Icefall (48 page)

Finn laughed. He liked the sound. ‘Yes. The death of our own Veil was nothing to fear. The other Veil, the Dark one? You watch what you're doing with it, young man.'

‘You're the one who—'

‘Asked you to do what you never should. I know. I'm sorry. When Kate failed the Darkfall, it tried me. And it came
this close.
' Rubbing her arms, she made a rueful face. ‘It was Kate who had to be defeated, Kate who would have destroyed us. That's what it's been about.'

‘Not the Veil surviving. Us.'

She shrugged briskly. ‘Her prophecy came true. Nothing was indeed hers.'

‘Till my dying day, I'll remember her face.' An echo of horror tickled his spine.

‘She got a legacy of a sort, then.' Finn smiled at the ocean. ‘Well, Conal was right to fight her, even if he didn't know why. We had to survive Kate, and stay human. Me included, Rory. Up till last night it was a bit of a close-run thing.'

‘Kate might still destroy the Sithe, Finn, dead or not. You sure we'll survive without our own Veil?'

‘Oh, hell, yes. We're human
,
Rory. We've a right to live with other humans. We've a duty to live with them, we were
built
to live with them. Jed was always right. That isn't the otherworld, this is. A ghetto. It protected us while we needed it.' She grinned, a little wickedly. ‘Besides, who's going to protect the full-mortals from Lammyr and Selkyr and kelpies when the Veil dies? They have no idea what's going to hit them in a few years' time.'

There was such smug satisfaction in her voice, Rory couldn't help his snort of laughter.

Finn slipped her arm through his. ‘Well. Now we're all grown up, and maybe the full-mortals are, too. We have to learn to live together. Without killing each other. That's all.' She shrugged. ‘What else does it mean to be human?'

Rory sobered, and fell silent for a long moment. ‘Can you see Sionnach living without this world?'

She rubbed a hand across her tired face, then said quietly, ‘Or me.'

He swallowed. ‘Finn—'

‘If we can't adapt we'll die, Rory. That's evolution.'

‘No, it's natural selection.'

She laughed at the correction. ‘Yeah. Is there a better kind?'

‘Are you leaving, Finn? Because that isn't what Dad wanted.'

‘Not yet.' She stared out at the horizon.

‘Let him go, Finn.'

‘I have to, don't I?' She rubbed her fist across her nose. ‘He told me to, there in the Stones. He said
Let me go.
Because he wants me to live. Damn him.'

‘He'll still be there.'

‘Yes. The dead are dead, Rory. I've got no right to hang on and hold him down. But I do have the right to go to him. And I won't wait forever.'

‘Fair enough.' Clasping her hand, he kissed it. ‘Nobody gets forever.'

 

EPILOGUE

 

Hannah

‘There's something I keep wondering,' I told Rory.

A year later we sat on horseback among the pines at the Loch of the Cailleach. On the spit of beach Finn and Sionnach sat close together, hands linked in the sand as they watched the twins paddle and splash and fall over. Laughing, Finn stood up to rescue one of them, passing him into Sionnach's arms as the other, too, fell onto its backside and began to wail.

Branndair didn't move to help, just watched them contentedly from the rock where he lay half-dozing. Too old for infant rescue missions, was Branndair. There were grey hairs on his muzzle and I expected him to be gone, one morning soon. I was surprised he'd stayed this long, but Seth had told him long ago to keep an eye on Finn. Old habits died hard for Branndair, and besides, I think he was enjoying the holiday of his dotage. He liked to have small children climb on him. He had all the patience he needed: for boisterous twins, and for waiting. He sat among the Stones sometimes, was all.

Each consoling a sodden infant, Sionnach and Finn made wry faces at one another, and Finn pressed her head to Sionnach's arm. He loosed it from Nathair to put it around her shoulder, and she huddled into him.

Finn's night visits to the sea weren't so frequent now. When I woke in the small hours and watched her ride out, I didn't worry so much. Not quite so much. Still, I wouldn't go back to sleep till she rode back, the hem of her coat dripping seawater, her jeans and boots soaked.

Trying it out
, said Rory.
Getting up the nerve.

He would come to my side and put his arm around me and together we'd watch her ride back across the moonlit machair.

What woke you?
I'd say, and he'd raise his wrist to show me the cold green stone frosted with condensation.

This
, he'd say.
Let me know she was gone. It does that.

One day we'd wait, and wait, and we wouldn't see her ride back. Finn would go to the Selkyr in the end, and Sionnach would go with her. Rory knew that and so did I. Who were we to stop them?

But I knew they wouldn't go yet, not while the twins were so small. They'd go before the Veil died, but that might not be for a year or two. And in the meantime, they weren't alone. Watching Finn's fingers tighten on Sionnach's, catching her wicked smile aimed only at him, I knew that.

But like her mother, Finn would die one day of her own volition. The oath hadn't killed Stella: we'd worked that out. Stella had willed the thing that killed her into existence, and given in gratefully, because she could no more be parted from Aonghas than Finn could from Seth.

Finn was handling life a little better, though. I thought that and laughed as I watched her nuzzle the squalling Allta into quiet contentment. And I could do that, I thought. I could be a mother, even if I could never have a child with Rory. Nathair and Allta could have us. Anthill stuff.

‘What were you wondering?' asked Rory.

‘It's stupid.'

‘I bet it isn't.'

‘My Dad, Jed, Eili. The rest.' I hesitated. ‘Why d'you suppose they were armed?'

‘That's not stupid.' He grinned at me sheepishly. ‘I was wondering that myself.'

‘You think Kate's still around?'

‘Nah. Nothing left of her.'

I sighed. ‘So what would they be fighting?'

‘That old legend. The one about the rebel angels?' He scratched his neck. ‘Maybe it's not all legend.'

‘Oh, yeah? Minions of Satan, and all that?'

‘Nah. I'm not sure even proper angels take sides.'

‘Who you calling improper?'

He grinned, blew hair off his face. ‘Oh, bear with me. You ever wonder why the Lammyr look forward to dying? Why the Selkyr are so damn keen to help us on our way? It's like we're ordinary humans who came from somewhere else in the first place.'

‘Aye, right.'

‘And maybe—I dunno—there's further to go? Veils beyond veils beyond veils.' He pulled a face, half-smiling, a little awkward. ‘More adventures.'

It had an appeal. It had a distinct appeal. Against my will, I gave him a wry smile.

‘An awfully big adventure?' I suggested.

A grin split his beautiful face.

‘Just that, Lost Girl.'

He linked his fingers with mine, and kissed the back of my hand, and in the late sunlight of a dying world we rode back to the dun together.

 

THE END

 

REBEL ANGELS NOTES

 

THE TRUE NAMES

I've mentioned before that the Sithe play fast and loose with their Gaelic, and nowhere is this truer than with their names. With one exception, I left out all the graves and acutes that adorn real Gaelic; this makes it less authentic in terms of our own world, but after one attempt to put them all in, I gave up on the grounds that it was more distracting than helpful. Sorry, real Gaelic speakers. Gaelic words also tend to have different spellings, and a multiplicity of meanings depending on pronunciation, but that was another thing I learned to live with. I picked a word and a definition on grounds, usually, of its beauty or its aptness for the character. And some of them, like Sorcha, Luthais, Raonall, and Fearchar, go simply by their birth names (in those particular cases, they are the Gaelic versions of Clare, Lewis, Ranald, and Farquhar).

M
URLAINN

Seth's name is one I have only ever found in one Gaelic dictionary—defined as
falcon—
but I didn't let that put me off. It suited him so well, I couldn't resist. A merlin seemed too appropriate to turn down: small, but fast and deadly. Anyway, Seth insisted, and there's no arguing with Sithe names.

C
Ù
C
HAORACH

Apart from the slight echo of the great Irish hero Cuchulainn, I liked this name for Conal: it means ‘hound of the sheep,' or sheepdog, which suited him down to the ground.

C
AORANN

I named Finn
Rowan
because that tree is traditionally a protector against bad spirits, and a rowan tree in Scotland is a thing you mess with at your peril. Given Finn's protective role in the clann—not to mention her occasional air of menace—there seemed no more appropriate name for her.

C
URRAC-
S
AGAIRT

Hannah's name was a tricky one. She was always going to be
Wolfsbane,
but the actual Gaelic for that term is
Fuath-a'-mhadaidh
, which is such a mouthful I'm not even going to make a phonetic attempt at the pronunciation. By way of compromise (and taking pity on her friends who had to use it), I decided to go for
Monkshood,
which is simply a different name for the same poisonous plant.

O
THER
N
AMES, IN
A
LPHABETICAL
O
RDER:

 

And finally …

N
ATHAIR AND
A
LLTA

Quite what was going through Finn's mind when she named her twins
Snake
and
Savage
, I don't know. Even though she was on the other side of sane at the time, I'm sure she had her reasons. One day they might turn up in my head again, and tell me.

THE MYTHS

I cherry-picked the myths and legends of Scotland and did what I liked with them, because I firmly believe that's what they're for. No disrespect to the marvellous originals, but myths, legends, and folklore are made to be played with.

T
HE
S
ITHE