Chapter 46 #2
Aoife had not cried. Not in the courtyard, not on the steps, not when Faolán’s eyes had gone wet and he’d had to look away.
But her grandmother’s hands were on her face and her thumbs were moving and it was that—Elara surmised—that undid her.
In the face of her grandmother’s love, she had nowhere left to hide.
“It is a long tale,” Aoife managed.
“I have lived seven hundred years, child.” Her thumbs caught what fell from Aoife’s cheeks, unhurried. “I have time for a tale. Besides, I know enough of it. Odhrán wrote to me. What I do not know is whose hands maimed you, and I will have those names before this night is finished.”
Aoife opened her mouth, then closed it. Something in her face faltered.
Caelion answered for her. “Humans, my lady.”
The elder Sídhe went still.
Elara had never, in seven weeks of traveling with Reynnar Brannoc, witnessed anything on his face that matched the fury now burning in his grandmother’s. Reynnar’s anger, even at its coldest, was a fire contained within a man who had learned to carry it.
This was older. Wilder.
Her hands remained on Aoife’s face, yet the lamps guttered in their sconces. The banked fire in the hearth leaned toward her, flames drawn as if by a draft. Heat flooded the room until the air itself seemed to scorch.
Reynnar took one small step back, angling himself slightly in front of Elara, and she thought distantly that if Osin ever stood in a room with Mamó, he would not leave it.
“Humans,” Mamó said, and turned her gaze on Elara.
It was not a question.
Elara’s pulse was loud in her ears, but she held her gaze. She had learned long ago not to yield first to the things that frightened her; flinching only ever invited more.
Caelion stepped forward. “Mamó,” he said carefully, “you should sit.”
“I will not sit.”
At last, she looked away from Elara and turned to Reynnar.
He bowed his head without hesitation and touched his brow to hers.
Mamó pulled him down against her chest and held him there, one hand braced at the back of his head as if she could shield him from the years already behind him.
When she released him, Reynnar stepped back, his hands curling once at his sides before falling still.
Mamó lifted a hand to Caelion’s cheek, brief and firm. “You stayed with them.”
“Always.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, gave the smallest nod, and let her hand fall. Then she turned to Eamon. He had kept himself one pace removed from all of it, silent, his arms loose at his sides, his face composed into something almost blank.
“You,” she said.
He bowed at once.
“You will help them?”
“Aye, my lady.”
She held out both hands.
To Elara’s astonishment, Eamon hesitated only a fraction before bending—stiffly, as though unused to yielding.
The elder Sídhe caught him by the shoulders and drew him down just enough to press her forehead briefly to his.
Her lips moved, but whatever she said, Elara could not hear it. She released him.
Only then did she turn to Elara again.
Mamó’s gaze settled on her with a weight that made the room seem to narrow around it.
Dark and banked as coals, her eyes moved over Elara’s face with slow, unnerving care—the same kind of look Faolán had given Aoife earlier, as though reading damage in the body were a language she knew by heart.
Her attention passed over Elara’s brow, her mouth, the line of her jaw.
Then it stopped at her throat.
Mamó’s head tilted, just slightly.
A sharp pulse of heat went through Elara so fast the room spun. Her spine locked. She had the absurd, sickening urge to clap a hand over her neck like a guilty child.
Perhaps she’s only studying her scar…
“I am Breagha,” she finally said. “Mamó to these children. And you, girl, have a grandson of mine’s mark fading at your throat. Do not tug the collar; I have already seen it.”
Elara let her hand drop. Her ears burned.
“Mamó—” Reynnar sighed.
“Hush, Reynn. I am speaking to the human.”
She came closer, stopping only a pace from Elara, small and straight and perfectly composed. Then she held out her hand, palm up.
Elara stared at it for half a beat.
“Your hand, girl.”
“My—oh.”
She offered it awkwardly, and Breagha took it with surprising gentleness.
She turned Elara’s palm upward and studied it in silence, her thumb brushing once across the center as if searching for something written beneath the skin.
Then she folded Elara’s fingers back into a fist and gave her knuckles a small, thoughtful pat.
“Hm,” she said.
That was all. Hm.
She released her, eyes lifting to Elara’s face. “You will sit at my right at dinner.” With that, she turned to the others. “Come. You are all thin as reeds. I will not stand in my own sitting room while my grandchildren wither.” She clapped her hands once, a sharp, small sound. “Faolán.”
He materialized in the doorway.
“Send for Maistir Fionn. Maistir Corrán. The chief historian. Every genealogist in this keep, and the two from the lower city. They are to attend me in the east study after the evening meal.”
“My lady.”
“And send healers.”
“Mamó,” Aoife said softly, “healers will not—”
“Healers.”
Faolán bowed once before his eyes found Aoife.
Elara was certain he had not meant for them to.
He was already moving toward the door, the bow not yet fully gone from his shoulders, his attention fixed on the corridor beyond and the work waiting there.
But his gaze caught on Aoife in passing, like a sleeve snagged on a nail, held a moment too long, then released.
Breagha turned on her heel, her skirts whispering over the floor. “Come,” she said again, already moving for the door. “Kitchens first. We will see what can be done about how thin you all are, and then we will see about everything else.”