by Megan Chance
Diarmid’s gaze swept over Lot and Aidan and Patrick before it came back to me, and then he said to Iobhar, “Let it begin.”
“There’s no vater,” Lot said. “What is delaying her?”
“She’ll be here,” Patrick said brusquely. “Diarmid’s right. Begin.”
Aidan squeezed my hand. My ears filled with a music like raindrops, the tinkling of tiny chimes, a melody that shifted into a hushed eerie darkness. I recognized it—the sun going down. The silence before the storm. I turned slowly, looking west.
Iobhar sang, “In darkness met, blood calls to blood. Let worlds collide.”
His arms were raised, his eyes closed, his face lifted to the heavens.
An explosion rocked the ground. The warehouse where Balor and Finn had been fighting exploded into fire, one that burned but didn’t consume. Square windows of billowing, black, oily smoke formed mysteriously within the flames. I’d seen it before, in a vision. An Irish plain, the sea churning and foaming just beyond. The pyres of Samhain.
The air shivered and wavered. Before me was a transparent curtain, a veil over the world, and in its translucent ripples I saw movement, spirits, ancient things. I was struck with terror.
Lot murmured, “Do not listen to them, veleda. Remember, they lie.”
There was a whoosh, a burst of wind. The pyre stretched and pulsed.
“Now!” Iobhar shouted.
The veil rolled back. Spirits rushed through, a Pandora’s box of appetites, some angry and some confused; some looking for vengeance, others wanting only blood.
“Here they come!” Lot’s purple eyes glowed.
My head filled with a deadly music, clanging notes and broken harmonies, and then beneath it rose a thunderous, dominating song, and another melody of gnashing, slashing chords. Two songs calling to restlessness and chaos. The spirits swept over me, twining around me, curling around my arms and my throat. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Aidan’s hand tightened on mine; his eyes grew wide. Together we felt them pulling, jerking, pleading. Diarmid stood motionless and tense, watching, waiting.
Patrick shouted, “Stop them!”
Iobhar said sternly, “There will be no interference, protector.”
“Protector?” Lot asked.
The heat of the warehouse fire raged, scalding me where I stood. Bits of burning timber, flakes of soot, and embers fell in a dense rain, casting us all in a reddish glow. Tethra’s blue lightning split the sky. The music of the Otherworld clanged in my ears, its call to chaos and terror. Those dominant notes, the gnashing teeth of sound, swelling and swelling.
Iobhar put out his arms, fingers splayed, toward Aidan and me. His hands glowed red; his eyes burned like the hellhounds of Slieve Lougher. “Choose!” he cried.
I shook my head against it, but I could not stop it. At his command, my body felt pried open from the inside out, an impossible pain. I screamed, and Aidan did, too, sharing it, doubling it. Above it all, I heard Patrick’s shouts of protest, and Diarmid’s anguished, “Grace!”
But my skin was peeling away, my head splitting apart, and the words meant nothing. There were only spirits. Only Aidan. My brother’s fingers gripped mine in a death lock, the connection between us, forging and burning and snapping into place, melding so I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began. His visions and his music forced their way into me, along with those demented notes. I heard Grandma. “Don’t forget the stories, mo chroi.”
The world opened beneath me, around me. There was only a bottomless chasm, images bombarding without stopping, my brother’s vision of the future: Irish men and boys collapsing on a ground red with blood, British soldiers charging with swords and bayonets. Women huddling next to their crofts with their starving children, their faces stark with hope and fear.
I saw Irish flags rising and British banners trampled in mud. Victory and triumph. Then bloated bodies in an Irish gutter, and land stripped fallow, dust covering everything, and men stumbling drunk from taverns while babies cried and mothers buried their dead.
And then the vision changed—no longer Ireland, but the bloodstained cobblestones of New York City streets. Children screaming and glass breaking as rioters broke storefront windows, calling for bread and work. Death and chaos and anger, and then a parade with banners flying, banners bearing harps, shamrocks, and horns, and gang boys in a militia, smiling proudly as they marched with precision down a city street. The cheers of those watching.
Through the vision, that thunderous, dominating music again. Now it took on other colors: tones of betrayal and vengeance and greed. It called to the Otherworld spirits. Fight for us, and we will let you stay. We will rule the world.
No, that couldn’t be right. No one had talked of this. No one had suggested that the Otherworld spirits might stay. I opened my eyes to see Daire Donn standing at the edge of the crowd. The music belonged to him. Beside him stood Finn, his pale eyes lit with a steady fire, and I heard his song—bold and brave horns trumpeting—arrogant and boastful, yes, but I heard something else beneath them too: a sad and hopeful song.
The truth wasn’t black or white, because truth never was. I saw the strength of the Fomori and their power. They would bring independence to Ireland, but then their power would corrupt.
I saw the willfulness of the Fianna, the bloody and relentless conflict that would come with them before it brought new life to the immigrants. I understood now why the dord fiann had brought the Fianna to New York City instead of to Ireland, why it had landed them in a tenement room. Ireland’s heroes, to be called in her time of direst need. And Ireland’s direst need was not in Ireland.
It was here, in New York, with her people, and their blinding, blistering hope for a new life and a new world.
The truth whispered my name, commanding me to listen, not to fail. And it was so beautiful, I drew it close; and in my head, it grew and grew into something golden and fine. I could finally choose—
“No!” my brother cried.
He jerked from me. The connection between us shattered. Everything—his visions and the music—fell away.
A bolt of purple lightning electrified the darkening sky, fingers blasting in every direction, dipping into the terrible red flames of the fire. It illuminated the crowd before us, Finn and Daire Donn. Ossian and Tethra. Balor and Oscar and Bres.
And a woman stepping from the crowd. A woman with blue eyes and red hair.
“The vater, at last,” said Lot with satisfaction. She held out her hands to the woman, who smiled and took them.
Mama.
The next moment
Grace
No,” I whispered, and then screamed, “Mama!”
I lunged toward her. Patrick pulled me back with an iron grip. “No, Grace.”
Diarmid paled; he looked from me to my mother. “The vater? But I thought—”
“I am the vater.” With a trembling smile, Mama held Lot’s hands. “And it’s time I took my rightful place.”
“No, Mama, no,” I babbled desperately. “It’s Grandma. It’s Grandma, and she can’t make a choice. She can’t . . . She’s not supposed to. There’s not supposed to be a geis—”
“Sssh, my darling,” Mama said. “I’ve faced the truth. You must do so as well.”
Helplessly, I turned to Aidan, who looked as stunned as I was, and then to Iobhar. “She can’t be the vater, she can’t be!”
Iobhar regarded me with those impassive eyes, and I knew. Everything we’d planned and wished for fell into darkness. No, it couldn’t be happening. This was all wrong, so wrong. . . .
The spell of the ritual shivered, urging us on.
Mama’s voice was quiet, so quiet it was a moment before I realized what she was saying. “The Erne shall rise in rude torrents, hills shall be rent . . .”
The same incantation Iobhar had tried to teach me, spoken in Gaelic, a language I hadn’t thought she knew. Diarmid stood in stricken silence. Again, I tried to break from Patrick’s grip. “No! No, Mama, stop! You
can’t! It can’t be this way.”
“I must be what I am, Grace. I love both you and Aidan, but I must do this. Trust me.”
The Otherworld spirits spun around us, a torrent, a cyclone, pushing and shoving. I felt them gain a hold in the world with every moment that passed.
“You must close the door, Grace.” Mama’s voice was a lullaby, good-night instead of good-bye. “You must make your choice. Do your duty. Choose what’s right.” She turned to Lot, smiling with this terrible confidence.
And I whispered rawly, “It isn’t the Fomori, Mama.”
Mama gave me a confused look. “Not the Fomori? But it must be.”
Lot’s expression curdled. Into those purple eyes came a fury. She wrenched at the collar of her gown, ripping it to expose a breast, deformed and gruesome, with bloated black lips and needlelike fangs chomping and slavering, so hideous it distracted from the knife in her hand that she’d hidden in her bodice. Daire Donn dashed onto the pier, and Miogach jumped Aidan. And I realized that they had always planned to kill all three of us, that they meant to take no chances. Their promises of bringing us back from the Otherworld were lies.
Everything moved around me as if in a dream. Diarmid threw himself at Daire Donn; Aidan’s purple lightning struck Miogach. I saw a flash of movement at my side, and Patrick surged past me, barreling into Lot, the two of them falling onto the pier. She screamed, “You traitor!” and raised her knife.
I shouted, “No!” just as she drove it into Patrick’s shoulder. As he cried out in agony, purple and red lightning clashed and joined, striking Lot, raising her in the air and flinging her into the river below. Daire Donn writhed where he lay, white-faced, clutching his chest, which was blooming red with blood as Diarmid stood victoriously above him; and Miogach was still and unseeing, killed by my brother’s lightning.
I fell to my knees beside Patrick.
“I’m all right,” he gasped, but his shoulder was soaked with blood.
Diarmid said, “’Tisn’t as bad as it looks, Grace—”
“Every mountain glen and bog shall quake.” The words intoned over my head. I looked up. Mama continued the spell as if nothing had happened.
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”
Diarmid’s gaze was a heavy weight. I felt something leave him, the leeching of our last hope. I watched him turn away, to Iobhar. I felt the loss of him deeply and purely, a piece of me torn away.
Iobhar held out his hand. Diarmid stepped forward, gave Iobhar his knife.
My mother’s hair tumbled about her shoulders. She had hold of Aidan’s hand, and my brother staggered as if only her touch kept him standing.
“You’re her protector too,” I said to Patrick. “Can’t you stop her?” But I knew already what his answer would be.
Patrick’s eyes were black with pain. “Free will, Grace. She’s chosen. It’s what she was meant for. You must let her be what she is.”
Iobhar held Diarmid’s knife to my mother’s wrist. Diarmid stood like a statue, watching.
Iobhar said, “Make the choice, brithem. Finish it.”
My vision blurred. No, I wouldn’t do it, whatever it cost me. If I didn’t choose, she wouldn’t die, no one would die—
But the music pushed its way in, not allowing me to deny it. It grew louder and louder and louder, taking on harmonies until the song was so poignant and strong and real that I felt I might burst with it.
“It is as it must be, Grace.” My mother’s whisper was in my head, too, and I recognized her—the hovering, silent presence that had been with Aidan and me the whole time. I saw how she’d discovered the truth of what she was at Battle Annie’s, when her power had surged in response to my judgment. In truth, I think I have always known. I saw the conversations she’d had with Lot, her decision not to tell me or Aidan, her fear that we would keep her from this. I am willing to make this sacrifice. I believe it will save you both. And through it all, her acceptance and relief. “It’s all right, my darling.”
The music surged at her words. My choice—the Fianna—pushed out the voices of the Otherworld, the brutal symphony of the Fomori. I heard its leaping joy as it settled and stayed. I couldn’t hold it back. The Fianna’s music seeped into the web, threads vibrating as it spread to Aidan, to Mama.
“This is my choice,” Mama said loudly now, the voice I hadn’t heard since I was a child, that I’d almost forgotten. Powerful. Every word pulsing. “I deem it worthy and just. I deem it mine.”
No.
Patrick grasped my hand, keeping me anchored.
“I am the veleda chosen,” my mother intoned. “Long the journey I have made from yesterday to today. The Erne I passed by leaping, though wide the flood.”
Beyond us were the sounds of battle, the roaring of the fire, shouting. But those who watched were silent and still, Mama’s words a solemn prayer, a vow that filled me with reverence even in my misery. The connection strengthened between us. The veleda fused, the power of the whole vibrating through me, unassailable. I felt her love for us and her pride, her determination and sorrow, and I knew she would not allow me to stop this. I had made a choice, and so had she.
She took the knife from Iobhar, running it along the vein in her arm, cutting, her blood dripping over her pale skin. She painted it in a circle around her wrist and the knife hilt, knowing the spell as I had not, ancient rituals remembered in blood. She sang, “I have seen and weighed. Great stones crack and split. Storms will tell and the world is changed. I release my power to the chosen.” She held the blade out to Diarmid. He hesitated, but he took it.
Lightning crackled and burst. Flames from the warehouse leaped as if trying to reach heaven. The air shuddered, as if gathering for a great explosion. Hovering, waiting, expectant.
“This is the word that is spoken. This is complete.”
A slip in time. A pause like the world held its breath. Everything went silent.
My mother looked at Diarmid. I felt the power of the geis tremble and take hold.
And I could do nothing but wait for my world to end.
A moment later
Diarmid
Maeve Knox had the bluest eyes, like water on a clear spring day. Like Grainne’s eyes, the day Diarmid had gone to his death. He felt the power of her gaze burrow into him, hold him. He felt—as he had once before—the grip of a geis twist and bind.
He saw Manannan smiling. “’Tis by your hand the veleda must die. Else all fails, no matter the choice.”
All his hopes . . . how futile they’d been. He should have known. He had known. The future he’d wished for faded to a barely remembered dream.
He saw Finn, whom he’d already betrayed once. Oscar and Ossian. The weight of what he owed them staggered him. His friends—no, more than friends—his family. He alone held their lives and their hopes. It should be an easy choice. The only choice.
But there was Grace.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Deliberately, he turned back to her mother. Maeve’s eyes met his unflinchingly.
The geis knotted. He felt his strength fading and knew what it meant. Kill her or die. Kill her, or sacrifice those who love and trust you.
Kill her, and destroy any hope of his own future.
Maeve wrapped her slender white fingers around his wrist, bringing the point of his knife to her breast. Her fingers were slippery with the blood streaming from her wrist. It dripped, warm and wet, on his skin.
She pulled him close, her lips against his cheek as she whispered, “You know what you must do, Diarmid. I am not afraid, and she loves you. She would not forgive you for being less than you are.”
The geis had its hooks in him; he gasped at the pain of it. ’Tis all right. It is not more than I can bear.
But then—it was as if his whole life rose to meet him. Riding in battle with Finn and Oscar beside him, the banners of the Fianna flying, the red spear in his hand. His regret as he lay dying on the plain of Ben Bulben, and the promise he’d made himself,
never to do anything to hurt the Fianna again. Grace, saying, “This is what we were meant to be to each other. . . . I will never regret this. . . .”
He was Fianna. He was part of something that mattered. His honor was more than just a word. It was who he was. Without it, how could he be anything at all?
Whatever Maeve saw in his eyes made her smile. “Be who you must be. And love her well. That’s all I ask.”
He plunged his knife into her heart, unerring, wanting to cause her as little pain as he could, and she grasped his hand and the hilt as if she welcomed it and crumpled into him with a hush of breath. He caught her before she could fall.
Then Grace screamed, and the whole world went mad.
Moments later
Grace
I watched in horror as Diarmid killed my mother.
Aidan’s agonized cry rent the air. It could not be true. No, it was a dream, and soon, I would wake up and—
And the world went dark. Absolutely and profoundly. We had died after all. All of us together, but Diarmid had said there would be no pain, that there would be peace. This was not peace. My heart was breaking, just crumbling to pieces, and it hurt so I couldn’t breathe.
The silence gathered, a thunderous voice, a terrific crack, the world splitting. My mother’s music rose into crescendo and shattered, her power reverberating, a roaring, rumbling thunderclap that knocked back the Fianna even as it flowed into them. Finn and Ossian, Conan and Keenan, Oscar and Goll. They were illuminated, as bright as if they were the sun, the glow I’d first seen within them blinding. Diarmid staggered, my mother still in his arms, and it lit him, too, until I was looking at seven stars, seven suns. Patrick gasped beside me. It was so powerfully bright, I had to close my eyes.
The music of the Fomori and the spirits shrieked, tearing apart, rushing back through the veil, which unfurled like a heavy drape, shuddering closed. The ground trembled; the river slapped the shore. When I opened my eyes again, the glow of the Fianna had faded. Bres turned and ran into the crowd; I knew he would not last the night. Balor and Tethra dissipated into smoke, their spirits joining those in the Otherworld. Daire Donn and Miogach lay with dead eyes. The Fomori warriors scattered.
