Oath of the Brotherhood (25 page)

They broke camp early the next morning
amidst a damp chill that left a coating of frost on the tree limbs. Conor studied Odran as he scattered the ashes and brushed away all signs of their passing. The tracker did not acknowledge their previous night’s conversation, though he seemed impatient with Conor’s pace.

The sentry post lay a few miles north of their camp on the edge of Seanrós, which bordered central Faolán. It was the closest Conor had been to the kingdoms in two years, and the sight of the ancient trees intermingled with the newer growth of the border forest somehow unnerved him. Odran had found him in one of these border regions, his arrival frightening away the sidhe. Would they encounter something similar on this trip? He hadn’t given thought to the things that existed outside Ard Dhaimhin’s protective wards in months.

Conor would have missed the sentry’s dugout had Odran not caught his attention. Tree roots overhung a low rise, undercut by ages of water, and thick foliage shielded the narrow wooden door set into the side.

The door swung inward as they approached. A stooped, elderly man peered out. “Brother Odran, you’re late.”

Odran gestured for Conor to follow the sentry inside. “Brother Innis doesn’t waste time. Get in there.”

Conor hurried after the sentry and ducked through the door. The dugout was dark and cramped, with a floor and ceiling of hard-packed earth. A candle glowed atop a rough-hewn table with its single chair, and a straw-stuffed pallet lay in the corner. The sentry shuffled to a niche stacked high with wax tablets and parchments, reminding Conor of a gnome from a bard’s story.

“I’m
 
—”

“Brother Conor, I know. You’re the reason he’s late. Odran loses time only when he’s breaking in a new runner.”

“I’m not a runner
 
—” Conor began.

Odran shook his head and leaned casually against the wall. “Feel anything unusual lately, Brother Innis?”

“Not since the last time.” Innis produced a thin wax tablet and handed it to Odran. His eyes passed over Conor as if he weren’t there. Odran jerked his head toward the door, and they stepped out into tree-filtered sunlight.

“That’s it?” Conor said, glancing back at the dugout.

“That’s it. We have half a dozen other posts to visit in this quadrant today.”

Conor fell into step beside him. “What were you asking him?”

“Nothing that should concern you.”

“Did Master Liam tell you not to talk to me about it?”

“If I say no, you won’t believe me. If I say aye, I still can’t tell you.”

Conor had come to expect Odran’s evasive answers, but that made them no less irritating. “Then why would you bring it up in front of me?”

“If you’re as smart as Eoghan seems to think, you don’t need me to tell you.”

Conor let out his breath in a frustrated whoosh. Why did everything have to be a riddle with him?

Their next several stops, only two miles apart, were just as succinct, though none of the sentries were as eccentric as Brother Innis. Nowhere else did Odran ask questions, so Conor assumed only Innis had witnessed the original incident, whatever it had been.

Halfway to their final stop of the day, Odran paused in his stride and cocked his head. “Someone breached the wards on the east edge of Seanrós. Let’s go, quickly.”

Conor picked up his pace, doing his best to move silently without losing sight of his guide. Maybe he would get a chance to see what a tracker did after all. Hopefully it was an innocent incursion that wouldn’t involve bloodshed. Odran seemed far too comfortable with killing for Conor’s liking.

They moved swiftly for at least half an hour, and the effort required to maintain both speed and silence wore on him. Three days was not long enough to master the Fíréin’s deadly stealth in the woods. Odran slowed his pace, but when Conor turned to look, he saw only trees. Did the tracker sense their quarry?

Then Conor heard the soft shuffle of horses and the murmur of voices. He crouched beside Odran in a stand of giant ferns while they waited for the intruders to approach. The tracker eased his sword silently from his scabbard, and Conor palmed a stone from his belt pouch.

Horses’ hooves thudded on the mossy earth, and Conor made out the distinct sounds of four voices, three men and a woman. He held up three fingers on one hand and one on the other. Odran nodded. He had probably come to the same conclusion.

A chestnut mare emerged from a thick clutch of trees, its
rider small beneath a voluminous cloak. Conor glimpsed no weapons. The woman was in the lead.

Abruptly, she reined in and held up a gloved hand. Three men fanned out around her, and blades rang from sheaths.

“Who’s there?” the woman called. “Show yourselves!”

Conor glanced at Odran, amazed she had perceived their silent presence, but the brother no longer crouched in the bushes beside him.

Instantly, half a dozen Fíréin brothers materialized around the intruders, swords pressed to vulnerable points in the men’s armor. A tracker gripped the bridle of the woman’s horse.

“What is your business here?” Odran demanded.

Conor crept around the screen of foliage for a better look. Two of the men faced away from him, and the third looked terrified, his sword hand shaking. Not a warrior, then.

“Forgive us, we didn’t realize we had strayed into the old forest.” The woman’s voice sent a tingle across his skin, a response to an accent rarely heard in Seare. “We were tracking a ward. We meant no harm.”

It couldn’t be. Conor lost Odran’s next question beneath the rush of blood in his ears when the woman dropped back her hood, revealing a tumble of glossy, honey-colored hair. “I am Aine Nic Tamhais, sister to King Calhoun of Faolán and Brother Liam of Ard Dhaimhin.”

Conor’s heart hammered against his ribcage, sending sparks of white across his vision. She’d changed immeasurably in those two short years. Her features had matured into striking beauty, and her quicksilver eyes appraised the armed men without fear. Her commanding demeanor did not hint at her mere eighteen years.

Conor realized he was standing in plain view, gaping, but no one seemed to notice. He stepped back into the bushes and
forced himself to pay attention to Odran’s question. “You said you were tracking wards?”

Aine’s horse shifted nervously, and she gave the brother holding the bridle a stern look. “I would let go. Fiachra is not particularly fond of strangers.”

Odran nodded, and the man stepped away. Aine settled her mount and looked back to Odran. “No doubt you’ve felt the disturbances on the eastern wards? We’re in the process of mapping them. I followed this one into the forest, but I didn’t know I had crossed into Fíréin territory.” She bowed her head. “I apologize.”

Odran seemed unimpressed by the explanation. Conor gripped a stone, ready to throw, and then forced himself to relax. He could not hurt a fellow brother. But neither could he allow Aine to be harmed. He was about to reveal his presence when Odran spoke.

“I suggest you leave the forest with all haste. If you wander this way again, it won’t matter who your relations are.”

Aine dipped her head in acknowledgement. The Fíréin retracted their swords and stepped back to allow the men to turn their horses.

“Let’s go,” she said. The party turned back the way they had come.

Then Aine wheeled her mount around toward Odran. “Some time ago, a young man entered the northern forest, intending to go to Ard Dhaimhin. His name was Conor Mac Nir. Do you know if he ever reached the city?”

Odran looked at her blankly. “I know of no one by that name.”

Aine’s brow furrowed. She nodded and urged her mare into a trot toward her guards. Within moments, they disappeared into the tangle of trees.

Conor went to one knee on suddenly unsteady legs. He had
thought of what he would do if he saw Aine again. Yet she had been a mere twenty spans away, and he had hidden, unable to speak or do more than stare.

Aine had asked about him, though. She had not forgotten him. If only he had revealed himself, he might have talked to her. Why had he frozen in the bushes like a frightened rabbit?

Odran strode toward him, but he passed right by. “Conor?”

“I’m here,” Conor said.

Odran jerked his head toward him and blinked a few times. “How did you . . . ?” He shook his head. “There are a few things you aren’t telling me, I think.”

“I did what?” Conor stopped plucking the partridge beside their campfire. Odran had said nothing about the incident with Aine and her guards until they made camp for the night, and his first question was not the one he expected.

“You didn’t know?”

Conor put down the bird. “I’ve never heard of this fading until you asked me. How would I know I could do it?”

“Nonetheless, you did. Quite well, if I walked right past you. Don’t look so shocked. It’s a common gift among the Fíréin. Sentries and trackers are specifically selected from those who exhibit it.”

Conor could barely wrap his mind around what Odran was saying. “You mean I was invisible.”

Odran chuckled, an oddly disturbing sound. “Hardly.
You
didn’t change. I did. Haven’t you ever been looking for something, say, your flint, and it’s been in front of you the whole time? The flint didn’t disappear. You just overlooked it.”

“So those of us with this fading ability disappear into the surroundings?”

“Exactly.”

A smile crept onto Conor’s face. It explained so much: how the Fíréin just seemed to appear and disappear, how Riordan always managed to startle him, how he had watched Eoghan practice unseen all those times. It even explained why he had always won at hide-and-find as a child.

“How does it work?”

“It’s different for everyone. After a while, you can just do it at will. My guess is you were concentrating on not being seen, so you made yourself nearly impossible to see.”

“Nearly?”

“As I said, you’re not invisible. The ability works on people’s expectations. If they’re looking for you, it’s difficult to hide in plain view. The bigger question is, what about the lady Aine made you so desperately want to stay out of sight?”

Conor’s face heated. Odran had been setting up this question all along. He averted his eyes. “They think I’m dead. If word should get back . . .”

“The lady certainly doesn’t think you’re dead. And given the state of affairs in the kingdoms, I hardly think news you’re alive will make an impact.”

“Maybe not, but it will make Calhoun look like a liar.”

Odran smiled. It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it.

Conor took the first watch, too keyed up to sleep. He wrapped his cloak around himself and tuned his hearing to the forest’s night sounds, but his mind kept drifting back to Aine. She had looked like a queen in her embellished armor, confident and beautiful, commanding. Had he seen her then as he did now, he would never have had the courage to write the love song for her or to take her in his arms the night he left.

The recollection of her soft lips against his, buried in his memory the past two years, sprang to the forefront in vivid
detail. His breath caught in his chest, and he shook his head as if he could shake out the memory.

Aine was not any woman. She was the lady healer of Lisdara. And evidently, she had become someone of note if she traveled with two guards and a scholar. What had she said?
We are tracking a ward. No doubt you’ve felt the disturbances on the eastern wards? We’re in the process of mapping them.

And Odran’s question:
Have you felt anything unusual?

The pieces fell into place swiftly and neatly. The wards that kept Ard Dhaimhin safe from incursion must extend beyond the borders of the forest. Aine was mapping them for the Faolanaigh forces. Were they merely a tool for detecting the movement of enemy warriors, or did they have a more offensive function?

The revelation gave him the direction he had been seeking. The Fíréin must know about the wards. If he could learn something of value, he could leave and offer his knowledge to Calhoun. By now, as Odran so bluntly pointed out, it hardly mattered who knew he was alive.

For the first time since coming to Ard Dhaimhin, Conor knew why he was there, and he finally had a goal fixed firmly in mind.