“I look for her in the fire and smoke,” Brannaugh murmured. “I can’t help the looking, I miss her so. More as we near home. I miss my father; it’s an ache. But my mother is a kind of grieving that won’t end.”
“I know it.” Ailish sat beside her. “Does she come to you?”
“In dreams. There are moments, but only moments. I long to hear her voice, to have her tell me I’m doing right. That I’m doing what she’d want of me.”
“Oh, my love, you are. You are. Do you remember the day you left us?”
“I do. I hurt you by leaving.”
“Leaving always hurts, but it was what was right—I’ve come to know it. Before you left you told me of Lughaidh, the babe I carried. You said he must be the last, for neither I nor a babe would live through another birthing. And you gave me a potion to drink, every moon until the bottle was empty. So there would be no more children for me. It grieved me.”
“I know.” And knew it more poignantly now that she had her own children. “You are the best of mothers, and were one to me.”
“I would not have lived to see my children grown, to see my oldest girl ripe with her own child. To see, as you told me, Lughaidh, so bright and sweet, with a voice—as you said—like an angel.”
Nodding, Ailish studied the fire in turn, as if seeing that day again in the smoke and flame. “You laid protection over me and mine, gave me the years I might not have had. You are what she would want. Even as it grieves me that you will go, you will face Cabhan, I know you must. Never doubt she is proud of you. Never
doubt, Brannaugh.”
“You comfort me, Ailish.”
“I will have faith, as Teagan asked. Every night I will light a candle. I will light it with the little magick I have so that it shines for you, for Teagan, for Eamon.”
“I know you fear the power.”
“It’s my blood as well. You are mine as you were hers. This I will do, every sunset, and in the small light I’ll put my faith. Know it burns for you and yours. Know that, and be safe.”
“We will come back. In that I will have faith. We will come back, and you will hold the child now inside me.”
• • •
THEY JOURNEYED ON, WITH A LITTLE SPOTTED PUP GIVEN the children with much ceremony, and with promises for a longer visit when they returned.
The air grew colder, the wind brisk.
More than once she heard Cabhan’s voice, sly and seductive, trailing on that wind.
I wait.
She would see Teagan look out over the hills, or Eamon rubbing his fingers over his pendant—and know they heard as well.
When the hawk veered off, and Alastar strained to follow, Kathel leaped out of the wagon, trotted off on a fork in the road.
“It’s not the way.” Eoghan pulled his horse up by the wagon. “We would make Ashford by tomorrow, but that is not the way.”
“No, not the way to Ashford, but the way we must go. Trust the guides, Eoghan. There’s something we must do first. I feel it.”
Eamon drew up on the other side. “Near home,” he said. “All but near enough to taste. But we’re called.”
“Aye, we’re called. So we answer.” She reached out, touched her husband’s arm. “We must.”
“Then we will.”
She didn’t know the way, yet she did. With her mind linked with the hound’s she knew the road, the turns, the hills. And oh, she felt him reaching out, that darkness, hungry and eager to take what she was, and more.
The hazy sun slid down toward the western hills, but still they rode. Her back ached from the hours in the wagon, and a thirst rose up in her. But they rode.
She saw the shadow of it in the oncoming dark—the rise of it with fields around. A place of worship, she thought, she could feel that.