“I’d have been grateful. I thought of you, as I said. I thought of you.”
“I thought you might fly back, for a few hours, like this.”
“To have you? As I did with Shana? No.” He twined her hair around his fingers, released it, twined again. “You’re not Shana. You’re nothing like Shana.”
Smiling, she tipped her head. “In all the time I’ve known you, that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Then your view of romance is very odd.”
“Maybe. And still.” She turned to look back at the fire. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“I— Oh, it’s Bollocks.” She turned back to him. “Come back soon.”
“Wait.”
But she was gone, and he was left with the fire burning low and the mural of Talamh spread overhead.
It took two days to hold the Judgment, two days before Keegan listened to the words—hot but clear from Loga, hot and bitter from the assassin Thar.
Two days before he once more brought down his staff for banishment.
When it was done, when the portal to the Dark World opened and sealed again, he met with Loga in the village at the Smiling Cat.
“I’ve bartered for the ale already, so ya’ll drink yer fill.”
“I thank you for it.” Keegan joined him at the scarred and sturdy table where a tankard already waited. “And hope it washes the taste of Judgment out of my throat.”
“Chose a heavy weight to lift when ya picked up the sword, didn’t ya?” Loga brooded into his own ale.
He wore a polished, undented helmet and breastplate to show respect for the solemnity of the day. His wide, craggy face carried shadows under his eyes.
“Knew Thar since his first breath. Thought once he and my Narl might make the pledge, but she had an eye for Neill. Narl and Neill? I says to her.” Rolling his shadowed eyes, he made Keegan laugh.
“Still, a good mate he is, a good father to their children. And the gods know, as I do now, Thar would’ve broken her heart as he’s broken his ma’s.”
“She didn’t come for the Judgment.”
“Wouldn’t. Sul tells me she weeps all through the night, but she won’t speak his name in the light of day. Under my nose he was, I tell ya, and I never saw it in him. But when I look in the backward way, aye, it was there, clear enough.”
“The girl Caitlyn O’Conghaile had parents, a brother and sister. Not just sharing a camp, but a cottage. She had a man who loved her. Not one saw it in her. Some hide the truth of themselves very well indeed.”
“How many more, do ya think? Every Troll in Talamh will hunt with and for ya on this.”
“I can’t say.” Someone struck up a tune on a pipe, and hands clapped the time. “That’s the hard truth of it.”
“Without the Daughter of the O’Ceallaigh, we wouldn’t have known of Thar, and I’d be dead. She’s the key, and there’s no doubt of it. Wouldn’t take payment for healing my scratch.” He brooded over that. “Puts me obliged to her, I find. Not used to that.”
Then he shrugged his big shoulders and drank some more. “Sul says if the one she’s carrying comes out a girl, she’ll have the name of Breen. Arguing with a woman most times gives ya a head worse than a night of drinking bad ale. But argue with a pregnant one, and ya’ll have your balls kicked blue.”
“As my own sister’s had three, I can’t argue with that point. Is she well, Sul? She didn’t come with you.”
“She’s too far along with the new one for so long a journey, and I risked my balls saying so, as she was bound to come. But as up in temper as she was over all of it, she’s a woman of sense. Had to bring three with me to stop her nagging, but it’s company on the traveling.”
“You and your party will have a meal with me tonight, and rooms at the castle until you journey west again.”
“We’ll take the meal, but we’re not ones for bedding down in a castle. We’ll camp in the fields and ride back at first light.”