“So you’ve come back, and welcome to you.”
“Yes, to visit my grandmother.”
Breen walked to the stone fence so that she stood on one side, Aisling and her brood on the other.
“You’ve made her happy, that I can promise you. And here are my boys. Finian, say welcome to Mistress Kelly.”
“Welcome.”
“Thank you. Breen’s fine.” Though his was grubby with grass and dirt, Breen offered a hand to shake.
“And this hellion is our Kavan.”
To Breen’s surprise, Kavan let out a laugh, threw his arms out to her.
“He’s a friendly sort, but none too clean at the moment.”
“I don’t mind.”
When Aisling passed him over the fence, he immediately tangled his none-too-clean hands in Breen’s hair, and babbled happily.
“He likes your hair, you see. Red’s his favorite, isn’t it now, my wild one? And last here is Mab. She’s angel sweet, so not to worry.”
Bollocks, forepaws planted on the fence, stretched up to lick at Mab’s face while the big dog tolerated it with quiet dignity.
“We won’t keep you, as I know Marg’s waiting, but I hope you’ll come see us while you’re here. My man and my brother are due back anytime. They’ll be pleased to meet you.”
“I will.”
“Come back to Ma now, my little man, as your new friend has to be on her way.” Aisling took the boy, settled him on her hip.
“I have something for you and your brother.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, my grandmother said . . .” Breen took off her backpack, unzipped it. She took out a framed photo. “Your father, with mine and other friends.”
“Oh! Oh, would you look at that!” Aisling shifted the baby as she took the photo. “Look here, my lads, it’s your grandda.”
“How did he get in there?” Finian demanded.
“It’s a likeness, you see. Like a drawing from when he was a young man. Oh, this is such a treasured gift, Breen. I’m out of words to say.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll come see you before I . . . go back.”
“See that you do, and give our best to Marg, won’t you?”
“I will. You have beautiful sons.”
Aisling’s smile beamed with pleasure and pride. “I’m blessed with them. Now, if I can just have a girl—just the once. Come on, lads, let’s take this fine gift safe inside.”
As Aisling walked back to the house, Kavan grinned at Breen over his mother’s shoulder. And she watched little wings, bold and red, flutter out as if to wave goodbye.
“That’s something you don’t see every day. Except maybe here.”
She continued along the road, made the turn into the trees toward the cottage.
Once again, the doors and windows stood open to the day, and smoke trailed up from the chimney.
Marg gathered flowers from her thriving garden to lay in the basket on her arm.
“And so you’re here. Aye, and you as well,” she added when Bollocks raced to her. “Come in and welcome. I’ll show you to your room right off, and hope it pleases you.”
She’s nervous, Breen realized, and knowing it calmed her own jitters.
“How did you fare coming through this time?”
“I didn’t end up flat on my back and faint.”
“Better then. Just this way,” she said, gesturing. “My room’s on the other side, so you’ll have privacy. There’s a bath chamber—not what you’re used to. If you’ve questions, I’ll show you how it all works.”
“Okay.”
She stepped into a room full of light, lace curtains fluttering back to frame views of the gardens and trees. The four-poster bed stood sturdy and draped with white, with a chest at its foot painted with dragons. Candles and flowers and raw crystals decorated the mantel over a hearth.
A pretty little desk and chair looked out of one of the windows.
“It’s really charming.” Wandering, she set her tote on the chest. “Really lovely. The cottage didn’t look big enough to have a room like this.”
It struck her, so she turned back. “Because it wasn’t here before.”
“It’s here now, and will be always for you.”
“I try—it’s knee-jerk—to convince myself all this is some elaborate dream or, I don’t know, nervous breakdown. But I know it’s not. And standing here, being here, I don’t want it to be.”
“It’s your home, whatever you choose in the end. It will always be home for you. I’ll put on the kettle if you want to put your things away.”
“It’s not much, and it could wait, if we could—if you could take me to my father’s grave. I have this.”
She opened the backpack to take out another framed photo. “For you. And I have one for Finola. I saw Aisling on the road, and gave her one. I have another. I didn’t know if the other friend, the one you said had died, too, had family who might want it.”
“He does, and they would cherish such a gift. It’s thoughtful of you, Breen.”
Marg took the photo, pressed it to her heart. “I’ll take you to his stone. It’s a far walk, so we’ll take the horses. I have my own Igraine, and we’ll borrow one from Harken for you.”
“I don’t know how to ride. I’ve never actually ridden a horse.”
Surprise flashed on Marg’s face. “Oh, but you did indeed. You had your own pony, and called her Birdie. And you rode on your da’s mount with him. Such things will come back, no doubt, but for today, we’ll take Igraine and the cart.”
“There really aren’t any cars here?”
“No cars, no.” Marg retrieved the basket of flowers before she led the way outside and across to a lean-to where a horse stood idly munching from a basket of hay. “Here’s our Igraine. She’s a fine, gentle thing, but she can move when moving’s needed. We’ll just hitch her up to the cart.”
The horse from the dream, Breen realized. The sturdy-looking white with the black dappled hindquarters.
“Can I help you?”
“Best to watch and learn this time around.”
Marg led the horse to a two-wheeled cart, where she stood, tail switching, while Marg fixed some sort of harness over the horse’s chest and withers. It ran under the belly, along the flanks, and the way Marg managed it all told Breen she’d done it countless times before.
All the while, the horse stood patient.
“It’s all padded, you see, the breast strap so it won’t rub her. And you have this that controls her head, but you watch you don’t put it so high it pushes her windpipe. You buckle it up with the traces. And you have the saddle—not like one for riding—and the braces. They’re for stopping, the brakes.”
Marg gave the horse a rub. “Then the girth, and that you need good and tight. And here the harness and the bit—there’s my girl.”
While Breen watched, fascinated, Marg strapped and buckled, checked all was as it should be. Then stepped back to lift the cart.
“Let me help.”
“All right then, the shafts on either side have to go into the togs. The loops, you see? The leather loops.”
She explained it all, step by step—a lot of steps—before they had cart and horse ready for the trip.
“All that,” Breen marveled, “every time you want to go somewhere with a cart.”
“It takes a bit of time, but why hurry through the day just to get to the next?”
As agile as a teenager, Marg climbed up to the seat, waited for Breen to do the same.
“In the back with you,” Marg told Bollocks. He leaped in, then rested his head on the seat between them.
With a little click of her tongue, Marg sent the horse and cart forward.
Breen caught movement out of the corner of her eye, turned to see a cat, polished coin silver, wind around the side of the house.
“You have a cat.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As an experience,
Breen decided her first horse-before-the-cart ride might have rattled some bones and teeth, but the exhilaration outweighed that.
The quiet—just the roll of wheels, the mare’s lively trot on the soft dirt—meant she could hear birdsong and the lowing of cows as they traveled.
She sat in sunlight, with a breeze smelling of grass wafting around her, and she could see other farms, other cottages—and a man with a thick walking stick who tipped his cap as they passed him on the road.
She saw children playing, clothes flapping on lines, horses actually frolicking in fields.
“Was that a fox?” Breen asked as she watched something red and sleek streak across the road.
“It was, aye. Have you never seen one?”
“Not really. There’s a round tower over there. What’s it for?”
“For remembering now. In the long ago, the Pious took to them for safety, as they were persecuted. Then again, they did some persecuting of their own in that time.”
“That’s the name you used before—for the place where you said my father’s buried.”
“A place it was—or was meant to be—for prayer and good works and contemplation. But there are always some, aren’t there, who believe what they believe is the only. And will do whatever it takes to force that belief on all. For me, those who would kill and burn and enslave in the name of a god, well, they don’t hear the god they claim to worship. Or the god is a false and cruel one.”
She turned the horse and cart onto another road, steeper, and when they topped a rise, Breen saw it.
The spread of gray stone, the turrets, the battlements. And the high grass around it, with headstones, and sheep that grazed.
And there, on another slight rise, the stone circle.
“You dreamed this.”
“I did. That place, and you, and the horse. Not the cart, you rode the horse, and wore a brown cloak with a hood. I can’t get used to it,” Breen murmured. “I don’t know if I ever will.”
“It’s sanctified, this place, a holy place, as it was meant to be. Any blood once shed here, any sins committed, are long forgiven.”
“Why is he here, instead of closer to where he lived?”
“He was taoiseach, and this is his honor. When my time comes, I will lie here as well.”
“What does it mean, that word? Teesha?”
Marg spelled it out. “It means ‘leader.’ Our Eian was leader of the tribes, one and all. Chosen and choosing, as I was once as well.”
“Are you, like, elected?”
“Chosen and choosing,” Marg repeated. “As I chose to pass the sword and staff of the taoiseach to another when I had failed, when I had allowed myself to be used and deceived. I’ll explain,” she added, laying a hand on Breen’s. “I promise you. Your father was but a babe when I abjured, and but sixteen years when he took up the sword and staff himself.”
She stopped the horse. “Would you fetch the flowers for me?” she asked as the dog jumped out to investigate the sheep and the stones.
As she climbed down, Breen got the basket. Marg took them out, circled a finger in the air. Their stems pulled together as if with twine.
“I think with you here now, we’ll put these in the ground so they grow and thrive.”
“But they’re cut flowers, not plants.”
“Fresh they are, fresh enough for this.”
She took Breen’s hand, walked with her over and through the grass to a stone carved with her father’s name and the symbol of a sword crossed with a staff.
“He’s really gone. Part of me didn’t want to believe . . .”
“He’s in you, as he’s in me.” Marg slid an arm around Breen’s waist. “Never forget that. He’s with the gods now. Only his ashes and our memory of him lie here.”
“You . . . he was cremated?”
“In our tradition, the dead is placed in a boat, on a bed of flowers. The candles are lit, the songs are sung as the boat sails on the water. Then the fire takes it. The ashes come back through the air and into a stone jar, and the jar is placed in the earth. And the dead is one with the five.”
“The four elements, and magick.”
“Aye. Do you want me to leave you for some time?”
“No. No, he was yours, too.”
“Then together, we’ll give him the flowers.”
“I don’t know how to do what you’re asking.”
“Kneel with me. We hold the flowers together, just beneath the stone. Think with your heart now, open it.
“In this place of peace and rest,” Marg said, “we offer our gift to one loved best. Flowers bright, grow day and night. For father, for son, from her, from me. As we will, so mote it be.”
Breen felt something, a change in the air, in the ground beneath her. The stems of the bouquet simply slid into the earth. And they spread, wild with color, until they formed a blanket.
“It’s . . . it’s beautiful.”
“You were part of it.” Tears glittered in Marg’s eyes, but didn’t fall. Just gleamed like light over a misty blue sea. “It’s in you, mo stór. If you choose, I’ll teach you what you need to know. Now take your moments with him. You need them whether you think it or not. I have others I knew and cared for here, and will pay respects.”
“All right.”
Sitting, Breen brushed her hand through the blanket of flowers. She didn’t believe she’d had any part in creating it, but she couldn’t deny she’d felt something pull inside her, and open inside her.
But for now, she just wanted to be.
“I miss you so much.” More keenly now, she realized, than she had even as a girl. “I should’ve tried to find you sooner. I should’ve broken away somehow, and tried. You’d have already been gone, but I’d have known. I’d have come here.
“It’s beautiful, the old ruins, the hills, the fields. And so quiet. Peace and rest, she said, and that’s true. I’m not sure what I believe about after death, but I hope that’s what you have now. Peace and rest. There’s so much I need to remember, but I never forgot one thing. I love you.”
She got to her feet, blinked and swiped at tears.
The horse let out a sharp whinny, and rising up to paw the air, nearly overturned the cart. Without thinking Breen started running back to grab at the bridle, to try to steady her.
She heard a whoosh, like a strong wind sweeping the trees.
Struggling with the horse, she looked up.
A man dived out of the sky. His gold hair streamed back, his dark wings spread. She had only a moment to wonder at the strange beauty before she realized he came straight at her.
And the look in his eyes was as dark as his wings.
She ran, zigging, zagging over the uneven ground to avoid stones. Something grabbed her hair, yanked her back. When an arm clamped around her waist, she kicked, struggled, and pulled in her breath to scream.
“Nan! Run! Run and hide!”
The chuckle came close to her ear. “Hiding’s done. Odran waits for you.”
And she kicked the air as he lifted her off her feet with the ground spinning beneath her.
She heard a roar, thought it was her panicked heart beating in her head. Then it dived out of the sky, gleaming emerald and gold and impossible. Its long, sinuous body streaked through the air with the man on its back, black hair flying. The sunlight struck the sword raised in his hand.
What held her let her go, and as she fell, too stunned to scream, she saw him draw a sword of his own.
She hit the ground, lay dazed and dizzy, as the clash—blade against blade—shook it beneath her.
“Breen!” Marg dropped down beside her. “I’ve got you. Let me see where you’re hurt.”
“It’s a dragon.” Breathless, Breen wheezed out the words. “It’s a dragon.”
“And thank the gods for it.”
The dragon turned, body curling, tail whipping. And its rider sliced his sword.
The winged body dropped like a stone. The head hit the dirt road with a muff
led thump, then rolled into the high grass.
“Oh God, oh my God.”
“There, it’s all right now. You’re safe. Bruised, but nothing’s broken. Just sit, catch your breath. It’s all over and done.”
The dragon glided down, keen claws scoring the dirt road. It studied Breen out of eyes shades deeper than the gold scales as it lowered to its belly.
The man swung a leg over its wide back, then jumped down as easily as another might have jumped into a cool river on a hot day. He sheathed his bloody sword as he strode toward Marg.
He didn’t look particularly pleased, but neither would she, Breen thought, if she’d just beheaded someone.
His hair flowed back, night dark, well over the collar of the leather duster that billowed out as he walked. His eyes, a dark, intense green, spared a glance at the severed head.
She knew that face, hard and handsome, from dreams.
“Odran didn’t send his best.” Then he shifted his gaze to Breen with the same look of mild disdain. “Her?”
“I’m grateful to you, Keegan, so don’t be a git and spoil it. My girl’s had a shock and a spill, and I’m keen aware it would’ve been worse if you hadn’t come when you did. Breen, this is Keegan O’Broin.”
“You have a dragon.”
“We have each other. Can you stand?”
She wasn’t altogether sure, but when he held out a hand, she decided she’d feel less idiotic on her feet than sitting on the ground with the dog making worried whines and licking her face.
He hauled her up, then gave Bollocks a kinder look than he’d given her.
“And who’s this then? One of Clancy’s litter?”
“He is, and Breen’s now.”
“You failed at guarding.” But he gave Bollocks a quick, careless rub. “You’ll have to do better next time.” He looked back at Marg. “So will she.”
“The girl’s had no time,” Marg began.
“I’m standing right here, but I can walk over that way if you’d both like to talk behind my back awhile.”
“Well, some spine anyway, so we’ll see.” Dismissing Breen again, he looked up. “Mahon shouldn’t be far behind me, and he’ll see you safely home. This one was likely an opportunist, as Odran wouldn’t send such a poor swordsman. I’ll take care of what’s left of him.”
The Awakening Page 19