“Master Liam said this was the end of the brotherhood. Perhaps that’s what this means.”
Eoghan jerked his head toward Riordan, who looked even paler now beneath the sweat beading on his face. Eoghan refilled Riordan’s cup, which the older man drained in one swallow. It returned some color to his skin, but he still shuddered when he put down the cup.
“Had Eoghan been meant to take the oath of leadership upon the sword, we would have the sword,” Riordan said softly. “So we must assume that our traditions are broken. The only question is what to do now.”
“This is preposterous,” Fechin snapped, rising to his feet. “I will not throw away five hundred years of tradition because of some mistake!”
Eoghan gestured for Fechin to sit, and the man sat. So he still did have some power here. The thought almost made him laugh. The senior brother might take his cues from Dal, but he wasn’t willing to go against Eoghan while he was still acknowledged as Liam’s successor. “I do not believe this is a mistake. The time of the High King is at hand. Perhaps there can be no Ceannaire because the king must command the brotherhood, not as guardians but as soldiers.”
“And who is the High King, then? You?” Manog spoke more quietly than Fechin or Dal, but it took only a handful of words for Eoghan to discern that he would side with the other two men if it came to a vote. “You wish to rule? Over a land in the hands of a sorcerer, that is terrorized by the ancient spirits?”
Eoghan shook his head. “I do not wish to rule. And I do not believe I’m meant to rule. Master Liam clearly told me what I must do. With our forest gone, we’re more exposed than ever. The only thing that can keep us safe from another attack is to rebuild the wards. And in order to do that, I must find the object of power that built them.”
“And someone with the ability to use it,” Riordan said.
“Aye. That was the task given to me by Liam. Which means I will be leaving Ard Dhaimhin soon. The men who remain will need someone to command them.” He met Riordan’s eyes. “I think it should be you.”
Riordan said nothing. He only stared at his bandaged hands.
“What say the Conclave? Brother Riordan once ruled as king of Tigh, before he forsook his clan for the brotherhood. He is well-respected among the men, he was privy to Liam’s plans for the Fíréin, and he is responsible for ending the battle today.”
“You know that I do not wish this,” Riordan said. “I have never wished this.”
Daigh nodded slowly. “That is why it must be you. Aye, I would support Brother Riordan’s leadership.”
Eoghan looked to the others. “What say you?”
“Not all the men will agree with you, sir—Brother Eoghan,” Gradaigh said. “They know you as Liam’s successor. They will see this breach of tradition as an end to their oaths.”
“As they should,” Riordan said. “The brotherhood is to end. The kingdoms are in disarray. Some of the men may feel their skills are better used in protecting their families at home.”
“And the families who choose to send their boys here for protection?” Fechin asked.
“Those boys will be welcomed and trained as before.” Riordan shifted and then paled again. “Anyone who wishes to leave should be allowed to leave.”
“Without binding their oath?” Daigh asked.
Riordan laughed harshly. “What choice do we have? That is my decision, or it will be should you appoint me in Eoghan’s place. Think hard on it now, knowing the direction I plan for our brotherhood. We may rebuild the city, provide for our brothers, continue our training, but make no mistake: this marks the end of the Fíréin. We await our High King now.”
Glances rippled around the table.
“I will support you,” Gradaigh said.
Six other voices added their agreement.
“I will be leaving within the week,” Eoghan said. “We will need to announce this decision to the brothers tomorrow. Good night.”
The men filed from the hall, heading back to their céads as if the structure of their lives were not crumbling around them, until only Riordan remained.
“Are you angry with me?” Eoghan asked him.
Riordan didn’t say anything for a long while. “No. I am proud of you. This could not have been an easy decision.”
Easier than you think. I never wanted to lead the brotherhood. Out loud, he said, “This is the way it is meant to be, even if Liam did not see it coming.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. You seek the harp, don’t you?”
Eoghan nodded.
“You need Conor.”
He nodded again.
“Then write your messages. There are ships sailing still between Seare and Aron, some of which have crewmen with connections to the Fíréin.” Riordan smiled. “As you well know.” He pushed himself up from the table, nearly collapsing from the pain of his hands against the furniture. “It’s going to take a while to get used to this.”
Eoghan supported Riordan while the man caught his breath. “I will pray for your swift healing.”
“No more than I will,” Riordan said. He made his way slowly to the door of the hall and then turned back before he exited. “Eoghan, do you have a sense of who we wait for?”
Eoghan just stared at him, unwilling to give away more than he already had.
Riordan nodded as if he had spoken aloud.
“Call upon Comdiu. Conor must return.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
After Conor’s ride with Briallu, he stayed as far from her as he could manage. They still ate at the same table and exchanged pleasantries in the hall, but he was careful not to put himself in a situation where he could fall prey to his inexplicable draw toward her.
Briallu possessed nothing he wanted, nothing he was missing in his own wife, besides her presence beside him. When she was out of his sight, he did not think of her. Yet the minute she neared him, his heart beat faster and every bit of sense he possessed flew out the window. It was beyond mere attraction, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
The effort of ordering his day around Briallu’s movements, coupled with days that turned into weeks without any word of Aine’s whereabouts, made Conor anxious and irritable. He growled at the staff and ate his meals in sullen silence.
Whether it was because of his sudden ill humor, because his presence stretched much longer than anyone had expected, or because Briallu’s mournful looks in his direction were obvious to anyone with a pair of working eyes, the guardsmen in the fortress began to scowl at him with suspicion. Conversations stopped when he entered the practice yard or the stables. Conor had originally planned to join drills to keep his skills sharp, but the resentment that radiated from the men changed his mind. In this mood, he was liable to do damage to someone, and that would not endear him to Talfryn, who alone seemed immune to the tension in the fortress.
As the weather turned colder, the guardsmen turned up in the hall in greater numbers to eat their supper by the warmth of the huge fire, and another table had to be brought into the massive space to accommodate them. One night, when Conor came to the hall for the evening meal, he found his regular place occupied by Ial, the captain of the guard.
Annoyance spiked through Conor, but it wasn’t worth an argument, so he moved to the other side of the table. Another man slid onto the bench before he could take his seat.
Juvenile posturing, unworthy of a prince’s guard. Conor resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He moved toward the second table. He wasn’t willing to start a fight over seating.
A third man stepped in his way. “Do you not understand? You’re not welcome here.”
Conor held the warrior’s gaze. “I think that’s your lord’s decision, not yours.”
“Our lord is not here tonight.” Ial rose. His stance communicated a clear threat. “You wear that sword of yours. Can you actually use it? Or are you just trying to fool Lady Briallu into thinking you are a man?”
Ial smirked, expecting a reaction, but for once, Conor’s common
sense seemed to be intact. He moved around the man blocking his way and sat down at the other table. “I don’t wish to fight you.”
“Because you know you can’t win. Tell me, why would our prince risk his life for a worthless piece of Seareann filth?”
A servant set a goblet before Conor and scurried away before she could be caught in the dispute. Conor ignored the men and reached for his wine.
“That’s enough.” Briallu inserted herself between them. “There’s no need to make a scene. Let us just forget it and enjoy our supper.”
“This does not concern you, my lady.” Ial nudged her out of the way.
Briallu grabbed his arm as if to pull him back, but he shook her off as if she were a rag doll. She stumbled into the other guardsman.
Conor’s earlier irritation threatened to ignite into full-fledged anger. There was no call to treat their lady roughly. He stood. “Briallu, perhaps you should leave.”
“I’m not leaving! Conor, he’s not going to let you alone until you do what he wants. You might as well agree.”
“The lady is right. What say you?”
“I don’t want to fight,” Conor said simply.
“Because you’re a fraud.”
“Because killing you is a poor way to repay Lord Talfryn’s kindness.”
Ial broke into laughter. “Kill me? As if you could manage it, boy.”
Conor looked past the captain to Briallu, who looked at him pleadingly. Would fighting this man end the animosity, or would it simply escalate it?
“Very well. But we fight with wood, not steel. I will not risk Prince Talfryn’s ire.”
Ial smirked. “Fine. When?”
“How about now? There’s still some light left.”
“Good. Meet us in the practice yard.”
Conor nodded and watched the men file out. This was all just some juvenile brawl, boys trying to assert their dominance.
“Did I just do something terrible?” Briallu asked at his shoulder.
He looked down at her. “If you didn’t think I could fight, why did you tell me I should?”
“I thought he was bluffing. You’ve seen Ial practice. He’s one of the best swordsmen I’ve ever seen. He has nothing to prove.”
“That’s why I asked for practice swords. He can only maim me. It’s near impossible to kill with one of those.”
Conor smiled to himself as he walked away. Briallu was not fooling him with her wide-eyed innocence. She was determined to make him face down Ial. Whether it was punishment for rejecting her or because she truly thought he could win, he didn’t know.
She was right about one thing: Ial was very skilled.
But Conor was better.
The number of guards in the fortress seemed to quadruple as word got out that Talfryn’s guest had agreed to a “practice match” with Ial. By the time Conor got there, it felt more like villagers gathering to witness an execution than an exhibition of skill. Ial was already making experimental sweeps with the heavy wooden sword. Practice weapons or not, these would hurt if they met flesh.
“You don’t have to do this,” Briallu whispered behind him.
“You should have thought about that before you got me into this, my lady.” He shrugged out of his silk tunic and handed it to Briallu. “Hold this. Don’t want to get blood on your father’s clothes.”
Her eyes widened, but he just chuckled and retrieved the practice sword. In truth, he really didn’t want anything to happen to the borrowed garments. Talfryn had provided him with two changes of clothing, both finer than anything he’d worn since he was at Lisdara. Even if the prince didn’t care, the frugality Conor had adopted from the brotherhood would not let him risk anything so fine.
He ignored the expectant gazes of the other men and worked through a few sword forms as warm-up, gauging his recently unused muscles. The rest seemed to have done him some good, even considering his fractured bones. When he moved to the center of the ring formed by the guards, Ial looked slightly less confident than he had before.
It didn’t stop him from launching a furious attack. Conor sidestepped, parrying the blows with the flat of the wooden blade, judging the man’s skill. Ial was more than good; he was excellent. Quick, strong, well-trained—except he had spent too much time fighting men with the same sort of training. He relied on a small repertoire of attacks and counters, expecting a particular response to each. When Conor did something the other man didn’t expect, Ial’s reaction was a split-second slower, less confident.
The men called encouragement to Ial and jeers to Conor. Best make this quick and decisive, then. Humiliating. Anything too close they would write off to bad luck and Conor would be facing challenges for the rest of his time at Cwmmaen.
He waited for his opportunity, a straight thrust. Instead of meeting the blade as Ial expected, Conor blocked and sidestepped, moving into the other man’s body to deliver a sharp jab to the midsection. Ial doubled over, exposing his neck to the edge of Conor’s wooden blade.
Ial straightened, fury and humiliation in his eyes.
“Again?” Conor asked.
Ial dodged away and, in answer, launched another attack. Conor avoided every blow, not bothering to counter, which only goaded Ial into a furious offense. The captain was determined to do some damage, practice sword or not. Conor ducked a wild swing meant to take his head off, stepped inside Ial’s guard, and swept the man’s legs out from under him. He rested the tip of the wooden blade against Ial’s throat.
“Are we done?” Conor asked quietly.
Ial stared at him defiantly for a moment. Then he deflated and nodded. Conor withdrew the weapon and hauled his opponent to his feet. He winced at the twinge in his ribs and probed the bruised flesh, gauging the pain.
Ial glanced at the sickly yellow markings. “The Sofarende did that to you?”
“Took them a while to realize I wasn’t a spy and didn’t have any information of interest to them. It’s still not completely healed.”
Ial held out a hand, his bravado gone. “I stand corrected.”
“Thank you.” Conor gripped the captain’s forearm, and then accepted his tunic from Briallu. “I’ve seen you at the archery range. You think you could spare some time in the morning? I’m good with a sword but rubbish with a bow.”
“I’m not on duty tomorrow, unless the prince returns and requests my presence.”
“It would be appreciated. Sometimes a man doesn’t want to look his enemy in the eye, you know?”
Ial chuckled. “I do. After breakfast, then.”
“After breakfast.”
The men melted back to their regular posts, though if the jokes he already heard flying about were any indication, it would be a while before Ial lived down his loss. Good enough. Once they saw Conor’s terrible showing on the archery range, the scales would be balanced.
He smiled to himself and turned to Briallu, expecting to see relief. “Satisfied?”
But she was staring at him with a disgruntled expression. Without a word, she walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The next morning, Briallu did not appear at the breakfast table. Talfryn had returned sometime in the night, though, and he took a seat across from Conor.
“I heard you fought Ial.”
“Word travels fast.”
“When a stranger beats the captain of the guard that soundly, it tends to.” Talfryn frowned and reached for the teapot. “What brought that about? You challenge him?”
“He challenged me. Trying to make an example of me, it seems.”
“Doesn’t sound like Ial. He’s the most even-tempered man I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t have him in charge of this bunch of rabble otherwise. They’re always devising ways of making one another black and blue.”
“I think he might have designs on Briallu. He didn’t seem pleased with our friendship.”
Talfryn just looked at him blankly. Conor gave him a questioning smile. “Surely you’ve noticed how the men look at your daugh
ter?”
“No, I suppose I haven’t. When I look at her, I see a little girl. But when they look at her—”
“They see a woman.” A woman so used to manipulating everyone around her, she couldn’t endure the unexpected. That was the only explanation for her strange reaction to his victory. Clearly she’d wanted to cause conflict, even if Conor couldn’t fathom why.
He changed the subject. “Any response to the messages?”
“My brothers have heard nothing, but they’ll continue to spread the word. The only Aronans who would have received it are the Lowland clans, and it’s doubtful they’ll respond. We should hear something from the Highlanders soon.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Conor rose from the table, clutching the board for support as he swayed.
“Is something wrong?”
He didn’t answer. The room swirled around him, and something tickled at the back of his mind. A whisper of a memory?
Then the sensation left as quickly as it had come. “I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Perhaps I’m not recovered from my injuries as completely as I thought.”
But his heart still beat too fast as he walked down to the archery range to meet Ial, urgency squirming in his gut. The sensation was like a phantom itch that couldn’t be relieved no matter how hard he scratched.
By now, he knew the touch of magic too well to dismiss it as mere imagination. Something had grabbed hold of him, seized his attention, demanded action. The question was, what was he supposed to do about it?
He shook off the musings as he entered the archery range, where Ial waited for him with several bows and two quivers of arrows.
“I feel required to warn you that I’m far better with a sword than a bow,” Conor said.
Ial chuckled. “Let’s see what you can do.”
What he could do barely qualified as hitting the target. His arrows struck all over, even though he was drawing the bow the same way every time. In fact, he hadn’t made this poor a showing since his first days at Ard Dhaimhin. He lowered the weapon and turned to Ial.
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