“No.” Shocked by the question and the—yes, it was slyness—in Dorcas’s eyes, Breen bit into a cookie.
It had the consistency of gravel, and tasted like sawdust.
“Not even a sip, just a tiny lick?”
“No.”
“And there ye have it. What rides in ye hasn’t the bloodlust. Odran had his own before the demon. It’s a lust for power that only comes through blood, taking it, spilling it, consuming it.”
“Before the demon? I don’t understand.”
To wash the sawdust out of her throat, Breen sipped some tea.
That added the taste of leaves soaked in muddy water.
“Didn’t I do as young Keegan asked? Even if he weren’t handsome, weren’t taoiseach, I have the curiosity, don’t I? A scholar I’ve been since I drew my first breath, and a scholar I’ll be until I take my last. I’m in no hurry for that,” she added, and ate a biscuit with obvious enjoyment.
“Did you find something, Old Mother?”
“I did indeed, and only this morning, after the broom fell. And so I got to making the biscuits for the company to come, and all the while thinking: Wasn’t there something, long ago? A story. Just a story in an old book full of them. Legends, we’d say. Myths curled out of mists with heroes and villains. But something, my mind pricked at me along with my fingers, that may be, as many stories are, rooted in truth.”
Sipping her tea, she sat back. “And here ye are, coming to ask me, so no need to send a message to handsome young Keegan. And though I’m pleased to have ye here, Daughter, I’m still female, and my heart young as spring. So it’s sorry I am he won’t come to share my biscuits. Share his bed, don’t ye?”
“I… Yes.”
“Ah, there I can enjoy some envy, as I see vigorous in him as well as handsome and a fine, strong form he has. I recall, very well, a good and vigorous mating. I had one of young Keegan’s grandfathers as a lover once, in our prime.”
“Oh. His grandfather?”
“Not as you mean it. How many times grandfather I couldn’t say unless I counted back, and counting back is a sad business. But he was vigorous, and we had each other for a night. A very long, vigorous night.”
She let out a cackling laugh. “Owain was his name, if my memory serves, and he left me a rosebud before back to the valley he went. More tea?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine. You found something about the demon. In Odran?”
“This very morning, sun barely up, and my fingers pricking, the broom falling. And I’m after making the biscuits for the company to come, and my mind says: Wait, now, Dorcas, wait. Wasn’t there a story, read long ago? In my childhood, I’m thinking. So I hunt through the oldest of my books, as already I’ve been through all I can think to look through at the castle’s great library. But this is one of my own, I’m thinking, and written way and well back by one who came before me. In the old tongue.”
She poured more tea for herself. “So sit ye back, Daughter, finish yer biscuit, and I’ll tell ye the tale of the god and the demon who loved him.”
Taking it as a requirement, Breen suffered through another bite of the biscuit.
“In the long, long ago, before Talamh was Talamh, when the worlds of gods and men and Fey lived peaceably enough and magicks thrived in all, there was one in the world of gods who thought himselfabove the rest. Above the worlds of man, of Fey, and of gods. He was born of lust, with no care, no fondness. A mating of greed, and born through a mother, though one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, whose heart was hard and cold as stone. But the child softened it, toward him only, and so she reared him with great privilege, rocked him with tales of his greatness, his destiny to rule.”
Dorcas paused long enough to slurp at her tea.
“He suckled milk from that hard heart and grew bold and proud. Well then, gods are often so, are they not? And though his mother loved him, and him alone, and pampered him and spoiled him, granting his every wish, it was not enough, ye see.
“She schemed with him for more, but he grew restless with her clinging fingers. He had no love for the one who’d carried him, birthed him, did he, but only the lust, and the lust was for power and blood. Even this, breaking the law of gods and men and Fey and all, she granted him. Sacrificing the living in secret to feed that lust to him. Though he drank the blood of man and Fey, it didn’t slake the thirst.”
Odran, Breen thought, but didn’t interrupt.
“So there was a demon, a female and comely in her way. Young and proud to take any form she wished. There was no evil in her, so the tale goes, and she lived happy enough in her world, doing no harm.
“And the mother of the god saw this and saw the power in this young demon, and she told the son, who looked on her. A maiden she was, and pure, and powerful, and young. The god went to the demon world, wooed her, seduced her. But she, though she loved, wouldn’t leave her family. He took her, unwilling, and while the cry went up for the abduction of this young maid, he, with the mother’s aid, lashed her to an altar, and the dark ritual began.”
Dorcas paused to drink again, jutted her pointed chin at Breen.
“Seen this ritual, I think. The vision ye had of the god and the demon in him.”