“Oh, you’re sorry, are you?” she said, jabbing her finger toward me. “Sorry won’t bring him back! For once your demonic abilities could have been useful!”
She was yelling now, and I was momentarily stunned. I’d never seen her raise her voice like that—it was almost as if Áthair’s death had caused her to become unhinged.
“I’m not invincible,” I said quietly. “Not even I could have escaped a burning building.”
Leif had been listening to our exchange with a concerned look upon his face. Now he gestured toward the remains around us. “Why have they not been laid to rest?”
“This is their tomb now,” she said, her voice shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself as though cold and turned her attention back to me. “I should have never agreed to raise you! You’ve brought destruction upon this family just as I promised your father you would.”
I jerked back as though she’d struck me. Her words rang out in my mind, and though I tried to push away the meaning behind them, the horrible sinking feeling was enough to confirm the truth. “Then . . . you are not my mother?” I asked in a small voice that didn’t even sound like my own.
“Of course I am not,” she said. “You are a monster, born of your father’s pathetic moment of weakness. He begged me to raise you as my own baby after I lost my own infant in childbirth. Only your nanny knew the truth, and she died while you were still a child—no doubt because of your malevolent powers.”
I felt sick. No, I wanted to scream at her. No, you’re lying. No, there has to be another reason why everyone in my family is fair-haired and light-eyed . . . everyone but me.
With the truth out, Máthair’s facade of being a caring mother completely fell away. True loathing was apparent in the flash of her eyes, in the piercing cold of her expression. If my father had strayed from his marriage vows, and I—with all my frightening abilities—was the result, then I almost could not blame my mother for her hatred.
My pulse was pounding in my ears, my vision turning blood-tinged. “Just who am I, then?”
“You are the daughter of the king,” she said, disgust clear in her tone, “but it was the Morrigan who bore you.” An image of the Morrigan as a crow tearing out the hellhounds’ hearts appeared in my mind, and I wanted to claw at my own face. She’s just like her, my mother had once thought about me. Too powerful. Too dangerous. Now I knew who she was talking about.
“She seduced your father on a battlefield, appearing naked before him, and he was so overcome by lust he had her right there among the dead. She would not raise you herself, and we were too frightened of her to refuse. You are cursed, part demon—you taint this chapel by your very presence.”
I thought of the memory I’d seen in my father’s mind all those weeks ago when I’d taken control of him—of the Morrigan appearing to him on the battlefield—and I felt a piece of my heart shrivel. I thought of the way he’d paled when I’d told him of the Morrigan’s vision—the mere mention of the Morrigan’s name had frightened him. There had been so many signs, and I’d been foolishly blind to them all.
“Your father banned you from this church, praying it would spare us from God’s justice. He turned back to God, tried to atone for his sin on the battlefield, but it was all for naught.” My mother’s words were like sharp nails piercing my heart. “He died in the end, leaving me alone to deal with . . . everything. Sigtrygg, this kingdom, you. I agreed to take you on as my own child, but that was before you attacked your own father. You’re dangerous, you’ve always been dangerous, and now that he’s gone, I see no reason to continue the charade.” She looked at me in disgust, and something died inside me. “You shouldn’t have come back here. There’s nothing for you here.”
She turned on her heel and started to walk away. I wrapped my arms around myself protectively, hearing the echo of every time I’d been called monstrous and evil, of every fearful look and whispered aside.
I bent forward as though punched in the gut, and Leif reached down and hauled me upright. “She has gone mad with grief. Don’t let the poisonous words she spews render you incapacitated,” he said into my ear.
I almost let her walk away. I almost let that be the last thing she said to me, but then I thought of my sisters, and this kingdom, and the fact that I was the true heir of Mide.
I felt the warmth of Leif’s hand on my arm, strong and comforting, and stood tall. I might have been the daughter of the Phantom Queen, but it was that blood that would allow me to defend my kingdom and my world from the real monsters who threatened it.
“No, you’re wrong,” I said, and she turned slowly. “This is my kingdom. Those are my sisters—no matter that I only share half their blood. My father was the king, and for better or worse, I was raised as a princess of Mide.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s true. Your father named you his heir, but what good is it now? This kingdom has been claimed by Sigtrygg.”
I thought of not just Sigtrygg, but the greater jötnar threat. “Then leave with my sisters while you can. Take Branna and Deirdre and flee to another kingdom; we have other allies—”
“I cannot leave your father,” she said in a growl. “Of course I will not abandon him and this clan.”
I glanced at the charred remains of the men surrounding us and swallowed hard. She wasn’t in her right mind, but I still had to try to make her see reason. With Sigtrygg harboring jötnar under his own roof, Mide could be in very real danger. “Please, Máthair, there are worse things than Sigtrygg that threaten this kingdom. I was given a vision of Éirinn—”
“Stop!” Máthair snapped. “I won’t listen to such pagan nonsense. You taint this sacred ground by even uttering such a thing.”
“You’d do well to listen,” Leif warned. “Your daughters’ lives could depend on it.”
“And who are you to say?” Máthair demanded. “By the look of you, you are a Northman. What is the true reason, then, for your alliance with Ciara? Did she seduce you as her mother once did the king?”
I flinched at the implication as Leif drew himself up to his full height. “We owe you no explanation.”
She turned her attention back to me. “You are not welcome here. With Sigtrygg alive, this kingdom is no longer yours.”
It was clear she wouldn’t listen to anything we said. And with Sigtrygg in league with the jötnar we’d encountered in Dubhlinn, we didn’t have time to make her see reason. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake sense into her, but there was nothing more important right now than the quest.
“We will need horses,” I said, choking on the last word. There wasn’t a horse in the stables equal to the one I’d lost.
“Take them, then.” She wrapped her cloak tighter around her and walked away without a backward glance.
Leif grabbed my arm. “Sigtrygg is responsible for this, and he will be dealt with.”
Sigtrygg. I thought of what the pagan king had done to my clansmen, to my father—to my kingdom. The rage grew until all I could see was red. I wanted to find the men who had burned the church and slaughter them like pigs. “I want him dead.” Just then my body was filled with an impossible amount of energy, as though I could take on the whole of Sigtrygg’s army. It built and built until my muscles thrummed. I tasted blood on my tongue and wanted more.
Leif took my face in his hands and met my eyes. I hated to think what reflected back at him. “Then we will make it so.”
“Two hundred men, Leif. They died, and for what?”
Leif was quiet, his eyes searching mine. Finally, he said, “Their deaths needn’t be in vain.”
The Sword of the Fallen blazed to life on my back. I felt something inside me rise up to answer. “No. This is what the Morrigan wants, what she wanted all along.”
“The Morrigan wants our quest to succeed.” He took a step back from me. “She told me how to raise the army.”
My hands shook with the need to hurt something. “I knew you weren’t begging her for my life; I should have never t
rusted you.”
“I told you before that it was your decision. She held me back and told me the ritual in case you had a change of heart.”
“A change of—and what, suddenly decide that yes, I wanted to use the blood of two hundred innocent men? She is no benevolent goddess. What if the ritual damns their souls?” My words lashed him like a whip, but he stood unflinchingly before me.
“Regardless of why I was told, these men are dead. They were slaughtered like animals in a place your people consider sacred. You have the power to make their deaths worthy; they will have given their lives to bring forth an army strong enough to destroy the jötnar.” His hands curled into fists. “An army strong enough to bring Sigtrygg and his jötnar allies to their knees.”
Revenge, the darkness born inside me the moment I walked into the chapel seemed to whisper, or perhaps it was my own mind cracking beneath the pressure of so many unbearable losses. Thoughts of storming Dubhlinn with an unstoppable army rose unbidden to the forefront of my mind.
I knew Leif was right. Sigtrygg could be on his way at this very moment—the hideous jötnar beside him—to finish what he’d started in my kingdom, and I needed an army.
The only things standing between the vile king and my kingdom was us.
I pulled free the Sword of the Fallen. It glinted in the light, and a faint hum came from within the blade. I met Leif’s gaze.
“What must I do?”
17
Leif crouched and touched his fingers to the ash and soot upon the floor. “Blood and ash is required for the ritual—your blood.”
I glanced down at the gleaming blade. It was as if it whispered what must be done, a quiet voice in my mind. “The sword must be anointed with blood and ash. What then?”
“Then you must say: ‘So the Phantom Queen’s blood flows in my veins, so shall I summon the army of the undead.’”
I stared at him. “You knew about the Morrigan.” I was in complete shock that he hadn’t said anything, and I flinched when I remembered what we’d both witnessed of the Morrigan—what must he have thought of me?
“I knew only that you shared blood, not that she was your mother.”
“You knew I was kin to such a gruesome being, and yet you . . . kissed me? And now that you know she is my mother . . . ?”
“My desire for you has not changed. What do I care who your mother is? I kissed you when I thought you were all Celt, after all.” He smiled teasingly, even amid the carnage at our feet, as only a Northman could. I couldn’t yet return it, but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
Relief that he hadn’t judged me for the Morrigan’s horrific actions bloomed in my chest. “I can’t express to you how much your words mean to me.”
“You could always show me,” he said, and his gaze dropped to my mouth. It brought a reluctant smile to my face, even as desire stirred within me. My breath stilled as he reached out and touched a lock of my hair. “Later, then,” he said.
I forced my mind back on the task at hand. “After I have performed the ritual, what will happen?”
“She didn’t say, but we’ll soon find out for ourselves.”
A trace of unease spread down my spine even as the Sword of the Fallen thrummed eagerly for my blood. I held out my hand, and with the other, made a shallow cut along the palm. Blood immediately flowed, and Leif took hold of my injured hand gently. He sprinkled the ash he had collected over the wound, the black soot mixing with the dark red.
All at once, my vision darkened at the edges, and all sound seemed to disappear. As though I had performed this ritual a thousand times before, I took hold of the blade of my sword and smeared the mingled blood and ash along it. It disappeared on the blade like water in the sun.
The church was still. I could hear my own heartbeat, the thrumming of the sword in my hand, and a louder pulsing—the heartbeat of another realm. I slammed the point of my blade into the floor and said the words that would summon an army powerful enough to save us all.
An earsplitting boom and a wave of power rippled outward. The bodies at our feet crumbled into dust, and the dust was sucked away by the wave of power, leaving nothing but the men’s weapons behind. The silence that descended after was deafening.
I took a shaky breath and pulled the sword free. A tremor began, the ground beneath our feet quaking with increasing intensity until the glass of the few remaining windows shattered. A cold fog descended, obscuring our vision. Leif grasped my arm and pulled me close to his side.
The quaking continued, and we braced ourselves for something terrible to come. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The fog ebbed, revealing a ghostly sight.
My father stood before me, two hundred men at his back. My heart sounded like the fluttering of birds’ wings in my ears. Gray-faced they stood before us. There was no scent of decay. They were devoid of any smell at all. They were completely outfitted in the same black armor as Leif and I, claymores strapped to their backs. The black of the leather was a strong contrast with the faded color of their skin. It was as though I viewed them from underwater. No details of their bodies aside from the armor they wore could be seen sharply. They were hazy, one foot in this realm, another in the next.
“Áthair?” I asked, unsure if it was truly my father or merely something that resembled him.
“Princess Ciara, daughter of the Phantom Queen, we have heard your summons.” He made a fist with his hand and crossed it over his chest in a strange gesture of respect. The others immediately did the same. This, then, couldn’t be my father. But just as I doubted it, he said, “Though I never would have agreed to such a blasphemous ritual in life, after being shown the destruction that awaits Éirinn without this army, you have my blessing.”
I bowed my head. “Áthair, I’m glad for your blessing, because knowing I couldn’t defend you when your life was taken has nearly destroyed me.”
“It is not you from whom I crave vengeance.”
Before I could respond, a sound drew my attention to the back of the church. It was the sound of a hoof hitting the steps of an altar. A horse as black as pitch trumpeted an impatient whinny. “Sleipnir?” I said in a rush. “How?”
The warriors parted as my massive warhorse approached. His coat was as glossy as a raven’s feathers, with no hint of the trauma that had befallen him. But as he drew closer, I saw the difference: his eyes were no longer a horse’s warm brown, but rather the deep red of a wraith.
When he was close enough, he dipped his head, snuffling my hands. I threw my arms around his neck, tears slipping down my cheeks. He might have had eyes like the devil now, but he was still Sleipnir. I was not afraid of him.
“The king and your horse have retained their identities,” Leif said in the midst of my reunion, “but it would seem the rest of the warriors have not.”
I glanced up to find Leif was right. The warriors lined up in perfect rows, their arms still held over their chests, their faces emotionless.
My eyes scanned the warriors, searching for Fergus and Conall. I found them standing at attention, the same as the others. When I approached them, no flicker of recognition appeared on their faces; they remained eerily still. Not far from them was Séamus, and the bleak nothingness I saw reflected in his eyes was almost more painful than seeing his loathing.
“You’re right,” I said to Leif, deep regret weaving its way into my heart. It had been foolish to believe I could have everything. “They don’t know me.”
“They know you only as the one who ultimately commands them,” Áthair said.
“But you remember who you are?” I asked him.
My father shook his head, and I could see he was only a shadow of himself. “The Morrigan came to me just as my soul left my body. She said as king, I would be given the chance to avenge not only my own death, but the deaths of all my clansmen. I remember only what I need to know to bring vengeance upon King Sigtrygg.”
I looked at my horse and wondered if he felt the same toward the jötn
ar. Had he died swearing he wouldn’t rest until he had his revenge?
“You’ll have your revenge.” Leif turned to me. “I’ll find myself a horse, and then we should march on Dyflin. So much time has already passed that I have no doubt that Sigtrygg has begun the march here. If not, we can draw him out of Dyflin. With an undead army, I imagine you won’t have to rely on ambushes to defeat him—you can fight in open battle.”
He strode out of the church, and I was struck by how much having him here was a help to me. It allowed me to focus on what needed to be done. I turned to address the men, their commander now in death as I had never been in life. “Clansmen, to the gate.”
I took one last look at the devastation that’d once been the church, my jaw clenched tightly. With a hand upon Sleipnir’s neck, I walked down the steps. My macabre army followed silently behind, even their footsteps muffled.
Once outside, I grabbed a handful of Sleipnir’s mane and pulled myself astride. The men continued, marching five abreast in perfect unison. My father had fallen in with the rest of them, and with no crown or robe to differentiate himself from the others, he was difficult to recognize. I was glad; already the explosive sound of the summoning and the sight of the silent warriors had drawn a crowd.
“Princess Ciara,” the people whispered.
Faelan, noticing our return, hurried to my side. “Milady, who are these men?” He glanced back at the gates—the only entrance into the bailey—and back. “Where did they come from?”
“You needn’t know. All you need know is that we will exact revenge on King Sigtrygg and ensure the safety of this clan.”
Sleipnir pawed the dirt with his hoof as though eager to be on our way. I couldn’t help but agree. I wanted to be gone before anyone recognized these men. I couldn’t imagine my fellow clansmen’s reactions when they saw their fallen loved ones resurrected, or worse still, their king. With their gray skin and expressionless faces, the identities of the undead would be camouflaged—but not for long.
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