her bones.
She kept her distance as she made her way to Keegan.
“I’ll take the horses now. You’ll want some moments, too.”
He said nothing at first, just looked at her in that way he had. Straight on and searching. “I do, aye. Thanks for that.”
He handed her the reins. “There’s a buck, a big one, twelve-pointer, through the trees there toward the south a bit. He might move enough for you to spot him. He’s a beauty.”
He knew that tingle in the spine near the ruin, as he’d felt it many times before. As he knew the whispers that sounded through the archways, along the curve of stairs.
He knew the pulse, like a thick heartbeat, in the air.
And sometimes, some trembling times, through that pulse came the screams of the tortured, and the unanswered pleas for mercy.
Another day he might have gone in, taken Breen with him. To see what she felt, what she heard.
But not this day.
He saw though the sky held clear, clouds and gray gathered up in the north. There’d be a storm that night.
He wouldn’t mind it.
He sighed as he looked down at Eian’s grave.
“She’s doing better than I believed she would. A ways to go, for certain, but she’s doing better. Better yet when she remembers she has a spine and a spirit. I remember her mother, but I think the one who reared her on the other side became a different sort. I’m sorry for that—for you, for Breen, but that’s what we have, isn’t it?
“Gods, Eian, I’d give a limb for your counsel. The bloody politics could make a sane man mad as a hatter. Thank those gods for my mother and her cool and clever head. I’ll need to take your daughter to the Capital when she’s ready. And what they’ll make of her I couldn’t say.”
He glanced over to where she stood, as he had, with her back to the graveyard.
“She’s full of twists, your daughter. It seems to me the power in her’s ripe one minute, green the next. But I can tell you she doesn’t stop. Once she’s stepped to the line, she keeps going, so there’s that.”
As Breen had, he crouched, traced a finger over Eian’s name.
“I can’t fail you—my greatest fear in the world is failing you. I give you my oath, taoiseach to taoiseach, man to man, Fey to Fey, I’ll give my life to protect her. And not only because she’s the key in the lock, but because she’s yours.”
Rising, Keegan slid his hands into his pockets before he said the rest. “She’s beautiful. I’ve tried not to notice, but I’ve eyes in my head, after all. When that spirit flashes, she’s more beautiful than any I’ve known. So, well, there you have it.
“Be at peace.”
He walked back to Breen.
“I saw the buck,” she said without turning around. “He’s magnificent. It made me wonder how you know it’s a buck or a were in deer form.”
“Fey recognizes Fey, and none would nock an arrow till they looked. Those from outside who live among us only hunt with a Fey beside them. This is the law.”
“And you make the laws.”
“The council makes the laws, and the taoiseach is part of the council. The law such as this has held for a thousand years, and will hold a thousand more. But we’re not here to talk politics and policy. We’re here to train. The field across the road will suit.”
When he took the reins to lead the horses, she fell into step with him. “If I don’t know the laws, I might break one.”
When he turned his head, she thought she saw amusement rather than impatience. Maybe.
“Do you intend to kill someone who is not an enemy of the light? Or take what’s not yours? Cause deliberate harm to someone or their property? Force yourself on another? Will you misuse an animal?”
“None of those are in my current plans. Is that it?”
He used stones to weigh the reins, leaving the horses free to crop at the grass on the side of the road. “There are laws within the tribes recognized by all. The casting of a spell, the use of magicks to cause harm, to steal, and so on.”
“What are the punishments?”
“They should befit the offense.”
“But how do you decide?”
He didn’t sigh or curse, as he might have liked to do. Because she’d been in the right. She needed to know.
“For most minor issues—squabbles between neighbors, craftspeople, lovers—I would hear them, or my mother who stands for me