Richard watched the homage to the horse caretakers.
It would be a long night of sorrow.
The first ghostly murmur dragged Bran from troubled sleep.
He raised his head up, fully alert, and listened to the night. The group had moved off the trail into a sparse copse of fir trees where they couldn’t be seen by possible mountain travelers. The insects had long since ended their song and the stars occasionally fought through the foggy film of the Nharth that had snuck in as true night fell. Whatever animals that were still living in the Snowdon ignored the travelers. The sleeping lumps surrounding the dying fire did not move, and the hellyll Bran knew to be on watch was not evident. Arrow Jack sat perched, unmoving, above, and Snedeker slept nearby on an island of moss, his wings fluttering with every breath he took.
Nothing stirred. The camp was as silent as if the world had frozen and he alone could observe it.
The sound that had woken him was not clear.
With disappointment, Bran looked to the bedroll where Kegan should have been sleeping.
It was empty.
Bran laid back and stared up into the tree limbs, unsettled. The death of Connal was imprinted on his memory. Blame burned inside him like a fever. The clurichaun had tried to keep Bran safe—and had sacrificed his life for it.
There was no chance of removing the guilt.
While somewhere in the darkness, the bodach followed.
The whisper came again, more obvious now that he was awake, a tickling in the recesses of his mind. It was foreign but not intrusive, an offer rather than a command.
With sudden insight, Bran pulled the box containing the Paladr from his pocket, the silver knot scrollwork on its lid glimmering in the palm of his hand.
He ran his thumb over the lid of the box, about to open it.
“Think on this, boy. Don’t be rash.”
Bran stilled his hand. Richard stared at him from his bedroll, the knight lying on his side with eyes glittering in the midnight.
“What do you mean?”
“You have awakened the Paladr.”
“I don’t think so.”
Richard looked off into the darkness, half of his face lost to shadow. “It is aware, offering itself. Whenever you are in danger, it responds to the one who carries it. It did so in Dryvyd Wood and it is doing so now. I can feel its magic even from here.”
“I haven’t felt this before,” Bran countered.
“No, but I bet you were thinking about Connal just now.”
“How did you know that?”
“What happened when you were confronted in Dryvyd Wood? When you were attacked by the bodach tonight?”
“The Paladr became hot in my pocket, like my hip was on fire.”
“It responds to your need when you are in danger,” Richard answered. “It is offering the protection and power of the Heliwr.”
“Did you know?” Bran asked. “Know what Merle meant by protection, I mean?”
“I guessed. I know the old man far better than he gives me credit for,” Richard said. “And I’m telling you to think it over. For all the reasons we’ve discussed and thousands more.”
Bran looked back into his hand, lost in thought. Merle had thrust the box there during the fight in Seattle with the command to use it only when Bran wanted protection. He had thought it a talisman of some sort, used and eventually discarded. Instead, if what Richard said was true, using the Paladr would come with a lifetime of servitude as the Heliwr. Richard had cautioned Bran to not trust Merle. In so doing though, the knight advocated Bran turn away from the one thing that offered protection—and the ability to never let happen again the sacrifice Connal, the two hellyll, and the other Tuatha de Dannan in Dryvyd Wood had made on his behalf.
“What happened to you?” Bran asked. “How did you give up responsibility over your own life, over the faith in yourself to summon Arondight?”
“Why are you even interested?”
Bran withheld his acidic reply. An owl hooted a lonely cry nearby. Long moments passed. Like many of the damaged people he had met on the street, Bran knew the knight would eventually share his story.
“I had a wife once,” Richard began finally, haltingly. “She was… my world. And she was taken from me.”
“And?” Bran prompted.
“Elizabeth,” Richard went on, his voice barely a whisper. “Elizabeth Welles. We met after I left my graduate studies at the University of Washington, met one night as she passed the bookstore. She loved books. She had a smile that could level me.