by Grace Martin
‘Why do you hate him so much? He’s too young to have done anything to hurt you.’
‘Oh, no, he hasn’t hurt me ‒ not yet. But you asked me earlier why I gave you and your sister to the Librarians. You knew me as well as anyone.’ My God, I thought, because I barely knew her at all. ‘You must know that it would take something extreme to make me give up my children ‒ and I lost all three to the suggestions of that snake!
‘He was older when I knew him ‒ much older. A hundred years, maybe but he didn’t look a day over thirty. I never asked myself how he stayed looking so youthful because then I would have to ask the same questions about my own mother and I wasn’t ready to hear the answers.
‘I told Mother I wanted to study at Cairnagorn when I first realised I was pregnant with Rhiannon. I knew I couldn’t keep her, but I didn’t know what to do. I thought the time at Cairnagorn would grant me some breathing space. It got me away from Aoife, if nothing else. I met Kiaran there. He’d known me since I was a little girl. I thought nothing of it, because I had no idea of the chaos you would bring into our lives.
‘When Kiaran noticed I was pregnant, his behaviour made me feel uncomfortable. He didn’t flirt with me ‒ although he flirted with every other person on the planet, as near as I could tell. He just became sort of… proprietorial. He took it upon himself to shepherd me around the Library and even protected me from prying questions on more than one occasion. He had a silver tongue, like Caradoc, but Caradoc could only present the facts and stir the hearts of his hearers. Kiaran could convince a person that day was night, in a moment if he chose. And he wanted my baby. I knew it. I could feel it in my bones and I was sure that Rhiannon knew it too. She leaped in my womb when he was near.
‘He started whispering to me so cleverly that I don’t even know when it started. He took me away from Cairnagorn one day and showed me the house he had purchased, where he would live while he raised my children.
‘I was afraid he would tear her from my womb in his greed to possess her. I fled that very day. I needn’t have worried. When Kiaran learned I wasn’t carrying twins he lost interest.
‘But then I fell pregnant with you and Umbra. I felt the power of each of you even before you were born and I was able to tell you apart ‒ even in the womb you were a forceful personality, Emer!’ She even laughed, like it was a private joke between herself and her baby and I wasn’t a part of it. ‘Aoife threatened to kill both of you. One day, one of her assassins made it all the way to your crib. I found him myself and killed him, but my Umbra lay dying. I sent at once for Caradoc and for every healer in the castle, but they were unable to save her. At the point of death, I myself gathered her spirit and placed it in the jewel I wore in my hair.
‘But then I still had to keep you safe and Kiaran was always whispering to me that he was the most powerful mage in Meistria ‒ which he was, without a doubt ‒ and that he knew how to keep you safe. He said he would keep you so safe that not even I could find you. It was only later that I learned he’d been preparing the Order of the Guardians for years. They were ready at a moment’s notice. I kissed you one last time, then you were gone. I believed you safe and it was all that kept me sane through the years of blood. Hearing what you said to me just now, knowing the depth of pain you have experienced and the shadows that drive you even further into the darkness ‒ that I can never forgive.
‘He is the reason you suffered. I will make restitution. I will make him pay for his crimes. And then I will hunt down every last member of the Order of the Guardians and I will destroy them. Today their name lays lightly on the earth. Few know it and fewer speak of it. When I am done, the whole world will know about the Order of the Guardians and for a thousand years, magi will tremble for fear, to think of what the Dark Queen did to the last of the Librarians.’
It stunned me for a moment when I looked at Aine in the light of the many pyres that still burned all around the camp. She looked so much older and so much harder that if I hadn’t already known it was her, I’m not sure I would have recognised her. If I had just come upon her now, I would have thought she was Aoife. Her face was hard and bitter and for a moment I was even a little afraid of her.
She took my arm and I cringed away a little bit. ‘Come with me,’ she said curtly. ‘Our first priority is to keep you safe.’
I pulled my arm away because I didn’t like being held, much less by someone who looked like she did right now. ‘No,’ I said, even before thinking, which is soooooo unusual for me. I thought about it a little more then repeated it. ‘No. I can help. I’m a strong mage. I don’t want to hide away.’
Her smile was rueful, but it faded after only a moment. ‘I know you like to be in the thick of things ‒ maybe better than anyone. But this is one fight you’re going to have to leave to others. What did you think ‒ that I would put my own daughter out in the vanguard of an army and leave her to fight it out with my sister and three dozen of her Dragon Guards? No, Emer. I am your mother. Not once in your life have I given you a command, but I expect obedience from you now. This may be the only command I ever give you and I beg you, Emer, do this for me, do this for the sake of a mother who has failed so abysmally to protect you.’
All that I’d suffered, all I’d ever known, nothing prepared me for that moment. Even as a child, I’d known that I wasn’t the nice one. By the time I left Maldwyn’s care, I’d told myself I’d grown up, when I’d really only grown hard. I’d needed a shell to keep me safe I’d dreamed of what it would be like for me ‒ in my most vulnerable moments ‒ when that shell cracked. I’d thought ‒ I’d hoped that it would be with Caradoc. I’d felt my heart warm in the light of his love. He’d woken emotions in me I never really thought I’d feel.
When I lost him ‒ and worse, when I saw how the years had broken him ‒ that warmth turned cold, limning my soul with another layer of ice. It was not even when I realised my mother was alive. It wasn’t even when she held me in her arms and sobbed into my shirt. It was the moment when we stood face to face and she was the Dark Queen and I was the daughter she’d taken the world apart to protect and even now was prepared to sacrifice herself and every Camiri warrior in her army to protect me, that my shell started to crack.
Ten minutes ago, that was the time for tears and emotion. That was when I should have given her what she needed. Now was a time for action and here I was, suddenly on the verge of tears with a greater storm in my heart than had ever raged there.
I stepped up to her quickly and put my arms around her. She stood there stiffly. At last, I knew what I’d done to her, because in that moment I wanted nothing more than to have her weep on my shoulder again.
‘My mother,’ I whispered, my lips close to her ear because the words were too precious to share. ‘My mother and my best friend. You are so precious to me. You’ve given me everything and I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I‒’ my voice cracked because the words were unfamiliar, but they burned to be spoken. I pulled away to hold her shoulders hard and looked into her eyes. ‘I love you. Mother. Just this once I’ll be a good daughter. Where do you want me to go?’
The hard façade cracked just a moment. It could only be a façade because Aine had the softest heart of any person I’d ever known, including Sparrow.
Chapter Nineteen
Aine stared at me, memorising my features. She seemed to find what she was looking for because she nodded. ‘I should have known you better. Of course you’ll fight. Have you ever been trained?’
‘Briefly.’ I thought of those nights on the clifftop with Kiaran and knew I could never tell her about them.
‘I suppose we’ll see soon enough how well you’ve been trained. I’ll place you with the Magi. Ho, Sora!’ Aine grabbed a woman who was passing. She was wearing a white robe, covered by a breastplate, and a silver helmet that fit so close about her face that her hair couldn’t fit beneath it and flowed over her shoulders instead.
‘Majesty?’
‘Emer, this is Sora. She is t
he Master of the Magi. Sora, I have a great burden to place on you. This is my daughter. She is my Bach Chwaer. Let it be known to all. She is to be kept safe at all costs.’ Aine turned to smile at me and for a moment it was the old Aine, warm, affectionate, caring, then it was gone. ‘She is stubborn, as well as a powerful mage. She insists on fighting with us. I want her among your magi. Allow her to fight but keep her safe, no matter what. From this moment, her life is tied to your own.’
The mage nodded. ‘Yes, your Majesty.’ She bowed to Aine, then to me. ‘Hail, Bach Chwaer. If you come with me, I will see you kitted out. Come. Quickly. If we are both to live. The White Queen approaches.’
I tried not to think about why the armoury had spare breastplates and helmets. Sora must have seen my look because she said, ‘No, these did not belong to the fallen.’ She eyed me up and down. ‘Yes, I believe this will be most fitting.’ She held up a breastplate that was clearly, if subtly, made for a woman. ‘This is one of the Queen’s. It has been repaired. You appear to be quite similar in size.’ Similar. We were identical, separated only by a gulf of time.
Sora wanted to get me a white robe like hers, too, but I refused. I probably looked as bad as Andras had when he rescued me and Rhiannon, but I wasn't the type to swan around in a white robe, even if Sora did look both deadly and pretty in her robe, breastplate and helmet with her golden hair spilling around her shoulders. She looked like one of the old myths of women who flew over battlefields and took the souls of dead warriors to their eternal reward.
Sora fitted me into the breastplate and found one of Aine's spare helmets for me. I had to unbind my hair to make it fit and it flowed, dark and long over my shoulders and down my back.
By the time I reached the magi, Aoife's dragons were almost upon us. I heard my name being called. I turned and saw Ronan pushing his way through the moving throng of people, coming towards me. Sora, ever perceptive, even in the two minutes I’d known her, patted my arm. ‘We are stationed just over here at your right.’ She pointed, but it wasn't hard to miss a solid group of about a hundred people, dressed in white robes and armour the same as Sora.
‘I’ll find you,’ I said to Sora and she went to join the other magi.
‘I’ve found you, thank God,’ Ronan said, catching up to me and wrapping his arms around me so quickly that the last part was muttered into my hair. I drew in a deep breath and rested my face against him. It was like finding Caradoc again, unbruised by the intervening years and all mine. Ronan had been a shadowy figure in my life ever since we’d entered the tombs with the Quarantine men, but here, now, he was all mine.
‘You’ve got me,’ I pressed against him as his arms tightened for a moment before he drew away a little. ‘I’m going to fight with the magi.’
‘I’m going to fight with the warriors.’ His eyes searched my face. I wondered what he was looking for when I realise that he was memorising my face in case he lost me I put my hand up to and drew him down for a kiss. Afterwards, he buried his face in my neck and held me so tightly I was sure I would bruise.
‘You found me,’ I whispered in his ear, so close to my lips I barely had to raise my voice, despite the din around us. ‘You’ll find me again after the battle. I have a feeling I'm going to be conspicuous.’
Even with his face buried in my neck, he laughed. The huff of air warmed the skin of my neck. He raised his head. ‘By now, Emer, I expect you to be conspicuous.’ He kissed me again, suddenly and hard and said, ‘No matter what happens, Emer, don’t ever let life make you quiet. Don’t ever give up.’
I pulled him in close for another embrace that I wished would never end, but I had to join the magi and he had to go to join the warriors.
‘Find me again,’ I said, because I had no romantic or heroic last words. Then we separated and I went to join the magi.
Someone else joined me with Sora. He wasn’t dressed in the flowing robes and silver of the magi. He was dressed in black: black tunic and trousers, black breastplate, even a black sword.
‘Fancy,’ I sneered, pointing at the sword.
He lifted pat of the blade out of the scabbard so I could see the strange material it was made of. Even in the light of the torches, pyres and witch lights darting around the camp, the sword did not shine. The material seemed to suck light out of the space around it.
‘Don’t ask how I got it,’ Andras advised.
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t pursue it further.
‘Learned some magic lately, have you?’
He shook his head. ‘You know I’m no mage. I’m here to bash in the skull of anyone who gets close to you, when Sora is dead.’
‘So, feeling pretty optimistic about tonight, are we?’
His face was grave. I would have given anything to see him smile again, but I had a terrible thought that I’d never see him smile again. ‘You know what we face, Emer. The White Queen will stop at nothing to retrieve you. In her rage, she would sacrifice her whole army, if it meant she could possess you ‒ and Umbra.’
I put my hand up to my brow. ‘She can’t have Umbra. She would destroy what’s left of the world.’
Andras looked out at the magi and soldiers around us. ‘It’s a dark night, Emer.’
‘Not darker than the night we met,’ I said. He didn’t meet my eyes. ‘And look how that turned out. I met you.’ I put my hand on his arm, because his eyes were darker than the sky where the smoke from the pyres stained the stars.
‘For such a price, Emer, I would even have foregone meeting you.’
‘It’s so strange to think that so much time has passed for you, and so little for me.’
‘I hardly knew you for more than a moment. And look what a difference it made.’
From the way he wasn’t looking at me, it didn’t seem like it was so much of a difference, so I pushed. ‘What difference did I make, Andras?’
The silence stretched between us. I let it. Andras wasn’t one to put things into words. If we’d had longer, I might have let him speak through his actions, his looks. We didn’t have time.
‘At first I missed you. Then, that grief turned to anger when you didn’t come back. Aine didn’t understand why I was so angry. She knew you longer, but I loved you more.’ He let a silence settle after that statement, and now I was the one who didn’t know what to say. ‘Gwydion understood. Not because he loved you like I did, but because it’s in his nature to understand. And, eventually, for a while, we were happy together. Then, another raid, another dark night like this one.’ He raised his face to the sky. ‘Then Gwydion was gone, too. Since then, I’ve been the Queen’s Black Knight and I do her dirty work. The world is a dark place, and I went dark, too. When I lost you, when I lost Gwydion, there wasn’t any more light in the world for me.’
And I thought I’d been lost for words before. I took my cue from Andras and just looked over the battlefield, at the mess of people and equipment hastily being prepared for the confrontation. Finally, I opened my mouth to utter some platitude or other, but Andras held up his hand.
‘Don’t say it. You just deserved to know. After the places I’ve been, there isn’t any going back again. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Aine needs you to survive tonight and she’s suffered too much already. Don’t let her down. Your survival has to be your priority.’
I thought of that moment when I’d thrown myself off the spire and Caradoc threw himself down to save me. Saving my own life had never been a very high priority of mine. But Andras was right. If I was to help Aine, or to help Sparrow, Lynnevet, Rhiannon, or any of the others, I needed to survive. I would survive to kick Aoife’s arse, just for the fun of it.
‘Lynnevet is in the care of Aine’s personal guards, so you needn’t worry about her,’ Andras went on. I’d forgotten all about Lynnevet, to be honest, so I just looked out at the dark night and concentrated on the approaching enemy.
Troops hastily assembled themselves into groups as Aoife’s army and three dozen of her Dragon Guards approached. Despite
their speedily approaching enemy, Aine’s troops were efficient. Sometimes I almost forgot, given that I’d spent most of my life in hiding, that a war had been raging my whole life. These troops were battle-hardened warriors. They had faced Aoife’s Dragon Guards before and won often enough to have carved a huge swathe of Meistria from the White Queen’s rule. I stood with Sora and Andras, half nestled into a curve of the rock and watched the glint of moonlight on the dragons’ wings and the silver of the riders’ harnesses speeding towards us.
There was a sound like a hundred men drawing a deep breath as Aine’s archers drew back their bowstrings and stood ready, faces stern and resolute. Suddenly, the dragons stopped, rearing up in mid air with the force of their sudden halt. I heard the master of the archers cry, ‘Stay! They are not yet close enough! Their magics will limit our range.’
And then I realised that the rider of the lead dragon was Aoife, close enough for me to see her face clearly, far enough away to be out of reach of the archers, with the use of magical shields to deflect the arrows. She was dressed in white and silver dragonskin, her crown a solid twist of silver over her dark hair. ‘Sister, give her to me and I will withhold the destruction that awaits you and your pitiful remnant of an army.’ Her voice was amplified by magic and each of us heard her clearly.
We heard Aine’s response clearly, too. ‘Go to hell, Sister!’
Aoife shrieked. ‘I said, give her to me!’ she cried. She looked like she was nearly out of her mind with rage. I’d never failed to have that effect on her. ‘Give her to me or you will regret it!’
‘What have I got to lose?’ Aine snapped back. ‘You’ve already taken everything from me. Now that I have my daughter back with me, I’m not going to let you have her.’
‘Nothing to lose?’ Aoife asked, and her voice was deadly quiet, whispering into our ears. ‘Oh, believe me, sister, you have something to lose. Or, rather, someone to lose. Bring him out!’
There was a commotion inside the enclosure atop one of the dragons. The gate at the side opened and a figure was pushed into the space.
