Horses’ hooves thudded on the mossy earth, and Conor made out the distinct sounds of four voices, three men and a woman. He held up three fingers on one hand and one on the other. Odran nodded. He had probably come to the same conclusion.
A chestnut mare emerged from a thick clutch of trees, its rider small beneath a voluminous cloak. Conor glimpsed no weapons. The woman was in the lead.
Abruptly, she reined in and held up a gloved hand. Three men fanned out around her, and blades rang from sheaths.
“Who’s there?” the woman called. “Show yourselves!”
Conor glanced at Odran, amazed she had perceived their silent presence, but the brother no longer crouched in the bushes beside him.
Instantly, half a dozen Fíréin brothers materialized around the intruders, swords pressed to vulnerable points in the men’s armor. A tracker gripped the bridle of the woman’s horse.
“What is your business here?” Odran demanded.
Conor crept around the screen of foliage for a better look. Two of the men faced away from him, and the third looked terrified, his sword hand shaking. Not a warrior, then.
“Forgive us, we didn’t realize we had strayed into the old forest.” The woman’s voice sent a tingle across his skin, a response to an accent rarely heard in Seare. “We were tracking a ward. We meant no harm.”
It couldn’t be. Conor lost Odran’s next question beneath the rush of blood in his ears when the woman dropped back her hood, revealing a tumble of glossy, honey-colored hair. “I am Aine Nic Tamhais, sister to King Calhoun of Faolán and Brother Liam of Ard Dhaimhin.”
Conor’s heart hammered against his ribcage, sending sparks of white across his vision. She’d changed immeasurably in those two short years. Her features had matured into striking beauty, and her quicksilver eyes appraised the armed men without fear. Her commanding demeanor did not hint at her mere eighteen years.
Conor realized he was standing in plain view, gaping, but no one seemed to notice. He stepped back into the bushes and forced himself to pay attention to Odran’s question. “You said you were tracking wards?”
Aine’s horse shifted nervously, and she gave the brother holding the bridle a stern look. “I would let go. Fiachra is not particularly fond of strangers.”
Odran nodded, and the man stepped away. Aine settled her mount and looked back to Odran. “No doubt you’ve felt the disturbances on the eastern wards? We’re in the process of mapping them. I followed this one into the forest, but I didn’t know I had crossed into Fíréin territory.” She bowed her head. “I apologize.”
Odran seemed unimpressed by the explanation. Conor gripped a stone, ready to throw, and then forced himself to relax. He could not hurt a fellow brother. But neither could he allow Aine to be harmed. He was about to reveal his presence when Odran spoke.
“I suggest you leave the forest with all haste. If you wander this way again, it won’t matter who your relations are.”
Aine dipped her head in acknowledgement. The Fíréin retracted their swords and stepped back to allow the men to turn their horses.
“Let’s go,” she said. The party turned back the way they had come.
Then Aine wheeled her mount around toward Odran. “Some time ago, a young man entered the northern forest, intending to go to Ard Dhaimhin. His name was Conor Mac Nir. Do you know if he ever reached the city?”
Odran looked at her blankly. “I know of no one by that name.”
Aine’s brow furrowed. She nodded and urged her mare into a trot toward her guards. Within moments, they disappeared into the tangle of trees.
Conor went to one knee on suddenly unsteady legs. He had thought of what he would do if he saw Aine again. Yet she had been a mere twenty spans away, and he had hidden, unable to speak or do more than stare.
Aine had asked about him, though. She had not forgotten him. If only he had revealed himself, he might have talked to her. Why had he frozen in the bushes like a frightened rabbit?
Odran strode toward him, but he passed right by. “Conor?”
“I’m here,” Conor said.
Odran jerked his head toward him and blinked a few times. “How did you . . . ?” He shook his head. “There are a few things you aren’t telling me, I think.”
“I did what?” Conor stopped plucking the partridge beside their campfire. Odran had said nothing about the incident with Aine and her guards until they made camp for the night, and his first question was not the one he expected.
“You didn’t know?”
Conor put down the bird. “I’ve never heard of this fading until you asked me. How would I know I could do it?”
“Nonetheless, you did. Quite well, if I walked right past you. Don’t look so shocked. It’s a common gift among the Fíréin. Sentries and trackers are specifically selected from those who exhibit it.”
Conor could barely wrap his mind around what Odran was saying. “You mean I was invisible.”
Odran chuckled, an oddly disturbing sound. “Hardly. You didn’t change. I did. Haven’t you ever been looking for something, say, your flint, and it’s been in front of you the whole time? The flint didn’t disappear. You just overlooked it.”
“So those of us with this fading ability disappear into the surroundings?”
“Exactly.”
A smile crept onto Conor’s face. It explained so much: how the Fíréin just seemed to appear and disappear, how Riordan always managed to startle him, how he had watched Eoghan practice unseen all those times. It even explained why he had always won at hide-and-find as a child.
“How does it work?”
“It’s different for everyone. After a while, you can just do it at will. My guess is you were concentrating on not being seen, so you made yourself nearly impossible to see.”
“Nearly?”
“As I said, you’re not invisible. The ability works on people’s expectations. If they’re looking for you, it’s difficult to hide in plain view. The bigger question is, what about the lady Aine made you so desperately want to stay out of sight?”
Conor’s face heated. Odran had been setting up this question all along. He averted his eyes. “They think I’m dead. If word should get back . . .”
“The lady certainly doesn’t think you’re dead. And given the state of affairs in the kingdoms, I hardly think news you’re alive will make an impact.”
“Maybe not, but it will make Calhoun look like a liar.”
Odran smiled. It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it.
Conor took the first watch, too keyed up to sleep. He wrapped his cloak around himself and tuned his hearing to the forest’s night sounds, but his mind kept drifting back to Aine. She had looked like a queen in her embellished armor, confident and beautiful, commanding. Had he seen her then as he did now, he would never have had the courage to write the love song for her or to take her in his arms the night he left.
The recollection of her soft lips against his, buried in his memory the past two years, sprang to the forefront in vivid detail. His breath caught in his chest, and he shook his head as if he could shake out the memory.
Aine was not any woman. She was the lady healer of Lisdara. And evidently, she had become someone of note if she traveled with two guards and a scholar. What had she said? We are tracking a ward. No doubt you’ve felt the disturbances on the eastern wards? We’re in the process of mapping them.
And Odran’s question: Have you felt anything unusual?
The pieces fell into place swiftly and neatly. The wards that kept Ard Dhaimhin safe from incursion must extend beyond the borders of the forest. Aine was mapping them for the Faolanaigh forces. Were they merely a tool for detecting the movement of enemy warriors, or did they have a more offensive function?
The revelation gave him the direction he had been seeking. The Fíréin must know about the wards. If he could learn something of value, he could leave and offer his knowledge to Calhoun. By now, as Odran so bluntly pointed out, it hardly mattered who knew
he was alive.
For the first time since coming to Ard Dhaimhin, Conor knew why he was there, and he finally had a goal fixed firmly in mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The small party of riders remained silent long after they cleared the edge of Seanrós and emerged into the meadowlands beneath a glaring sunlit sky. Perhaps the men held their peace because they knew how close they had come to engaging in a futile fight. Aine stayed quiet because she did not yet trust her voice to be any steadier than the hand holding the rein.
After a few minutes in the open, Ruarc guided his horse alongside hers. “You handled that situation very well.”
“Thank you.” It had been too close. The Fíréin rarely spared those who strayed across their borders without invitation, as was their sovereign right. Had Aine not identified herself as sister to both a king and a Fíréin brother, she doubted they would have been allowed to live.
Somehow, the realization did not shake her as much as her own willingness to put her men in danger. She had known the risk they faced by entering the forest, and she had trusted her connection with Calhoun and Liam would save them. The fact she’d been right did not make it any less irresponsible.
Ruarc studied her. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
A double-edged question. She nodded. “The wards we have been tracking are definitely connected to the wards around Ard Dhaimhin. Whoever is strengthening them must be Fíréin.”
“Shouldn’t that please you?” Ruarc asked. “At least it means it’s someone on our side.”
“It also means there are far more people with the ability to sense the wards than just Lady Aine,” Aran said, bringing his horse alongside hers.
She gave him a nod of agreement. Cúan might still be the better scribe, but Aran had a fine mind for strategy. He grasped situations quickly and analyzed them without error. He would have made a formidable battle commander had he the remotest inclination toward warfare.
“It’s only a matter of time before Fergus has one of them mapping the wards for him, and then we’ve lost our advantage,” Aine said. “In any case, I have the evidence Gainor and Calhoun wanted. We’ve scoured nearly every corner of Faolán and Siomar except for the border forests, and we’re unlikely to survive any more expeditions of this type.”
After an hour at their brisk pace, Abban’s camp came to view. Months ago, they had relocated north and west to a spot that held less strategic advantage but boasted other benefits. First, it was located at the intersection of two strong wards, which protected the camp from incursion and ensured no one infected by the druid’s sorcery could enter. Second, the only way to reach it was through a gauntlet of ward-laced open land or heavily defended Fíréin territory. Aine still felt proud of her contribution to their safety, even if Aran had been the one to note the site’s strategic significance.
Since then, their numbers had tripled, gathering nearly twelve hundred warriors under half a dozen banners both Faolanaigh and Siomaigh, and Aine saw at a single glance the numbers had expanded again while they were gone. The banner flying prominently above Abban’s confirmed Gainor had arrived with his six hundred warriors from the north.
Shouts went up as they entered camp, passing word of their arrival back to the command pavilion at its center. Men called out greetings, as often directed toward Aine as the well-respected warriors who accompanied her.
“My lady, when you have a moment . . .” a man called out as she passed.
“Come see me tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’ll have some time then.”
Aine spent as much time as she could attending to the medical needs of the camp’s hundreds of warriors, but her mapping project kept her away for days or weeks at a time, leaving long lines of patients to attend when she returned. Between the men who would gather outside the infirmary in the morning and meetings with the commanders well into the night, she was guaranteed a series of exhausting days.
Several young pages met them at the pavilion to take their horses. Aine dismounted and handed over her reins, intending to go straight to her tent, but Lord Abban swept aside the curtains of the pavilion.
“Lady Aine, come, tell us what you found,” he called.
Inside, Abban and Seaghan bent over the maps in close discussion with the two newcomers, Gainor and a man Aine recognized immediately—Keondric Mac Eirhinin.
Gainor glanced up and favored Aine with a warm smile. He moved to her side and kissed both her cheeks in welcome. “Dear sister. You have news?”
Aine stripped off her gloves and approached the table. “Lord Abban showed you our completed map?”
“He insisted on waiting for you,” Abban said.
“Very well. Aran needs to make the addition anyway. We followed the Corelain Wells ward into Fíréin territory today.”
“Fíréin territory?” Seaghan repeated. “And you came back?”
“The lady can be very persuasive,” Ruarc said.
Aine retrieved a wide sheet of parchment from the wooden map chest and spread it atop the map they had been studying. Gainor’s eyebrows lifted, and Aine smiled. Cúan had truly outdone himself with the detailed drawing, rendering Seare’s eastern topography as lovingly and skillfully as any of the ancient illuminated maps. This one bore a spiderweb of crimson lines that covered all of Faolán and Siomar.
“You can see the significance,” Aine said.
Gainor studied the map intently. “They all lead to Ard Dhaimhin.”
“Exactly. It took perhaps a quarter of an hour before we were stopped at sword point by a half-dozen Fíréin sentries.”
Keondric looked at her with a warmth that heated her cheeks. “Bravely done, Lady Aine.”
Aine rushed on without acknowledging the comment. “We suspected the wards were originally created and maintained from the High City, but we had to confirm they were still active within Fíréin territory. Whoever is rebuilding the wards, though, is doing it locally.” She tapped the map where the wards showed a second, dotted line.
“Do you have any ideas yet?” Gainor asked.
“Considering this is magic no one but the Fíréin remember,” Seaghan said, “we should assume it’s a brother. Or at least someone trained in Ard Dhaimhin.”
“If it’s a brother,” Gainor said, “he’s either afraid he will be punished for interfering with the kingdoms, or he knows it would make him a target.”
“Someone with the ability to make the wards could unmake them as well,” Aine said.
“That’s exactly what troubles me.” Gainor sank into a chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “What if this person works for Fergus? He might be trying to get us to rely on the wards’ strength. If he were to break them, we would be taken by surprise.”
“That’s why we have rangers patrolling the wards,” Abban said. “I’ve never been that comfortable with magic. I don’t doubt Lady Aine’s word, but I feel better with a few extra pairs of human eyes on our enemies’ movements.”
Gainor studied the map silently for a minute and then pointed to a spot several miles south of Threewaters. “I intended to encamp here. Now, it seems to me we’d be better here, at the intersection of what you call Callindor and Southbrook. We could muster warriors anywhere in Siomaigh within hours should the outriders send word Fergus is mounting an attack.”
Aine glanced at Gainor. “Who’s watching Faolán’s borders with Tigh if you’re here?”
“Lord Fliann. His men know the countryside so well a rabbit couldn’t cross the border without their notice. Why?”
Aine indicated a spot along the Faolanaigh border that abutted Róscomain. “We haven’t been able to map this area. There doesn’t seem to be a ward here, even on the edge of the forest. Conor once hinted they encountered trouble there on their way to Lisdara. It’s the only weak spot we’ve found.”
“I’ll send word to Fliann right away,” Gainor said. “If there’s a weakness, you can expect the druid to exploit it.”
Aine nodded. “Th
ank you. Now if you gentlemen don’t need me, I’m going to rest. I’m sure there will be a line forming at the infirmary in the morning.”
Gainor and Seaghan bowed, and Abban said, “Thank you, Lady Aine. Your assistance has been invaluable.”
Aine inclined her head in acknowledgement and stepped from the tent into the fading sunlight. She let out a weary sigh. Her nerves were stretched taut, and her mind whirred constantly with what-ifs. What if she was wrong about the wards? What if one of her assurances about their strength led to the deaths of these warriors she had come to know and respect? She had done her best to use her abilities for Seare, but deep down she was just a girl who had been thrown into deep water.
She’d gone no more than a few steps when a voice called out, “Lady Aine!”
She turned as Lord Keondric strode toward her. She’d always thought him handsome, with coal-black hair and brilliant, almost unnaturally blue eyes. But something about his smile made her heart beat too fast . . . and not in a pleasing way. She took a step back, and Ruarc put a steadying hand on her back.
“What you’ve done here is impressive,” Keondric said. “I wanted to congratulate you on the accomplishment.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She dipped her head while searching for a way to extricate herself.
Ruarc saved her. “The lady is tired, my lord; she’s just far too polite to say so. Perhaps you could speak later.”
Keondric gave her a graceful bow. “Forgive me. I just wanted to convey my admiration. We will, after all, be family someday soon. Rest well, my lady.”
Aine licked her lips and nodded. Why did the man unnerve her so? He’d been polite and solicitous when she had encountered him at Lisdara, but she’d never been struck with this uneasiness in his presence. Was it because there was something more than brotherly admiration in his gaze? He was betrothed to her sister, but she knew full well it was not a love match. He and Niamh had never said more than a handful of words to each other.
“You might as well get used to the admiration,” Ruarc murmured behind her. “I understand Calhoun has already received a number of discreet inquiries about you.”
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