Chapter 16 #2
Niall shivered, but before he could say anything, Eilis spoke up, irritated and sharp.
“It’s settled then,” she said with a cross glare at Rory.
“There will be no retribution taken against MacMurchada for our father’s murder – at least not yet, until we are more secure, more informed as to our enemy’s schemes. ”
Niall watched nervously as Breandán’s fists clenched at his sides.
“I’d rather hear it from the mouth of the king,” he said at last. “If we are to become a realm of weaklings, of impotent whelps, then I would hear it from the lips of my own king, that this is to be the legacy of a Connacht-born lad from this day forth.”
A dozen pairs of narrowed and watchful eyes immediately bore into his face, and Niall licked at his lips. “I have not yet been proclaimed king,” he said softly – too softly, he could almost hear Rory chide in his ear.
Breandán knew it too, his contemptuous face turning gleeful at this evidence of Niall’s meekness.
“Believe me, boy,” he said, black eyes snapping, “were there any other option than you, I’d rally every bit of influence I have to see anyone else crowned instead – a half-grown dog, perhaps, or a flea-infested stoat. ”
“How dare you,” cried Eilis at the same moment that Aden and Deaglan lurched forward, faces thunderous and hands on their swords, while the rest of the council chambered murmured uneasily at the sight of such defiant contempt of the prince of Connacht.
Niall shrank in on himself as Breandán lunged towards him, expression twisted with disgust and malice. “Listen well, boy,” he began, then froze, eyes growing wide, and Niall knew without turning around that his sister – his other sister – had at last left the shadows.
“Do not,” said Rory from over his shoulder, low and impossibly cold, “call my brother ‘boy’ again.”
It was not only Breandán that took several hasty steps backwards, but the whole chamber – even Eilis, her lips tight and expression sullen, retreated at the sight of whatever was etched on Rory’s features, whatever whisper of unseen power loomed behind her.
They were staring at him, he realized, for the first time in his life – with fear, sure, and with dread, but with something else too, something far more potent and commanding. With respect.
No, he corrected himself as he tracked the true recipient of their stares. Not at him. It was not him at whom they gazed so wide-eyed and awestruck, not him who demanded their obedience and their respect, but the one who stood behind him.
Rory.
His sister, the girl of ice and shadow. The child of the Mórrígan.
War was inevitable, it seemed, but all was not lost, because his sister had the blood of the war-goddess herself running through her veins.
“He's right,” Niall blurted out before he could think better of it, squaring his shoulders and turning to meet her silver-dark stare. “It shouldn’t be me. It should be Rory.”
A collective murmur arose over the council room, a shocked rush of voices, but he kept his gaze locked on hers, his silver-eyed sister who stared at him with disbelief, with the first stirrings of that oh-so-dangerous, ice-cold anger. “Niall,” she said. “Are you mad?”
“I’m sorry, Rory,” he said, and he was, so very sorry, but he could not do this, was not meant for this and she could. Rory was born for this. Born to rule. “It’s time to tell the truth, to show our enemies what nightmare they will be forced to face if they challenge us – challenge you.”
All around them, the watchers took another uneasy step backwards, huddling in the corners and against the walls, wide-eyed and pale-faced, and Niall knew he was the only one who saw the flicker of hurt flash across her glacial features.
“A nightmare,” she said, very softly. “Is that what you think of me, little brother?”
His heart shuddered in his chest. No, he thought wildly. No, of course not. She was the best thing the gods have ever given him.
But it was not, he knew, what the silent watchers in his council room needed to hear.
“You know you are,” he said instead. “I have seen it.”
Her eyes hardened into twin shards of frost-bitten glass. “Niall – you promised. You promised me, Niall, you swore –”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, hoping against hope that he could make her understand, make her see why he was asking this of her, how much he needed her to step in and to save him, yet again, but from himself this time, not a rain-swollen river or a band of half-grown boys or even a witch arisen from the myths of old.
“Please, Ror – trust me.” He turned to face the rest of the council, who were listening to their exchange, swords half-drawn, backs against the walls.
“For years, you have whispered about her, murmured over and over again the rumors of what she can do, what she truly is.”
“Niall.”
He ignored it, despite the splintering in his heart at the sound of her voice, still cold, still soft, but racked with unmistakable pain. It makes me a nightmare, she had said, tremulous and quiet. I don’t want to be that, ever again.
He forced himself to spit them out, the hateful, vow-breaking words, praying that he was not wrong, that it was the right and just thing to do, that it would not damn them both, damn the bond between them, the best and brightest thing in his life.
“Those rumors are true,” he said. “Rory has the truth-magic of the Mórrígan, her birthright. She is the one who will protect us, will save us.”
The murmur grew to a dull roar, Eilis shoving her chair to the floor with a clatter as she stood, fists clenched by her side, her strident voice carrying over the rising den of protests and shock.
“Niall, stop this,” she said, and it might be the only time, that his two sisters had ever agreed on something, for once unified against him.
“Niall.” Rory’s voice was no longer soft, but flat and sharp and riddled with ice. “You promised me, you swore to me, that you would never let me be used by this.”
“I know,” he said, an apology meant only for her. “And I truly am so sorry, Ror.” He paused, lips tight. “But there is no other way.”
“You’ll have to find one then,” she said. “Because you cannot make me use it.”
Niall was silent for a moment, even as the raucous clatter of voices ebbed and flowed around him, then bowed his head.
“Actually,” he said and took a slow step backwards, out onto the looming terrace behind him, then another, and her face grew ash-white and drawn as she realized what he meant to do. “I think I can.”
“No,” she snarled. “Don’t you dare –”
“Come and save me, Ror,” he said, and without another word, he turned and threw himself over the rail, plummeting head over heels in an uncontrolled spin to the hard-packed earth far below.
The wind ripped the scream from his throat, but the sound followed him anyway, a dozen horrified shrieks echoing after him, and he closed his eyes against the misting rain as he hurtled through the air, waiting –
Something cold and ghostly slithered across his ankles, his elbows, yanking him upwards, enveloping him in an arctic, furious embrace, safe and secure but pulsating with fury, and then he floated downwards, shoulders shivering and teeth chattering, and deposited unceremoniously on the ground with a contemptuous, ethereal shrug – alive and well and whole, standing there far below the stone terrace from which he had fallen, shaky knees and trembling hands and pounding heart.
She had done it. She had saved him, just like she had promised she always would, all those years ago, high among the Mhám Toirc, the two of them, their almost-twin hands entwined.
She had vowed to protect him and he had vowed to keep her secrets, and only one of them had followed through on those vows.
Niall whirled and stared up at the terrace, now covered in bone-white frost and shimmering with icy rage far above him, a dozen screaming faces staring down at him – his councilors, Aden and Deaglan and Breandán, Gael and Muireann and Eimear and Doran, and even Eilis, her black hair streaming over the balustrade as she bent over the ice-slick side of the terrace, shrieking his name.
All of them, the unwilling witnesses to his sister’s might, her power, her rightful claim to the throne, he knew, not only of Connacht, but of éire itself.
She deserved it, to rule over all, and Niall steeled himself to look for her next, her silver-dark eyes alight with censure and rage, her pale face set and unforgiving as a stone, ready to throw himself on his knees and beg for her forgiveness, for the chance to explain –
He frowned. There was no sign of her – that flame-bright hair, that furious face.
Where was Rory? Surely –
From the trees surrounding him, a falcon shrieked, long and shrill, and he whirled again, heart pounding. “Molly?”
She swooped down, her bright eyes dimmed, feathers drooping, to perch on his shoulder, a low, mournful warbling humming in her throat.
He reached up to stroke her head, gentle and soothing.
“It’s all right,” he said, against the rising sense of dread beginning to churn in his stomach, clawing at his throat.
“I’m all right, she saved me, as I knew she would, she’ll come around –”
“Niall.” He looked up at the sound of Eilis’ voice, hoarse and raw. “Niall, get up here now.”
“What’s wrong, what –”
“Get up here,” she said, and even from the great distance that separated them, Niall could see it, the tension lining her face. “Now.”
That vague sense of dread changed to fear, to terror. “Molly,” he said. “Where’s Murph?”
The kestrel keened once, sad and soft, and then he was running, her talons digging into his shoulder through the wool of his doublet, sprinting for the door his father’s castle, shoving his way past the alarmed and shouting soldiers within the great hall, taking the smooth stone stairs two at time, his heart thudding and pounding in his chest as he skidded into the council room, gasping for breath.