‘Ah,’ Marcroy said. ‘You assumed. Just as you assumed that Rónán of the Undivided was trapped in the other realm, I suppose?’
Trása nodded, relieved she could reassure her uncle on that matter, at least. ‘The Druids will never find him. He’ll be imprisoned for life. It’s what they do to people who kill other people in that realm.’
‘And you arranged for him to kill someone?’
‘I arranged for him to be blamed for another’s death,’ she explained, expecting a reward for her cleverness. ‘It was Plunkett who started the fire, but Rónán who was arrested for it.’
‘And you assume they’ll simply blame him and lock him up for the crime?’
His tone was decidedly unfriendly. It started to bother Trása a great deal. Did he not fully appreciate the scope of her achievement?
‘They did lock him up, Uncail,’ she said. ‘I waited until they took him away to be certain of it.’
‘Did you not worry that he might not be detained?’
Trása shook her head. ‘It was on TV that night. It was all over the news that he’d been arrested and was facing life in prison.’
‘Tee … vee …?’
‘It’s a … a thing they have there. People appear in a glowing box …’ Her voice trailed off as she saw the expression on Marcroy’s face. She didn’t understand how television worked herself. She had no hope of explaining it to her sídhe uncle who could not even imagine electricity. ‘The town criers confirmed his fate,’ she amended.
‘So, if I told you he was here,’ Marcroy said, taking a seat on the stool as he painstakingly spread the cloak around him, ‘and that I have seen Rónán of the Undivided in this very place, on this very day, I would be mistaken?’
Trása laughed, a little nervously. ‘Of course … well, I mean, you would not be mistaken, just …’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s not possible,’ Trása said flatly. And then she smiled. ‘You are teasing me, aren’t you, Uncail?’
‘Trása, my pet, you have known me all your life. Have you ever known me to make a joke?’
‘Well … no …’
‘Then why do you suppose I would start now?’
Trása’s stomach sank as she realised he was right. Marcroy had no sense of humour. Humour was a human trait. One he didn’t understand and didn’t appreciate. If Marcroy claimed Rónán was here in this realm, then Marcroy truly believed he was.
‘Have you considered the possibility that it is Darragh playing a prank on us, Uncail?’ Trása suggested cautiously. ‘He knows we seek to keep his brother hidden from him. Perhaps he has conceived some complicated scheme to make us think Rónán has returned, in the hope of tricking the Daoine sídhe into revealing his location in the other realm?’
‘Perhaps,’ Marcroy conceded.
‘Did you see them together?’ she asked.
‘No.’
That was a relief. ‘Then if you thought you saw Rónán, it’s more than possible that it was Darragh posing as his brother, is it not?’
‘A likely scenario, Trása,’ Marcroy agreed, with a warmer expression. ‘Except for one tiny little detail.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Darragh bears the triskalion seal on his right hand. The boy I saw — the one protected so diligently by Ciarán and Sorcha, who were panicking at the idea that a Leipreachán may have revealed their presence to me — that boy bore the tattoo on his left hand.’ Marcroy stood up, towering over Trása. ‘Now, who do you suppose that might have been?’
Trása stumbled backward, overwhelmed by fear and confusion. She’d been so sure Rónán was safely out of harm’s way. How could he be in this realm? And so quickly? She’d seen no sign of Druids around him in the other world. Admittedly, his face had been all over the news for days. But for the Druids to have found him, and brought him back through the rift so quickly …‘It can’t be him,’ she gasped.
Marcroy raised a brow. ‘Are you suggesting I am wrong?’
‘No!’ she babbled. ‘Of course not! It’s just …’
‘That you think I’m mistaken?’
Trása was trembling. She was in a dilemma and there was no way out. Either she’d failed and let her uncle down, and Rónán had indeed returned to this realm, or she hadn’t failed, and would have to prove to Marcroy that he was mistaken about what he’d seen. Both involved angering a sídhe lord.
‘Uncail, I swear. I left Rónán in the other realm facing life imprisonment.’
‘Facing it is not the same as being certain of it.’ Marcroy gripped Trása by the shoulders with his long, slender fingers and his cat-like eyes bored into her. ‘Of course, I might have misread the situation.’
Held in her uncle’s vice-like grip, Trása knew Marcroy’s seeming change of heart was something to be wary of. ‘You might?’
‘We need to ascertain the truth,’ he told her. ‘Put the matter to rest, once and for all.’
Trása nodded warily.
‘Ciarán spoke of taking the boy to a fortress in the middle of nowhere,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take to the air and see what you can discover?’
Trása nodded again, relieved that the task he’d set her could be so easily accomplished. There were a few places that might fit that description. There was a Ráith at Drombeg where Ciarán had grown up. The people there would shelter the warrior and any who were under his protection.
‘I’ll do it right now,’ she promised, ‘and be back before you know it.’
Marcroy let go of her shoulder and held out his arm like a hunter offering a perch to his hawk. Trása immediately changed into her owl form and flew up to perch on his forearm.
Marcroy scratched her fondly under the beak, muttered something under his breath, and then he smiled. ‘There you go, precious. Fly away, find your would-be lover and his twin. I have no further use for you.’
The comment seemed at odds with his smile. Trása launched herself from his arm, circled the hut once, and then landed near the cold fire pit. She didn’t want to go anywhere until she found out what he meant by not having any further use for her. Was she banished from Tír Na nÓg forever, or was he simply sending her away until she could confirm Rónán had not returned to this reality?
Trása’s claws dug into the soft earth as she landed and she willed herself to return to her true form.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, but although she could picture her true shape in her mind, it would not form. Her tiny heart pounding, Trása realised she had lost the power to break out of her bird form.
Panicking, she squawked and flapped as she tried to force the change, but the magic simply dissipated as if it was being absorbed by an invisible sponge.
Trása was trapped.
Marcroy wandered across the grass toward her until he was standing over her.
‘It’s no use, my dear,’ he informed her. ‘You are an owl and you will stay that way until I decide otherwise.’
No! Trása flapped and squawked in protest, but could not speak.
‘I’ve left you a loophole, though. That’s the law, you see, when turning someone into something else. There always has to be a way out of it. In your case — because what I lack in humour, I make up for with a truly devastating sense of irony — you may be free of the trapping spell if you can convince one or the other of the Undivided to release you.’ He folded his arms across his chest and admired his handiwork. ‘Of course, you’re going to have to make one of them realise who you are first, and then one or the other of them will have to figure out if they have the power to release you, but that’s your problem. For the moment, you need to find Rónán for me, and you need to tell me where he is, and when he and his brother are going to be together again. And you’re going to have to do it before Lughnasadh. If you can’t bring me the information I need before then, a Stóirín, you truly are of no further use to me.’
Even in her bird form, Trása understood the threat. She beat her wings in protest, but Marcr
oy remained unmoved. After a few more moments of helpless flapping, she knew that if she kept this up, she would have no energy to fly, so she launched herself into the air, wishing birds could weep so she could give voice to the hurt and fear that threatened to overwhelm her.
With a final plaintive screech, she turned and headed west, to find out if Rónán of the Undivided had somehow found his way back to this realm and with no notion of how she could do anything about it if he had.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 46
It was weeks before Darragh saw Rónán again. It was weeks before he managed to achieve something he’d never thought possible.
Darragh finally managed to be alone with his twin brother.
Rónán was much more comfortable with the language now. His Druid gift for mastering tongues held true — even in the other reality — and he’d been taught a version of Gaelige at school. Weeks of speaking little else and it was already hard to detect any hint of an accent.
They climbed to the battlements of the small Ráith where they could talk in private. The moon was full and the skies were clear, so clear that the chilly night was lit brighter than the main hall of Sí an Bhrú. The sigh of waves breaking against the cliffs a few miles away provided a soothing background to their first real and meaningful conversation.
‘Does it seem any less strange to you, brother,’ Darragh asked, as he glanced over the edge of the weathered, mossy stones of the tower to the ground eighty feet below, ‘now you’ve been here a while?’
‘Not as strange as having someone who looks just like me calling me brother.’ Rónán turned his gaze to the sea where the moonlight turned the occasional breaking wave into a luminescent foam that lasted a few fleeting moments, before being swallowed by the black waters of the straits between the coast and a small island just offshore.
It was impossible for Darragh to tell what Rónán was thinking — yet.
‘You’ll have to forgive me.’ Darragh smiled. ‘I don’t seem to be able to help myself.’
Rónán shrugged. ‘Not a lot of this makes any sense to me.’
The comment puzzled Darragh. With Rónán returned, the world had never made better sense in his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
Rónán leaned against the stonework, his expression grave. ‘Okay. Let’s start with the magical power thing. If I have this awesome ability to channel magic, how come this is the first I’ve heard of it? How come I haven’t been turning people into toads all my life?’
‘Didn’t Ciarán explain that to you?’
Rónán shook his head. ‘Ciarán’s been mostly concerned with finding ever new and creative ways of running me through with his sword. So has Sorcha. She has an interesting interpretation of protection, I have to say.’
Darragh smiled. ‘They are under orders to teach you how to protect yourself.’
Rónán raised a brow at Darragh. ‘So how come nobody’s been instructing me how to zap my foes into oblivion with magic instead of risking life and limb trying to teach me how to use a sword?’
‘Well, for one, it’s not possible to turn a human into an animal. Only the Tuatha can do that, because they are shapeshifters by nature. And not all threats in this world are magical. Besides, the Treaty of Tír Na nÓg forbids us from using Daoine sídhe magic to kill.’
Rónán threw his hands up. ‘Oh, well that helps.’
Darragh smiled even wider. He couldn’t help it. Rónán was so like him. ‘It must be very hard for you, brother,’ he said, ‘to come to terms with all this. You’ve spent most of your life in a reality where there is barely enough magic to sustain a lesser sídhe.’
‘What about the dreams?’ Rónán asked, his eyes narrowing.
‘Did you have a particular dream in mind?’
‘Ciarán says you … we … have the gift of Sight. That we can dream the future.’
Darragh nodded slowly. ‘That’s true.’
‘Do you ever dream about me? About us? In the future?’
There was something in Rónán’s tone that warned Darragh to tread carefully. ‘Sometimes,’ he said.
Rónán was silent for a time and then shook his head. ‘There’s a reason for me to go back to my reality and stay put, right there.’
So he’s had the same dream, Darragh thought. He’d suspected as much.
‘The future is a fluid thing, Rónán. The dreams don’t always come true.’
‘I don’t know that I can stay, Darragh,’ Rónán said.
‘I know,’ Darragh said, holding up his hand to forestall the conversation. ‘And we’ll discuss your return to the other realm in a moment. I just want you to know what you might be giving up, if you decide to go back.’
‘So far, all I think I’ll be giving up is body lice, crappy food, and people who want to kill me,’ Rónán said, frowning.
Darragh sighed. He understood his twin’s frustration but knew that once Rónán had shared the Comhroinn, he would understand. ‘You have so much more than that awaiting you here, Rónán. You just don’t know how to access the power yet.’
‘And how long is it going to take me to learn how to access it?’
‘Not long at all,’ Darragh assured him. ‘I’ll share the information with you and you can share what you know with me.’
‘That could take forever.’
Darragh realised Rónán had no idea what he was talking about. ‘We’re more than twins, brother. We are psychically linked, which is why we manifest each other’s injuries.’
‘Yeah …’ Rónán said. ‘About that. I get the cuts. I’ve had enough lessons with Ciarán to learn he’s not very forgiving, so I get how they happened. But dude, back home, they had to pump my stomach a couple of times. What was that about?’
Darragh’s smile faded. ‘There are those who resent the power of the Undivided and who would give much to see us destroyed.’
Rónán rolled his eyes. ‘You mean somebody tried to assassinate you? You know, you might want to think about coming back to my reality and staying there with me. This place is frigging dangerous.’
‘Being in a different realm doesn’t alter the nature of the link between us, Rónán. If one of us dies, the other will suffer the same fate, usually within a day.’
Rónán was silent for a time, and then he asked, ‘I thought it was only Faerie silver that could harm us both? What did they poison you with?’
‘We are the Undivided, Rónán,’ Darragh reminded him. ‘Normal poison doesn’t affect us.’
Rónán nodded in understanding. ‘Because Druids can do that magic healing thing?’
‘Exactly.’
‘So these guys who tried to poison you … us … they used what? A magic potion?’
‘In a manner of speaking. They were somewhat put out, by all accounts, when it didn’t work.’
‘And it didn’t work,’ Rónán said, as he began to grasp their situation, ‘because in my reality, there wasn’t any magic, it was just a poison they were able to counteract with twenty-first-century medicine.’
Darragh looked at him oddly. ‘They only have twenty-one centuries in the other realm?’
‘We count the years from the birth of Christ. What year is it here?’
‘It is the year four-thousand-thirty-five. We count our calendar from the construction of Choir Gaure.’
Rónán looked at him in surprise. ‘Stonehenge? Really? We were always taught at school that it predated the rise of the Druids by a good fifteen hundred years.’
‘I didn’t say we built it, brother. Just that we count our calendar from its completion.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘By Danú, there is so much you and I have to tell each other. I cannot begin to comprehend the world where you were raised — although once we’ve performed the Comhroinn things will be much clearer for both of us.’
‘Comhroinn?’
‘It is how Druids share what we know. It is what preserves our oral history. It allows us to teach, to impart vast amounts of information, to know e
ach other completely.’
Rónán pushed off the battlements, looking worried. ‘You mean you do the Comhroinn and you get to see everything going on in my head?’
Darragh nodded. ‘I will know what you know, Rónán. More importantly, you will know what I know.’ He smiled and offered his outstretched hand. ‘At the very least, it means you’ll be able to give Ciarán a run for his money in your next training bout.’
Rónán took a step backward in alarm. ‘Whoa! You wanna do it now?’
‘It’s imperative we share the Comhroinn as soon as possible,’ Darragh said, uncertain as to why Rónán was resisting. ‘You are one half of the Undivided, Rónán. Without the knowledge to access your latent power, we are both at perilous risk.’ Darragh realised this was going to take something more than a hollow reassurance to convince Rónán to participate, and without his co-operation, there was no point in trying. The Comhroinn only worked if both parties wanted it to. The slightest resistance and it would fail.
‘Without it,’ Darragh added carefully, watching for his brother’s reaction, ‘we cannot risk returning to the other realm to help your friend. If you want to strike a deal to heal your friend, that is the cost of my co-operation.’
Rónán fixed his gaze on his brother, his eyes narrowing. ‘Are you telling me that if I let you do this … sharing thing … you’ll open a rift back to my reality —’
‘This is your realm, Rónán.’
‘Yeah … whatever. But you’ll do it? You’ll take me back so we can help Hayley?’
‘Does she need your help?’
Rónán seemed a little confused by the question. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been gone from the other reality for weeks, Rónán. In your world, she may have recovered already and may need no help from you at all. Or she may be dead, in which case she definitely doesn’t need your help. Are you prepared to risk everything here to find that out?’
Rónán was silent for a moment and then looked straight at Darragh. ‘If you were me, what would you do?’
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