Chapter 27 #2
Rory considered this for a moment, peering through the gathering gloom to the green-grassed slopes of the river behind them. “Why this river? Why name a river in the middle of Leinster after the mother of Lugh?”
“Because,” said Locke, “it is said that Ethniu, in her despair and her grief over her lost children, after wandering in search of them throughout the realm, at last reached the river’s edge and, exhausted and too heartsore to continue on, threw herself into its current, that she might rejoin her slaughtered babes in the realm far across the star-studded sea. ”
A sharp and painful lump formed in the pit of Rory’s chest. “But Lugh survived. Not all was lost.”
“That’s true,” he said. “But I suppose it was not enough to ease her grief.”
“I suppose.” Rory shivered once, rubbing at her arms as she tried to shake herself free of the all-too-familiar dark cloud she could feel settling over her – not her unearthly knowings, her preternatural fog, but something far more human in nature.
“It’s a sad story,” she said. “The mother of one of the greatest gods in all of éire, and still it was not enough to fill her life with peace.”
Locke said nothing for a moment, then moved closer to where she sat by the fire. “Well,” he said. “I’ve done my part in providing this evening’s entertainment. Now it’s your turn.”
Rory forced herself to smile. “You want me to tell a story now?”
“Sure now,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “Perhaps we can be having us a competition of sorts, to see who can drive the other to drink the quickest with the sadness of their tellings.”
She laughed at that, nodding towards the flagon resting between us. “I think we are both of us well on our way to getting fluthered, which, given the circumstances, seems unwise.”
“True. That’s all right, then. I know what story I wish to hear from you anyway.”
“Something very lighthearted, no doubt. Perhaps the tale of the bocánach, the demons of the air awakened by bloodshed, known to terrorize the battlefields of yore, feeding on the fear and the terror of the wounded and the dying?”
“Believe you me,” he said. “While that sounds lovely to hear in the middle of the night in a deep, dark wood –no. I was thinking,” he said as he reached again for the flagon of whiskey, “that you should tell me the truth of why it is that, before the untimely arrival of my kinsmen, you agreed to come with me, and not go into the shadow-realm with your bárd friend.”
Her spine stiffened. “That’s not a story.”
“I think it is.” His hazel eyes, sharp as a well-whetted knife, glinted in the firelight. “It must be quite a tale – your reasoning for traveling with me, your self-avowed enemy, to the most dread spot in all of éire, without your magic and utterly defenseless –”
“Just because I cannot at the moment conjure nightmares hardly makes me a damsel in distress, Lord Locke.”
He smiled slightly, and she knew – she knew – he was remembering the soldier with the sword, her arms flung up in front of her face, and him shoving her out of the path of that sharp, shining blade, stepping between her and certain death.
“Practically defenseless,” he amended. “I think there must be a story there, why you should choose to accompany me rather than travel with our dear Finn to reunite with your loved ones, as Ethniu chose to.” Rory jerked backwards, a cold sweat breaking out across her brow, and Locke arched a brow.
“Surely it must have occurred to you – that here is an opportunity given to few mortals in our world, to cross the star-studded sea and see again those long lost to us and then return to the land of the living.”
She swallowed. “Maybe I can’t,” she said. “Go with him. The confinement spells of the sídhe –”
“Liar. If he can break them, then so can you. You released that hellhound from the sídhe a fortnight ago – I should know. So why would you not go with him to Magh Meall, let him lead you there, and learn for yourself from your ancestors how to break the witch’s spell?”
Rory pressed her fingertips against her burning eyes, suddenly weary. “You’re right. I could break the confinement spells, if I wanted to. But I can’t go there.”
Locke turned towards her, frowning. “To Magh Meall? Why not?”
Don’t say it, she thought. Please.
But of course, he did.
“Don’t you want to see your brother again?”
Rory lurched to her feet, chest heaving. “It’s none of your business, Locke,” she said, voice echoing throughout the glen in which they camped, and from the corner of her eye, she saw the horses raise their heads in unison, ears pricked.
Too loud – she was too loud, but she couldn’t seem to control the panic, the sorrow rippling its way through her chest.
Locke slowly rose to stand facing her, his expression worried. “Rory,” he said with unlikely softness. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was curious.”
“I don’t want to see him.” The words came out sharp as well-honed glass, despite the tremors that threatened to overtake her.
“Not until I have…atoned, not until I have paid the blood-debt owed to him. What do you think he would say to me otherwise – the sister who abandoned him, who left him to die? Me, the sister who could have saved him?”
“You could not have saved him.” Locke’s hand on her arm was feather-light, the barest hint of a caress. “I was there, Rory. There is no power left in this world that could have saved him that day.”
“You do not know,” she said, the vaguest flickers of that old familiar darkness struggling to surge to life once more deep within her, “what I can do – what I have done, to protect him.” She stepped back, pulling her arm free of his touch.
“Believe me when I say, had I been there, my brother would not have died.” She turned away, struggling to calm her breathing, to still the erratic thrumming of her heart.
“I broke the vow I made to him when we were but children. So unless I see my debt paid, my vengeance taken, I will never see the shores of Magh Meall – I would neither deserve nor desire to. What joy could await me there, what peace?”
“Rory.”
“Don’t.” She almost snarled it at him, vicious and full of fury.
“Do not patronize me with empty words, or attempt to manipulate me with your pretty platitudes. You are no better than I, and we both know it. You say you were there that day, when éire lost her freedom? I was not, as you know, so you will have to enlighten me. On what side did you fight – my brother’s, or with those who killed him? ”
“I had no choice.”
“Didn’t you.” She laughed bitterly. “At least I admit my wrongdoing, Locke. I do not delude myself as to what I am. At least I know my own sins and recognize what they have made me – a soul beyond all hope of saving.” She clenched her hands into fists at her sides, savoring the bite of her nails into her palms. “As are you – traitor.”
She could feel him hovering just behind her, could sense his raised hand hesitating, debating whether or not to reach out and comfort her. An interminably long moment passed, and she knew without turning around that his hand had fallen away, and he had made his decision.
“You should rest,” he said, his voice quiet and even – emotionless. “I’ll take the first watch. If we leave at dawn, we’ll arrive by dusk at Ráth Cruachan.”
The words lingered ominously in the cool night air, an almost tangible entity, it seemed, a dark and forbidding thing that she might touch if she were to raise her fingers and let the fog of her breath give it shape and form, to transform the ephemeral into something all-too-real and terrible.
She could feel it there, struggling to wake itself from whatever heavy and unnatural slumber the witch had cursed it to endure – the nightmare of knowing which had haunted her, lived within her, for as long as she could remember, and in those stirrings, that vaguely-shaped certainty flickered anew within her, that whatever awaited them at Ráth Cruachan would be her undoing.
She knew it in the way she had always known truths too terrible to be spoken, without clarity or cause, but with unshakeable conviction, but it couldn’t be helped. Her ruin might be waiting at Ráth Cruachan, but so was the only part of Niall left living in this world.
Her nephew.
The monster born to devour the world.
The boy that Locke had led her all this way for her to kill.