“I don’t know what that is.”
“A good step down from an eejit,” Morena supplied. “And to speak truth, we all know he can be a right growl at times, but not this time. Put it aside, Breen, so we can get to the meat of it, for I never remember a story that puts demon in him.”
“But it explains much, doesn’t it then?” Keegan studied Breen as he spoke. “Not that gods can’t go dark. Others have, but Odran the worst of them. And not slain for his sins but cast out.”
“The demon blood,” Mahon agreed. “So never fully one of them. Not worthy for slaying. Worse than death, to be deemed so unimportant and tossed aside.”
“So the anger and bitterness and the thirst for power and vengeance grew.” Marg picked up her tea, but simply stared into it. “To rule all the worlds, and maybe, one day, to wage war on the very gods who dismissed him as beneath them.”
“But there are other demigods, aren’t there?”
“Oh, we’ve scores of them,” Harken told Breen cheerfully. “If the songs and stories hold true. But he broke their laws, and broke the peace brokered between the gods and the Fey. Blood sacrifices, of Fey and Man and god, to stir up the dark, to feed on it.”
“To rise above them,” Keegan concluded. “And rule all worlds, even the world of the gods. He’s hidden this part of himself, shamed of it he might be. Or not wishing those who worship or follow him to know he’s not pure.”
“Both seem true.” Morena frowned at Breen. “And you only saw the demon, the signs of one, when he was in sex with the offering?”
“Yes. His hands were claws and dug into her. She bled. His eyes turned red, and his teeth got longer, sharper.” She shut her eyes to bring it back. “It wasn’t rape. She was part of it, and I think… I think she saw or felt, but it didn’t matter to her. If the others, the ones who watched, saw, it didn’t matter. Or more…”
Looking back, looking in. “More it was like being drunk or mesmerized. All smoke and blood, her screams, the chanting. Frenzied, and when he killed her, when he slit her throat and drank her blood, like an animal feeding, they called his name over and over.
“She applauded, like you would at a performance.”
“She?” Keegan repeated.
“Shana. Keegan, what’s inside her, it’s not growing right. It’s deformed and diseased, and so dark. It’s not innocent.”
“I’m sorry for that, for it had no choice. But she did.”
“He was so pleased when Eian was born.” Marg set the tea aside. “I wonder now how many he tried to bring into the world before and since, who weren’t right, weren’t healthy and strong and innocent.” She turned to Breen. “That life he helped make through me, one he thought to use and destroy? It will, through you,mo stór, be the undoing of him.”
“I’ll talk to the council, and more, to the scholars when I go to the Capital. We’ll see if any have heard even a whisper of this, and how we can use it.”
“Dorcas, the Old Mother.”
Keegan sent Marg a pained look. “Ah gods, Marg, she’ll talk the hind legs off a donkey, and ply you with her houndberry tea until your teeth ache.”
“That she will, and I’ve suffered both, but no one remembers more swimming in the mists of time than Mother Dorcas.”
“And I’d hoped tucking her up in a pretty cottage with her pack of cats would spare me any more of it. I’ll speak with her, feck it all, for you’re right. If any know of anything, she will.”
The thought of it had him scrubbing his hands over his face. “All right then. We know more than we did, and we’ll learn more yet. You say this wasn’t by the portal in the falls?”
“No, not there. I couldn’t tell where. It was dark, but because he brought the dark. I know it happened while I watched. I saw some trees, and I heard the sea. Fires, candles, smoke, the altar—stone, black stone, black candles around the circle.”
She tipped her head, eyes narrowing as she pushed. “The smoke. Something in the smoke? Like the fog, Yseult’s fog. I could smell it. I didn’t think of it, Nan, it was so visual, I didn’t think. I could smell something—a little too sweet? Like fruit that’s going over—like that, but not. The fog, that’s what it reminds me of. I hadn’t realized.”
“So he needs that,” Marg said. “He needs Yseult’s magicks to keep them in that state.”
“And it may be to make the sacrifice so willing,” Keegan finished.“Even the choices they’ve made aren’t enough for him. And his power isn’t enough, on its own, for them. He still needs his witch.”
“More of you than one of her,” Morena pointed out. “And whatever other Wise have gone to him, she holds the most power.”
“She’s failed him, but he hasn’t killed her. Because he needs her,” Breen said. “He still needs her.”
“As she serves him, is fervent, she’ll try again to bring him what he covets. And she’ll fail again.” Keegan spoke with absolute confidence. “Her end comes with his, if not before.”
He glanced out the window, flicked a hand to light candles as the sun slid down toward dusk. “We’ve lost the training time, so while we’re here, I’ll tell you we’ve found a spy in the midlands.”