by Grace Martin
‘I have to. That’s the bargain. The willow spoke to me. I must remain here, until you sit on Umbra’s throne and can command the willow. You can do it.’ She leaned in to give me a quick kiss. ‘This is how much I believe in you.’
The trees began to whisper, ‘Bach Chwaer, Bach Chwaer, Bach Chwaer.’
Aine took a deep breath and walked forward, head high, hands loose at her sides. She entered the willow and the long, limber branches wrapped themselves around her. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t struggle. Eventually the other branches of the willow came between us like a curtain, blocking her from sight.
There was a cracking sound, a shuddering of the earth, as other trees began to move. I stared as they uprooted themselves and walked upon the grass as though their roots were legs. They opened a passage for us, a promenade of green grass, littered with scars from where the trees had pulled up their own roots so they could make a path for us. We walked through the shaded greenway as twilight began to deepen around us.
As we walked, the whispers changed, from ‘Bach Chwaer,’ to ‘Umbra, Umbra, Umbra.’ I didn’t correct them.
And there it was. The fortress of Ce’deira. Unfortunately, while Oisin had done a great job of mentioning the wards around the fortress, he’d neglected to mention the very un-magical, very practical, and above all, very locked gates. Beyond a circle of the river of souls. There wasn’t even a bridge.
‘How do we get in?’ I asked Sparrow.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t see any guards on the battlements.’ Rhiannon commented. She was right. The high stone walls appeared to be deserted. ‘Why don’t we fly?’
Someone laughed behind us. I didn’t want to turn, didn’t want to give her that satisfaction, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t leave her behind me.
Aoife. Of course, it was Aoife. And behind her were soldiers, coming through the forest, more and more of them. The Wild Ones had left us to try and delay Aoife’s forces and here they were, barely a few moments behind us. My heart started to pound irregularly. They kept coming and coming, forming a larger and larger phalanx of troops behind her.
We were toast.
‘Delusions of grandeur, Bach Chwaer?’ she sneered as the soldiers kept coming through the trees. ‘And you, what are you supposed to be, the midwife who pretended to examine me and tried to feed me to Darragh? You can rot in hell beside the so-called Bach Chwaer. And you, my sweet sister, you’re going to rot in hell. And I am going to create that hell for you. You’re going to rot in a cage hanging over a long drop, rot in that cage for decades while I watch you despair.’
I blinked. Sparrow, thankfully, didn’t respond. Aoife thought Sparrow was Aine. I heard Rhiannon’s whisper, ‘That is the one who branded me. I know it.’
‘I’m not going to let you sit on that throne, Aoife,’ I warned. ‘Not this throne. Not any throne. I don’t hate you. I hate what you’re going to do. I hate what you’ve done. I can’t allow that to continue.’
I reached out my hand to her, overwhelmed by some positive emotion that Sparrow had probably experienced before, but which was new to me. Forgiveness.
‘Let us begin again, Aoife. Agree to stand down and then join our family. Come home with us. Meet your father. He wants to know you. He wants to be a father to you. You could be happy.’ I stared into her set, bitter face and knew it was hopeless, but still I begged. ‘Please, Aoife. Please.’
I waited, I hoped for something to crack in her expression, as it had for Saoirse after we’d looked into the mirror, but there was nothing. The small hope I’d nurtured fluttered to the pit of my stomach and died.
She replied, her voice cool. ‘I will never allow you to take what is mine again.’
I responded by screaming at her, waving my arms around like a madwoman. ‘I never wanted anything that was yours! I only ever wanted to be a part of your family! Dammit, Aoife, stop this bullshit and come home!’
‘Home will never be anywhere you are welcome.’ She folded her hands in front of her, in a deliberate move to distinguish herself from my wild gesticulations, but she couldn’t help herself sneering. ‘I will never be happy until you are wiped from the face of the earth.’
I stepped forward. ‘Then kill me.’
I ignored Sparrow’s whispered, ‘Emer, no!’
‘Do it, Aoife. Kill me. Go on. Kill me and go on to live a happy life. Kill me, if that will stop you slaughtering innocents. Kill me and go home with Rhiannon and Aine.’
She blinked, confused. Even the soldiers behind her seemed surprised. The idea that I would sacrifice myself had never occurred to her. Apparently, she’d never really known me at all. Then she reached to her collar and drew a locket from inside her gown. It had belonged to Sir Cai. It controlled the forestmaids. What was she going to do?
‘But, before I die, Aoife.’ She even halted at my words. ‘Know that if you ever hurt anyone again, even from my grave, I will destroy you. In Umbra’s name, I swear it.’
Around us, the trees began to whisper. ‘In Umbra’s name.’ ‘In Umbra’s name.’ They were accepting my vow. The soldiers steadied themselves. They could see where this was leading. They knew their sociopathic mistress well.
She gripped the locket tighter until her knuckles were as white as her dress. ‘You cannot control me! You will do as I command!’
That was how we’d gotten into this mess. She wanted to control everyone. And when they wouldn’t be controlled, she’d killed them, tortured them, tethered them. She’d bound the entire Thousand Counties with fear, in an effort to control everyone. The tighter she held on, the more they slipped through her grasp.
‘Forestmaids, I command you!’ she cried. ‘Take the soul of this wretch. Bind her among you. Bind the midwife. And encircle my sister so she cannot escape.’
I sighed.
I’d been drained, drained beyond bearing when I arrived on the other side of the first curve of the river. I’d thought I wouldn’t ever be able to rise again. But there was something about standing here that was giving me strength. I felt like I was standing in the moonlight. I was being replenished, and I didn’t know how.
As Aoife trembled with rage in front of me, I didn’t care how. I waited for the forestmaids to approach, but they stayed where they were. ‘I command you!’ she screamed. They just waved their branches in a wind that didn’t exist and words made their way to our ears.
‘You are not our master. Umbra has set us free.’ ‘Free.’ ‘Free.’
Aoife screamed wordlessly and ripped the locket from her neck, tearing the skin. She threw it into the river in fury, screaming, ‘I will destroy everything you love, just you wait and see!’ She turned to the host of soldiers behind her. ‘Kill them all!’
The soldiers surged forward. I prepared myself, widening my stance and begging Umbra to give me all she had to give. All I had to fight them with was magic, but standing here, I was more powerful than I had ever been. I couldn’t face this many, though.
Aine could kick arse, but there were dozens of them, maybe even a hundred, maybe more that we couldn’t even see through the trees and she was bound by the willow anyway. Rhiannon? She couldn’t scowl them to death. She didn’t even have a knife. She didn’t even have sharp fingernails like Aoife. Sparrow? Her magic was strong, but she was no match for so many.
My breathing sped up.
The soldiers stepped forward, parting, and then closing around Aoife as they approached us. I raised my arms wide, ready to die today.
Wings.
Wings? I blinked, like my vision was obscured by the mass of feathers flying between us and the soldiers. Birds. As they landed, they transformed into soldiers, Camiri soldiers with wild hair and painted faces. Weapons appeared in their hands. They raised their shining swords and ran towards Aoife’s soldiers. One bird landed right in front of me and transformed into a familiar figure.
‘Cuchulainn!’ I cried. I reached out for him. He let me grasp his hands and for a m
oment, returned my grip.
‘Go, Emer. Cross the river. Don’t look back.’
I was screaming inside, my eyes clotted with tears, but I did what I was told. I had to respect what he was offering. I turned and ran for the river, Sparrow and Rhiannon by my side, Cuchulainn behind me.
The moat was wide, the river raging through it. There were the shattered remains of one end of a bridge on our side, bare broken stone near the gate on the other side. As we came closer, I could see that a shield glimmered above the battlements. The only way in was through the gates. And the only way through the gates was to cross the river.
The heavy, ancient stonework loomed up ahead of me where it arched high over the water, which water bulged into a wave as we approached and swept up towards us. I stood at the edge of the grass for a moment, before striding up the steep arch of the broken bridge. The wave crashed against the stone bulwark, but didn’t catch me. I knew it was only a few moments before a waterspout would gather from the river to lash out at us, hungry for more souls to add to their number. The water bulged again and every nerve I had in me quivered as I stepped up to the stone support at the edge of the river.
I held out my arms wide, raised in an open gesture to the sky, ready to encompass the whole world.
‘Spirits of the Lost, hear me!’ I shouted, trying to be heard above the roar of the waters and the battle. Thunder boomed around me, out of a clear, darkening sky, rolling in a great circle centred on the fortress in the middle of the river. ‘I am Emer, the Bach Chwaer! I beg you to listen to me. I beg for your aid!’
As I watched, the surface of the water ripped, beneath the white caps of waves caused by the rush of water from the mountains. Small waterspouts whipped up from the surface of the river. They danced along the white caps of the waves. They were listening, even if they didn’t speak.
‘Freedom,’ I repeated. ‘You deserve freedom. And she will not give it to you, no more than Darragh gave you freedom when he imprisoned you in these waters and left you to your hunger. If you do not help me today, the world will be chained by fear and all freedom will be lost. I have seen it! I need your help. I beg you. Not for my sake, but for the sake of everyone, all of us who deserve to be free.’
Another waterspout began to rise and I nearly took a step back. I stopped myself in time. The water rose in a column until it reached where I was standing. We seemed to look at each other, face to face. I lifted my hand, reaching out to the surface of the water, Umbra shining in my brow.
The column of water exploded. Water went everywhere and I couldn’t help my response. I turned, flung up an arm to protect Umbra, though I knew that the sting of the water would injure me just as quickly through my arm as it would elsewhere. I remembered the terrible pain, when I’d crossed this river before, the terror as another soul wrestled with mine for possession of my body and only Umbra’s power had saved me.
I was drenched… but not hurt. This time there was no sting, no struggle. The water had not harmed me. I stood, wet to the skin at the edge of the bridge and watched in awe as the water responded to my plea with generosity. Sparrow and Rhiannon gasped. Behind us, the battle continued to rage.
Waves rose and rose in front of me until the water was the height of the edge of the bridge. I wondered for a moment if I was supposed to step out onto the surface of the water but for the first time, I heard the whispers of the spirits in the river. ‘Wait and see,’ a dozen voices said. ‘Wait and see,’ came the whisper of a hundred lost souls. ‘We prepare a gift for Umbra.’ ‘A gift from the river.’
So, I waited, listening to the warriors shouting, to the clash of weapons behind me. The water in the waves rolled and rolled, white with foam at my feet. Every now and then a little wave would splash over the top of the bank where I stood to bathe my feet. It seemed the water wanted to know me. I looked across the divide to Ce’deira, to the gates. Beyond them was Umbra’s throne. I had to beat Aoife there. I couldn’t allow her to sit on that throne.
So many times I’d stood on a height before, stood on rooftops or bridges and looked down and seen eternity at my feet. Not today. Today, I didn’t have time for that shit. Today I had to keep looking across, today I was going to make sure the future held hope, maybe even joy. Today, today.
The water splashed across my feet again. Something was coming up the height of the wave. Whatever it was, it was huge. A dark, massive shape was moving up the wave, being carried by the water to ride the crest of the wave and stay there.
An irregular shape. A block of shattered stone. One by one more pieces rose until the bridge was nearly complete. The river had given me a gift. It had only taken a few seconds.
I stepped forward, onto the fragment of stone that the water still held high. It didn’t feel stable, but right now wasn’t a time to worry about myself. I walked boldly from fragment to fragment, crossing a bridge that didn’t even exist anymore. The wind caused by all the magic caught my hair and it swirled around me like the waters that surged under my feet. Sparrow and Rhiannon followed close behind.
And as we crossed, as we had heard from the forestmaids, a chorus of names, one after another, a countless horde of the lost, who would be nameless no longer.
The gates were closed, but as I approached, there was something familiar about them. The same symbol that was on the massive gates to the Portal Chamber in the Library of Cairnagorn was on the gates to Ce’deira. The was Umbra’s fortress. She’d enchanted the doors of the Portal Chamber so they opened at my approach. These gates, I was sure of it, would obey my command.
I raised my arm again and opened my palm towards the gates. They opened, smoothly, naturally, and I felt like I was coming home.
The stones of the bridge and the walls themselves whispered to me, ‘Umbra, Umbra, Umbra.’ The trees had said it. The waters had said it. This fortress was mine. The very land it was built upon was mine. I drew strength from the earth and the forest and the water. Nothing could stop me now.
And that thought, in itself, was terrifying. I didn’t want to be unstoppable. There might be no such nonsense as “not being the nice one,” but I knew what darkness was within me. That was where I was different from Aoife. She didn’t know her own darkness, therefore she couldn’t choose to turn away from it. She had fallen into ruin, all the while believing herself to be the pure, White Queen.
I reached out and took hold of Sparrow’s hand on my right, and Rhiannon’s on my left.
‘Ce’deira!’ I called. ‘You know me! You have been waiting for me! Take me to Umbra’s throne!’
I wasn’t ready for what happened. One moment the watermaids were holding us up, supporting the fractured arch of the bridge beneath our feet. The next moment it was gone.
We didn’t even have time to scream before we fell into the river.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The water closed over my head. My eyes were shut. I nearly opened my mouth to breathe, but realised at the last moment that the water was pressing firmly against my lips.
I used my magic to push against the water and the wind from it created a bubble around my face. I sucked in the air greedily. How many times had I thought about falling off this bridge or that, falling into the raging river that flowed through Caillen?
I’d thought that I’d let the water take me, let last breath flood water into my lungs. Now I breathed in the air desperately, using magic to keep that tiny, life-saving bubble around my face. Today, I was going to survive. I reached out to Sparrow and Rhiannon. I was going to survive, and I wasn’t going to survive alone.
It seemed like years underwater. Only the protective spells I was weaving around myself stopped me from being battered to death on the rocks. I drew in fragile breaths that didn’t seem enough and then finally I was above the water. Sand pushed against my body, pushed rhythmically until I realised it was a wave, washing up upon a shore.
I was on an underground beach, lit by phosphorescence. I pushed my hair back from my face with sandy hands. I looked aroun
d. Rhiannon was already sitting up, massaging one shoulder where she must have been thrust against a rock underwater.
And Sparrow — where was Sparrow? I got to my feet. I looked around the small, blue-lit inlet. ‘Sparrow!’ I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth. ‘Isolde!’
And there she was. A tangle of dark hair on a rock, a figure too fragile to survive, pale fingers draped over dark stone. I ran over to her, my feet catching in the wet sand. ‘Sparrow!’
She stirred and looked up at me. ‘Oh, Hawk,’ she said in a very soft voice that nearly broke my heart.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, as though that changed anything. ‘It’s all right. I’m here now.’
She put her head back down onto the small depression of sand between the river-washed rocks. As though her head was too heavy to hold up. She was so slender, it was a wonder she was still alive. She and I, we’d always been a bit suicidal, each in her own way.
I knelt down next to her. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said again. Because saying it twice makes it real. I urged her to sit up. ‘Come on, Sparrow. Come on, Isolde. Up you get. We’ve got to keep moving.’
‘I can’t, Hawk.’
She was so pale, so frail. It was too much to ask this of her. Rhiannon came to kneel next to me and Sparrow went easily from my arms to Rhiannon’s. ‘Take care of her,’ I ordered, my voice barely above a whisper.
Rhiannon stroked Sparrow’s hair, a soft expression on her tattooed face I’d never seen before. ‘With my life,’ she said.
She meant it. She would make sure Sparrow was safe or die trying. I got to my feet. I would go on alone.
The waters had brought us here. I thought we were going to die, but they hadn’t taken our souls. They hadn’t hurt us. I’d asked them to take us to Umbra’s throne. So, I walked up the sand, my clothes heavy and sticking to me.
The cave narrowed until it was no larger than a hallway. I was nervous, but it was still lit by patches of phosphorescence. Winds whipped through the passageway. I walked and walked until my thighs burned with the force needed to cross the dry sand. It must have been hours. I don’t know how far I walked, but by the time I got to my destination, my clothes were dry.
