Naamah's Kiss

Page 11

I did.
The horse startled, rearing. Aislinn swore and grabbed at its mane, losing her grip on the rains. For one terrified instant, I thought to see a second scion of Innisclan thrown and trampled. I snatched the loose reins and yanked her mount's head downward.
"Be still!" I shouted at it.
For a miracle, it obeyed. Aislinn took a deep, shaking breath and dismounted. Her face, so like her brother's, was streaked with tears.
"It was their grief talking," she said. "I didn't want those to be the last words spoken to you."
My throat was almost too tight to reply. "You're kind."
"It wasn't your fault." She shook her head. "That stupid, bedamned raid….. it wasn't your fault."
"I know," I murmured. "And yet."
Aislinn didn't argue with me. She didn't lie and tell me that her mother would regret her harsh words, that I would be welcome to return and share their grief. For that, I was grateful. Instead, she took my hand in hers and squeezed it, fresh tears flowing. "If things had been different….." She fell silent a moment, breathing hard and struggling for composure. "I would have been proud to call you my sister."
It was a great kindness and one I didn't deserve. I swallowed against the lump it brought to my throat. "So would I."
There was nothing left to say. Cillian was dead. Aislinn let go my hand and reclaimed her horse's reins. I held its head while she mounted.
In the saddle, she drew a kerchief from her bodice and wiped her eyes. I dragged a forearm over my own, realizing I was weeping without even knowing it.
"Thank you," I managed.
She nodded. "Good-bye, Moirin."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was a long way home from Innisclan on foot. I remember little of the journey. My grief was so vast and unexpected and complicated by guilt that I was numb with it, which was a mercy. Even the urge to flee had passed. I put one foot in front of the other and kept walking. When it grew too dark to see, I summoned the twilight again and continued.
My senses were as dull as though I'd grown dead to the world around me. In the small hours of the night, I tripped over branches and stumbled through brambles. But step by step, I made my way home.
It was beyond late. The fire should have been banked hours ago. But there it was, burning in the pit on the hearth, the flames silvery and eldritch. I let go my cloak of twilight and the fire turned orange and gold and ordinary.
I was so very, very tired.
"Moirin?" My mother lifted her head. She looked haggard. "I felt you coming nigh onto an hour ago. Whatever is it?"
"Cillian—" I couldn't say it.
I didn't have to—she saw it in my face and rose. At the touch of her arms around me, I burst into wrenching sobs. My mother held me close and made soothing, meaningless sounds. When the storm of grief had wrung itself out, I told her how it had happened. And I told her what I'd been doing when it happened, the decision I'd made and the aftermath, my voice dry and flat. She listened without comment.
"Now you feel yourself to blame," she said softly when I had finished.
"Aye," I whispered.
My mother tilted her head. Her eyes caught the firelight and reflected it like a wild animal's. For a moment, I saw her as others did, her features marked by the stamp of the Maghuin Dhonn, uncanny and inexplicably strange. And then it passed and she was only her familiar self.
"It was his time," she said in a gentle tone. "That is all." I opened my mouth to protest, but she shook her head at me. "You could not have saved him, Moirin mine. Not without altering the course of his fate. And what followed may have been worse."
"You can't know that," I said. "Not for sure."
"No," my mother said. "No one can. But if you had gone against the truth of your heart, any promise you made him would have turned to ashes."
We sat together in silence while the fire burned low. At length the sky began to lighten in the east, and here and there a bird twittered. My mother stirred herself and banked the fire's embers.
"We'll take a few hours' sleep," she said. "Time enough to pack and be away by nightfall."
I looked dully at her. "Where?"
"The rite's to be held in the north. We'll be leaving a little early, that's all."
"No." I swallowed. "I can't. I truly can't. Not now."
"You can." My mother gazed steadily at me. "Do you imagine your grief will abate sooner staying here?"
I looked around at our tidy campsite. Cillian had taught me my letters on this very hearth, scrawling with a soot-blacked twig. Above us was the ledge where I'd first caught him spying with a satchel full of peaches. There was the willow tree beneath which I'd taught him to catch trout, its roots drinking deep of the stream. There was the path to the meadow in which we'd spent so many hours.
"No," I said. "I suppose not."
She nodded. "We'll be off by noon."
I didn't think I could possibly sleep, but I did, worn out by grief and guilt. When I awoke, the sun was high in the sky and I was wearier than ever—but our meager belongings were packed and my mother was watching me.
"Eat." She handed me a cattail-flour cake. "You'll need your strength."
I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to undertake this journey. I wanted to roll myself in my blankets and go back to sleep. Mayhap if I slept long enough, I would wake to find that my memories had faded. I'd no longer have the vision of Cillian's dented skull vivid before my eyes, the touch of his cold lips lingering on mine.
"There is a glade hidden high in the mountains to the north," my mother said unexpectedly. "It holds a lake and a stone door. On the other side of that door, you may find the Maghuin Dhonn Herself. The door is waiting for you, Moirin. It has waited a year and more."
"You said yourself we'd be leaving early. Can it not wait a few days longer?" I asked plaintively.
"Mayhap. Will you take that chance?" She gestured around. "There is nothing to hold you here. Cillian is lost to you. Mayhap it is a sign. Will you risk losing your diadh-anam, too?"
It seemed a cruel threat, but the spark of awareness in my breast pulsed in sudden alarm. I made myself eat a portion of the cake although it was dry and crumbly in my mouth, washing it down with a great deal of water. When I was done, I felt a little bit stronger.
"All right." I got to my feet. "Let us go."
My mother pushed us hard on that first day. We passed from our own small kingdom of wilderness into deeper wilderness. It was hard going and I was already bone-weary from my long trek back from Innisclan. By the time she called a halt to make camp, my muscles were burning from the strain. I dropped my pack and fell asleep where I sat, my head bowed on my knees.
My mother shook me awake. "Eat," she said, pressing a roasted haunch of rabbit into my hand.
The meat was greasy and good. I gnawed and swallowed, my belly rumbling. "When did you go hunting?"
"While you slept."
"It's good." I wiped my lips. "Thank you."
She laid her hand on my brow. "Sleep."
I slept.
How many days we went on that way, I could not say. Most of me was still numb inside. Left to my own devices, I'd have just as soon lay down and slept, not caring if I starved. I'd lost every trick I'd known for living in the wild. I'd grown dense and clumsy with grief. But my mother tended to me and kept me going in her stubborn, patient way.
And bit by bit, I came back to myself.
Cillian was dead.
I was alive.
It was the way of the world. I could hate it and I could rail against it, but I could not change it. I could not change the fact that I'd betrayed him in thought while he lay dying. I could not change the fact that his family, save Aislinn, despised me.
All I could do was live.
"You brought him joy, Moirin," my mother said to me some nights into our journey. "That lad loved tales of magic and enchantment. You, you let him live one."
"He didn't die in one," I reminded her.
"He did, though." She busied herself with plucking a ptarmigan. "In the story he told himself, he did. He died without ever knowing the pain of losing you. He died with his heart unbroken, filled with hope and desire."
"That's a small mercy," I murmured.
She looked up at me. "Aye, it is—but a mercy nonetheless. Remember the joy, Moirin mine."
It was in the foothills of the mountains that we saw our first bear of the journey. I scented it on the wind and felt my dulled senses quicken for the first time in many days. I breathed deep through my nose and opened my mouth to let the air play over my tongue. My mother caught my arm and smiled, pointing.
"Oh!" I said in delight.
I'd seen bears before, but not many—and seldom so close. This one stood on its hind legs, taller than a man, scratching its back against a tall oak tree. Bits of its wiry fur clung to the bark. When it saw us, it dropped to all fours and gave a menacing woof.
"Peace, little brother," my mother said in a soothing tone. Twilight flickered around her, sparkling in the corners of my eyes. "'Tis clear this territory is yours. We do but seek to pass."
The bear grumbled.
"Peace," I added. "We seek the Great Mother Herself."
It gave a mighty snuffle, then gave a low coughing bark and wandered away, shambling through the trees. I watched the vast wilderness swallow it with wonder. The spark of the diadh-anam within me sang, happy and glad. "That's a good sign, is it not?"
My mother squeezed my arm. "It is."
For the space of a few minutes, I forgot about Cillian's death—and then the grief came crashing back upon me. I shouldered it and kept going.
Foothills gave way to mountains, and the mountains grew steep. I do not think we travelled so far as we did in our pilgrimage to Clunderry, but the way was harder and our progress was slow. By the time we reached our destination, I was more fit and hardy than I'd ever been in my life.
As for the destination itself, I lack the words to do it justice.
It was the sound of piping that alerted us, high and fluting. At first I took it for birdsong, but no. The melody was too intricate.
A slow smile spread across my mother's face. "I thought we were nearly there."
"Where?" I saw nothing but the mountain slope. You 11 see.
Soon, I did. A man sat cross-legged on a ledge high above us playing a little silver pipe. He lowered it from his lips and called out to us. "Welcome, little niece! Not so little, I see. Greetings, sister! Can you spot the entrance?"
"I can," my mother said.
My uncle Mabon rose. "Come, then."
He vanished.
I blinked. There was no telltale sparkle of the twilight and I'd been looking at him all the while. Ignoring the phenomenon, my mother made for a great pine tree jutting up from the mountainside. Following as she ducked behind it, I saw that the tree concealed a few promontories like rough steps leading to a dark, narrow crevice.
"Is that it?" My heart raced. "The doorway?"
"Hmm?" My mother glanced over her shoulder. "Ah, no. Only the entrance to the hollow hill."
One by one, we squeezed into the crevice. It was a tight enough space that it made me anxious—but somewhere ahead, I could hear the sound of my uncle's pipe, the sound echoing oddly. I followed my mother as she edged sideways down the dark, narrow passage for longer than I cared to recall.
And then it opened.
I stared, dumbstruck.
It was a cave, but it was like no cave I'd ever seen. For one thing, it was vast. There was light coming from an opening somewhere above, illuminating it. Many of the surfaces were smooth and looked to have been sculpted of milk made solid. Shapes like icicles thrust up from the floor, hung down from the roof. My uncle Mabon stood atop what looked to be a frozen waterfall, playing. The notes of his pipe bounced and echoed from the walls. I wandered in an awed daze. To the right, I could see that there were further passages.
"There is a legend that the mighty Donnchadh carved this place out of the mountain for our people to hide," my mother said behind me. "Me, I suspect it is older, for the stone door stood long before his time."
"It's wonderful," I breathed.
She smiled. "Don't go wandering. Even one of our kind can get lost in here without the gift of stone."
Mabon lowered his pipe. "Any mind, folk are waiting. Come!"
We clambered up the slippery stone waterfall. When I reached the top, my uncle helped me up, then took my shoulders in his hands and gazed at me. "Ah, Moirin child," he murmured. "You may not have proved a great magician, but you're a rare beauty." His dark gaze was soft. "I'm so very sorry about the lad."
My throat tightened. "How did you know?"
He smiled sadly. "We're not all such recluses as your mother. Word of a royal death travels swiftly."
After greeting my mother fondly, Mabon led us farther up and farther inside the mountain. Here and there, shafts of light lit our way. In places, strange crystalline formations grew from the walls, tinted pale blue and gold. There was a gorge where a real waterfall poured into darkness. We crossed the gorge on a narrow, hanging bridge, the underground stream flowing far beneath our feet.
It was beautiful.
And I could not help but think two thoughts. One, that I wished Cillian could have seen it. The other, that this was a place of the Maghuin Dhonn. I didn't need to be told it was a sacred place. I could feel it in every step I took, in the way the air breathed over my skin. And if the Maghuin Dhonn Herself chose not to acknowledge me, I feared this place would be lost to me.