The Raven Queen

by Jules Watson

  Conor will come for me.

  It all rushed out of Maeve’s mouth as she stared at the fire. “And I never forget him, never! But they are all around me, watching, wanting, and how can I sense what Conor will do next? He will come for me …”

  “Maeve, stop.” Ruán was gripping her arms.

  The heat from his fingers melted that cold. He was holding her up. She did not remember the last time someone touched her without grasping. She clutched the fur at Ruán’s waist.

  His muscles tightened, but he lowered his voice like he was soothing a horse. “Conor mac Nessa is a king. He thinks only of lands, warriors, people—”

  “I am my people.” It slipped from her, her eyes glazed, and then Maeve dropped her head to rest it on his forearm. There she paused, panting.

  She did not know what movement he made then, or how she slid into the crook of his shoulder … or why his hand held the back of her head.

  Only then did she realize she had not collapsed into him after all. Their bodies were fused along thighs, bellies, and chests, her temple on his jawbone. They braced each other.

  “I married the prince of Laigin,” she said into the wolf-pelt.

  There was a pause. “You keep interesting secrets.”

  “I did not have enough power on my own. There are lords who will fight to stop me being queen. And Conor of the Ulaid, he will try to kill me, to kill all of us …”

  “Take a breath.”

  She could not believe his fingers were at the nape of her neck like this. She bent her chin up. Beneath the blindfold and its secrets, his smile was oddly gentle, as if in her absence he had seen something of her even she did not know.

  “I am so sorry for what I did to you.”

  He snorted, wry once more. “I was hardly unwilling.”

  “I was angry, though, and not at you. By the gods …” Maeve’s laugh was strained. “My apologies are rare enough. I would make the most of it, if I were you.”

  Neither seemed willing to step away. At last Maeve softened against him, allowing herself to absorb the warmth and shape of this body she had watched for so long. Her brow on his chest, she held her breath and let her hands slide down his waist and over the hard curve of his buttocks, instinctively molding him to her, too entranced to wonder at what she did.

  His breath escaped, stirring her hair.

  She shuddered.

  “Come, you need to get warm,” he said, his voice husky. He prodded her toward the fire. Maeve crept into the pile of deerskins and curled up, and Ruán sat and lifted one of the hides around her shoulders.

  His arm hovered, uncertain, the heat of his skin raising the hairs on her neck. Maeve swallowed. The gnawing pain, the restlessness—surely it could not have been this … craving?

  In all she had done that day to secure her people’s safety, she had kept only one thing for herself, and that was a memory of his touch. But she needed more than memory now.

  Ruán dropped his arm, but Maeve stopped him from pulling away, curving her fingers about his jaw to draw it toward her. She kissed him.

  This time she kept her eyes open, savoring the shape of him against the stars, the firelight tracing his cheekbone. She drank in the natural ebb and flow of the kiss, gentle and tentative to start. Soon it deepened, however, and her thirst came alive.

  Too many arid nights had passed for her, holding herself still before others, veiling her eyes, masking her thoughts. She needed … abandon.

  Maeve knelt up, holding Ruán’s cheeks to crush his mouth to hers, then tugging his tunic over his head and fumbling to unlace his trews.

  At first he raced along with her, kissing the hollow of her throat as she untangled their clothes and tossed them aside. She was used to wrestling men in the bed-furs, and it was habit to try to drag him on top of her now. Such need … desperate …

  “No.” Ruán held himself from her, braced on his elbows. The firelight set his hair aflame.

  Maeve panted, trying to read his face below the blindfold. Only then did she recognize his smile was sad now. Baffled, she arched her body again.

  Ruán grabbed her wrists. “You will let me see my way.” The low force in his voice silenced her as he trapped her with one forearm.

  Her instinct was to writhe beneath him, enjoying the fight. But instead, Ruán took his other hand and trailed a caress so soft down her flank that Maeve was stunned and could not move.

  Ruán’s touch swept from her shoulders across her belly, from her hips to her collarbone. Over and over he bathed each curve with the tingling warmth of his finger-pads—the dip of her waist, the hollows beneath her arms, around the swell of each breast.

  His expression betrayed an intense focus, as if he was utterly absorbing her. Maeve bent back her head and exhaled the last of her struggle into the sky.

  Ruán cradled her thighs and calves, then her arms and hands, as if sculpting her with his palms. She lay still, savoring the heat of his skin hovering just above hers, focusing on every tiny gust that brushed her lips, her belly, as he tasted her, and shaped her with breath.

  He flowed around her, turning her in his arms until the front of her body was pressed into the fur. Then his lips came down upon the nape of her neck. Their bodies fitted together, each curve nestled into a hollow. With a thundering pulse, she thought he might bite her there, like two foxes mating. But Ruán’s mouth trailed down between her shoulder blades instead, and there he paused and breathed into her back, the heat spreading into her heart.

  Drunk on touch, Maeve loosened, until all sense of her flesh melted away. Only then did Ruán stretch alongside her, turning her chin over her shoulder to kiss her. “Now you can move.”

  “So I wait for your leave?” she mumbled, spellbound.

  He smiled, and she kept her eyes on those sensuous hands as they traced the curve of her buttock … just as she had watched them for weeks.

  “The thrill of the new,” he said.

  She would not answer with words. Trembling, she turned over and reached for him. Only then did his mouth lower to one breast. Maeve crushed him to her, her awareness wrapped around that one sensation as it shot along her nerves.

  Ruán pulled her with him and their bodies flowed upright, limbs entwined. He was murmuring something in a language she did not know, but she heard her name. Maeve … Maeve … And they were rocking together, him rooted within her, and she did not remember how they joined.

  She could not control her shuddering breaths now. Each brought a stronger throb between her legs, and Ruán stoked it higher by rousing her with his fingers.

  She knew only one way to rut—in a frenzy with eyes closed—and her body kept trying to twist into that habitual pattern as the pleasure took her over.

  Ruán, though, had one last surprise.

  Just as the cry kindled in her throat he cradled her jaw, as if staring into her. “Breathe slow,” he whispered. “Draw each one up from the root of you, and open.”

  Maeve had never felt so exposed. The blindfold was irrelevant. His invisible gaze could still reach for her, binding them together.

  They began to flow once more, each long indrawn breath roaring up them like a fire drawn by wind. The flame formed a spiral with their bodies, the pleasure gradually rising until at last Maeve’s crown seemed to burst alight.

  Her bellow came from the very cradle of her bones, Ruán’s cry merging with hers. Out into the wilds they flung that howl, reaching for something beyond them.

  For life.

  Dizzied, Maeve waited for the plunge, and the collapse into blessed release. But she did not return to her senses.

  Her awareness kept rushing outward, until stars were falling in a hail of light all about her. Then the black sky became the rapids of a dark river, and she was dragged along and sucked into a whirl of confusion.

  Ruán stared down at Maeve, his pulse thundering. When the wild rose in him this time he abandoned himself to it, as the sídhe said he must. His body was aflame, the fire of that pleas
ure still licking about him.

  But Maeve’s undulations of pleasure had turned to shudders.

  Ruán lowered her, feeling along her limbs. She was burning up, coated with moisture as she moaned and tossed her head. He knew that sweat, that shaking. Could it happen to her, too?

  His instinct was to salve her pain, and without thinking he leaned over her. Placed on her flesh, his palms prickled. Maeve’s anam did not feel like light now, but like a dark river pouring through her body, as if pushing something out.

  At that moment she arched her back, and before he could pull away she let go a scream between his lips. Her breath rushed into him, and the spark of his awareness was pulled along in her wake. Down a tunnel of light and color they plunged together.

  Into her memory.

  The darkness around Ruán opened into the gray light of a cold day.

  He looked out from Maeve’s eyes, his spark of self hovering in a corner of her body. Around them humps of rock rose from green turf, tumbled cairns of stones and barrow-mounds with gaping doorways. The tombs of the ancestors. Above the tombs reared a great hill facing the sea. The Hill of the King.

  The wind dragged Maeve’s red hair over her eyes. She stumbled, and wept. “Come to me now.” She hit her foot on a stone and fell to her knees. “Save me from this, I beg of you!”

  The Shining Ones.

  Ruán heard that cry in her heart. These stones were shaped by human hands, though. He knew now they were not the sídhe’s halls of living wood, or earth carved by water and wind. The sídhe were not here … but she didn’t know that.

  This Maeve from the past was rocking on her knees, pictures all jumbled up inside her. Ruán saw a babe snatched from her outstretched fingers, the fraught image gouged into her heart. Her babe …? He felt the panic as Maeve lifted her head again. “Give her back to me!”

  It was the cry of a lost child. Her arms were soft and unmarked, as were her bare thighs below her crumpled dress. She was just a girl herself, then.

  Maeve hugged her waist and bent over, her agony searing Ruán. “Give her back to me, or let me stay … Speak, so I know you will help me. I will pledge anything …” She gulped a breath. “Just stay my father’s hand.”

  There was silence but for the wind moaning between the tombs. The heavy-bellied clouds began to fragment into needles of rain, and Maeve slowly drew straight, her hands in her lap.

  Ruán was conscious of the two threads of time. He felt the pain in this young girl of long ago, and where he held Maeve by his own fireside, he knew this wound was being cut afresh.

  The young Maeve came alive, clawing on the ground for a stone. With it she began to gouge her arms until blood ran between her fingers. At last she wiped it along her cheekbones like war paint, and screamed at the silent sídhe. “Then I will never be yours … and hatred shall lie between us forever!”

  The force of her loathing flung Ruán out of the between-place.

  He was only himself again beside the fire, the Maeve he knew a weight in his arms.

  Her back was arched, her heels digging into the furs, and the same scream to the sídhe was echoing around the trees. As it faded she crumpled, breaking into sobs that shook her body.

  Ruán touched her face and found her eyelids fluttering. She wasn’t conscious; she wouldn’t weep like this if she was. Her howls were almost animal.

  Stunned, he crushed her face to his shoulder. Her agony was a wound in the Source around them, and he could not help but live it with her. Yet still her cry rang through him, her hatred.

  Eventually, Maeve’s shudders ceased. A jolt went through her, as if she’d only just come awake. Ruán laid her down, leaving his hand over her heart.

  “Wh … what …?”

  He swallowed to ease his chest. “You are safe, Maeve. Memories come alive in this place, that is all. To be burned away.”

  Her shoulders were still heaving, her teeth chattering. Gradually, her breaths slowed, her rigid body softening beneath his palm. He felt her wipe her face.

  “Not all things can be burned away.” Her voice was muffled, the tears thick in her nose, her throat. “Some prayers go unanswered.”

  The battle in Ruán bound his tongue. She wanted to be queen at any cost, that much was clear. So the very blaze that drew him was also his greatest threat. If she hated them so much, she would try to force the sídhe to help her, demand something from them.

  She would drive them away, and with it his only chance for true sight.

  Maeve sat up, turning to him. “There is magic here—druid magic. You wouldn’t be able to live without your eyes if not. I’ve seen it in your hands. I’ve also seen priests go into fevered trances like this.” She gripped his wrist. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You did it.”

  “No.” He withdrew his hands and placed them on the ground, trying to still their tremor. “It comes from within you, Maeve, when you are brave enough to face it.”

  He felt her stiffen beside him.

  “It happened to me,” he said more softly, “when my despair broke me.”

  She wiped her face once more, breathing hard. “When I crumbled, and wept, I gained nothing. I will not do it again.”

  Trembling, Maeve rose into a crouch. Ruán sensed her poised there, as if torn by an impulse to flee.

  “I understand that druids have their mysteries,” she said, “and … that our bodies just needed release.”

  Ruán let out his breath. Yes, that was all this must be.

  “But still I would know, Ruán of the marsh—what was burned from you?”

  Now her voice was that of a child, terrified that her pain set her apart from others, forever. Ruán had felt the very same thing, and pity stirred in him. Damn.

  He jumped up, hauling a deerskin around his bare shoulders as he tossed branches on the fire. At last he turned, caught by an inexplicable need to fling something free, too. “I served the lord of the Stone Islands, and thought I knew everything. The chief’s eldest son fell ill, and I would let no one touch him but me. I fasted him, sweated him, beat the drum until he got no rest. I spent night after night in the tombs, thinking that if I could force myself from my body, I would glimpse his salvation among the stars. If I could resist the cries of the flesh, then my spirit would be free to find his and bring it back.” Ruán lowered his shoulders, clearing the catch in his throat. He felt Maeve’s eyes on him and tilted his face away. “When we both weakened, the boy and I, the chief begged me to seek the wisewomen and their herbs, and chant their prayers to the Mother. To join with the Goddess, in water, in earth. In life.”

  To honor the fleshly body, and thereby heal the body.

  Sweat prickled Ruán’s lip. “But I thought I knew best. The boy died, and the chief put out my eyes. The men threw me ashore on the coast and I stumbled across Connacht until I ended up here.”

  There was no sound but Maeve’s breathing. “And … have you forgiven yourself? And how do you, if not?”

  That took him by surprise. “I do not know.” He answered without thinking. “By making amends someday, perhaps.”

  The fire hissed in the silence, sap cracking and popping in the wood.

  When Ruán woke in the night, he and Maeve had burrowed away from each other in the furs. The warmth of her body outlined her shape for him. That heat was almost a touch on his skin … until a blade of wind crept in and sliced through it.

  Ruán wrapped a fold of deerskin tight about himself and rolled on his back, his hand behind his head.

  Alone beneath the silent sky.

  CHAPTER 14

  Maeve rode Meallán all the way to the guest lodge, seeking news of Finn from the Laigin women. Then she turned her horse around. In the wake of this night with Ruán, the pull to the ridge overwhelmed even her fear.

  Something had cracked in her since she gave herself to him. That wondrous abandonment that she had never experienced before … Such a surrender meant something of her contained self had passed into him. Her instincts knew it.
The alchemy could work no other way. And the nightmare that came afterward was still alive in her, piercing with every breath. Her heart pounded. Had his spell shattered her will, then, her control?

  Passing a hand over her eyes, Maeve forced all thoughts of Ruán aside as Meallán climbed the hill. Amends.

  The winds on the ridge could scour anyone clean, surely. Finn was sitting on Nél beneath the twin rowans, staring into the sun as it lowered. She did not appear to hear Maeve’s approach until Meallán whinnied and Nél snorted in reply.

  Finn did not even look at her, wheeling her horse along the ridge. Maeve swung Meallán to follow. She did not try to gain on Finn this time, keeping pace just behind, close and steady as they cantered. The only thing that broke the silence was the drumming of hooves, though Maeve recognized the tension gradually bleeding from Finn until she sat looser in the saddle.

  Eventually, Finn took a muddy trail down the ridge to a stream hidden among a tangled scrub of alder and hazel trees. Maeve parted the last bare branches and dropped Meallán’s reins, letting him wade in and dip his head to drink. On the bank, Finn was regarding the tumbling water with a frown, arms folded.

  Maeve squatted, shredding fern fronds and tossing them into the foam. Sometimes, more than silence was needed. “When you were three, my father decided he needed an alliance with Mumu more than with Laigin. He broke my marriage oath with Ros Ruadh and took me away to be wed to the Mumu prince Diarmait, brother of Niall, who is now Mumu’s king. But your father would not allow me to take you with me.” Her chin dropped and she closed her eyes. “I want you to know I did fight them. I tried, very hard.” She’d seen Miu writhe and spit when she was teased—she had fought like that. The blows returned by her father must still be imprinted on her flesh, somewhere.

  Finn had not moved.

  Maeve made herself breathe in. “Your father was so angry he would not let me back to Laigin to see you. And then I was told you had been betrothed to a distant king and sent away.”