Briac’s right hand shot out to slap John across the face, but John ducked aside, stepping closer to Briac.
“You should be helping me,” John said. “Quin and I will be married one day. You could make a truce with me now, restore relations between our houses, earn what you have taken unfairly. Before I have to—”
“You have no house, John,” Briac responded sharply, cutting him off. “I saw to that. You’re alone, and Quin will not be yours. An athame ends up with whom it belongs. In this case, that person is me.” They held each other’s eyes. “I told your grandfather you’ve failed, once and for all. He was very upset.” Briac delivered this final piece of bad news with obvious enjoyment. “He’s expecting you back home.”
A vast ocean of hopelessness began to rise around John. He had to get out before he was engulfed.
“Pack your things,” Briac said. “I’ll take you to the train tomorrow. Now go.”
John did, stalking out of the makeshift hospital room and the decaying barn. He paused outside the doorway, sucking in deep breaths of the crisp night air, filling his lungs like an athlete preparing for a sprint.
And then he ran.
CHAPTER 5
SHINOBU
The village of Corrickmore was quiet that evening, except for a few wandering fishermen too drunk to go home and too loud to stay in the pub. Their voices echoed off the houses facing the waterfront, and they were answered by residents throwing open windows and yelling for them to shut up before the police were called.
Shinobu and Alistair walked down the opposite side of the street, directly along the water. Their bellies were full of mutton-and-onion pie from the Friar’s Goat, the pub at the north end of town, and they were sharing a bottle of beer large enough for four or five ordinary men, and nearly large enough for Alistair.
“Mind you, not too much of the drink,” Alistair said as Shinobu tipped the bottle up. “We’ve got a full night ahead of us.” He clapped his son on the shoulder, causing Shinobu to spit a huge mouthful of beer all over his own shoes.
“Ah, take a wee bit more than that, Son,” his father told him, tilting the bottle up to Shinobu’s lips again. “And a bit more still.”
Shinobu shook his head and handed the bottle back. He wasn’t interested in beer, and he didn’t fancy getting his shoes any stickier than they already were. He danced up to his father like a boxer in a ring and pounded the older man’s stomach with his fists. This was very much like hitting Michelangelo’s statue of David; Alistair towered above him, and Shinobu was in more danger of hurting his fists than he was of hurting his father. Alistair only chuckled as he took a long swig of the beer.
“Tell me what we’re doing tonight, Da.” Shinobu was moving all around the big man now, landing a punch wherever possible.
“Cannae do that.”
They watched the fishermen, who had reached the corner and were getting louder as the final verse of their drinking song dissolved into chaos. Then one stumbled off home, leaving those remaining to argue their way through the first verse of something new.
“Don’t look unhappy, do they?” his father asked, running a hand through his red hair.
“Who, the fishermen?” Shinobu asked. “They’re drunk off their faces.”
“And we’re not?”
“I’m not. I’ve got work to do tonight.”
“Ye think work cannae be done drunk? Sometimes being drunk improves it,” Alistair said.
Shinobu smashed a fist playfully into his father’s gut. “Come on. Hit me back!” Alistair took a lazy swing at him, which Shinobu ducked easily. “Your son’s taking his oath tonight! You can do better than that.”
“Yon drunkards don’t look unhappy,” Alistair said thoughtfully as he took another swing at Shinobu.
Shinobu bobbed away from his father’s fist and looked at the three remaining fishermen, one of whom was now throwing up noisily into a public rubbish bin.
“They don’t know the secrets of the universe, maybe,” Alistair went on. “They’re not part of our special … club. Still, they have a good time.”
“Dad, one’s wiping his vomit on the other one’s shirt.” He punched his father’s shoulder with enough force to fell a lesser man.
“Oomph,” Alistair said, absorbing the shock. They both studied the fishermen more closely as another one retched onto the sidewalk. “Aye, maybe they’re a bit disgusting,” Alistair admitted.
He crossed the street and led Shinobu away from the waterfront, up a smaller road with rows of tidy brick houses.
“Mind you,” his father continued, making another attempt at whatever point he was trying to make, “those eejits are not the best example. But these houses here, they’re full of people. All sorts of people.”
“Dad, I’ve been here before, you know.”
“Aye, that I do know,” his father said with a smile. He tapped the side of his nose with one finger as though sharing a secret. “More than you let on.”
Corrickmore was the closest town to the estate, thirty miles away. And it was true, Shinobu had visited it on more occasions than he’d mentioned to his father. There were girls in the village. And girls, Shinobu had discovered early on, were quite happy with the way Shinobu looked (“like an Asian film star”), with the way he moved (“like a tiger”), with the way he spoke (“such a gentleman!”)—with everything about him, really.
“At any rate,” Alistair continued, taking another long drink of the beer, “a lot are happy. Even without all the special things you’ve been taught.”
Shinobu finally stopped dancing around his father and came to rest in front of him. He shoved hard on Alistair’s chest. It was like halting a locomotive, and Shinobu was pushed back a few paces before Alistair came to a stop.
“You think I’d be happier without the things I’ve learned?”
His father looked down at him, then away. “I’m not saying that. Not exactly.”
He stepped around Shinobu and continued walking. The town was quiet here, lit by a few streetlamps and the occasional glow of a television inside a house. The only noise was the water lapping against the pier a few blocks away. Alistair turned again, choosing another street.
“What I’m saying,” he continued, “is I’ve raised you on the estate, filled yer head with my world.” Alistair was not much of a talker. Shinobu could tell he was straining to pick the right words. “It’s natural you want to do what you’ve been taught, but … you have a choice, Son. Did I never tell you that?”
“I don’t need a choice, Da. I love it. The fighting, the way I use my mind. All the old stories.” He punched his father several times in the small of his back to make his point. Alistair hardly seemed to notice.
“It’s not quite like those old stories anymore,” Alistair muttered. He was quiet for a moment, then: “Your mother liked to walk to town. Do you remember? She liked to see the outside world.”
“Of course I remember.”
Surprised at the change in topic, Shinobu stopped hitting his father and looked up to study his face. As a rule, Alistair did not mention Shinobu’s mother, Mariko. She’d been killed in a car accident seven years before. Shinobu’s memories of her were fading, but he clearly recalled certain things, like walking with her in the meadow on the estate while she explained to him what honor was. He remembered her very lovely Japanese face and her small stature—she’d looked like a doll next to his father. Even so, she’d always seemed just as strong as he was. Except near the end, when she was sick, just before the accident.
“Your mother didnae want you to spend yer whole life on the estate,” Alistair said.
“But I have spent my whole life on the estate. I’ve spent my whole life training to go There, Da. My whole life, and now I’m ready. Tonight we’re going together.”
Alistair stopped walking. He bent his shoulders so his eyes were level with Shinobu’s.
“It’s not There you have to worry about,” he said gently. “It’s where we go after.”
“Tell me.”
“I cannot. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
Alistair looked pained. He rubbed his face with his hands. They had stopped in front of a row house. The curtains were drawn, but they could see the shapes of a family moving inside, and there were kitchen noises: a kettle whistling, someone yelling that the biscuits were done.
“Do you recognize this place, Son?”
Shinobu surveyed the house, smiled. “A girl I know lives here.” He turned to his father, surprised. “How did you know?”
“I know a few things,” Alistair said. “Is she your girlfriend?”
Shinobu noticed a figure moving in an upstairs bedroom. It was the girl in question. Alice. He could see the top of her head near the window.
“Not sure,” he said, and shrugged. “She seems to like me. She let me kiss her.”
“Did she? Was it nice?”
“It was.” Shinobu smiled again. As if there could be any question that kissing girls was nice.
“Look around the town a moment, Son. Please. Look at the houses, the people, the life they have. Once you become a Seeker, once you take your oath, you won’t see the world in the same way.”
Shinobu glanced around, amused with his father—he had seldom heard the man string this many sentences together at once—but also confused. “Dad, I don’t know what you mean. My whole life, Quin and I have—”
“I know. And I know what you feel for Quin.”
Shinobu felt his face flushing, and he looked away. He could speak freely about any girl … except that one.
“She’s my cousin,” he murmured.
“Cousins” was the word they had grown up using, though their blood relationship was not nearly as close as that. Alistair and Fiona were second cousins, which made Quin and Shinobu third cousins. And somewhere, many generations earlier, an ancestor had remarried, which meant they were only half as related as they seemed. Shinobu had made as careful a study of their connection as he could without calling attention to his interest. Nevertheless, Quin always called Alistair her uncle and Shinobu her cousin, which made him unlovable except as a family member. And though she thought he was “beautiful”—her word; he’d heard her use it—his beauty to her was like the beauty in a painting, something you admire but do not want to touch. It was the worst kind of beauty, he thought.
“Aye, she’s your cousin,” Alistair agreed softly, “and more. You’ve trained together since you were small. You won’t want to leave her. But”—he glanced through an opening between the curtains at the people inside the house—“there’s a girl in there who seems to like you. I want you to know, you could stay here if you wanted. You could stay, and I would go. I wouldn’t take it amiss. Briac might take it amiss, but I would deal with that. It’s your choice.”
Alistair’s eyes were pleading. Shinobu had never seen that look on his father’s face before. It made him uneasy, as though the ground beneath his feet were subtly shifting.
“Da, please tell me why you’re saying this.”
“I can’t,” he answered. “I’ve sworn my own oath.” His eyes were locked on Shinobu’s, as if willing his son to read his mind. “But know: if you choose to come back to the estate with me, life will be different. You might love a woman as I love your mother”—Shinobu noticed he used the present tense, and wondered how drunk Alistair was—“but she will never know all of you.”
This evening was supposed to be a celebration, but Shinobu felt his discomfort growing under his father’s searching look. Why couldn’t the big man break the tension with a giant belch or by peeing on someone’s doorstep? But there was no sign of amusement in his father’s face.
Shinobu decided the awkwardness would remain until he took his father seriously. He stepped back from the house, moving to the middle of the street so he could see Alice in her upstairs bedroom more clearly. She was bent over a desk, doing homework, maybe. She was a pretty girl, and nice, and she loved when Shinobu gave her attention. She said she had never met anyone like him, that no “gorgeous boy” had ever wanted to talk to her before.
Alistair was right. The world was full of people, and maybe a lot of them were happy. Certainly a lot of them were girls, and if he wanted, it would be easy to find the funniest, the prettiest, the happiest, and convince her to fall in love with him. But where would that leave him? Empty, he thought. There was one girl, the girl he had grown up with. Perhaps she would never love him like that, but already they shared a life, and a purpose. They would be like the Seekers of old, their skills and their good works becoming the stuff of legends. Tyrants beware, as the ancient Seekers had said. Shinobu and Quin would protect good people from harm. He could never leave that behind.
He turned and put his hands on Alistair’s arms. “Thank you, Father. I’ve made my choice. I want to go home.”
Shinobu was sure he was seeing a trick of the light, the dim and flickering streetlamp nearest them, because it looked for a moment as though Alistair was about to cry. Then his face cleared, and he nodded very gravely, as if the most important thing in the world had just been decided.
“Well then, my boy, let’s get back home.”
CHAPTER 6
QUIN
The day had been warm, but there was a deep chill in the night air as Quin followed her father along the path through the woods. They were finding their way by a trickle of moonlight that outlined the dark branches above them and gave shape to the small forest path.
There were owls in the woods, awake now and hunting. In the distance, as always, she could hear the faint sound of the river, curving along the point where the ruined castle lay, rolling around and down to the flatter land beyond their pastures and then moving on, to the distant loch and the sea.
She felt the forest floor through her shoes, soft, welcoming. She felt the night air on her hands and face. But there was more than that. She could feel the whole estate, the whole forest, the whole of Scotland. She was as big as all these things. She had worked half her life for this night. Everything she’d learned, all her training, had been leading her here. In a short time, she would take her oath, as so many generations of her family had done before her.
Though her father would never answer any questions about what she would do once she’d taken her oath, her head was filled with the old lore. Alistair had been a great one for telling stories, and as children, she and Shinobu had sat by the hearth on cold, dark nights as he’d regaled them with tales of Seekers who had toppled tyrant kings, Seekers who had freed ancient lands of terrible criminals, Seekers who had righted all manner of wrongs across Europe and elsewhere. She’d grown up knowing she was part of this ancient tradition.
Now she could see flames up ahead, a small fire in a clearing deep in the woods. Her father’s shape as he walked ahead of her was more distinct now, his broad shoulders defined by the orange glow of that fire.
Soon they emerged from the path into the open space. There was a tall standing stone in the middle of the clearing, covered with lichen and moss. That stone had been here before the ruined castle was built. It was from a time when the land had belonged to the Druids. Her father said their most distant ancestors had been Druids. Her family had been here that long.
In front of the standing stone, the fire burned brightly. Shinobu and Alistair were already there, as were the two Dreads. Quin had known there was no chance of John being with them this evening. Even if Briac was continuing John’s training—which of course he must be—John still had many things to learn before taking his oath. Even so, Quin’s heart sank at his absence. Some part of her had hoped for years that he would take this step alongside her and Shinobu. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. John will finish his training soon and follow us.
As Quin neared the group, she saw they were all dressed as she was, in simple black clothing, with leather armor over their chests and leather helmets. Despite their similar attire, the Dreads gave the appearance of belonging to another time entirely. Their shadowe
d eyes and motionless expressions made them look fierce and terrible in the firelight. If they were indeed a kind of Seeker judge, they seemed to be cut from an ancient and brutal cloth.
Quin moved to stand by Shinobu, and they glanced at each other. His hair was tucked inside his helmet, as hers was, and his dark eyes were in shadow, but she could tell he was working hard not to smile. His body was drawn up to its full height, as though his feet were about to leave the ground. She felt the same sense of anticipation and excitement. They nodded slightly to each other and knew without speaking that they were both thinking the same thing: This is it.
What would they be asked to do? Quin wondered. What was the modern equivalent of the great deeds they had heard about as children? Certainly they would start small, with minor heroics. Wasn’t the world full of injustice? Surely there were countless small acts of bravery they could perform to help.
The Young Dread stirred the fire with those stately movements of hers, bringing the embers closer together and adding more wood above them. Then she took a long slender metal rod and placed the tip of it among the coals. Quin exhaled slowly. That piece of metal would be the final part of tonight’s ceremony. She reached out and tugged on Shinobu’s sleeve in a gesture of camaraderie. He responded by squeezing her hand. Then both watched the metal rod in the fire, waves of heat rising above it.
“Now we begin,” Briac said, in a voice that was not loud but still commanding. The two Dreads stood up from the fire and faced the other four. Shinobu and Quin turned toward their fathers.
Alistair stood by a large wooden chest that he had carried to the clearing. After throwing this trunk open, he began to draw out their weapons. He tossed her and Shinobu their whipswords. Until now, these had been kept locked in the training barn; from this moment forward, the whipswords would be theirs to keep. He threw them knives and daggers as well, then took some for himself.
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