The mood at the fortress grew considerably more somber after darkness fell, and Meallachán’s playing dispelled their anxiety for only so long. No one had objected when Aine had begun reading aloud from a partial copy of the Second Canon each night. The bard had watched her closely, but he hadn’t commented.
“Maybe if Calhoun knew what was happening here, he’d let us come back to Lisdara,” Niamh said, oblivious to the direction of Aine’s musings.
Aine decanted her mixture into a small glass bottle and corked it snugly. “I’m sure he knows. They send messages twice a day.”
Niamh shook her head. “They’ve said nothing. Captain Ó Hearn is afraid Calhoun will dismiss him. You know how our brother is when it comes to the supernatural.”
“Who told you that?”
“Donnan.” Niamh made a face when Aine grinned. “Fine, I’ll admit it. He’s pleasant, and he answers my questions, unlike all the others.”
“What does he say about all this?”
Niamh pulled a string around her neck and dangled a wheel charm from her fingers. “He carved me this. I know it doesn’t have any real power, but it makes me feel better.”
Aine couldn’t blame her, not while she wore Conor’s pendant around her own neck. Her charm might contain some protective magic, but so far, it had done nothing but serve as a comforting reminder of Conor.
“I have to give this to one of the guards,” Aine said, holding up the vial. “He’s nearly recovered, and the captain wants him back to work.”
Immediately, Niamh shoved her sewing into her basket and stood. “I’ll go with you.”
“Why? I’ll be just a minute. I’ll come right back.”
“I don’t want to be alone here,” Niamh said. “Besides, you’re the one that banished the bean-sidhe. It hasn’t returned since the first night you read from the Canon. Everyone’s saying so.”
“That’s ridiculous. It could have just as easily been Meallachán’s playing.”
“It hasn’t come back since you began the readings.”
“Come if you’d like, but enough of this nonsense about me. I haven’t done anything.”
Aine left the shack and crossed the earthen courtyard with Niamh at her heels. Lord, I don’t want their admiration. I don’t deserve their reverence. What do I do?
That afternoon, she joined Meallachán as he walked around the crannog. He said nothing, though he slowed his pace to accommodate her shorter stride. After a few minutes of companionable silence, he asked gently, “What’s on your mind, my lady?”
Aine searched for an explanation that didn’t sound embarrassingly arrogant. “The men’s regard disturbs me,” she said finally.
“They are reassured by your presence, my lady. They see the hand of Comdiu upon you.”
“But I didn’t do anything! We both know your playing is responsible for holding back the bean-sidhe.”
“I know you did nothing to purposely draw their admiration. But the coming of Balus aside, Seareanns are very superstitious people, and you’re their ‘lady healer of Lisdara.’ Is it so bad to be an example of what Comdiu can do through a willing servant?”
So much of what Meallachán said sounded right. That alone worried her. “If they look to me and not to Comdiu, then aye, it’s a bad thing.”
Meallachán did not reply, though he clearly disagreed. She nodded her thanks and returned to the shed, though she was too preoccupied to do more than straighten up her work space. Lord, please show me how to act. There is so much evil in this place, and I want to be a bridge, not a barrier. They should look to You, not me.
Aine dozed for hours that night, too unsettled to sleep soundly, until a light knock snapped her back to wakefulness.
“Aine,” came a whisper. “Aine, wake up. You’re needed outside.”
“Ruarc?” She caught the note of urgency in his voice and squinted into the darkness. Niamh and Oonagh still slept. She thrust her feet into her shoes and quietly took her heavy cloak from its peg on the wall. The maid stirred at the creak of the door, but no one awoke.
Outside in the hall, torches guttered in their brackets, casting flickering light on the sleeping guards. The front door stood open a crack. Ruarc must have gone back outside. Was someone hurt? She crept out of the hall and into the misty night.
The yard lay still and empty, with no sign of Ruarc or the perimeter guards. Should she go back inside or should she wait?
Her breath puffed in the chilly air, and a sense of wrongness tickled her senses. Then the fog cleared, revealing the dark, prone shape of a man on the edge of the shore. She pulled her cloak around herself and hurried toward him.
“Ruarc?” Aine’s heart leapt into her throat, and she fell to her knees beside him to check for life signs.
A rustle behind her alerted her to the presence of another. She assumed her calmest, most competent voice as she turned. “Get help, and bring back a light . . .”
Her voice trailed away. The ghostly shape of a woman hovered behind her, piercing black eyes staring from a skeletal face.
Aine froze, her throat almost too tight to speak. “What do you want from me?”
Malevolence poured from the specter, sending a thrill of terror through her. Aine scrambled to her feet and stumbled over Ruarc’s body. Before she could regain her balance, the bean-sidhe flew at her with a horrifying screech. Aine pitched backward and tumbled down the bank into the water.
The lake seized her, her heavy cloak driving her into its murky depths. Frantically, she struggled toward the surface as her lungs screamed for air. Don’t breathe! But the need for air overwhelmed every rational thought. Water rushed into her lungs like the touch of cold fire, searing her, crushing her from the inside.
Then, after a lifetime of agony, it no longer hurt so much. The creeping numbness was taking over, dimming her fear.
It’s not so bad to die, she thought hazily.
She stretched out and succumbed to the cold embrace of Loch Eirich.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Conor struggled in the dark, gasping for air. The cold lake water enveloped him, stealing into his lungs, draining the life from his body. He sat up in bed and clutched his burning chest, blinking away disorientation.
A few of his céad mates stirred. From the bunk beside him, Merritt lifted his head long enough to scowl at him. “Shut it, will you? I just got to sleep.” He rolled to his other side and dragged his blanket over his head.
Conor clutched his pounding skull while he caught his breath. It had to have been a dream. But no, it was too vivid to be a dream. This had the startling clarity of a vision. He leapt to his feet and fled up the steps into the cool, dark night.
Footsteps followed him. “Conor, what’s wrong?”
He turned. Eoghan stood in the doorway, half-dressed, his expression alarmed.
“Aine’s dying.” Conor’s voice broke, and he gathered his thoughts with difficulty. “I have to go to her. I have to help—”
Eoghan gripped both his arms. “Tell me what happened.”
Conor poured out the details of the vision, his voice shaking nearly as badly as his hands. “I have to go. If there’s a chance—”
“You can’t. You’re a novice. You’re not allowed to leave.”
Conor stopped. Eoghan’s statement quelled the impulse like water on a fire. “What do I do then?”
Eoghan lifted a shoulder helplessly. “Pray.”
So Conor prayed while Eoghan held silent vigil. He paced a restless path around the clochan for hours until he finally collapsed helplessly against the exterior wall. When the horns woke the rest of the village, Conor blearily opened his eyes.
“You love this girl,” Eoghan said softly.
Conor had never admitted it aloud—he had barely admitted it to himself—but now he said, “With everything in me. If she’s gone, I have to know.”
There was only one person who might be able to tell him if she was alive or dead.
Conor didn’t bother to strai
ghten his clothes or comb his hair before he started up Carraigmór’s slick steps. Heedless of the danger, he took them two at a time and arrived panting and sweating at the top.
“I have to see Master Liam,” he told the guard, bracing his palms on his knees while he caught his breath.
The brother looked him over doubtfully, but he allowed him inside. Another brother appeared and promised to deliver his request of an audience to the Ceannaire. Conor paced the polished stone floor for the better part of an hour before the man returned. “Master Liam will see you now. Come with me.”
Conor followed him from the hall and up a flight of steep stairs that ended at a single door. The brother knocked lightly and pushed the door open. “Go ahead. He’s expecting you.”
Conor stepped into the tiny chamber, his heart thumping again. Stacks of books cluttered tables and the shelf-lined walls, and Master Liam sat at a large desk in the center of the room.
“Brother Conor, come in. You have a matter of urgency?”
Conor hadn’t given much thought to what he would say to the Ceannaire. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir—”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Your sister, Aine.” He struggled to keep his voice even. “I’m afraid she’s in danger. It may already be too late—”
“Slow down. How do you know Aine’s in danger?”
“I dreamed it.”
Liam’s eyebrows arched. “Does this happen often?”
“Never. At least not this type of dream. But I felt her drown. I’m certain of it.”
Liam tented his fingers against his lips. “You have a connection with her, then.”
Conor flushed and looked at the floor. It seemed presumptuous to say he loved her, that they were in love. He wouldn’t have even come here had he not thought Liam might be able to do something about it.
“You may be correct.”
Conor jerked his head up. “You saw it, too?”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t know why you were shown that. It seems cruel. But she’s in Comdiu’s hands now.”
Conor stared in horror. The feeling left his body, and the room spun around him. “She’s dead?”
“I’m sorry, son. You must let her go. You knew you had to renounce your ties to the kingdoms, and this is perhaps the hardest link to sever. It is not easy to see Comdiu’s plan in the midst of our own tragedies.”
Conor barely heard Liam’s words. Aine was dead. He turned and walked numbly through the door without waiting to be dismissed. The tight band around his chest squeezed the air from his lungs as surely as the water had smothered the last spark of life in Aine’s body. Brothers watched him with concern as he made his way back through the fortress, but he scarcely noticed. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered now.
How he managed to climb down the staircase on his numb legs, he would never know. His foot slipped once or twice, and only instinct kept him upright.
“I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left.”
He had only wanted to protect her, and instead she had died alone and afraid.
“Conor?”
Conor looked up at Eoghan and realized he was standing knee-deep in the lake. “She’s dead.”
His friend led him out of the water and back to the empty barracks. Conor barely noticed his own movements or Eoghan’s reassuring words.
“I should have told her. She didn’t know I loved her.”
“She knew,” Eoghan said. “She must have.”
“I played her the song, but I didn’t tell her.”
Eoghan knelt to pull off Conor’s boots and helped him lie back on the lumpy pallet. “Rest now. It will get easier.”
“It will never be easier.” Conor closed his eyes, too engulfed in grief to even weep.
When he awoke later in his own bed, he thought he must have dreamed the whole scenario, from his vision of Aine’s death to Liam’s sorrowful pronouncement. The puddle of water on the floor beneath his wet boots told him otherwise.
He caught his breath at the renewed rush of pain. Kind, gentle Aine. He had known her only a few short months: too short, some would say, to fall in love. After all, he was merely seventeen.
Still, he knew it to be true. Her death brought the same wrenching sense of loss he had felt when he learned of Lord Labhrás’s execution, only worse. Lord Labhrás died a martyr for his beliefs. Someday his death would be avenged. But Aine? Her passing was a senseless waste, a brilliant flame extinguished too soon.
A shaft of light arced across the dim room, outlining a man’s figure as he walked down the stairs. Eoghan.
“What are you doing here?” Conor mumbled.
“I brought you supper. I thought you might be hungry.”
Conor turned away from the bowl of stew in Eoghan’s hand. “I’m not.”
Eoghan sat down on the bed adjacent to Conor’s and set the bowl aside. “Do you want to talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s gone.” Conor lay back down on the mattress. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed and remained that way, even when his laughing céad mates returned to the barracks. Eoghan must have issued a warning, because they left him to his misery.
The next morning, Slaine quietly but firmly directed Conor to get dressed and go to breakfast. He obeyed. He had no choice, really, nor the will to resist. What was the point? He could be just as miserable doing his duty to the Fíréin as he could lying in his bed.
He skipped morning devotions, unable to bear another sermon on finding Comdiu’s will, and reported to the fields instead. Brother Reamonn had not yet arrived, so he chose a hoe from the cart and began cultivating where he left off the day before. The impact of the blade shuddered through his body, jarring his teeth and driving the breath from his lungs. He attacked the soil over and over, until something broke free inside and he collapsed weeping in the dirt.
“Why?” he sobbed aloud to Comdiu. “Why did You let them die? First Labhrás and then Aine. They were Yours. They loved You. They loved me. And You took them from me!”
A hand touched his shoulder, the first indication he was no longer alone in the field, but he shook it off. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, gulped back his sobs, and rose to his feet. He lifted the hoe and returned to his task, ignoring the concerned expressions of the brothers working nearby. With every stroke, he forced his grief back down a little more.
It’s not easy to see Comdiu’s plan in the midst of our own tragedies, Master Liam had said. Comdiu’s grand plan. Conor choked back a bitter laugh. He had never thought of their God as cruel, but why else would He show him Aine’s death when he could do nothing about it? How could Liam possibly think he could ignore this tragedy and move on with his life as if nothing had happened?
Conor threw down the hoe and walked from the field, shoulders slumped. He no longer cared what his brothers would say, or for that matter, what Master Liam would say. What could they do to him that would be more painful than this?
Twilight fell before Eoghan found him on the bank of the lake, his chin propped on his bent knees. The older boy sat down a few spans away.
“I haven’t thanked you,” Conor said.
“I wish anything I did would make a difference.”
Conor stared out at the water. “Have you ever been in love?”
“I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve never even met a woman, at least that I can remember.”
“All my life, I felt that I wasn’t good enough. No matter how hard I worked, I could never live up to anyone’s expectations. And then I met Aine.” Conor blinked away tears. “She made me feel as if who I was mattered more than what I could do. I think she actually loved me.”
“Why did you leave then?” Eoghan asked.
“Because I suspected Lord Fergus, my uncle, wanted me dead, and I was afraid she’d be in danger if I stayed. Besides, I thought Riordan had answers for me.”
“What kind of answers?”
“Not the ones I got.” Conor picke
d up a stone and flung it into the lake. “Galbraith was not my father. Riordan is.”
Eoghan stared, stunned. “I don’t understand.”
“It hardly matters now. There’s nothing left for me in the kingdoms. Everyone I loved is dead.”
Eoghan nodded. Conor was grateful for his restraint. Right now, he didn’t want reassurances or platitudes.
“I know a little something about having limited choices,” Eoghan said. “You know I was abandoned. I was two, three years old. This is the only home I’ve ever known.”
“Would you leave Ard Dhaimhin if you had a choice?”
Eoghan’s expression closed, and he pushed himself off the ground. “I don’t have a choice. So I guess we’re in the same boat.” He extended his hand to Conor and hoisted him to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”
Conor followed Eoghan away from the lake. He wasn’t hungry, but he owed him at least that much for befriending him when he offered so little in return.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Brilliant light enveloped Aine, suffusing her body with well-being and warming her straight to her soul. She peered into the light, trying to reconcile this warm, bright place with the cold touch of water, but the lake was gone. Somehow, she knew she was only consciousness here, but the light filled her with such an inexpressible sense of joy and peace she wanted to weep.
There was another in this place, and she knew Him instantly. She yearned to throw herself at His feet, but she couldn’t make out a body, only a presence so strong and joyous it overwhelmed nearly every conscious thought.
One bubbled to the surface. “Am I dead?”
The light receded somewhat, and she made out a man’s shape. “In a manner of speaking,” came the voice in her head, rich and melodious.
“Lord Balus! Please, I want to see Your face!”
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