Chapter 25 #2
She nodded. “I have cousins who serve the king, and I have been corresponding with Mac Duinn through them. He is ready to strike against the Albions whenever we give the word.”
“So Munster, then.” Rory looked to Gareth. “That, and Connacht itself, needs to be our focus for now. We’ll worry about the Leinster clans later. There are too many unfriendlies at the moment.”
Locke straightened. “On that much, we agree. But we do not need to go to Connacht – or at least, not to Soghain.”
“Soghain was once my home,” said Rory. “My father and my brother’s kingdom, as the vale was my mother’s.
The clans of Connacht will be loyal to me, which is more than you can say about your own land, and furthermore, it is the only realm still free from Albion rule.
Ironstring holds sway over Leinster, Munster, and Ulaid, but he cannot take Connacht. ”
“Not yet,” Locke countered. “But it won’t be long.
He’s been circling it for awhile, and believe me when I say, he’s more than ready to strike.
Your escape two nights ago will have sped up whatever plan he has in place to take Soghain, not deter it.
” He shook his head. “We do need to go to Connacht, but not to Soghain. What we need to do is travel to Ráth Cruachan, as quickly as we can, and kill Meiche.”
Rory exchanged a tight-lipped glance with Finn, who nodded once. “Dil,” he said quietly. “Gareth. Go ready your things. You need to leave for Ulaid and Munster as soon as possible.”
They seemed to understand the underlying message of his command, because they stood at once, striding away to gather their supplies without a murmur of protest. Finn watched them go, then turned back to face Rory. “So,” he said. “It hasn’t come back yet.”
She shook her head, gaze locked on her useless, too-warm hands, the lump in her throat painfully thick. Locke settled back against the wall with a surprised laugh. “You still don’t have your magic?”
“Don’t sound so pleased about it.” Rory’s fingers curled into the folds of her gown. “We don’t stand a chance against Ironstring and the Bright One without it.”
“In my opinion, we don’t stand much of one with it, but I concede your point.” Locke blew out a breath, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t see how this changes things. We still need to make killing the boy our first priority.”
“And how are we supposed to slay Meiche, the destroyer of worlds, without magic, Lord Locke? It would be suicide.”
“This entire endeavor is essentially suicide,” he said. “And as of now, Meiche, the true destroyer of worlds, still slumbers in the heart of a defenseless boy. Slitting his throat would be – if I may be so bold – child’s play.”
“How do we know,”Finn asked, “that she hasn’t already awakened the monster?”
“We don’t,” said Locke impatiently. “We only have her word for it that she needs Rory here’s heart to complete her nasty little spell and call him forth. Which is why I am begging you two to get your asses moving for Ráth Cruachan so we can kill him before she gets the chance.”
A trap – it’s a trap.
The faint, far-off whispered knowing slithered through her, a distant, muted echo of the diamond-bright knowing she was used to, but Rory recognized it all the same, the feeble flutterings of her power trying to stir itself awake inside her.
She shook her head, trying to focus on Locke and Finn’s raised voices, and watched as the former threw up his hands. “For the love of Oisín’s beard,” Locke said in exasperation to whatever sharp response Finn had given to his proposal. “Why the hell not?”
“Because.” Finn’s voice was low and dark with barely-restrained fury. “You have cost us the most powerful weapon in our arsenal which we could have wielded against our enemy, and our first priority is to find a way to get that weapon back.”
“A weapon?” Locke snorted. “I assume you mean Rory? I must say, Finn, I’ve heard many a man objectify a woman in my time, but none so insultingly as you just have.”
“I’m not insulted,” said Rory. “It’s true. That is what I am, and nothing more.”
Locke’s lips tightened in response, but he kept his gaze locked on Finn. “I don’t know how to counter-act the spell the witch placed on her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I assumed as much.”
Locke rolled his shoulders back, rubbing at the back of his neck as though it ached.
Rory recognized that movement – too many nights of sleeping on the hard ground rather than a soft bed, too many sleepless hours spent lying awake, racked with guilt and grief and an innumerable amount of worries that could never be eased, no matter how many lies they told themselves.
She ignored the twinge in her chest as Locke dropped his hands to brace himself against the stone wall as he continued to study them.
“How then? How do you plan to find a way to undo the effects of the spells?”
Rory glanced furtively at Finn, who stared back in silence, his expression unreadable. She swallowed once before answering. “You know what Finn is,” she said at last. “You know what he can do.”
Locke’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
Rory rubbed the tips of her fingers together, avoiding his gaze. “So Finn will travel into the sídhe, and then across the star-studded sea, to consult the gone gods about how to undo the witch’s spell and whatever lasting effects it might have on my powers.”
A shocked silence met this pronouncement. “You can’t be serious.” He looked between them, back and forth. “And yet you are. Oisín’s beard, you truly mean to breach the unseen walls of the sídhe and enter the forbidden realms? To visit the land of the dead?”
Finn rolled his shoulders. “Yes.”
“You’re a madman. You realize that, yes?
” He didn’t wait for an answer. “But let’s say you succeed,” said Locke, leaning against the half-crumbled stone wall, ankles and arms crossed, head tipped back to study the cloudy morning sky.
“Let’s assume, for the moment, that you do gain access to one of the sídhe-realms, that you are not immediately slaughtered by whatever manner of bloodthirsty beasts are lurking there – a taste of which horror I myself have experienced, thanks to my lovely wife here – let’s say you survive this excursion, against all odds.
It’s still a fool’s errand, for the dead gods,” he said, “do not reside in Magh Meall. At least, that’s what I learned from reading all those tales when I was a boy.
There’s a separate realm for them, is there not – one where we cannot ever go, bárd or no?
The realm of the ever-living gods, it’s called, or some such shite. ”
“The realm of Tír na mBeo,” said Finn. “Mind your tongue.”
“My tongue is not your concern.” He smiled, lethal-sharp. “Only my wife’s.”
“She is not your wife.”
“Me and my marriage bed, such as it was, would beg to differ.”
“Enough.” Rory shot Finn a warning glance, and he scowled once before settling back against the tree. “It is true,” she said. “The gods will not be in Magh Meall, and no mortal is allowed passage to Tír na mBeo.”
“Seems a stupid endeavor then,” said Locke. “You can sit and chat with the ghosts of the heroes of old if you like, but without one of the Tuatha Dé Danann to teach you how to break the witch’s spell on their power, then it’s pointless.” He threw out his hands. “I say again – a fool’s errand.”
“Not all of the gods,” said Finn in a low voice, “are in Tír na mBeo.”
Even though she knew it was coming, Rory’s heart clenched, too tight. “All but one,” she said, quiet and tense. “And he would know.”
Locke straightened at that, hazel eyes keen and bright in the dim glow of the firelight. “Oisín’s beard,” he said. “I forgot. Your ancestor, Midir.”
“He was once Midir. He sacrificed his immortality, his divinity, for his wife’s sake.
” Rory rubbed at her upper arms as she spoke, staring into the fire.
“He wed Rozlyn ó Conchúir, the first queen of the vale, the Beast of Connacht, and by doing so became fully mortal, and as such, would be in Magh Meall with her.”
Locke looked back and forth between the two of them, brow furrowed, clearly puzzled at the sudden tension snapping in the air. “Well then,” he said. “Not so asinine after all, I suppose, assuming that he can in fact find a way to bypass the confinement spells and enter the sídhe.”
“He can.”
“How?” Finn’s lip curled, and Locke huffed out a bitter laugh.
“Very well,” he said. “Keep your secrets, but it is hardly a promising start to our alliance, you know.” Locke paced back and forth between them, rubbing his palms together.
“Let the bárd go to hell –” Rory scowled again at the pun “– and you and I, my lady, can go to Ráth Cruachan ourselves and deal with the boy.”
Finn took a single threatening step forward. “She will do no such thing.”
Locke smiled, thin-lipped and dismissive. “Too bad that I wasn’t really asking.”
“I swear by the fairy-queen’s crown, one day, I shall –”
Rory stood up abruptly, cutting off whatever threat Finn was about to snarl in Locke’s direction. “He’s right.” Both men looked towards her, Locke with curiosity, Finn with irritation. “I should go with him to Ráh Cruachan.”
“But –”
“I’ve decided.” Rory’s voice was knife-sharp and unyielding, and Finn fell silent. “I’m your queen,” she said, more calmly. “You swore to me your fealty. It’s my decision, and this is what I choose to do.”
Finn watched her closely, eyes heavy with concern. “You do realize that he could be leading you into a trap, do you not, a bhréone?”
“I find that suggestion,” said Locke, “to be extremely offensive.”
Neither of them acknowledged him. “Rory?” Finn kept his gaze unwavering on her face. “Do you understand how dangerous this course would be?”