by Grace Martin
It opened onto a large cavern. The walls were carved to look like pillars and something about the proportions made me think of the Portal Chamber in Cairnagorn. There was a hole in the roof, perfectly circular, right in the centre of the ceiling. It allowed a perfect disc of moonlight to spill onto the floor.
I stepped into the moonlight and gasped.
The whole room was illuminated. It was like it was flooded with daylight. The ground beneath me was suddenly marble instead of rough sand. The ceiling was painted and the room was lit by a myriad candles in candelabras that hung in heavy rings above my head. I looked around. It looked like a ballroom, like a throne room. At one end was a dais. My gaze followed up the stairs to the throne at the summit. Upon it was seated… Umbra.
No, not Umbra. I was alone. No one would ever hear these thoughts. It was time to be honest. Even the trees, the waters and the stones knew it. Me.
This place was mine. It had been waiting for me. One day I would go into the past, and I would become Umbra. Here was where it all began, as I entered this endless circle.
I stepped out of the moonlight. The cavern grew dark again. The floor beneath my feet was once again covered in sand. But I didn’t need to see. I knew where I was going. I went up the stairs.
I sat on Umbra’s throne.
My throne.
That was what this was all about. Umbra’s power flowed through me and it was as familiar as a stroll in the moonlight. This was my power. This was who I was, and who I could become. This moment, this was when I owned who I really was. I’d been holding back my whole life. I opened myself up to what I could really be.
I wasn’t an orphan. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t the nasty one.
I was the most powerful mage in history. I was someone who cared about other people. I was a hero.
I rose from the throne, more vibrant than I had ever been. My sister, named Umbra but with powers that could never match the shimmering energy inside me, lit up the room like a star. I went behind the throne, to where I knew was a door, leading to a spiral staircase that led back up to Ce’deira. I didn’t bother to climb. I floated up the stairs, the crystal in my brow lighting the way.
I came out into a library. I knew it was going to be a library. The plan of this fortress was written into my bones. This was the great library of Ce’deira, where Master Darragh had hoarded knowledge instead of gold.
I came out into a curtained alcove that had probably once been used for private study. The tapestry hanging between me and the rest of the room was rich, but tattered. I peered through it.
Even in my curtained alcove, I could hear the sound of the battle that still raged outside, beyond the walls of the fortress and the moat guarded by the watermaids. I told myself that I couldn’t possibly tell Cuchulainn’s voice from another in all that tumult, but I wanted to hear his voice, and I believe I did.
Everything I saw in Ce’deira felt like I was seeing it again, like it was something I’d known and forgotten, but always loved. The library was even larger than the one in Cairnagorn. The amount of knowledge contained here was staggering. It rose up several storeys from ground level, books lining the walls, bordered by galleries with wrought iron balustrades.
A rill ran around the edge of the room, leaping with turbulent water, crowded with watermaids. Some were not prisoners, I remembered, from that time I’d forgotten. Some were spirits native to the river. Umbra had held her councils here, with the wisest of her time. She’d invited the watermaids to join her council. And the other magical creature in the room, Umbra had invited her, too.
She was a tree. And she was huge. In that massive room, she shaded half the floor. She was the first of the forestmaids. She’d volunteered. And in return, she had been planted here, right in the library, where she became one of Umbra’s wisest and most trusted advisors.
And in her shade, hidden from the light that fell through a stained-glass ceiling, although it was surely night outside by now, was Aoife.
I drew back the curtain and stepped forward. ‘You’ve lost, Aoife,’ I said, by way of greeting. ‘I have sat in Umbra’s throne. This fortress is mine. Put your wand down and step away, or I will kill you.’
She froze. In her stillness, I read every plan she’d ever made.
‘Try it, and I will kill you,’ I said. ‘I have Umbra’s power.’ I always had. ‘I don’t need a wand. Put it down, or you will be nothing more than a stain on my carpet.’
She crouched, slowly, slowly, lowering her wand to the ground, resentment in every line of her body, but she didn’t dare disobey. Above her, the forestmaid bent her branches to encircle her shoulders. The movement of the branches looked gentle, but I was sure, and I knew Aoife was sure, that it could easily become a vice. This place was mine, and I commanded it.
‘Move away, Aoife.’ When she didn’t move fast enough, I raised my voice so it cracked like a whip. ‘Move! Or Nimue will make you move!’
She moved, scuttling to the side of the room. I followed her. ‘To the door, Aoife. You’re going to make your troops stop fighting. The bloodshed ends now.’
She tripped. Or she seemed to trip. She caught herself on the frayed hangings of another alcove, but before she put her weight on them, she turned to throw a cunning smile at me.
The air left my lungs as Aoife crooned, ‘No, Bach Chwaer, it starts here.’
I couldn’t even breathe as a woman emerged from behind the tattered curtain.
The Empress.
The woman who had been stepmother to Aine and Aoife. The woman who was thrown three hundred years into the past. The woman who had grown from the girl who was my sister. My Sparrow, grown old in centuries of loneliness and grief. Her dress was still gold, but it was rags now, still stained with her own blood from when Aoife had stabbed her.
Lynnevet.
‘How?’ I cried. I took a stumbling step forward, my arms outstretched. ‘Lynnevet, I thought she killed you!’
‘I saved her life,’ Aoife crooned. ‘I thought she might be useful to me. And so she is.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. You offered me a father, out there in the grove, Emer. But I have a mother, and that’s all I need. This is what it comes down to, Emer. Defy me again and Mother will die.’
There was a guard standing behind her, prodding her forward. Another small figure moved with her. With her, oh God, with her was David. My son. Oh, God, my son!
Aoife smiled. ‘Defy me, Emer, and I will tear your son apart.’
I swung towards her and pointed. She tried not to quail.
‘You hurt him and generations will tremble at the memory of what I do to you,’ I warned. I meant it. I was literally thrumming with power. If she hurt David, what I did to her would never be forgotten.
I heard doors opening and was vaguely aware that more of Aoife’s guards had entered the room.
David, my David, my baby, he made a noise like he had when he was a tiny little thing and ran towards me, arms extended.
I went down on one knee, arms open to him. If the earth had opened beneath me, I could not have done otherwise.
A flash of lightning arced between us. I rose to my feet. David stopped. Lynnevet hurried after him and knelt behind him, gathering him into her arms.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ Aoife said. She liked to use a wand, ever since she’d become the White Queen, but she had magic in her bone and blood, even if it wasn’t as strong as mine. She could still do damage.
I caught Lynnevet’s eye. The three hundred years we’d been separated had hurt her, but there was a part of her still intact. There had to be, otherwise, there was no hope for my Sparrow.
Aoife thought Lynnevet was stopping David to help her. Lynnevet might had succumbed to many kinds of evil, but there was still space for love in her heart. She’d raised her friend’s twin daughters as her own, loved them, as much as she was able. And she’d saved David, now, for me.
‘You’re alone here, Emer,’ Aoife went on. ‘You might claim this f
ortress, but you can’t control us. Which one of your loved ones are you prepared to sacrifice?’
Neither of them.
I stood there and stared at her, helpless. I was thrumming with power, but I could do nothing with it. I would do nothing with it. I would not endanger the ones I loved.
Aoife’s soldiers moved closer to her, forming a guard around her. The tips of their spears glimmered in the unnatural light from the ceiling.
The silence stretched out between us. It felt like the whole world had stopped speaking.
And I realised, a moment before the doors to the library burst open, that it was so quiet because the battle had stopped.
The Wild Ones stormed the room, forming a ring around us, armed to the teeth. There were others among them and it took me a moment to catch sight of a tattoo inked on a wrist. The family Ganainn. They’d come for me. They owed me nothing, and they’d come for me. I touched the marking on my own wrist. My family.
I faced Aoife, who suddenly wasn’t standing so tall.
‘I’m not alone, Aoife. I will never be alone, because my family is always with me.’
She was breathing heavily, flushed and vividly pale all at once as we stared at each other.
To my left, part of the wall shifted. A concealed door opened. Through it came Oisin, followed by Andras and Gwydion.
My heart soared.
We’d won.
Beyond Oisin, Andras and Gwydion came others, people who had to have been Aoife’s prisoners from the poor condition of their clothes and their bodies, as they blinked in the magical daylight.
Coming close to Oisin, reaching for his hand, was a young woman, as tall as Oisin and packed with lean muscle, red hair streaming over the tattered remains of her dress. She had to be Niamh. Behind her, an older woman who looked so much like Oisin there was no doubt she was his mother.
And head and shoulders above all of them, red hair wild and threaded with blue beads, bulging with muscle and skin as pale as a pearl, was Caradoc. Caradoc. Caradoc.
I stared at him and my whole heart was in my eyes. He didn’t even think of concealing how he felt. He shoved his way through the crowd to get to me, crying my name.
But Aoife’s scream turned my attention from him. She whirled and wrested the spear from the guard beside her. She leaned back, perfectly balanced, like she’d done this a thousand times. My scream joined hers. It only took her a moment to throw it.
Right towards my son.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Our screams blended as time slowed and we watched the spear arc its way across the library.
It only took her a moment to throw it. Only a moment for my baby’s eyes to widen, his little chest to rise with fear. Only a moment for Lynnevet to cast herself in front of him.
Only a moment before Lynnevet was pierced by it.
I screamed like a woman who has just caught fire when her hands are bound to the stake. Aoife’s second scream joined mine.
My family surrounded Aoife and her guards, held her tightly, but it was too late.
I ran to Lynnevet, fell to my knees beside her. ‘No,’ I whispered in a voice still ragged from the scream. ‘No, no!’
Lynnevet reached up an arm to my face. She didn’t say anything. How could she, with a bloody great spear sticking her through the middle?
‘No,’ I said again. I brought my hands to where the spear pierced her. The blood stain was massive around it. Lynnevet’s face was a white mask in the magical illumination of the library.
Caradoc was shouting, bloody Caradoc, who I would gladly have seen dead in that moment if it would have brought Lynnevet back. ‘Emer!’ he called, running across the carpeted floor as Gwydion swooped to pick up David, my son’s thin little arms going around his neck. ‘Emer, are you all right?’
‘No!’ I screamed, and screamed it again when he would have pulled me away from Lynnevet. ‘No! Caradoc — heal her, please, heal her.’ I’d give my own life for her. Hadn’t I always? ‘Use my power,’ I begged. ‘Heal her or I’ll die.’
He looked shocked, hearing the desperation in my voice. Why, why, why, couldn’t he understand? ‘Did she do something to you?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, yes,’ I repeated. Whatever it took to get him to listen, whatever it took to get him to act. ‘Caradoc, heal her!’ I wailed.
He put his hands over Lynnevet’s body. They shook — why should his hands shake when I was the one who’d lost everything? I felt the power start to come out of him, felt the power start to pass from Umbra to me to Caradoc, but then it went nowhere. Lynnevet was dead, finally, beyond all hope of resurrection.
It had taken her only a moment to let go of all the stolen years of her long, long life and she was far beyond our reach. I didn’t even know if she was sorry for anything she’d done. People were supposed to repent before they died, weren’t they? They were supposed to have a few moments to murmur a loved one’s name, to express regret for all the wasted years, for all their mistakes and leave at peace with the world.
‘No, Lynnevet, no,’ I wailed and bent over her body. I grasped the spear to pull the evil thing out of her.
The next thing I knew I was halfway across the library, shoved flat against the wall, a starburst of pain exploding in my chest. Aoife had gotten free of her restraints and was advancing on me with all the speed of an approaching storm, lightning crackling from her fingers. My family had to jump out of her way. She was crackling with power, bursting with grief and fury.
‘You killed her!’ Aoife screamed and I couldn’t deny it. Aoife had thrown the spear, but I’d failed to protect her. Because of me Lynnevet was dead. I might as well have thrown the spear myself. Besides, I was in bloody agony. She’d hit me directly in the chest with a well-thrown blast of lightning. If I wasn’t dead now, it wasn’t going to be long.
Caradoc was up on his feet and attempting to duel Aoife, but he was no match for her. Andras, Gwydion and Oisin joined him, but in her mindless fury she would destroy the whole fortress.
I got to my feet, feeling like I’d died from the feet up, but this was my fortress and my powers were freed.
I didn’t even shout anything, didn’t scream, didn’t even make her turn her head. I just cast enough lightning at Aoife to finish her off. I had the power that had made Umbra an icon. I was going to erase her from existence. I raised my arm.
Aoife didn’t stand a chance.
But my power glanced off her.
No way could Aoife had done that. She was too furious to even protect herself. My gaze slid sideways, to find the person who could deflect even Umbra’s greatest power.
It was Sparrow.
She couldn’t even stand up, Rhiannon had to hold her up, but her arm was still raised towards Aoife. Her eyes locked with mine. Even before I could cast more lightning at Aoife, Sparrow beat me to it. She finished Aoife, without even breaking eye contact with me.
And she was the nice one.
I tore my gaze from Sparrow’s and advanced on Aoife. I wasn’t the nice one. I wanted to make sure she was dead.
The room was silent, crowded with people who were barely breathing. I stood over the charred body of my nemesis. And the people started cheering. The Wild Ones, the family Ganainn, the remnants of Cuchulainn’s warriors. Andras and Gwydion were embracing, David pulling on Andras’s hair from Gwydion’s shoulders. Sparrow was leaning on Rhiannon, and it was difficult to tell where Oisin ended and Niamh began. Everyone was sharing their joy with their comrades. No one was even looking at me anymore.
It was only when I was standing over Aoife and watching her die that I felt another soul within her losing its grip on life. Aoife had a lover. I knew that, but I’d never realised that she was pregnant. I couldn’t let her child die. And there was something I could do about this.
Umbra was still shining brightly. I laid my hand on Aoife’s flat belly. There was a still a small spark of life there, so tiny, so new that I wouldn’t have found it if I wasn’t looking for it. It was harde
r than I had expected, but I had Umbra’s help, and the help of every stone, every tree, every drop of water in Ce’deira to transfer that little, innocent life to my own womb.
As I did, I felt there was something wrong, something more than what had just been done to this girl’s mother. The baby had life, but the soul was gone. Aoife had tethered the soul of her own baby in order to gain power. I fell to my knees and nearly threw up. I had forgotten — the thing that had lain under Aoife’s altar in Cairastel, where she had harvested power from both Rhiannon and me… the thing under the altar had been her own baby. In the future, she had been born, but with a tethered soul the body was as useless as the trees and waters were to the maids of Ce’deira.
Now Aoife’s baby was safe in my own womb, but even if she was born, there was no soul to illuminate the body — she would be an empty vessel.
There was nothing I could do to bring back the baby’s soul. I would never find it among the multitudinous souls that filled the river, inhabiting every drop that thundered from the mountain to the sea.
There was one thing I could do, though, one more I could save. I reached out to Umbra. ‘It’s another chance,’ I whispered, although she’d always known what I was thinking and saying it out loud only helped me. ‘All the life that has been taken here today — I can give life to one.’
I put my hand on my belly. Umbra filled the empty space inside me where Aoife’s baby slept, but didn’t dream. Umbra’s spirit passed from the crystal in my brow, into my womb, into the body of Aoife’s baby.
I felt no change, but I knew something was different. I stood up. My legs were still a bit wobbly — they’d been through a lot today. I felt like I was already dead, but I had the baby to live for now. The baby would have everything I’d promised Lynnevet, everything I’d ever promised Sparrow and failed to deliver.
‘I promise I will keep you safe,’ I thought, wondering if the thoughts would transmit themselves to the baby as they had always transmitted themselves between me and Umbra. ‘We’ll have a home and we’ll be safe together, you and me. No one will ever hurt you because I’m here and I’ll always be here. I’ll stand between you and the world. I promise.’
