Chapter 5 #3
“Cúchulainn groaned so loud as to shake the rocks of the mountains to their very foundations, and his enemy shuddered and retreated, terrified of him even now.
The dying hero lifted his head and saw, far above him, a raven sat perched on a branch of a tree, watching him with bright eyes.
‘Queen of shadows,’ he said. ‘You have brought me low at long last, but I will not die in the dirt like the dog for which I was named.’ He crawled to a nearby stone, and pulled himself to his feet, lashing himself to the rock with his sword-belt, his last blade clenched in his fist. ‘I will die as I lived,’ he said. ‘Upright and proud.’
“And then,” Locke said quietly, “he died.” A tense silence, then Locke shrugged.
“Catalan’s three sons lay dead and rotting in the road.
And as for Lugaid – he thought to claim for himself the sword of Cúchulainn, to take it from his bloodless hand, but he could not, even in death, loosen the mighty grip of Ulster’s champion.
So he drew his knife from the scabbard at his side and chopped off Cúchulainn’s hand, and down it fell, the sword still tight in its grip – and it fell upon Lugaid’s own arm, severing his hand from his wrist.” He tilted his head back, staring up into the cloud-laden sky.
“So died Cúchulainn,” he said. “The king of warriors, of the heroes of old.”
“Oisín.”
“What?”
“Oisín,” she said in a hard voice. “The son of Fionn mac Cumhaill, he who was loved by the fairy-queen herself.”
“Yes, I, a good Leinster lad born and raised, know well the feats of Oisín.”
Her gaze did not waver. “Oisín was greater. A bárd as well as a warrior, he crossed the star-studded sea and returned, a rare feat among mortals. That makes him the greatest hero that éire has ever seen – greater than Cú Roí and his own father as well, Fionn mac Cumhaill, and yes, even Cúchulainn.”
“You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.” Locke smiled. “Erroneous and, quite frankly, obtuse as it may be.”
“Call me obtuse again,” said Rory. “Please.”
He laughed, reaching out to push the hood back from her forehead with careful fingers, his knife still clutched in the other.
“My lady,” he said, very softly. “Do you understand why I told you that story? Do you see why it has been weighing on my mind ever since I heard of your arrival and our subsequent nuptials? I know that you can see things the likes of which I could never even imagine, but would you like to know what I see, when I look at you? Potential.” He dropped his hand away from her face, now that he could see her clearly in the murky light of day, the mottled marks of her bruises marring her skin.
“There’s no need for us to be enemies, my lady.
We are set to wed, and we shall, but it could be very beneficial for both of us, I think, if you would be so inclined. ”
“I doubt,” she said, “that there is much that you can give to me that I cannot find from any other man.”
Locke grinned, sliding even closer to her, so that the scent of her – earthy and bitter, like iron and ice tinged with still-warm blood – flooded his senses, seeping into his pores.
He knew it was meant to inspire fear, that smell, a lingering aftermath of the power which flowed through her veins, and that no mortal was meant to savor it, but rather to fall to their knees and beg, futilely, for their life.
What was wrong with him, he wondered as her eyes met his, an unmistakable threat simmering in their fathomless gray depths, that while he certainly felt a great deal of dread, there was also an equally primal urge to taste that same scent on his lips, on his tongue, to drink it down to its very dregs and see the full scope of what lay hidden underneath the surface of that pretty face?
“Listen to me,” he said. “We want the same things, you and I.”
She watched him, careful and close, before stepping into his warmth, the curves her body brushing against his chest. He forced himself to remain still, to refrain from succumbing to that barely-there pressure and reaching out to explore the soft skin of her face with the tips of his fingers.
A most dangerous game, that would be, kissing this creature.
The hunger of his thoughts must have been reflected in his face, because her expression turned provocative, the smallest of sly smiles playing at the corners of her lips. “At the moment,” she said. “Judging by the look in your eye, Lord Locke, I can assure you, we do not.”
“Marry me,” he said, “and I swear, you can earn your éraic.”
“And how would my marrying you do that?”
“Because once you are my wife, I can hand you the keys to Connacht – though why it is such an impassioned point of contention amongst the lot of you, I’ll never know. It’s an awful place, nothing but barren rock and fog.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And what must I do in return, for you to return to me my brother’s kingdom?”
“It might be your kingdom, if you liked.”
“It will always be my brother’s kingdom, Lord Locke. What must I do, for you to agree to help me?”
He slipped his warm fingers into her wintry ones, then pulled her close, so that his lips brushed against the shell of her ear. “Do what you do best, of course,” he whispered. “You must kill my father for me.”