Chapter 13 #2
The mare skidded to the stop as they broke through the trees, just before they reached the outskirts of the village, Rory’s grip sharp and furious on the reins as she took in the scene before her.
Niall, on the ground, surrounded by half a dozen boys, all taller and heftier and older than he, kicking at his ribs where he lay curled in the dirt, their voices loud and strident with their jeers, Molly shrieking in agitation as she swooped and swirled above them.
“Fecking pup,” one of them sneered with a vicious kick to Niall’s belly. “Good-for-nothing scut.”
“Traitor,” said another, then leaned over and spat right in her brother’s face, and Rory exploded.
The sun winked out in an instant, a vast and impenetrable cold settling over the erstwhile summer landscape.
Through the darkness, she watched as the group of boys whirled as one, pointing in a panic at her silhouette, still seated astride on the back of her mother’s mare, her icy lips moving in an emotionless, rhythmic chant, that strange, unearthly whisper slithering across the grass growing white and sharp with new frost. The fog rose up from behind her, menacing and bone-chillingly cold, creeping forward, as it came to her in that diamond-bright knowing – the way their limbs would twist, their necks would snap, their eyes bulge from their sockets as her shadows wrapped their iron-tight grip around their throats and squeezed in an inexorable rage –
“Rory,” Niall choked out from where he was still crouched in the dirt. “Rory, no –”
The shadows froze, twisting their ethereal, serpentine necks in her direction, waiting – waiting for her.
She could feel the ice burning along her skin as her mare paced and whined beneath her, tail thrashing against the sudden onset of cold that had settled over her.
She could still see Niall’s pale face twisted in pain, the hunch of his skinny shoulders, his full-body flinch as the toe of their boots connected with his ribs.
She could see, too, their ending, torturous and slow, a long drawn-out exhale of pain which she would extract from them, a too-terrible recompense for daring to raise a hand to him, her brother.
“Rory,” he said again, his voice steady and warm against the darkness that enveloped them. “Don’t.”
It was a soft plea, the echoes of the gentle-hearted boy that he was, begging the girl formed from a bottomless abyss of ice and shadow to be more, to be better than into what the universe had conspired to make her.
She licked at the thin layer of frost coating her lips, then straightened her fingers, the ice cracking and breaking along her knuckles.
The fog retreated and the darkness lightened, the sunbeams creeping back through the receding storm clouds to reveal the group of boys still huddled on the ground, arms flung over their heads, and Niall lying sprawled on his back, staring wide-eyed at her face.
“Come,” she said without preamble. “Let’s go home. ”
Niall scrambled to his feet, limping towards her and the horse, dragging himself up into the saddle behind her, and she turned her stare on the boys who crouched before her, faces corpse-white, lips trembling.
“Don’t ever come near my brother again,” she said.
“Or next time, there is no power in this world or the next that will save you.”
She wheeled the horse around without waiting for an answer and sent the mare galloping through the woods, Niall’s scrawny arms wrapped tight around her waist, both soothing and infuriating her as they made their way home to the vale.
Stupid donkey, she thought furiously. Stupid, naive, shite-for-brains donkey.
“I’m sorry,” he said over the rushing wind, and she cringed in spite of herself, unaware that she had spoken aloud. “I didn’t think – I only wanted –”
“I warned you about this, Niall. The villagers hate your family,” she said, digging her heels into the side of the mare a little harder than necessary. “Do you know how many of their sons, their fathers, their grandfathers, died in your grandfather’s war, not even five-and-thirty years ago?”
“I know.”
“And you go waltzing right into the village proper, as though a couple of kind words and a bright smile will make all that blood, all that pain disappear.” She snorted through her nose. “Donkey.”
“I know,” he said again, and she could feel the slump of his shoulders behind her. “I just thought, perhaps, for once, I could not be judged for my father’s sins, and his father’s. I thought, perhaps, we could make peace.”
“There is no peace to be had when there is a blood-debt owed, Niall. And they are all, every one of them, owed an éraic that you could never pay.”
He shifted in the saddle. “My ribs say otherwise.”
She glanced back, his face flickering alternatively in sunlight and in shadow as they loped through the trees. “They would’ve killed you, you know.”
He said nothing in response, and they were silent the rest of the ride back to the castle deep within the heart of the vale, until they trotted out in the clearing and Rory swore under her breath.
Her mother was waiting, standing still as a stone on the steps of the castle, her hands folded in front of her, clear gaze fixed on her wayward child.
Niall craned his head over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“She knows.”
“Knows what?”
Rory huffed. “What I did to those boys. She made me promise never to use it again, after the thing with the witch, and now –”
“Wait, she knows? How does she know? And I can’t believe you told her about the witch, Ror, that’s –”
“I didn’t tell her,” said Rory sourly. “She just knew, the way that I know things, sometimes. Like the way she knows what I did to those boys.”
“Almost did,” Niall corrected. “D’you mean your mamaí also –”
“Yes, but we never talk about it, Niall, and you must never tell anyone. Never. Do you understand?”
“I understand, I swear I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.” She jerked on the reins, coming to halt a stone’s throw away from where her mother stood, watching and waiting, patience personified. “Go on in and find Orla so she can have a look at you and see how bad you’re hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” Niall said staunchly, then immediately belied his own words when he winced as his feet collided with the ground.
What an utter muppet he was, this sweet-faced brother of hers.
“Go on,” Rory said, without looking away from her mother. “I’ll be in shortly.”
She waited until he disappeared within the castle, hurrying by her mother with his head bowed, then she inhaled, slow and deep, before dismounting and walking forward, the reins of the mare clutched in her hands. “Mamaí, I did not have a choice, I swear.”
Líadain looked at her, serene yet sad. “You always have a choice.”
“They were beating him, Mamaí! Kicking him and hitting him and spitting on him –”
“You have other weapons at your disposal,” her mother said quietly. “You might have used them.”
Rory scoffed. “Not much good a wooden sword and a slap across the cheek will do against six half-grown boys, Mamaí.”
“You are their princess,” Líadain said. “A mere word from you would have stopped them.”
“It would not, they don’t care for me – I’m as much of an abomination in their eyes as Niall is.”
“You did not try,” her mother responded. “So you do not know.”
Rory flung the reins to the ground with a petulant stomp of her foot. “I thought that was what we did, you and I – we always know.”
Líadain remained unruffled and calm. “I am afraid for you, a pheata,” she said after a moment. “It is in your blood, to court for war, I know this – yet I thought that I had taught you, whenever possible, first to sue for peace, as I have done, my whole life.”
A twinge of guilt, of shame rippled through her.
“And what has that gotten you, Mamaí? Pól ó Flannagáin rules as the king of Connacht unchallenged, and I am his unwilling ward, little more than a captive in his hall, because you sued for peace. If you had only fought back, fought for me –” Her voice broke, and she swallowed thickly, as her mother continued to watch her, self-contained as ever.
“What would it have accomplished,” she asked after a moment, quiet and low, “to unleash this dreadful thing I have kept hidden close within my chest for so many years, a pheata? Do you think it would have kept you close to me, kept you safe?” Líadain reached out and traced the curve of her daughter’s face with the tip of her ever-cool finger – like hers, Rory realized with a shiver.
Her mother’s skin was always cool to the touch, not glacial but far from warm, as her own was.
“It should not be used,” Líadain whispered, tucking a loose red curl back behind Rory’s ear.
“It will bring about the ruination of those we love – not their salvation.”
“But I did save Niall,” Rory whispered back, eyes burning. “Many times now.”
Her mother’s hand fell away from her cheek. “Yet it is not your job to do so.”
“But –”
“One day,” her mother interrupted, “he will not be yours to save, and I fear that it will be your ruin as well.” Rory watched, horrified, as her mother’s eyes – her ever-serene, ever-composed mother – welled up with tears of their own.
“Promise me,” Líadain whispered. “Promise me that you shall never use it again. Promise me.”
Rory hesitated, torn. It still echoed within her, that other promise barely two years old, her hand in his, that she should always protect him, always save him.
But here was her mother, pale and shaken, begging her for this boon, this vow – her mother, who had lost so much and known so little of happiness or peace in this life.
Her shoulders sagged. “I promise, Mamaí,” she said. “I promise.”
Then her mother’s arms enveloped her in a hug, cool and tight and bitter-scented, her lips pressed against the top of Rory’s head. “A pheata,” she murmured. “My heart. I will not see your light extinguished by the darkness inside you, Rory. You must trust me.”