upon a large fern several dozen feet nearer the eddying pools of the brook, the frond bobbing under his minimal weight. Richard had forgiven the fairy due to his bravery when the bodach attacked, but he still did not trust the fey creature. With knees brought up and supporting his elbows, Snedeker stared at Richard as though he were a puzzle.
“Bran, how do you feel?” the knight asked.
The boy sat up, stood, stretched, and walked around the tree, frowning up into its limbs. Horror suddenly transformed his face.
“Yes, it happened. All of it,” Richard growled. “I told you not to trust Merle.”
“I turned into a tree!”
“Yes, you did. And you took me with you. Keeping you safe has become a dangerous bit of business, one I’m not happy about. Damnable magic,” he said, wiping dirt from his clothing. “Where are the others, Kegan?”
“Waiting on us.”
“What happened last night?” Bran asked wildly, looking from the clurichaun to the knight and back again.
“Ye tell me,” Kegan snuffled. “Ye were both laying here beneath this hawthorn when I arrived, snoring so loudly I didn’t even need your merlin or fairy to find ye.”
Arrow Jack screeched from his perch on one of the lower limbs, his eyes piercing.
“That tree wasn’t here last night!” Bran said.
“Are ye sure you are okay, lad?”
“I’m serious.”
“Serious like a heart attack, I suppose,” Richard said. “Call the Dark Thorn, Bran.”
“What do you mean?”
Richard wanted to smack the boy. He saw fear in Bran’s eyes but excitement about what calling the staff could mean. He was the Heliwr now—it was what the boy wanted—and it was best to prepare him for any further attack the bodach or Philip made. Playing dumb would help no one and just infuriate Richard all the more.
“I’m sure it works like Arondight, Bran,” the knight said. “Calm yourself. Close your eyes if you think it will help. Take time to reach out with your mind and soul toward a staff of dark wood, about your height, and will it into your hand.”
Bran closed his eyes. He held out his hand as if he was going to grasp something. After a few moments where only the birds sang, a frown crossed his face.
He opened his eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Hmm,” Richard said. “For some calling a weapon is not easy. Think about it while we ride to Caer Glain this morning and when we stop for the night we will try again. We cannot spend all day training you. There are far greater events we must deal with and the first is Lord Fafnir and his coblynau.”
“Aye, there are,” Kegan said.
Now that he was more awake, Richard took note of Kegan. Sorrow suffused the caretaker of the Rhedewyr. Dark hollows hung beneath reddened eyes, but it was the overwhelming weight in his every movement that punctuated his pain. He had spent the night burying his son, holding vigil, and despite wanting to give the short man a few words of solace, Richard no longer knew how to broach such topics.
The knight knew no words would ever be enough.
As they returned to the others, Richard thought more keenly on the previous night. The boy was now the Heliwr, for better or worse. Merle was not to blame. It had been Bran’s choice and he had to own it now. But something did not feel right about what had transpired in the glen. The Erlking’s beasts had not attacked as Richard would have thought; they ringed the waterfall in a half circle, almost like they were curious. There was something else, though, that bothered him. At the moment when Bran had transformed into the hawthorn and taken the knight with him, Richard had felt out of place, as if he had lost a part of himself and later regained it.
None of it made sense.
Then again, when it came to magic, it rarely did.
“I know why ye came up here, lad,” Kegan said behind them, as the path dipped down toward the trail where the others waited.
The words hung in the air between the clurichaun and Bran.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Bran murmured sadly.
“I know ye are,” Kegan said. “Connal was a fine son. He has become part of a broader fabric, one that serves other ends.”
“Richard told you why I came up here?”
“No, but it is written on ye as plain as the day.”
“Then you know why I had to come here, accept responsibility,” Bran said.
“Connal was brave,” Kegan said, shaking his head. “He was the type of clurichaun who never