Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
RORY
The night of the feast of Imbolc broke, cold and clear, a bloodless sun sinking heavy and slow, down from the cloud-laden sky.
Rory studied the gown laid out before her in her tent, a deep blue embossed with dull threads, with loose sleeves that would fall to the tips of her fingers and a flowy skirt that would trail along the cold stone floors behind her like a shroud of midnight.
She loved it.
Tonight she would take her vengeance – would become the queen he had always wanted her to be, and she would rather die than disappoint the memory of him.
A pity about Locke, she thought as she slipped on the gown. He was clever, strong of heart and of mind as well as body, and she could deny that he intrigued her in a way that few ever had.
But mercy would be a weakness, a courtesy that he would not extend to her, were the situation reversed.
So. Let him die, alongside his traitor father, and the bloodthirsty Albion general with them.
And the witch, too, who had deceived and then slain her brother.
Her Niall.
Tonight, she thought as she glided towards the opening of her tent, the gown swishing around her as dark and impenetrable as the night itself, they would all pay.
She would begin with Locke’s father.
He was seated across from her at the long wooden table laden with food atop the green-grassed hill underneath the starless sky, with Locke to her right and Ironstring and Aoife each at the far ends.
It made sense, she told herself as she ate her lamb, to strike at him first, to let the others see their own fate, a nightmare of her own choosing, overtake him while they were forced to sit, powerless to defend themselves, and watch him die.
Aoife especially – the cailleach deserved to know the taste of fear as her erstwhile allies died in agony, knowing all the while that this same fate would soon be hers.
After all, she’d fought the witch before and won, and she had been a mere child then, unversed in the workings of her power.
She was older now, and wiser, and fueled by a depthless, seething inferno of rage, intent upon one thing and one thing alone – to see the blood-debt of her brother paid in full, with blood, yes, but also with fear and despair, to watch her suffer and scream before she died, this soulless, cold-blooded creature of the golden locks and sea-swept eyes.
She would see the Bright One burn again, once and for all, even if it killed her.
The feast was well-lit, despite the clouds shrouding the slivered crescent moon and the stars from sight, two large twin turf-fires roaring at each end of the table, servants clad in blue-and-gold tunics standing by with torches clutched in their hands – the festival of rebirth and new light.
Rory savored the gamy flavor of the meat, the smokiness of it sizzling on the end of her tongue, lingering even after she drank from the dandelion wine the maid poured generously into her cup.
No need to hurry, she thought to herself as another roar of laughter, another shouting of merriment erupted up and down the length of the table. Whoever the cooks were, they had done a fantastic job with the spices of the lamb, the sweetness of the honey cakes.
It was quite lovely, as far as last meals go. They should all count themselves very lucky, these unsuspecting souls who would soon be nothing more than a pile of bones on the top of this sacred coronation mound, their blood seeping into the very earth that they had betrayed.
Rory took another sip of wine, the bittersweet aroma flooding through her nose, pricking at her eyes.
“Is everything to your liking, my lady?” Locke asked, and she tipped her chin in a wordless assent, keeping her gaze focused on the dull-edged knife gripped in her hand – the same hand that had once been bound to his, tied together with soft cotton and softer words, the hand that this morning had been pressed into his as they came together in a rush of fire and ice.
Maybe she should kill him first, just to get it over with – take this same knife and stab it through his eye, piercing his brain in a single, merciful strike, and then while the others gaped in horror-struck disbelief, rise to her feet and call down their ruination in a voice as inevitable as the ending that comes to all things on a dark midwinter night.
She could almost, almost see it, a vague shadowy shaping of their damned faces, contorted with pain and with fear, hear the splintered sound of their screaming –
She felt a slight pressure on her knee, and looked down to find Locke’s hand resting there. “Only a bit longer,” he whispered, and she could feel the warmth of his fingers through her gown.
It was unnerving, and tonight of all nights, she needed her nerves steady and strong.
Rory took one last deep gulp from her wine, then set it down on the table before pushing back from the table to stand, Locke’s hand falling away from her knee as he stared up at her, hazel eyes sharp and keen.
A hush fell over the rest of the table as they all as one turned to stare in her direction, but Rory kept her eyes downcast, her hands clasped in front of her, looking, she hoped, for all the world as innocent and feeble as the very lambs they had slaughtered for this night.
“General Ironstring,” she began, low and clear. “You have granted me sanctuary, and safety, when a lesser man would have demanded my head as the blood-debt to be paid for all the lives taken at the hands of my kin, and for that, I give you thanks.”
From his seat at the far end of the table, the Albion general bent his head in acknowledgment, and she continued, turning towards her new-minted father-in-law, ignoring the shimmering golden creature seated far to her left.
“And for you, athair,” she said. “I have a gift – a promise of what is to come from this union between your blood and mine.”
Locke was on his feet almost as soon as she finished speaking, his hand on her arm. “My lady,” he said. “Now is not the time.”
“Oh, but I think it is.”
“Rory.” His fingers dug into her forearm. “Don’t.”
A new awareness prickled along the back of her neck as she stared at him, his grim expression, the pained look in his hazel eyes. “I see,” she said. “And what of your vow to be the shield at my back, Lord Locke?”
“I’m fairly certain,” he said, letting his hand fall away as he took a slow step away from her, “that you were a breath or two away from breaking that very same vow, were you not?”
Far down at his end of the table, Ironstring too rose, his hands raised as he watched her, black eyes sharp and wary. “Well,” he said. “It seems the time for pretty words is over,” and he jerked his chin towards where the golden-haired witch still sat facing them all, smiling and serene.
“A pheata,” she said, and Rory forced herself to meet the gaze of the monster who had murdered her brother, this cailleach whom she meant to kill, or die trying. “I have waited for this night for so long.”
“I have waited longer,” she said, and slammed her palms flat on the table, letting it loose from within her, the roll of the fog, the crack of the ice –
Nothing happened.
The witch bared her teeth in a feral smile as Rory stared down at her hands, confused.
“Well-nigh twenty years since you came to my mountain and burnt my body to ash,” she said, rising to her feet, her oceanic eyes bright with hunger.
“Did you think that I would not have prepared better for you, foolish girl? I know your secrets, but you do not know mine.”
“I know a few of them,” said Rory, despite the erratic thudding of her heart, spinning around to seize the torchlight burning behind her and sending it careening across the cloud-dark sky.
She heard it then, the answering song to their prearranged signal, a sonorous, symphonic chanting, steady and smooth as the combined might of the sisters three, the An Triúr Deirfiúr, thundering their way down to the sea.
Finn. Relief flooded through her – it had been too risky to verify that he had survived the attack which they both knew would come for him in the night, and she trusted Finn more than any other living soul in this world, but she had feared for him too, her last and most loyal of friends.
He had not failed her, for all around them out of the twilight rose the shadow-shapes of ghostlike men, armed to the teeth with sword and spear and great bows of yew, thundering out in perfect harmony with Finn’s song far below.
The great warriors of éire, risen again by the power of the bárd’s call.
Aoife shrieked as they descended upon her – Cúchulainn and Ferdiad and Cú Roí, the warrior-woman Bodhmall close on their heels, Bélchú of Bréifne and Fráech of the Fir Domnann, followed by the great kings of Ulaid, and Fergus mac Róich, too, the famed sword Caladbolg clutched tight in his ghostly hand, and Celtchar himself, the great Red Branch warrior with his dread envenomed spear Lúin – the legends of her childhood brought to life before her, the voice of the bárd breathing strength into their phantom arms.
Rory didn’t wait to see the ensuing battle between the phantom-heroes and the witch, even as her guttural maledictions bellowed out across the flat top of the coronation hill, but ducked underneath the table, feeling blindly for the knife Finn had lashed to the underside earlier that day as they had planned.
Her fingers brushed across it, the lethal-sharp tip of the blade slicing into her skin, and she winced even as she breathed out a sigh of relief, tugging it free.