilis.” Niall stepped forward, reaching out to take his sister’s trembling hands in his own.
“Please understand – we need each other now, her kind and ours. She has sworn to grant me the thing I most desire – a free éire, united and strong – and I swore to –” He swallowed. “I swore to grant her a child.”
All three began shouting at once, furious and horror struck, and Niall rubbed his hands across his face wearily.
“The cailleachs are dying,” he said over the din of his sister and friends’ protests.
“Their line is coming to an end. Aoife proposed that I give her a child, to ensure the continuation of her bloodline, and I have agreed.”
“Why, Niall – why would you do this?”
“Because I am strong now!” He was. He could feel the power thrumming just beneath his skin, a lithe-muscled beast that prowled about on great shaggy feet, eager to be unleashed.
“I have the strength of the heroes of old in me now, and that is the strength we need – like Cúchulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill and Oisín. I can be our salvation!”
“There is no salvation here, Niall. This is an abomination.” Eilis’ lips were paler than he had ever seen them, and he had sat with her at both of their parents’ bedsides as they breathed their last, had watched her face when he told her of the threatened invasion by Albion forces, had heard her voice shake as she read the letter informing him of Leinster’s betrayal and the doom that threatened to consume all of éire.
“An abomination, Niall, to breed with one of her kind.”
“Eilis –”
“He will have nothing to do with the child.” Aoife spoke up, hands moving gracefully as she traced invisible runes in the air.
“It will be mine and mine alone, the babe born to a mortal king and a cailleach, and it will be far more powerful than the likes of any child this world has ever seen.” She paused, then shook her head. “A beast reborn.”
“A beast,” said Eilis sharply. “What kind of beast – you mean like Rory’s ancestor?”
Aoife smiled. “The child born of my womb will be thrice as terrible, thrice as great.”
Eilis whirled towards him, chest heaving, hands clenched. “Niall,” she said, eyes shimmering with tears. “Niall, don’t do this. Hasn’t our family has suffered enough from these monsters?”
“Rory is not a monster,” said Niall sharply.
“She almost killed you! My gods, do you hear yourself –”
“Enough!” It came out as a roar, as sharp as a sword, steel clashing against stone, and his sister and his councilors fell silent immediately, watching him with wide eyes. “It’s already done, Eilis.”
“It’s true,” Aoife murmured, her hand fluttering down to rest on her silk-clad abdomen. “The babe grows strong within me even now.”
Eilis blinked once in shock before her face crumpled. “Oh Niall,” she whispered, tears spilling over her cheeks.
“Trust me,” he said, softening at the sight of her undeniable grief.
“have done this for you, for your sake, for all of us in Connacht, for all of éire. I will save us, I swear it. The Lia Fáil will roar for me, I will unite the provinces as one, and together we will defeat the invaders. I know it.”
Eilis said nothing, silent tears still gliding down her careworn cheeks, and Niall turned to face Aden and Deaglan, who stood with stiff backs and stony faces underneath their thick beards, watching him, lips tight.
“We will ride for the vale of Inagh in the morning,” he said.
“Rory’s mother, Queen Líadain – we will ask for her aid.
” He hesitated, debating whether or not to reveal the secret suspicion which Rory had confessed to him long ago when they were children, that the gift that simmered within her lived within her mother as well.
It would be, he knew, yet another betrayal of the sister-friend he had loved so deeply and so well.
But she was not here. She had left, had abandoned him all alone without so much as a single word of love or forgiveness in almost seven long years.
“Rory once told me that she suspected her mother, too, had the gift of the Mórrígan,” he confessed, a sourness flooding through his mouth as he spoke. Was this what it felt like, he wondered hazily, the breaking of a geas, that somber, childish promise made between them all those years ago?
Perhaps that was why he had been in so much pain for so long now, ever since she had left.
Perhaps that was why everything seemed to be falling apart, the overdue doom he had brought upon himself from the moment he had first spoken of it, boasted of her powers, and broken her trust and her heart in one fell swoop.
“It was only a suspicion,” he said, as Molly rubbed the smooth curve of her beak against his cheek, soothing him.
His fingers came up to stroke the soft plush of her feathered wing, steadying him, this last remaining link to his lost sister.
“But it is worth investigating, I think. If we could persuade Líadain to join us, to use those powers, however feeble, to help our cause – I think it could make all the difference in this upcoming war.”
His pronouncement was greeted with silence, and his heart stuttered in his chest, a cold sliver of fear threading its way through him that he had lost them too, his last remaining sister and his oldest friends, that he had betrayed them just as he had betrayed Rory, and now he would truly be alone, left to fight and to die with no one that he loved at his side.
Then Aden cleared his throat gruffly and stepped forward, his hand clenched on his sword as he bent into a low bow. “Your word is my law, mo rí,” he said. “I am yours in life and unto death.”
Deaglan dropped to one knee, head bent. “Yours,” he echoed. “In life, and unto death.”
Niall looked at Eilis, who stared back, her face ravaged with exhaustion and tears. “Yours,” she whispered. “In life, and unto death.”
He nodded, throat tight. “Tomorrow,” he said, reaching out to press his hand against the small of Aoife’s back, who still stood clasping her stomach, the entity which they had created together hidden deep within her womb. “Tomorrow, we ride for the vale of Inagh.”