Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
RORY
The moon, full and bright, crept its way over the dark, star-kissed horizon on the first full night of spring, and Rory still didn’t have her magic back.
She stood in the darkness, in the shadows that had always felt like home to her, seeking any residual sign of that ice-touched power of hers with its unearthly fog and diamond-bright knowings – calling for it, a desolate lover wailing into the night, hoping against hope that the mere sound of their name will conjure the beloved into blood and bone before their eyes.
And yet. Nothing.
A sour taste settled over her tongue, a by-product from the rippling waves of unease churning in her gut.
They needed her magic – needed this shadow-power of hers.
The salvation of the entire realm, and that of humanity itself, it would seem, rested on her shoulders, and without it, she was of no value to anyone.
She had never wished to be a nightmare, had often longed from the depths of her soul to be free of it, but now that it was gone, she wasn’t sure who she was without it.
The sound of footsteps behind her, and reluctantly, she opened her eyes. “Lord Locke,” she said without turning around. “This is not a good time.”
“Well, there’s not likely to be a better, is there?
Besides, your charming friends are all clustered about the fire glaring daggers at me, and I thought it best to remind everyone that by your decree, my lady, I am not to be touched.
” His arm brushed against hers as he came to stand beside her, his posture mirroring hers, arms crossed, head tipped back to study the night sky.
“And I wanted to apologize,” he said after a moment.
“For?”
“For what you’d expect – the scratch to your throat, and the thrashing I gave you at the feast.”
“I’d hardly call that a thrashing, seeing as I gave as good as I received, and I feel that there’s a great deal lacking from that apology.”
“Ah,” he said. “You want me to also apologize for betraying you?”
“It would seem the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Well, I must admit that I lied to you, my lady, when I told you I was a gentleman. Perhaps I might have been, in another, kinder life, but I would hardly have survived long in this one if I prioritized good manners over my neck.” He nudged her with his elbow.
“But I’ll tell you what – I shall apologize for all my betrayal as soon as you do. ”
She scoffed. “By the harp, why should I apologize to you?”
“It would seem,” he said, “the ladylike thing to do.”
Reluctantly, she smiled. “Marriage does not suit us at all, does it?”
“Under certain circumstances, we suit very well.”
She scoffed loudly, and he grinned as he at last turned to look at her, hazel eyes gleaming in the darkness.
“Rory,” he said, soft voice an unsettling contrast to the sharpness of his gaze.
“I am sorry. I didn’t want to do it – didn’t want to see you dead at the hands of the witch.
But I didn’t see any other way to spare my people further death, further pain.
” He held up a hand to forestall her objection.
“I know – a living death is the far worse fate, but it’s easier to believe that when you haven’t seen the amount of deaths, the faces of weeping widows and grieving children, as I have.
” He shrugged, looking away from her. “I made my choice, for better or worse, because I couldn’t bear it anymore – the horrors that come with war.
A dishonorable peace is still peace, at least.” Locke’s shoulders sagged as he studied the stars, his expression cast in shadow.
“But,” he said after a moment. “I was still sorry, that you were to be the collateral paid for that peace.”
Rory was quiet, studying her too-warm fingers – useless, broken things now, she thought bitterly, because of his damned peace. “That’s all very sweet-sounding, sure,” she said, “and no doubt you expect me to respond in kind.”
“But?”
She drew a deep breath. “But I am not at all sorry that you were to be my collateral, as you put it, the price I needed to pay to have my vengeance.” Another slow flex, one last attempt to calm it forth from whatever dark corner of her soul it slumbered, her power.
Nothing stirred. “I regret that I failed to kill you when I had the chance.”
A brief pause, and then he shifted, moving away from her side. “I see,” he said. “Well. It’s too bad, I suppose, that you did not succeed at that.”
She would not feel guilty, she told herself fiercely. He was her enemy, both then and now, regardless of whatever tremors alliance they might have forged with one another.
And he still owed her an explanation, come to think of it.
“Wait.” She turned, and he paused, his back still towards her, shoulders tense. “You said that Aoife needed him, my brother, specifically, in order to resurrect Meiche. Why? Why him?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps you should ask her – if she doesn’t slaughter you on sight the next time the two of you hellcats cross paths with one another.”
“There’s no reason to be cruel. You did try to kill me too.”
“Yes, for which I have apologized, and confessed that it was not a fate I would have chosen for you.” He huffed as he turned to face her. “Not a sentiment which you share, apparently.”
Rory pressed her lips together, forcing herself not to remember the guilt she had felt sitting at that feast with him at her side, knowing what he would soon suffer at her hands. “I thought you said we should be done lying to one another.”
“And that’s the truth, is it? That you prefer me dead and buried?”
She forced herself to look him in the eyes, keeping her expression cool, an impenetrable mask of ice that she could no longer command. “Yes,” she said. “That is the truth.”
He shook his head before turning on his heel and walking away. “You’d think you’d be better at it,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “Seeing as how you’re to be the descendant of the goddess of truth itself.”
“Better – at what?”
“Lying.” She flinched, but he didn’t look back. “Have a good night, my lady.”
And then he was gone, and she was alone once more, lost to the darkness, feeling far more alone than she ever had before in her life.
# # #
She had composed herself by the dawn, spending a long while soothing those qualms of uncertainty and guilt into silence, and after a few fitful hours of sleep curled up on the hard-packed ground, she was stone-faced as ever when she greeted her erstwhile husband across the fire in the morning as their small group huddled together for breakfast and schemings.
“It’s settled,” said Finn as he handed her a plate of sausages and berries. “Dil and Gareth will make for Ulaid and Munster and gather support from our allies in the north in preparation for our last stand.”
“There can’t be a last stand,” Locke interjected tersely from where he stood a little ways off from the rest of the group, leaning against a half-crumbled stone fence nearby.
“Not until the boy is dead. If she calls forth the destroyer, then we’re all doomed, no matter how many allies you manage to wheedle into joining your little death march. ”
“It won’t be a death march.” Dil glowered up at him from where she was sprawled on the ground, nibbling at her biscuit. “Seven years ago, the Albions had the upper hand because of the element of surprise. This time, we’re prepared for their full might. This time, we’ll prevail.”
“Sure, it’s a nice fairy-tale, that.” Locke waved his hand impatiently at Dil and Gareth’s squalls of protest. “Listen to me,” he said.
“You spared my life for the insights that I could give you into Ironstring and the cailleach’s schemes, did you not?
That is the only reason why I still live, and we all know it, so listen to the truth I am telling you now – there is the faintest scrap of hope that you will overcome the might of their forces under the best of circumstances, and no hope at all of anyone, of éire or Albion or beyond, surviving the nightmare that will befall us if Aoife succeeds in awakening Meiche from where he slumbers within this boy of hers.
” Locke huffed, shoving his hands into his pockets with an irritated movement.
“There will be no éire, nor Albion neither, to go to war at all if we don’t kill that boy quick and clean and soon. ”
Finn looked at her, a silent question, but Rory merely flexed her fingers, in and out, hoping to feel any kind of sign that it was returning to her, this magic that she had resented and cursed for so long.
Nothing.
“That will have to wait,” she heard Finn say. “For now, our focus will be gathering the support we need from the realms of Ulaid and Munster and Connacht, and the clans within them – along with whoever in Leinster would be ready to follow their rightful king into battle.”
“You mean me, I presume?” Locke laughed bitterly.
“Do you know what they whisper about me, what they call me behind my back and sometimes to my face back in the land of my birth?” His lip curled.
“The traitor-prince, they say. The lord who whored out his honor out to save his own skin.” He laughed again, a savagely humorless sound.
“You want to know which of them would follow me to war? Not many, that’s who. ”
A girl of ice and shadow, Rory remembered. A nightmare, they had called her.
Her stomach clenched.
“Are we supposed to feel badly for you?” Gareth asked, knife clutched tight in his fist. “If you didn’t want to be known as a traitor, perhaps you shouldn’t have behaved as such.”
Rory rubbed at her temples, new waves of guilt coursing uncomfortably through her. “Enough,” she said. “Finn is right, as is Locke. Dil, you and Gareth should focus your energies on garnering good will among the northern clans.” She gestured towards Dil. “You say Ulaid is for us?”