“What now?” I cried.
light my burner and i will wake.
Finvara
I reached the top of the dungeon stairs and yanked on the door handle—it was bolted from the outside. While fairy magic was useless against an iron lock, the door itself was made of wood. A wisp’s light wasn’t going to do the job and I was reluctant to cast a more powerful spell now, not knowing what I’d face on the other side. I raised a foot and kicked the door, but it held fast.
So be it.
Rather than stand pondering a subtler approach, I had spoken the first words for Beltane fire when the door swung inward.
A wide-eyed guard shoved the tip of a spear at me and shouted something in Elvish. I sidestepped, grabbed the weapon, and used the guard’s own momentum to drag him into the dungeon. Then I darted around him and out the door, slamming and bolting it behind me.
“Finvara!”
The familiar voice drew my eyes skyward—the airship had at last moved and was positioned directly over the prison tower.
“Koli?” I called.
Guards shouted the alarm from tower to tower, and the arrows they fired at the ship arced over my head. Koli’s face appeared above the rail, and she flung a rope ladder down over the hull. It wasn’t long enough for me to reach from where I was standing, but there was a turret on the north side of the tower. I hurried around to the stairway and started up—I could hear a guard coming down. Before he came into view, I flattened myself against the wall and murmured a shielding spell—an earth spell to help me blend into the stones. He came thundering down, and when he was close, I threw out a leg and toppled him, sending him tumbling down the stairs.
At the top of the turret, the rope ladder was waiting. Guards raced along the parapet toward the tower from opposite directions.
“Climb!” cried Koli. “I’ll manage the arrows.”
Grabbing the ladder, I climbed four rungs and then stopped, locking my fingers around the rope rails as the lines furling the Corvus’s square sails began to unwind themselves. The sails dropped, and the clewlines, buntlines, and sheets were manipulated as if by an invisible crew. The sails unfurled with miraculous efficiency, and the ship lurched into motion. A guard who’d taken hold of the bottom rung of the ladder was jerked over the turret wall—he lost his grip and fell with a shout.
An arrow zinged past my cheek and I glanced down—three guards on the parapet below held nocked bows. The guards let more arrows fly just as Koli called out a spell, and a rogue gust of wind blew the arrows off course and caused the ship to lurch again.
More bowmen were lining up on the parapet. Koli’s wind spell had been effective, but only a powerful magic wielder would be able to call on the air element again without a recovery period. Beltane fire was on the tip of my tongue already, so I shouted the spell and hurled the resulting fireball at the bowmen. It wasn’t as hot as real fire, yet it had a tendency to explode on impact. Despite the swaying rope ladder my aim was true, and the fireball slammed into the chest of the middle bowman, raining flames and sparks over his companions. No sooner had I cast my spell than a nearby elven guard conjured his own bright orange ball and took aim.
I heard Koli cast her wind spell again, but nothing happened, and I tried to sway the ladder as the guard hurled the fireball. In the same instant, I heard a roaring sound from Corvus, and she jerked upward, causing the fireball to strike the ladder two rungs below my feet. Instead of exploding, it splattered, and the brilliantly colored fire oozed and adhered like honey to the rope. Then the rope began to burn.
Arrows continued to reach us, but the stiffening wind had managed to put some distance between the ship and the castle. The arrows that did make it bounced harmlessly off the hull. I imagined an arrow would still go through me easily enough—I tried not to think about it as I climbed the swinging rope ladder while flames licked at my heels.
“Hurry!” shouted Koli.
Finally I reached the rail and hauled myself aboard. Koli drew a knife and cut the ladder free from the ship, and the flaming ropes dropped away.
We both looked back at the castle, holding our breath as it shrank in the distance. Corvus was sailing at a good clip now. Though we could still hear the elven guards shouting to each other, we could no longer see them.
“Are we safe?” I asked her. We had been casting both fire and wind spells, increasing the likelihood any new spells would fail. But sorcerers and necromancers—beings like the Elf King—could draw on the elements across a greater distance. They could cast spells lesser magic wielders would never attempt.
“With luck,” Koli replied. I could hear the worry in her voice, and her eyes were still fixed on the castle. “They will not have been expecting it.”
No sooner had she spoken than the skin on the back of my neck began to tingle. On instinct, I flung my arms around her, bracing as lightning forked across the sky accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder. The stark white lines reached for us like a skeletal hand but fell short.
“That was close,” I breathed into her hair.
“It was a warning,” she replied.
As I drew back to look at her, I heard a roaring noise and looked up to see the burner for the balloon flaring. The ship began to rise.
“Who is captaining her?” I asked.
There were a couple beats of silence before Koli answered. “The Morrigan.”
Alarmed, I looked to the helm. “She’s on the ship?”
“She is the ship.”
My eyes came slowly back to my bride. I’ve misunderstood.
“She was betrayed by Doro too,” Koli said.
I shook my head, even more confused. “I’ve seen the Morrigan,” I said. “At Ben Bulben. She’s a shape-changer, but she appears as an old woman or a crow.”
Corvus the crow.
It couldn’t be.
“It’s Doro’s doing,” said Koli. “The Morrigan used him for his power for centuries. First as a druid, later as an alchemist. After he helped one of the Tuatha de Danaan to create the seal between Faery and Ireland, the Morrigan decided that no one save gods and goddesses should wield such power. She bound him to his queen—to the fairy queen—so he could be controlled.”
This story fit together with some of the things I had been told by Queen Isolde and Lady Meath both before and after the Battle of Ben Bulben. Yet I still couldn’t puzzle out how Doro, the Morrigan, and the ship were connected.
“How has he betrayed her?” I asked.
“The Gap gate that changed me,” she replied, “he tricked her into going through it too.”
I gave a low whistle. I hadn’t misunderstood her at all—Corvus was the Morrigan. “Why would he do such a thing? She might have destroyed him for it.”
“He had experimented on fairies first,” she said, shrugging, “and most of them didn’t survive. I think his bondage had become intolerable. And she would have certainly interfered with his plans to steal your crown to escape his bond.”
“So he decided it was worth the risk.” My eyes followed the ghostly movement of lines and sheets as Corvus prepared to come about. She was tacking east. “Why didn’t she destroy him?”
“After her transformation, she was—” Koli stopped, and I recognized her expression—she was searching for a word. After murmuring a few words in her own language, she said, “She was dormant. I used a spell to light her burner, but her mind and her power—they’re both trapped in the ship.”
I studied the wing-shaped sails on the hull, and the dark avian figurehead. Taking a deep breath, I reached for Koli’s hand and pressed it between mine. “How did you learn all of this?”
Koli
I wanted to feel the elation of our escape. I wanted to dwell on the heat in his gaze, and the way his strong hands warmed mine. But there was more to tell, and it wouldn’t be easy.
“The Mo
rrigan is not just in the ship,” I said carefully. “She’s in my head.”
His brow darkened, and his voice deepened. “What?”
“I can hear her, like Doro.”
He gave his head a vigorous shake. “I don’t like that at all, acushla. Doro was bad enough.” Still holding my hand, he drew me closer. The word he had used, acushla, was not one I had learned in my study of the language, though the sound of it on his lips caused a warm flutter in my chest.
“I know.” I bit my lip as his troubled gaze moved over my face. “Yet we could not have escaped without her.” The goddess had seemed to move in and out of my thoughts since our first conversation. If she was listening, I hoped my gratitude would help make up for my husband’s disrespect.
He raised his hand, his thumb tracing my cheekbone. Memories of our afternoon in the cottage—the hunger, the press of warm flesh—flooded my mind.
“And how did we escape?” he asked.
I could feel how uneasy this made him, and the rest of the story was not likely to change that. His closeness made a jumbled mess of my thoughts. I did my best to recount how the Morrigan had first spoken to me and persuaded me to accept her help.
“Do you know why she’s come to you for help?”
There was no point in hiding it from him. “She knew I would need help to get you out of the castle. She needs our help to get revenge on her enemy.”
“Doro.”
Blowing out a breath, he ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “The accomplishments of this fellow, the arrogance—it’s stupefying. He gained the consent of the Elf King to marry his daughter. He tricked and imprisoned the goddess of war. He turned my subjects against me.” Finvara looked at me. “Was the mechanical raven one of Doro’s experiments?”
“I believe so.”
“You gave it the words to free me?”
I nodded. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but I didn’t think you’d be able to retrieve and use the key with your hands bound. I had to try.”
His hands came to cup my face, and then he bent and kissed me gently, moving his lips slowly over mine, nuzzling my cheek at the end.
“It was brilliant,” he murmured. “Thank you for freeing me. Thank you for coming for me.”
I splayed my hands against his broad chest, smiling as I studied his face. “Did you think I would leave you behind?”
He laughed. “You were so convincing in the dungeon I thought you might.” He pulled me closer, coiling his arms around me. I concealed my discomfort as his hands brushed the fresh wounds on my back. “And they believed you about your double cross? Your father, and your friend Ulf?”
“They did.”
“I’m glad for that. When they took us, I was afraid of what they might do to you.”
I ran my hands up his arms, feeling the hard muscle under his warm skin, not yet over my amazement that I was permitted to do such things now.
“I think I surprised them both,” I replied. “I have never crossed him before. My father was angry, but I believe he was also impressed.”
“Well I certainly was. Now he will be angrier.”
Angry doesn’t even come close.
“So where are we going, acushla?”
I frowned. “I don’t know this word—acushla. What does it mean?”
He smiled. “Something like ‘heartbeat.’ ”
This did little to clear up my confusion, and I raised my eyebrows.
“It means someone important to you.” His thumb brushed my jaw. “Do you mind?”
Feeling a pleasant shiver, I shook my head.
“Good. Now tell me, where is this vengeful goddess taking us?”
“To your queen.”
Pressing his lips together, he nodded. “I hate that it’s come to this, but I need her help.”
“You also must warn her,” I said. “There’s more danger than you know.”
ACUSHLA
Finvara
Koli let her embrace fall away and turned from me—it made my stomach sink. Folding her hands in front of her, she took a few steps and then faced me.
“I have not told you all,” she said, squeezing her hands together. “I had not intentionally kept it from you, but everything has happened so fast.” She looked a little lost, and I had to stop myself from closing the space she’d opened between us.
“I know,” I said as gently as I could. “Tell me.”
She dropped her hands by her sides. “Taking your throne from you was only the first part of Doro’s plan. When my father is sure of his dominion over your subjects, he will summon his allies, the Fomorians. They intend to try again to take Ireland for themselves—this time with the help of your fairy folk. It threatens not just your court, but everyone you know. Everyone you care for.”
It should not have come as a shock—Doro had already allied with one enemy of Ireland. The scope of my failure as guardian of the west sickened me.
“How much time do we have to prepare?” I asked.
“My father is not one to act in haste,” she replied. “He strategizes and arranges his pieces on the board until success is a sure thing. With our escape, he will have guessed we are going to the queen. He will be forced to act quickly.”
“Is Doro still hiding from us in the tower?”
She nodded. “Ulf said my father tried to go up to him, but Doro has sealed off the chamber.”
“Now that he must answer to you, he probably doesn’t trust anyone. Is there any chance that without Doro’s power to aid him, your father will reconsider his plans?”
“It will have been a setback.”
“Your betrayal will also have been a setback.”
“Yes.” Her expression was flat, yet I knew she had to be weighing it all. Did she regret casting her lot with me? Her whole world had been upended by our marriage.
Finally she said, “The treaty has been broken. He will go to war before he repents of it, because repentance would show his enemies—and his allies—that he is weak.”
Conflict was inevitable, then. So soon after the Battle of Ben Bulben.
“What do you think he’ll do next?” I asked. “Were you still loyal to him, what would you advise him to do?”
She took a deep breath, and she pursed her lips together. Her eyes lifted to study the bright, barely waning moon hanging in the sky above the stern.
“Take prisoners,” she said in a hardened tone. “Use them as a shield until reinforcements arrive.”
I closed my eyes. “Aye.” Almost all of my family lived in Connacht, within striking distance of Knock Ma. My father, my brothers and their wives and children.
Resting my hand on the rail, I studied the moonlit countryside slowly passing beneath the ship. The night was clear, though there were dark clouds on our horizon. Yet I could not help feeling my spirits lifted by the creaking of the deck, the fair wind against my skin, and the beauty of the sky overhead.
“How long will it take us to reach the queen?” Koli asked.
Sighing, I reached into my pocket for my compass, forgetting it was gone. On a night like this I didn’t need it anyway. I let my eyes move over the rigging, then beyond to the stars. Finding Orion on the starboard side and the Plough to port, I followed the lines of the Plough to the North Star. We were tacking the right direction, but then I would expect the Morrigan to know her way.
Eight knots, maybe less. Aesop could cruise at twice the speed. That great balloon, while necessary for an airship, must create incredible drag. There would be some compensation in the additional sails fixed to the hull, which moved through the air like oars, and in the aft propeller. I wasn’t sure what powered them, but possibly steam, with the balloon’s burner and other sources of combustion controlled by the ship itself—the Morrigan.
“Tomorrow,” I replied. “Hopefully by midday. We should tr
y to get some sleep.” Now that the excitement of our escape had worn off, a clouding fatigue was settling behind my eyes.
Turning her gaze from the stars, Koli nodded. I walked over and offered my arm.
“This is a galleon,” I said. “Normally there would be officers’ accommodations in the quarter gallery—let us go and see.”
We walked aft in silence, the lamps along the rail lighting our way. My bride seemed distracted, and I continued to worry about the fact we’d had to accept help from the Morrigan. If her powers were confined to this ship, that at least was something. But it was a matter of grave concern to me that the goddess of war had gotten inside Koli’s head. I remembered what it was like having my intellect overtaken by an immortal. Not only that, in the Battle of Ben Bulben the Morrigan had helped both sides, in the interest of drawing out the conflict as long as possible. She was anything but trustworthy.
Though, if the goddess could not enact her vengeance without us, we would at least have some means of controlling her. And heaven knew we needed all the help we could get.
“Are you talking to her now?” I asked when I could take the quiet no longer.
Koli shook her head. “I don’t speak with her often. Her voice is—” She broke off, shuddering before she continued, “It’s very hard for me to listen to for long.”
Swallowing my anger, I curled my fingers over hers. “I would that I could carry that burden for you.” My words came out stiffer than I intended. I didn’t like feeling so powerless.
We reached the door to what would be captain’s quarters on an ordinary sailing ship, and I bade her stay outside while I made a quick inspection. Koli clearly had no need of my protection—yet that had not stopped me from developing fiercely protective impulses.
The luxury of the accommodations exceeded anything I’d seen even among the wealthiest of smugglers. There was a vast quantity of red—velvet-upholstered lounges and chairs, rugs and wall hangings, cushions and lamp shades. The chamber ran the length of the gallery, with a set of narrow windows across the stern. The floors and walls were dark wood, polished and gleaming, and the ceiling was made of large squares of riveted copper that reflected the lamplight. There were also clocks—resting on every horizontal surface, so many of them that their ticking, gear clicking, and occasional chiming created a busy sort of musical background, more lively even than the pile of little machines on the floor of the dungeon. A glowing stove stationed in the stern had gauges, gears, and pipes that ran down through holes in the floor. Presumably the complicated apparatus was powering the steam engine as well as heating the chamber.
The Raven Lady Page 20