A dry spot, she thought, and shoving back the hood of her cloak imagined one. Drew up and out what she was, thought of warm and dry—and flashed out heat so bright and hot it nearly burned them all before she drew it down again.
“I’m sorry for that. I haven’t done any of this before.”
“It’s a cork out of a bottle,” Eamon decided. “And it poured out too fast.”
“Aye.” She slowed it, carefully, carefully. She didn’t mind the wet for herself, but Teagan was right. The old mare’s bones ached, even she could feel it.
She eased back the wet, slowly, just a bit, just a bit more. It trembled through her, the joy of it. Loosed now, free. Then the fire. Magickal tonight. Other nights, as their mother had taught them, a body gathered wood, put the work into it. But tonight, it would be her fire.
She brought it, banked it.
“A bit of the oatcake, and some wine,” she told her brother, her sister. “An offering of thanks to the gods for the balance of the day and night, for the cycle of rebirth. And for this place of rest.
“Into the fire,” she told them. “The cake, then the wine. These small things we share with thee, we give our thanks we servants three.”
“At this time where day meets night, we embrace both dark and light,” Eamon continued, not sure where the words had come from.
“We will learn to stand and fight, to use our gifts for the right and the white,” Teagan added.
“In this place and hour, we open to our given power. From now till ever it will be free. As we will, so mote it be.”
The fire shot up, a tower, red, orange, gold, with a heart of burning blue. A thousand voices whispered in it, and the ground shook. Then the world seemed to sigh.
The fire was a fire, banked in a tidy circle on the stony ground.
“This is what we are,” Brannaugh said, still glowing from the shock of energy. “This is what we have. The nights grow longer now. The dark conquers light. But he will not conquer us.”
She smiled, her heart full as it hadn’t been since the morning they’d left home. “We need to make a spit for the hare. We’ll have that feast tonight, our first. And we’ll rest in the warm and dry until we journey on.”
* * *
EAMON CURLED BY THE FIRE, HIS BELLY FULL, HIS BODY warm and dry. And journeyed on.
He felt himself lift up, lift out, and fly. North. Home.
Like Roibeard, he soared over the hills, the rivers, the fields where cattle lowed, where sheep cropped.
Green and green toward home with the sun sliding quiet through the clouds.
His heart, so light. Going home.
But not home. Not really home, he realized when he found himself on the ground again. The woods, so familiar—but not. Something different. Even the air different, and yet the same.
It all made him dizzy and weak.
He began to walk, whistling for his hawk. His guide. The light changed, dimmed. Was night coming so fast?
But not the night, he saw. It was the fog.
And with it, the wolf that was Cabhan.
He heard the growl of it, reached for his grandfather’s sword. But it wasn’t at his side. He was a boy, ankle deep in mists, unarmed, as the wolf with the red gem glowing around his neck walked out of the fog. And became a man.
“Welcome back, young Eamon. I’ve waited for you.”
“You killed my father, my mother. I’ve come to avenge them.”
Cabhan laughed, a rolling, merry sound that sent ice running up Eamon’s spine.