The Veil (Fianna Trilogy Book 3)

by Megan Chance

  “Is it true?” he asked.

  “It sounds like something you would do.”

  “Is it true, veleda?”

  I felt suddenly tired. “Yes.”

  “Is it true?”

  His tone was so urgent, I was surprised.

  “Listen. Tell me if it’s true.”

  I understood then what he was asking. I cast my mind out, envisioning the scene as he’d described it. The music came, true and strong, and then . . . no. A wrong note.

  I said, “No, it isn’t. At least not all of it. There were no other sidhe. You were alone. You meant to leave him because you were afraid it was too much power. But he begged you to stay. He said he was old and tired. He offered to teach you, and you wanted to learn.”

  Iobhar didn’t confirm or deny. He said only, “Here’s a simple spell I want you to try. ’Tis the way to call someone to you. Put yourself in a trance.”

  I closed my eyes, as he’d taught me, breathing deep until my fingertips and my toes began to tingle, and I felt the hum in my blood. Iobhar whispered, “Imagine who you want to see. Sing: ‘Mountains and seas I have braved for you. The air moves aside as I pass. Now come to me and come and do not tarry. The earth waits not, nor do I.’”

  Who I wanted most to see was the one I should not call—not that he would see me anyway. Instead, I envisioned Sarnat. I sang the words, feeling them deep within me, in the hollow of my skull, reverberating in my ears.

  But the notes were wrong. My voice would not sing them correctly. When I came out of the trance, I knew it would not work, and I knew that Iobhar had suspected that it would be so.

  “‘Great stones crack and split,’” he murmured. He rubbed his full lower lip with his thumb. “There’s a number comes up ever and again when I cast divination for you, veleda.”

  “Three,” I told him. “You’re always muttering ‘three.’”

  He nodded. “The veleda was given three powers: the power of the eubages to see the future; the power of the brithem so she could tell truth from lies; and the vater’s power of sacrifice, that she might give her power to the worthy. ‘She sees, she weighs, and she chooses.’ The Seer, the Judge, and the Prophet. Threefold. The veleda should be able to do any spell meant for one of her aspects.”

  “And?”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not? Is there something wrong with me? Am I not the veleda?”

  “You are the veleda. ’Tis no doubt of it. And there is something most definitely wrong with you. Know you of any kind of magic worked upon your family? You should be able to cast lightning. The purple belongs to you. The visions. The dreams.”

  “I did have dreams for a while, where I saw battles and—” I broke off, remembering the ones about Diarmid that had brought us closer. Give in. “But when we . . . when my power was released, they went away.”

  “Did you lose anything else? Or gain anything?”

  “The music grew stronger. And . . . I could hear and feel my brother as if he were part of me. Part of my thoughts. That’s gone now. I suppose that’s because of your wretched glamour.”

  “Did you feel such a connection with anyone else? Besides your Diarmid?”

  My Diarmid.

  “No. No, but . . . but there was someone. Another presence. Always watching and waiting but silent. Whoever it was wouldn’t answer or show himself. But that’s gone too. You know, Aidan is the one with all the power. Perhaps—”

  “Your brother is a male. The veleda must be female. ’Twas always so. Nothing is strong enough to change that.”

  “Then why can he do the things I should be able to do?”

  “Because the veleda’s been split into its three parts. Eubages, brithem, and vater. It shouldn’t be possible. I can think of only one thing that might have caused it.”

  “Which is what?”

  Iobhar ignored my question. “That your brother—a male—has been given the power of the Seer is meant to be a punishment.”

  “Well, it’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it, but—”

  “The punishment isn’t for him, but for the one who incurred the curse. To remove the power from the rightful heiress, to give it to a male . . . ’tis the work of angry forces. Nature herself has been betrayed. Do you know of Cormac’s Cup?”

  “Yes. When Cormac the High King died, the veleda became the cup personified.”

  Iobhar murmured, “A lie spoken over it . . .”

  “Broke it into three pieces,” I finished.

  “As the veleda is broken into three.”

  “I’ve lied, Iobhar,” I said in a rush. “Over and over again, but . . . I didn’t think it was so bad. I mean, just little lies, to bill collectors and my mother, and—”

  “’Twasn’t you who put it into play, but an ancestor. And it could have been done only by the most powerful kind of lie: a broken vow.”

  “But it if was an ancestor, then why should Aidan and I be punished for it?”

  Iobhar’s smile was cruel. “Blame your Druids. Consequences are far-reaching, and they meant for punishment to hurt. Which is more painful: what happens to you, or to those you love? You, as the brithem, should see this already.”

  “I’m the brithem?” I said uncertainly.

  “Aye. Those are the spells you can do. You’re the one who weighs, who can tell truth from lies.”

  Given how often I’d lied myself, it seemed a little too ironic.

  “Your brother is obviously the Seer.”

  “Then who is the Prophet?”

  Iobhar shrugged. “Someone in your family.”

  “But . . . there’s hardly anyone left. My brother and me. My mother. My grandmot—Oh, Grandma. She knew the stories. She told me I was the veleda. She said there was a curse. She said we were broken, and she told me to find you.” That hovering, silent presence, not speaking because she could not. The coma held her tight in its grasp. Of course.

  “Then no doubt ’tis her.”

  “But what does this mean for the prophecy? It says the veleda must die. Does that mean . . . all three of us?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “No,” I said in horror. “No. Not my brother. Not my grandmother. I’m the one who’s accepted it. It belongs to me. There must be a spell that can put us together again—”

  “’Twas a curse. You cannot make it right or change it.”

  “But it’s not fair! Why should all three of us have to die?”

  “You forget the world you’re in, veleda. Many things have been lost. Curses are meant to punish. The most awful outcome possible . . . that is the true one.”

  “But this is my family. We’re all that’s left.”

  “Which may be the point,” he said.

  “Iobhar, I have to go home. I have to tell Aidan. I have to ask my grandmother. Perhaps she knows what happened. Perhaps she knows a way to fix things.”

  “Do you really think she does, veleda?” Iobhar’s amber eyes seemed to glow. He came around the counter, close enough that I was nervous. He stroked my cheek, and I felt transfixed. The spell of him was mesmerizing. “I’ve a better idea. Let it all go. ’Tis a new world. Such old things no longer belong in it. Stay with me. Let the Fianna and the Fomori go to whatever awaits them.”

  I whispered, “I can’t.”

  “But you can.” He brushed his lips across my jaw. It burned like fire. “Come now, kiss me.”

  I wanted to. The temptation to forget it all, to let it go, to stay here under Iobhar’s spell. Why not? It was suddenly hard to remember why I cared about anything . . . or what anything meant. I wanted to surrender . . .

  “The more you want something, the more it will cost.” I was doing exactly what Diarmid had warned me not to. I was letting fear make me stupid.

  I jerked away from Iobhar. But still I heard that music, the danger and the magical draw of him. My awareness of what he could do, of what he could make me want, shimmered between us.

  “Let me go,” I said.

  Iobh
ar laughed. “You are still weak, veleda, and untrained. If I were to let you go now, my kin would make short work of you.”

  “I’m stronger than you think,” I said.

  “Not strong enough. When you are, you will be able to leave. Until then . . . you belong to me.”

  October 25

  Patrick

  Patrick tapped on the door and stepped into the room. Grace’s grandmother lay motionless. The lamp on the night table was turned low, the curtains drawn, the room thick with the smell of unwashed skin and sickness.

  The nurse jumped to her feet. “Mr. Devlin.”

  He closed the door behind him. “Is there any change?”

  “No, sir. None.”

  He hadn’t expected there would be, not really.

  “I’d like a moment alone with her,” he said.

  The nurse left, and he sat in the chair beside the bed. Brigid Knox was skeletal, barely breathing. The truth was that she should be dead already.

  And yet she wasn’t.

  He took her cold, white hand. “What does it mean?” he whispered.

  Of course, there was no answer.

  He felt a fool, but still he continued. “I’ve been having dreams about ancient times. I’m a . . . a Druid, I think. But now the dream is all around me, even when I’m awake. I know Grace is in danger. I feel that I should be able to see, but I can’t. Nothing makes sense.”

  The woman couldn’t answer. She probably didn’t even hear. But Patrick couldn’t stop.

  “Grace is more powerful than they’d imagined. They aren’t trying to save her, because they need her death. I’ve turned the prophecy around and around, but I can’t figure it out. Grace says you know things, and I . . . I suppose I’d hoped that you could give me a sign, that you could show me something. I’m a fool, I know. I should just—” He bowed his head, feeling desperate and alone again.

  Her chest shuddered, a sharp intake of breath. Her whole body shook. Fearfully, he leaned close—

  And he fell into time.

  The air was thick with smoke. All around him were biers with men upon them. Finn and Ossian. Oscar and Conan. Keenan and Goll and Diarmid. The archdruid, Tuama, stood in the middle of the circle, touching each of the Fianna with a hawthorn branch while a slight girl stood next to him.

  Neasa’s daughter, whom he, Glasny, had vowed to protect, as he’d protected her mother.

  Tuama chanted the spell; Neasa’s daughter repeated it. The roots of the rowan tree writhed beneath their feet. Neasa’s daughter brought down strikes of purple lightning, and the earth opened, swallowing the Fianna and then closing again, leaving no scar. The spell was complete. It had worked; the future of the Irish was tied to the Fianna.

  Neasa’s daughter said, “’Tis done, Glasny. I did it.”

  The scene melted away; he was in a room, empty but for a pallet on the floor spread with furs. He held a bowl in his hand—cast bronze, decorated with wrens, and inside was a potion—he smelled vervain and wormwood and ylang-ylang. He lifted the bowl to his lips, drinking, waiting for the visions. . . .

  Suddenly Patrick was back in the bedroom, staring down into an old woman’s face. He broke out in a cold sweat, nauseated. It took him a moment to remember who and where he was. Quickly, he pulled his fingers from hers, rubbing his face, raking back his hair.

  He still smelled the potion, tasted it. Somehow, Grace’s grandmother had given him the message and shown him what to do.

  He yanked open the door so violently, the nurse in the hall jumped. “I need vervain,” he told her. “And ylang-ylang. Wormwood.”

  “And where am I to get that, sir?”

  “Ask the kitchen, and tell them I don’t want excuses. Tell someone to get it all and bring it back here, as quickly as possible.”

  Patrick went to his bedroom and grabbed the bronze bowl on his dresser. He took it to his study, leaving instructions for the butler to bring him the herbs the moment they arrived. Then he waited.

  It seemed to take forever—it was hours, certainly, before John came to his study with his hands full of small jars. “We could only find them dried, sir,” he said apologetically. “I hope it will serve.”

  So did Patrick. There was a ewer of water on his desk, and as soon as John left, he opened each jar and sprinkled the correct proportion of the dried leaves and stems into it—how could I know this? But he did. He waited for the potion to steep, pacing to the glass cases against the wall, staring unseeingly down at the relics, thinking of the vision, the Fianna, the earth shuddering beneath his feet. Glasny, Neasa’s daughter had called him, and it troubled Patrick that he knew the name already, that he knew her. The whole thing had been like a memory—though how could it be his?

  By the time the potion was ready, it was twilight. Instinctively, he knew it was the perfect time. The infusion was muddy looking, the leaves and stems bloated. He poured the potion into the bowl and nervously brought it to his lips, taking a careful sip. It tasted like dirt, chased by a strange, faintly herbal flavor. Not pleasant but not horrible either. He drank until it was gone and then sat, closing his eyes, waiting for . . . he didn’t know what.

  When it came, he didn’t even realize it. The words of the prophecy wound through his head, spinning like dreams, waves washing upon a shore and a ship deck tilting beneath his feet, red lightning cracking though oak branches strung with mistletoe. The sea is the knife . . . great stones crack and split . . . the rivers guard treasures with no worth . . . the rivers guard treasures with no worth . . .

  The rivers guard treasures.

  Patrick opened his eyes.

  The fireplace was before him, but what he saw was a ramshackle building and Grace standing at a window, her hands pressed against the glass, “Roddy’s Grotto” painted upon it, and red lightning flashing in the room behind.

  He knew how to find her.

  October 26

  Patrick

  A pawnshop on Cherry Street?” Aidan asked, looking strained.

  Patrick glanced around the café. No one was paying attention. Still, he leaned closer. “I know it seems strange, but I tell you, I saw her there.”

  “You saw her? When was this?”

  There was no logical way to explain it, and Patrick didn’t try. “It was a vision I had.”

  “A vision?”

  “I know, I know. It sounds so foolish, I hardly believe it either. But I drank a potion, and—”

  “A potion?” Aidan’s eyes widened. “Since when have you become a deogbaire?”

  Cupbearer. Potion maker. Patrick was surprised Aidan knew the word. “I’m not, not really, but I dream about her all the time—”

  “Stop. Please. This is my sister.”

  “Not that way,” Patrick said impatiently. “At least, not always. I’m in ancient times, and I’m not myself . . . or I am, but I’m more than me. All I know is that Grace is in danger. I don’t understand any of it. I visited your grandmother, and I had a vision when I was with her that told me how to make the potion. So I made it, and drank it, and . . . and I saw Grace in the pawnshop, with red lightning flashing behind her.”

  “The same red lightning you were asking me about before?”

  “I’ve seen it a few times now,” Patrick confessed. “I know you don’t believe me—”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you.” Aidan took a deep breath. “It’s that . . . this pawnshop you speak of . . . I’ve been inside. Recently. And Grace isn’t there.”

  Patrick stared at him. “What?”

  “Derry and I discovered that the owner was a Druid. But the man’s been drained by the sidhe, Patrick, and he’s half-mad. The place is full of sidhe magic. It was all Diarmid could do to get me out of there.”

  Patrick remembered Aidan in Battery Park, the hungry-looking sidhe. Aidan swaying toward them. Protect him. Do your job.

  Aidan said, “I don’t think I could have resisted it if not for Derry. I can’t go back there. The place is dangerous as hell for any Druid. If G
race was ever there—and we saw no sign of her—I don’t want to think what’s happened to her.”

  “She’s there,” Patrick said, unwavering. “I’m going to get her. I hoped you would come with me.”

  “I can’t go into the place,” Aidan said. “But I’ll come with you. I’ll help however I can. But just so you know, Derry’s been following me. He knows I meet with you. He overheard us talking the other night about my mother. He thought we meant Grace.”

  “That’s the reason he broke into my house?”

  “A rescue attempt,” Aidan said wryly. “He’s hotheaded, but you know that. He may well show up today. Just a warning.”

  “Perhaps we’ll be lucky, and he’ll fall down a well or something.” Patrick rose. “Let’s go.”

  Once they were outside, Patrick paused to search for any sign of Diarmid or the others. “It looks clear.”

  “That means nothing. He’s sneaky. But he wasn’t around when I left, so perhaps we will be lucky.”

  “Out recruiting more hoodlums?”

  Aidan’s glance was pointed. “I can’t tell you our plans, so don’t ask.”

  They walked quickly toward the East River. The pistol in Patrick’s suit pocket was a reassuring weight, but it didn’t ease his apprehension. Aidan was tight-lipped and pale, his blue eyes dark.

  The neighborhood grew rougher. Patrick saw the curious stares and felt uncomfortable, even though he’d been in worse places in Ireland. Well, not worse, perhaps. Threadbare children played in puddles of sewage while pinched-faced mothers watched them wearily. Homeless men followed them with hostile gazes. In Ireland, Patrick had been a savior. Here, people blamed him for their troubles for no more reason than his good clothes. He wanted to tell these people what he hoped for, everything he was fighting for: Ireland and justice. Their homeland. If these people knew what he’d done, they would think him a hero too.

  But then, he remembered the tenement the Fomori had burned in the search for the Fianna, the families they’d left homeless. Bres said they’d found them all better places to live, but Patrick realized he’d never made certain of it.

  “It’s not far now,” Aidan said.

  Corlears Hook. The waterfront bustled; steam rose in great gray plumes over the busy harbor. They turned the corner of a narrow, crowded street, and Aidan stopped. “There it is.”