Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (9 page)

“That’s good. But still . . .”

The door to Meriel’s bedchamber opened and Isibéal peered in, her gray-streaked black hair caught in a colorful scarf. “Isibéal,” Meriel said, waving to her. “Please, come out here.”

The Taisteal woman nodded, moving with unconscious grace and ease across the bedchamber toward the balcony. She stopped at the open doors and gazed up at the fading mage-lights. Her eyes, even in the starlight, were an odd light blue in her dusky face. “I came for Ennis, Banrion Ard,” she said. “It’s time he finished his studies for the day and then got to bed. I hated to bother you, but the hall garda said the boy was with you . . .”

“Thank you, Isibéal. You’re right, of course. Ennis . . .”

“Mam!” Ennis protested automatically, but Isibéal laughed and took three lithe and quick steps onto the balcony, sweeping the child up in her arms and spinning him around twice so that he finally laughed and squealed in delight. Meriel noted that Isibéal’s feet, as always, were bare.

“It’s how I grew up,”
she’d said to Meriel when they’d first met.
“My soul feels trapped when my feet are all bound in leather.”
Meriel had found herself more interested in the woman’s Taisteal background, remembering her own times with the itinerant folk. “
My father was some handsome, smooth-talking clan wanderer, who came to my mam’s village and left a day or two later. One of the things he left behind was me in her belly, and I think I have more of him in me than her . . .”

Isibéal had been sent by the Mother-Creator, in Meriel’s view. Theneva, the matron who had been in charge of the staff for Meriel and her children, had vanished not long after the Festival of Méitha, without notice or so much as a word of warning. The other servants, one of whom Meriel had hoped would take over Theneva’s role, seemed helpless and overwhelmed by the responsibilities of tutoring and caring for the Banrion Ard’s son. The head of Edana’s household staff had sent Isibéal to Meriel. Isibéal had references from Banrion Taafe of Tuath Éoganacht and was seeking employment; the serendipity had been compelling, as if Fiodóir, the Weaver of Fate Himself, had arranged things. And Ennis . . . when Ennis had been introduced to her, he’d fixed Meriel with that strange and serious look. “You need to hire her, Mam,” he’d said solemnly. “It’s important.”

“How do you know that?” she’d asked him, laughing.

“The blue ghosts told me,” he’d answered, then frowned when he saw that the response caused Meriel to clench her jaws in irritation. “I
know,
Mam,” he said then. “I just do.”

That had been but a month ago. Already Meriel couldn’t imagine her household without Isibéal’s presence. “Now you come with me, young Tiarna,” Isibéal told Ennis, “and I’ll tell you a tale. What would you like to hear?”

“Tell me about the haunts in the barrows!” Ennis answered. “I liked that one.”

Isibéal glanced at Meriel with a grin and a sidewise roll of her eyes. “And have the wights chased you in your sleep?” she asked.

“I’ll kill them with my sword,” Ennis declared, and he held out his imaginary weapon again. “See!”

The women both laughed at his fierce scowl. “Even warriors must have their sleep,” Isibéal told him. “Let’s go and leave your mam to her duties.” Isibéal cuddled Ennis to her and caught Meriel’s gaze. “Banrion Mac Ard asked if you would care to take some refreshment with her and the Tiarna Mac Ard, and there was a rider from Tuath Airgialla just come in who has a message for you, also.”

“From Airgialla?”
Perhaps there’s word of Owaine and Kayne. They should be returning from Céile Mhór by now, and I feel Owaine so much closer . . .
She went to Ennis and kissed him on the forehead, ruffling his hair. “Go on with Isibéal, darling. I’ll come see you later, and make sure those wights aren’t bothering your dreams.” Isibéal’s gaze was on her, those odd light eyes. “Airgialla. It would be so wonderful to be with Owaine again after so long.”

Isibéal’s smile widened. “I’m sure you will be,” she told Meriel. “Very soon.”

“I hope you’re right, Isibéal.”

Isibéal shifted Ennis’ weight on her hip. She kissed the boy where Meriel’s lips had touched him a moment before. “I’m certain of it,” she answered. “We Taisteal know these things.”

DILLON’S LIPS were warm and incredibly soft, and tasted slightly of the sweet milarán cakes that had been served for dessert. Sevei pulled back reluctantly from the long and lingering kiss, leaning her head on Dillon’s shoulder and enjoying the comfort of his arms around her.

They were pressed into the corner of one of the small courtyards of the White Keep—the First Holder’s Wing. Sevei’s gram had created this section herself over the space of a week several years ago, crafting the rooms and corridors and sweeping great halls with the power of Lámh Shábhála. The stone was gleaming white, so pure that it seemed to capture the light of the sun and release it in a soft glow for hours after sunset. In the mage-lights, the smooth and slick walls glittered with the captured colors of the sky. Sevei thought that the First Holder’s Wing was the most delightful of all the spaces within the White Keep; the fact that it was her gram’s design only made it more special.

Though there was still light in the western sky, she and Dillon cuddled in relative darkness, with Sevei’s back against the cold curve of a tower’s base. The fireworks display of the mage-lights had come far earlier than usual, just as they’d finished their supper, with the edge of the sun still visible over the horizon of the Westering Sea. For the first time, Sevei had lifted her own cloch to the lights, standing between Gram with Lámh Shábhála and Máister Kirwan with Snarl, both of them instructing her as the intense colors of the sky inundated them, banishing even the dying sun’s light. The brilliant multicolored shadows had swept around the White Keep and the First Holder’s Wing, and Sevei had gasped with the wonder of it all, marveling at the feeling of holding the mage-lights within herself, within the clochmion.

Though she still didn’t know what her stone could do. It had yet to tell her.

“Was it awful for you tonight, my love?” she whispered into Dillon’s ear. “I know Gram can be . . . intimidating.”

“Well, that’s certainly one word for her,” Dillon answered and she felt him shiver once in her arms. “She seemed . . . I don’t know, a bit distant all evening.”

“She’s not feeling well,” Sevei answered, “and she’s taking medication for the pain. Kala bark.”

Dillon nodded. “The rumors I’ve heard among the students are that she uses andúilleaf, too.”

Sevei shook her head at that. It was gossip she’d heard as well, a tale she hoped wasn’t true. Andúilleaf addiction had driven Jenna mad twice already, with disastrous consequences both times. “I don’t think so. I don’t think she’d be that foolish.”

Holding him, she felt Dillon’s shrug. His breath tickled her ear, warm. “Maybe not. But when she finally started talking during dinner, I thought she was going to interrogate me about every last person in my family down to the fourth cousins. I swear that she knew family members
I
didn’t know I had.”

“I’m sure Gram had her staff doing research all day before you arrived. She’s thorough that way. I don’t blame her for wanting to know, though. A little suspicion is a survival trait in our family, I’m afraid.”

“I understand.” He gave a quick chuckle. “And then watching all three of you, with the mage-lights . . . well, I’m amazed that I’m allowed to be near you at all.” His lips sought hers again, and she lifted her face to his.

For several long breaths, they said nothing. Sevei let herself fall into him, as if they were one body. She’d had infat uations before, some serious, some not. Before she’d been sent out to fosterage, she and Padraic Mac Ard—Banrion Edana and Doyle Mac Ard’s oldest son—had become close, close enough that she knew Mam and Auntie Edana had whispered about a possible marriage in the future.

But Dillon . . . Dillon was an even more intense attraction than Padraic: handsome, intelligent, a talented Bráthair of the Order even if he held no cloch na thintrí yet, and a gifted musician with the harp. She could sometimes feel as close to him as she could her twin Kayne. She wondered if she could feel his thoughts as she did her twin’s, if she tried hard enough. They’d been together for half a year now; a time that felt simultaneously like forever and but a few days. When at last she reluctantly pulled her head back, she put her mouth next to his ear.

“I suppose you’ll do,” she husked.

They both laughed—that had been Jenna’s comment to Sevei as they left her chambers hand in hand:
“I suppose he’ll do. As long as he’s what you want right now . . .”
They kissed again, shorter this time but more urgently, and when Dillon’s fingers slid down her side to her waist, she caught his hand with hers. “I should be getting back to my room. Máister Kirwan said he was going to be following along in a few minutes, and you know what that means.”

“Aye, I know. Though . . .” He stopped. “Maybe he’ll spend the evening with your gram instead.”

“Dillon!” Sevei exclaimed in mock horror, then chuckled. “So you noticed, too.”

“Aye. It was obvious. Our Máister likes the First Holder, and she seems to like him as well.” He kissed the nape of her neck and she lifted her chin with a sigh, feeling the kiss all the way to her core. “I wonder if your great-da knows?” he continued.

“I don’t think he would care, actually. They hardly spend much time toge—” Dillon stopped her words with his mouth, but she gave a gasp, feeling a stabbing of something almost like pain in her chest; Dillon pulled back, looking at her quizzically.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know . . .” Sevei felt as if a knife point had been pressed between her breasts, heated to a white-hot glow. She reached for the spot and felt the clochmion there. Her fingers went around it, almost involuntarily, and with the touch, she felt her awareness double: part of her was standing there in the courtyard in Dillon’s arms, and another part of her went sweeping outward over the Westering Sea. She could feel . . . out there . . . something . . .

“Sevei, what is it?”

“Shh . . .” she told Dillon. “There’s something close to us, out to sea.”

Letting go of Dillon’s hand, Sevei hurried to the entrance of the courtyard and the bars of the gate. She pushed open the gate open and stepped out from the keep wall, peered down the steep slopes of Inishfeirm to where the Westering Sea could be seen through the trees fringing the cliffs of the island. To her right, the main wing of the keep loomed. “I don’t see anything,” Dillon called behind her, still inside the gateway of the courtyard. “Maybe if we went up into the tower . . .”

“We don’t need to do that,” Sevei answered. “I can feel it with the clochmion.” She lifted the chain over her head, holding the stone in her hand. It was glowing now, as if in response.

“No, wait,” Sevei said. “There
is
something. Look. Is that a bird, maybe?”

She tried to point so that Dillon could see, though it was difficult with the doubled vision in her head: she saw both herself looking out but also staring inward at the island where she stood. The form
did
seem like a large bird—a shape seen against the stars—but suddenly the perspective shifted on her and she realized that the creature was much farther away than either of them thought, and that the beast was far, far too large to be a bird. The creature rushed toward her, or she rushed toward it—with the twin visions in her head, it was difficult for Sevei to tell which.

“By the Mother . . .” Dillon husked behind her. “Sevei . . .”

“I know,” she answered, not looking back at him but at the creature, her voice full of awe. “Dillon, I think I brought it here.”

Majestic and terrible, the dragon swelled in size as it came over the island, the tops of the very trees bending with its passage. It hovered above the library tower flanking the main gate of the keep: leathery wings catching the cold air, brown-and-gold scales glinting in the last light of the day, though with the moonglow from the east and the twilight to the west, the tail stretched out behind the dragon seemed to be blood-red. The wings flapped once with a boom like thunder and clawed, muscular feet grasped the top of the tower as it perched there, far down the main wing from Sevei. Claws clenched and mage-stones fell, cracked and broken. The creature stared at her down the length of the White Keep: at Sevei and the stone in her hand. Even at this distance she knew the creature’s attention was on her, because she could see herself through the dragon’s eyes. Its mouth opened and it screeched as alarm bells rang throughout the keep, heat shimmering from the tooth-lined cavern of its mouth. Then the wings flapped again and it pushed away from the library tower, sending a portion of the wall falling. Now it came toward the First Holder’s Wing and her.

Sevei was frozen; she could only watch.

Dillon darted out and pulled Sevei under cover of the archway as the dragon half landed, half crashed into one of the guard towers above them. A milk-white block smashed to the ground a dozen strides from them, burying itself in one of the garden beds as it crushed pansies and herbs. The beast’s frilled head lowered on its long neck and eyes the size of a man’s head glared at them under thick ridges, no more than an arm’s span away. It opened its mouth once more and there was a glow inside, while heat wavered and steamed in the night air. They could feel the warmth of the air and smell the scent of carrion.