“Will she never tire of saying it?” Meara wondered. “I see now I’ll have to knock her on her own a dozen times to dim her victory light.”
“Even that won’t.” Iona smiled, then sat back. “You didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”
“I didn’t, no, and I’m wishing I had so we could all pity you.”
“We’ll have a toast then.” Fin lifted his glass. “To you, deifiúr bheag, a warrior to be reckoned with. And to you, dubheasa,” he said to Meara, “who made her one.”
“That was smoothly done,” Branna murmured, and drank.
“Sometimes the truth is smooth. Sometimes it’s not.”
“Smooth or not, the truth’s what’s needed.”
“Then I’ll give you what I have, though it’s but little. You hurt him,” he said to Connor. “You and the boy, Eamon. But he heals. And you, the three, you feel that, as I do.”
“He gathers,” Connor said.
“He does. Gathers the dark and the black around him, and into him. I can’t say how, or we might find a way to stop it, and him.”
“The red stone. The source.”
Fin nodded at Iona. “Yes, but how did it come to him? How was it imbued, how can it be taken and destroyed? What price did he pay for it? Only he knows the answers, and I can’t get through to find them, or him.”
“Across the river. How far I can’t say,” Connor added, “but he’s not on our side of it, for now.”
“He’ll stay there until he’s full again. If we could take him on before he gains back what you
and the boy took, we would finish him. I know it. But I’ve looked, and can’t find his lair.”
“Alone?” Fury fired Branna’s voice. “You went off looking for him on your own?”
“That slaps at the rest of us, Fin.” Boyle’s voice might have been quiet, but the anger simmered under it. “It’s not right.”
“I followed my blood, as none of you can.”
“We’re a circle.” It wasn’t anger in Iona’s voice, in her face, but a disappointment that carried a sharper sting. “We’re a family.”
For a moment Fin’s gratitude, regret, longing rose so strong Connor couldn’t block it all. He caught only the edge, and that was enough to make him speak.
“We’re both, and nothing changes it. Alone isn’t the way, and yet I thought of it myself. As have you,” he said to Boyle. “As have all of us at one time or another. Fin bears the mark, and did nothing to put it there. Which of us can say, with truth, if we were in his place, we wouldn’t have done the same?”
“I’d have done the same. Connor has the right of it,” Meara added. “We’d all have done the same.”
“Okay.” But Iona reached over to Fin. “Now don’t do it again.”
“I’d take you and your sword with me as protection, but there’s no purpose to it. He’s found a way to cover himself from me, and I’ve yet to find the way under it.”
“We’ll work longer and harder.” Branna picked up her wine again. “All of us needed time as well after the solstice, but we’ve not been hiding in the dark licking our wounds. We’ll work more, together and alone, and find whatever we’ve missed.”
“We should meet like this more than we have been.” With a glance around the table, Boyle spooned up more stew. “It doesn’t have to be here, though Branna’s far better at cooking than me. But we could meet at Fin’s as well.”
“I don’t mind the cooking,” Branna said quickly. “I enjoy it. And I’m here or over in the workshop most days, so it’s easy enough.”
“Easier if it was planned, and we could all give you a hand,” Iona decided, then glanced around as Boyle had. “So. When shall we six meet again?”
“Now it’s paraphrasing the English bard.” Branna rolled her eyes. “Every week. At least every week for now. More often if we feel we should. Connor’ll be working with me on his free days, as you should, Iona.”
“I will. Free days, evenings, whatever we need.”