the fact that whilst he would happily have retreated to his mountain sanctuary, his brother would have shouldered his burden and marched doggedly into the battle that lay ahead.
But Rùnach couldn’t.
While Ruith realized with a start he most certainly could, but he wouldn’t.
Fadaire is smothered by Olc more often than not, he had said to Soilléir that first night.
If you believe that, Ruithneadh, then you do not give your mother’s power its due.
He wondered, casually lest the thought become more important than he wanted it to be, what would happen in truth if he sauntered down to his grandfather’s garden, released all his magic, then attempted entry, just to see what Fadaire in its strength would think of him.
Aye, he wondered, indeed.
The thought burned in his soul like a raging fire, leaving him fighting for breath until the sun began to set and Sarah woke. She didn’t look any better than she had before, but Soilléir promised her a walk would do her good. Ruith would have happily avoided the bloody expedition until the next day—or never, if he could have managed it—but Soilléir handed him a rucksack full of supper, assured him that Droch was shut up in his chamber, raging at his current crop of spies, and held open the door for him. Never mind that Ruith had already opened it, perhaps in spite of his better judgement. Sarah didn’t seem opposed to being liberated from a nest of mages, so there was no rescue coming from that quarter.
He supposed he would just have to carry on down a path that was so full of thorns he could scarce put his foot to it.
He slipped out the kitchen door with Sarah, then heard her sigh of relief at the reprieve from being inside a keep full of spells. He wished he could have shared the feeling, but what he dreaded lay in front of him, not behind. He walked quickly with her along side-walks just the same, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, following a path that even he could see was laid out before his feet.
The way to the garden of Gearrannan hadn’t changed at all in a score of years. He found the place without trouble, then stopped in front of the gate. He wondered, absently, if he should have brought a lamp. He knew there was a path whose head lay just inside, but he wasn’t sure they would manage to find the end of it.
He reached out toward the gate, then froze as memory washed over him. He could see his father’s hand there on that latch, the flat black onyx stone in the ring he always wore glinting dully in the moonlight. But his father had drawn his hand back immediately, as if the gate had stung him. He’d laughed off the moment, then pleaded a sudden thirst as reason not to accompany his family inside the garden. Ruith had thought little of it at the time; he’d simply been relieved to be free of his father’s oppressive presence.
Now, though, he didn’t feel any relief at all.
He stood there with his hand on the latch, unable to move. He heard Sarah call his name, but he couldn’t speak—partly because he was still so damned tired he could hardly stand up and partly because he had, at some point during the afternoon, turned into a blubbering ... something. It would have been an insult to call himself a woman because the women he knew didn’t blubber. They wept, when appropriate, or drew steel, or wielded spells. But they never blubbered.
And still he stood there, motionless, wrestling with things he couldn’t see but definitely couldn’t ignore.
“I’m going to go.”
That surprised him out of his stupor. He looked at Sarah. “What?”
“I appreciate the refuge for a bit,” she said quietly, “but I know you have things to do. I do too. I should be about them sooner rather than later.”
He was still struggling for something to say when she brushed past him. He caught her hand before she went three paces.
She stopped, but she didn’t turn around.
He looked down at her hand in his. It was her right one, the hand with his father’s spell burned into her flesh, tangible proof that there was evil in the world that would stop at nothing in attempting to destroy what was beautiful and whole. And she, Sarah of Doìre, had set out from the ruins of her home with nothing more than a drooling hound, a