by Emma Hamm
“Feast, ancestors of old. I thank you for the food you have provided and the safe haven you offer for my soul. I honor your memory with this simple food. Blessed be.”
The flames spun up into the air, and Sorcha saw people in the dancing spikes. Faces she did not recognize, but made her relax all the same. Each wore the blue woad the women in her vision had worn.
She clenched her hands into fists.
The dwarf tsked. “See? Druids never fall too far from the tree. You’re lucky I’m not my grandfather, or I would 'ave already taken your 'ead from your shoulders.”
“Why hasn’t anyone else then? I see waves of dwarves as if I looked into the ocean, and not one of you has raised a finger towards me.”
“Because we’re all dying out there.” The dwarven woman jabbed a finger at her family. “And if you can stop that, put an end to all this madness, then that means you get to live. Otherwise? Stay out of our way.”
Darkness swallowed up the tiny woman as she fled back to her own campfire.
Sorcha shook her head. “Are they all like that?”
“They are when it comes to protecting what is theirs. Are you really a druid, dearie?”
Oona’s eyes were massive. The moon reflected in their iridescent depths, twin limpid pools that Sorcha thought were all too hopeful for her liking.
“Yes. My grandfather found me while I was home.”
“Family? From your mother’s side?”
Sorcha hummed, Boggart’s soft snore vibrating against her neck. “I don’t know how much I trust him. He seemed to know far too much about my life, but didn’t appear to care for my choices. It was all very odd.”
“It’s good to have people who understand you.”
“He doesn’t understand me. He doesn’t seem to understand the world.” She snorted. “I’d trust the witch more than him.”
“Witch?” Oona startled. “Witches are dangerous creatures."
“Don’t I know it. But she helped to get me here, and I think it’s more likely that she has a little druid blood in her.”
“The druids are returning then.” Oona’s voice took on a strange quality, a whisper in the wind. “It is as it should be. The Otherworld is returning to its previous state. The high king takes his throne. The druids walk back through the portals. The Lesser Fae join their families and leave their lives of hardship.”
“We hope.”
Cian plopped down on the other side of the fire. He shook himself and water sprayed from his rolls of flesh. “That boy won’t listen to a damn thing.”
“Eamonn?” Sorcha asked.
“Aye. He’s got it in his head we'll be moving. A whole army! Moving from the nearest point to the castle we could be.”
“Where are we going?”
“Ask him. He won’t say a word to me.”
Sorcha stood, searching for Eamonn across the campfires that dotted like stars.
“He’s there, dearie.” Oona pointed towards what used to be a solid platform, but now had rotting holes like gaping mouths. “In the place where all this started.”
She didn’t comprehend the words until she realized where they were. A platform, a great column of wood, and a man whose throat bore the mark of the noose.
“No.” Sorcha shook her head. “No, it cannot be.”
“He chose to remain here. To remind himself day after day why he is fighting so hard.”
“This is where they hung him?”
“We’re standing in the same spot his family stood all those years ago. They watched him swing from a rope for hours before going back to their castle and falling asleep.” Oona sniffed. “I still don’t know how they did it. They made me go back with them, and nary a one had even a nightmare. Their boy was left out to the elements, unable to breathe, and with all the beasts of the Otherworld chewing on him. And they didn’t seem to care.”
Sorcha couldn’t bear it. Her feet moved her towards the platform where Eamonn stood staring up at the sky. No one was looking at him.
They were looking at her.
She was graceful as she picked her way through the crowds. Her skirts glowed in the moonlight, turning them silver and white.
“A ghost,” someone muttered.
“A bean sidhe.”
“No, a druid.”
Her hair stirred in the breeze. Curls fluttered across her face as she stared at him. He didn’t respond to her approach. The muscles of his back tensed, his fists curling in on themselves.
He knew. He always knew when she was walking up to him. And she was certain he knew she was about to argue with him.
Silently, she walked up the rotting stairs and placed a hand against his spine.
“Eamonn.”
“You will not change my mind.”
She smiled. “Why would I even try? It was my idea, mo chroí. We leave this place?”
“I will not stay upon this cursed land for a moment longer.”
“Wherever you go, I will follow.”
“It will not be an easy journey.”
“Then it is good you have a healer who will help you along the way.”
A great sigh rocked his shoulders. He turned to her then, pulling her into his arms and bending to rest his chin on her forehead. “I didn't think it possible to miss another person as much as I missed you.”
“I would miss losing a limb. And that is precisely the way I feel when you are not with me.”
“Thank you for standing by me.”
“I will convince you to speak with your brother, Eamonn.”
“You can try, but I will never yield.”
She shouted in her mind words of encouragement. Not for him, but for herself. Sorcha knew, deep in the pit of her gut, that the only way to end this war without further bloodshed was for the two of them to talk. They had to understand there was only so much more war this land could take.
But for now, she would wrap herself in Eamonn’s arms and pray that he understood.
He straightened, tucking her underneath his arm. “Men and women of Underhill!”
The dwarves all stood. Sorcha looked out over their ranks and wondered just how many they had lost. Five years of battle? Or was it five years of Eamonn fighting, and these people had only been here for a few weeks?
Old scars and new decorated their faces, worn armor weighed them down. Rust outlining the edges and chips marring the pristine surfaces.
“We have fought for a long time. You are a hard and true people, but now I must ask another boon.”
A rumble of worry echoed.
“We leave this land tomorrow. I will not risk our troops and our lives any further. We go to our family’s homeland. To the castle of old where the Tuatha dé Danann first touched the ground.”
“Where?” someone shouted.
He squeezed Sorcha against his chest. “To the castle of Nuada Silverhand!”
The resounding cheer at these words could likely be heard all the way to the Castle of Light. They were going to Nuada’s sacred home?
She glanced up at Eamonn. “Is that wise?"
“Where else would we go?”
“Anywhere. I do not wish to anger your grandfather.”
“Neither do I.” He released her, holding her hand and guiding her down the stairs. “But there is no other choice. As you said, the battle can only go on for so long. I need a new throne until I take mine back.”
They traveled for days across the wide expanse of the Otherworld.
Sorcha began to recognize mountains and hills. The peaks she had climbed over as a child, now covered with sparkling glitter, traversed by faeries, and far more vibrant. Flowers reached for her with their leafy hands. Grass tangled around her ankles if she stopped for too long, stroking whatever skin it could find.
Eamonn set a blistering pace that left the entire company exhausted. He did not come to see Sorcha again, although she understood why. The dwarves took much of his attention.
The more she watched them, the more she wondere
d how he had gathered such an army. They didn’t like each other, let alone him. Small squabbles quickly turned into giant brawls. Taking care of them sapped his energy.
He hadn’t forgotten her, she was certain of that. After all this time, she was finally in the Otherworld. He was busy, not distant.
Sorcha kept repeating the words in her head. It became a poem, a hymn, that repeated over and over again in her mind until it stuck.
After all this time.
She turned to look back the way they had traveled. A long line of dwarves trailed down the mountain like a river. It was a rare day of sunshine that turned the fields to rolling waves of green grass. Stone outcroppings jutted from the earth, mimicking frothy white peaks.
Oona and Cian stayed close to her, the others from Hy-brasil not far behind.
Stones crunched behind her, but she didn’t need to look. Pooka was far younger than the rest of them. His boundless energy sent him running ahead and back with updates on where they were going.
“We’re stopping,” he sullenly reported.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Might be, depending on what you think of this journey.”
The wind picked up and blew Sorcha’s long strands like a banner in the wind. “What do you mean by that?”
“We’ve arrived.”
“And so soon.”
She looked back at him, crouched on a rock with a frown on his face. When had he gotten so old? She saw the worry lines that marred his expression and knew he had a reason to be afraid.
“Go help the others,” she said. “We will need them all with us when we reach the castle.”
“You want them in the front?”
“I think it would be wise to have his family near him.”
“You think he considers us family?” Pooka shook his head and hopped to the ground. “You got a lot of big ideas in that head of yours, but you still don’t understand Tuatha dé Danann.”
“I think holding onto prejudices brought your kind to this point. Now go get them all and meet me at the front. How much further is it?”
“Far.”
She pinned him with a censoring gaze. “Domnall.”
“Over the rise,” he grumbled. “You’ll see it before you get too close. He stopped everyone so they could look at the castle before we go anywhere.”
Oona huffed and puffed up to them. “Are we stopping?”
“No, sorry.”
“Ah well, it was a hope anyways. Do we know when he wants to stop for the night?”
“He’s reached the castle.” Sorcha looked up at the jagged edge of the mountain they climbed. “It’s on the other side of this crest.”
“We best be going then.”
“Pooka, how many times do I have to tell you to go help the others?”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
Sorcha turned on her heel and grabbed the boy by the ear. His yelp sounded eerily like that of a wounded puppy. “I tell you what to do because you need to learn how to respect your elders. Go get the others before I leave an imprint of my boot on your behind.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me, pup.”
He glared for a few moments before his shoulders rounded in defeat. She gave his ear one more twist before setting him off.
Oona chuckled. “You’ll have him fawning over you in no time.”
“The boy needs to listen.”
“The boy is halfway in love with you, and you hardly cast him a glance.”
“Of course I don’t.” Sorcha rolled her eyes to the heavens. “He’s just a child!”
“I wasn’t suggesting you encourage him.”
The two women started back up the mountain. Sorcha held out her arm for Oona to take, although she knew the pixie wouldn’t admit to weakness. They linked together and clambered over the rocky path.
Oona was out of breath. Sorcha could feel her lungs burning. It was a shame she was so tired, for the landscape was beautiful, and she would have liked to pause and enjoy it.
The mountain was foreboding. Sheer cliffs dropped off into nothing, with no path to mark their direction. No one had been here for a very long time.
They passed a few dwarves who sat themselves on stones and pulled out their water skins. Red cheeks and sweat-stained faces revealed how hard Eamonn had pushed them. Too hard.
“Why does everyone seem so nervous?” Sorcha asked.
“It is said the castle is haunted.”
“Nuada’s castle? Why would it be haunted?”
“You know of the Fomorians?”
Sorcha had grown up on the stories of the beastly men who’d battled the Tuatha dé Danann. Centuries of war had thinned the numbers of both, although there were plenty of romantic stories in between. It seemed the two cultures loved to fight each other just as much as they loved to break the rules.
“I know of them.”
“The human legends never said they crossed over into our world, but they did. Nuada’s castle was the first they took, and they reigned there for a good century before they lost everything. So many people died there.” Oona blew out a breath. “It is said that ghosts walk the halls with the heads of goats and bodies of men.”
“So it’s abandoned?”
“Far more than that. It’s cursed. Even the Unseelie will not traverse its battlements.”
“Wonderful. And what about a haunted castle sounded like a good idea to Eamonn?”
Oona tightened her hand on Sorcha’s arm. “Nuada Silverhand was the last High King. You haven’t put it together, have you? A king can be anyone in name. People will kneel before anyone with a crown. But the High King of the Seelie Fae is something else entirely. He is the true ruler recognized by the land itself. There can be many kings. There can only be one High King.”
Sorcha blew out a long breath, forcing the tension in her body to ease. It made sense that Eamonn would be the high king. He was the first born son and did not bend to the old ways. He saw things in a way that would benefit the whole of his people.
What had she gotten herself into?
They crested the top of the mountain and Sorcha nearly fell to her knees. Nuada Silverhand’s castle was built on the peak of the nearest mountain. Walls stretched from the cliff edges, supporting the ornate towers above. Tattered banners fluttered in the wind. Stone outcroppings melded into the castle, making the castle appear as if it grew out of the mountain itself.
The only way to enter was a crumbling bridge dripping stones like water. Crows sat upon it watching the meager army appear over the rise.
“It is terrifying,” Sorcha observed. White birds rose from the castle battlements and circled overhead.
“I fear it will be even worse inside.”
“How long has it been since anyone has lived there?”
“Centuries.”
Sorcha sighed. “Then it will be falling apart.”
“An army does better when there is something to do. He is smart to bring us here while waiting for more to come.”
“Will they?” Sorcha glanced down at Oona. “It was an idea I had, but I do not know the ways of the Fae. Will it be likely that others will follow him?”
“I believe they will have no choice. The High King of the Seelie Fae commands us all.”
Sorcha’s eyes strayed across the crowds of dwarves. Standing like a mountain in the center of a field, Eamonn stared at the castle. She could see the determined set of his shoulders, the way his long legs stood strong and braced. Wind buffeted him, but he did not move, didn't react even when the dwarves set down their clanking packs.
He was just as worried as she was.
With a gentle squeeze, she released Oona and made her way through the throngs of faeries. This time, they did not whisper that a druid was among them. They merely watched as the strange redheaded woman moved among their ranks.
She stood next to Eamonn, tiny compared to his great height, and watched the strange birds circling overhead.
“Against all odds.”
“It’s far larger than I imagined.”
“Long ago, this castle housed thousands of faeries.”
“I can see how it would be possible.” She reached out tentatively, unsure whether he would want her support. It didn’t seem likely that he would want her hand. Instead, she linked her pinky with his. “Are we going in?”
“I don’t know how dangerous it will be.”
“Then perhaps just the two of us should go first?”
He shuddered as if the mere suggestion made him uncomfortable. “You will not go into that castle until I have made certain it is safe.”
“I thought we already had this conversation.”
“We have, and I say it again. This is not a safe place for humans, Sorcha. Remain here so I don't have to worry about you while I clear this castle of any remaining evil.” He slid a finger under her chin and nudged until she looked directly into his gaze. “Do you understand, Sorcha?”
“When did you get so domineering?”
“About the same time I took being a king seriously.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to listen.” He let his hand drop and headed back towards the dwarves. “Don’t even think about it, Sorcha!”
Sorcha was damn well thinking about it. He should know by now she hated anyone telling her what to do. All she wanted was to set a foot on the bridge to see his reaction.
She glared at the missing stones and moss covered parapets. It would be so easy to pick her way across that and explore the massive castle. And really, what was he going to do? He wasn’t even looking at her.
Part of her knew this was a bad idea. She could feel in her bones that something horrible might happen.
But her pride wouldn’t let her forget his order. She gnawed on the idea like a dog with a bone until she blew out a breath and shrugged.
She’d have to go fast. The bridge didn’t look like it could hold a lot of weight, but if she hopped between the large gaps, it should hold up. Lifting her skirts, she jumped from the nearest gap to the center of the bridge.
It groaned so loudly that she was certain it would break. The clouds beneath her weren’t likely to catch her when she fell.