The Undivided (23 page)

Darragh managed to sneak back into his chamber at
Sí an Bhrú
before Brydie woke, but only just. She was stirring as he tiptoed across the darkened bedchamber to her side, undressed and slid under the covers. He breathed a sigh of relief, grateful she hadn’t seen how he’d returned to his room. That was a secret Darragh had not even shared with Ciarán. Had Brydie witnessed him appearing out of nowhere like a
Leipreachán
he would have had no reasonable explanation for her. He shouldn’t be able to do it, and he didn’t think any other Undivided had ever been able to perform such a feat. He’d have a great deal of explaining to do, if word got about that Darragh of the Undivided had a power known to only occur naturally in the
Daoine sídhe.

Would Rónán have the same ability? he wondered as he closed his eyes. Brydie stirred against him. He slid his arm around her as if he didn’t want to let her go. Then he felt her turn, lift her head slightly …

He realised he’d left the candle burning. He extinguished the flame with a thought, hoping Brydie hadn’t opened her eyes, or if she had, that the flame was burning so briefly she barely had time to register it before the room was plunged into darkness.

‘Darragh …’

‘Mmmm …’ He pulled her closer.

‘When did you get back?’

‘A little while ago,’ he told her. ‘I tried to be quiet so I wouldn’t wake you.’

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Our lost rift runner remains lost.’ It was easier to play along with her assumption that a rift runner was what he was looking for, and it was certainly safer for her to believe Ciarán was still out there looking for him. The last thing he needed right now was Brydie and her divided loyalties discovering the truth about Rónán.

She turned to face him, snuggling down under the blankets. ‘Colmán came by just after midday yesterday, to ask when I was leaving.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Not a thing,’ she said with a mischievous giggle. ‘I just pounded the headboard as loudly as I could, moaned in ecstasy and shouted your name a few times. He probably went away to compose an ode to your legendary prowess as a lover.’

Darragh smiled. ‘I really only needed you to keep him believing I was still here for a day.’

‘Oh, trust me,
Leath tiarna
, he believed it.’

Darragh wasn’t sure what he was going to do with Brydie. She was the only person in
Sí an Bhrú
who knew he’d sneaked out. Would she keep his secret? Or betray him the moment he let her out of his sight?

Or would she hold it over him, in order to force considerations from the Undivided? And if she did that, what would she want? Wealth? Power?

He studied her in the darkness. Brydie seemed very pleased with herself. So he kissed her, thinking that the best way to head off any discussion that might start with ‘And now for the favour you owe me …’ Brydie kissed him back with parted lips, sliding her hand down his belly toward his groin.

‘I’ll see that Álmhath knows you were diligent in your duty,’ he whispered through the kiss. Brydie had helped him, after all, by keeping Colmán away. It was the least he could do to let Álmhath think Brydie had done her duty by her queen, too. Although if Brydie wasn’t with child a month from now, she might have some awkward questions to answer. He tried to sit up, but Brydie moved onto her knees, threw back the covers, and grabbed his stiffening penis with her hand and lowered her mouth over it. His back arched and he gasped, before letting out a startled cry which was interrupted by Colmán rushing into the room with a lantern in one hand.

‘
Leath tiarna
!’ he cried, and then he stopped dead as he took in the scene before him. ‘Oh … I’m sorry … I thought perhaps …’

Brydie raised her head and glared at him. ‘You thought
what
, old man?’

Colmán’s appearance put an immediate end to Darragh’s burgeoning desire. With a sigh of regret, he pushed himself up on his elbows as Brydie sat back on her heels. She didn’t seem to care that Colmán was staring at her nakedness.

‘I thought perhaps the
Leath tiarna
was finished with his amusements. I fear I was being overly optimistic.’

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Darragh said.

‘Perhaps not in here,
Leath tiarna,’
Colmán said, glaring at Brydie with disgust as he changed the lantern to his other hand. ‘But you have been far too long, my lord. The Council of Druids has been convened.’ He closed his eyes and began to intone the opening lines of his next Bardic composition, ‘The Undivided turns from his duty, the
Tuatha
scheme, while he lusts after —’

‘Enough!’ Darragh cried.

Why had the Council been convened?

He muttered a curse, spared Brydie an apologetic grimace and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘When did they convene?’ he asked, reaching for his trousers.

‘Just on dawn,’ Colmán told him. ‘They’ll just about be finished with the formalities. If you hurry, you can get there before Marcroy addresses them. I will compose something along the way to announce you.’

‘That will help no end, I’m sure.’ Darragh stood up and pulled his trousers on, hopping on one leg, then the other. ‘How did Marcroy manage to convince the Council of Druids that he should be heard?’

‘The same way he does everything,
Leath tiarna
,’ the Vate said. ‘By sounding reasonable. You must hurry.’

‘What about me?’ Brydie asked. ‘Are you just going to run off and leave me?’

‘Of course not,’ Darragh said, pulling his shirt on. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You can go to the kitchens and tell them I said you could have whatever you want.’ He winked at her and added, ‘You’ll need a good feed after the exercise we’ve had.’

Without giving her a chance to object, Darragh scooped up his boots and hurried out of the bedchamber, pulling them on as he went.

‘No good will come of your licentiousness,
Leath tiarna
,’ Colmán warned as they hurried down the corridor toward the main hall.

‘You sound like one of those Christians,’ Darragh told him, tugging his boots on as he hopped his way down the hall. ‘Do you remember them? The ones who arrived here just before the Spring Equinox last year and demanded we denounce the
Imbolc
festival and embrace the one true god?’

Colmán nodded. ‘I remember.’ The old man loathed their cult with a passion out of all proportion to their small numbers. ‘We should have killed them.’

‘They’re entitled to worship their own gods, Colmán.’

‘That wasn’t why I wanted them killed,
Leath tiarna.
’

Darragh didn’t have time to discover the real reason. He had a council meeting going on without him. ‘What happened after word got out that I was locked in my room with Brydie?’

‘What do you think happened?’ Colmán asked crossly, and more than a little breathlessly, as he hurried to keep up with Darragh. ‘Marcroy started talking to anybody who would listen. They made much of you allowing Brydie to sit in your brother’s place the other night. Your rudeness in locking yourself away all the following day to sate your carnal needs while the queen of the Celts and a prince of the
Tuatha
are guests in
Sí an Bhrú
will have consequences,
Leath tiarna
.’

‘What consequences?’

‘Marcroy claims he has an announcement to make. He’s claiming to have solved the problem of the missing Undivided twin.’

That’s not possible. How could he know? Rónán’s been back barely a day!

‘Did he give an indication as to how he has solved this dilemma?’

Colmán’s brow furrowed and he began tugging on his forked beard, a sure sign he was nearing the edge of panic. He hadn’t even tried to compose an epic since they’d left his bedchamber. ‘I don’t know. He said he and the Celtic queen have an announcement to make — one that will solve all our problems — but I can’t imagine what he means by that, or why Álmhath has allied herself with him.’

Neither could Darragh, and that was a problem. What was it that Brydie had told him?
The
Tuatha
have found something they weren’t meant to find.
He cursed under his breath for allowing himself to become too distracted by the search for his brother. One could not risk taking one’s eyes off Marcroy Tarth for a second, if one expected to stay even half a step ahead of him. ‘I wonder if he’s trying to modify the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
.’

‘Could he do that?’

Darragh nodded. ‘He’s never been happy about Druids being able to wield
sídhe
magic, and would very much like that power restricted to the
Tuatha
once more — assuming he could find a way to void the treaty without breaking any
Tuatha
laws.’

Colmán frowned. ‘Is that even possible?’

‘Maybe it is,’ Darragh said, cursing softly under his breath. He needed more time. He needed to stall this inevitable confrontation until Rónán was ready to meet his destiny. Right now, his brother barely spoke his mother tongue. If he brought him back too early, Rónán would never be able to navigate the treacherous politics of the Druids and that might be the death of both of them, just as surely as Marcroy Tarth’s politicking.

Darragh closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if there was some glimpse of the future to be had that might suggest whether or not he was on the right path, but nothing came to him. With no other course open to him, Darragh squared his shoulders and continued down the long stone hall to confront the untrustworthy Faerie who was responsible for Darragh’s predicament in the first place.

The Giant’s Causeway at sunset looked exactly like the entrance to a magical kingdom, which was appropriate, Trása thought, as she circled the rock formation, looking for the entrance to
Tír Na nÓg
. The tallest of the staggered steps were as high as the pillars of a Greek temple, while others were barely big enough to stand on, weathered by the relentless waves that threw themselves against the stones, as if they, too, sought entry into
Tír Na nÓg.

It was low tide when Trása arrived, the flat stones brimming with puddles of luminescent water that reflected the setting sun like a pile of rubies scattered at random by some careless giant striding along the edge of the sea. The rock pillars formed a series of steps that climbed to the cliff top where many humans had lost their lives, searching for something only a Faerie could see.

There were other entrances to
Tír Na nÓg
, of course. Other places closer to the veil, where Trása could have entered the Faerie realm. But there were none so majestic, none so evocative of the power and majesty of her kind.

And none quite so much fun to fly over.

Birds squawked at her as she rode the thermals down to the shoreline. The causeway was a haven for noisy black-and-white cormorants, blunt-beaked razorbills and a score of other sea
birds. Tucked amid the weathered rock formations were a host of rare and unusual plants, much sought after by human herbalists, including sea spleenwort, frog orchid and vernal squill. Ignoring the temptation to go fishing for her dinner, Trása landed on the first row of stones poking out of the water, the chill air cooling her naked skin as she resumed human form. She stood looking up at the rocks with the retreating sea at her back, admiring the pathway into the Faerie kingdom in the light of the setting sun.

Trása smiled, anticipating her welcome. Marcroy would be pleased with her, she knew. Not only had she succeeded in finding the lost Undivided twin, but she’d found a way to keep him trapped in an alternate reality, one from which he could never escape.

That was a good thing, Trása knew, although exactly why it was a good thing had never really been explained to her. In any case, it wasn’t her job to question her uncle. Marcroy Tarth was a prince of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
. His only interest, Trása was certain, was the safety and security of their people. If the Undivided were a threat to the
Daoine sídhe
, and breaking the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
an act of treason no sane Faerie could contemplate, then he was doing what he must, she reasoned, to save them from … well, whatever it was that would happen if the treaty were broken.

Trása wasn’t very clear on that point, but as no half-
Beansídhe
would dream of questioning a cousin of the Faerie Queen, unless Marcroy volunteered the information, she wasn’t likely to be told the consequences. Unlike humans with their republics, and their congresses, and their empires and their constantly shifting forms of government, the ruling line of the
Tuatha
was constant. There had not been any change in the way the Faerie conducted their political business in ten thousand years.

Trása was not going to be the one responsible for changing that.

She skipped up the stones, leaping across the magical pathway, invisible to the human eye. The tops of the thousands of columns formed stepping-stones emerging from under the sea that led to the cliff — a natural formation humans were fond of trying to explain. The most popular story about how they came to be was that the legendary giant, Fionn, had been trying to create a bridge to Scotland after he was challenged by another giant who was eventually outwitted by his wife.

Trása thought it interesting that even in legend, despite the power of a giant capable of building something on the scale of the Giant’s Causeway, in the end, it came down to a woman using her brains, to save the day.

Of course, if she believed what she’d seen on television in the reality where Rónán was now trapped, then the causeway wasn’t magical at all, just forty thousand or so interlocking basalt columns, the result of a volcanic eruption over sixty million years ago.

Trása thought the legend of Fionn the Giant much more plausible.

She reached the top in twilight, not long after the sun had disappeared below the horizon. Her skin tingled as she passed through the magical veil that separated the
Tuatha
kingdom from the realm of man. It wasn’t so dark here, the magic glimmering from everything that lived. Even the trees pulsed with life, showing Trása the way to the centre of
Tír Na nÓg
where the majestic trees that housed the
Daoine sídhe
grew. She didn’t know how long it would take to get home — time had no meaning here in any case — but it always seemed different. Some journeys seemed endless, others so short it was as if
Tír Na nÓg
was perched right on the edge of the Giant’s Causeway, others so long it felt as if she’d travelled all the way to Avalon.

Today the journey seemed to lie somewhere in between the
two extremes. Trása couldn’t be certain — only a true
Daoine sídhe
was completely immune to the time dilation effects of
Tír Na nÓg
— but it seemed she reached the sacred trees just on dawn. Intoxicated by the magical air of the forest, she made her way up the curved stairs the
sídhe
had coaxed the sacred trees into growing, hoping her mother was home. After all, it wasn’t long since Amergin’s death. Hopefully, Elimyer had yet to take another human to feed on. She’d loved Trása’s father. At least as much as a
leanan sídhe
could love a human. Why else did she restrain herself so? Elimyer could have drained Amergin’s life force in a matter of months, had she cared nothing for him. But she hadn’t. She’d kept him for fifteen years. Lived among humans with him. Allowed him to raise his half-breed daughter among his own kind, until she was too old to play innocently with the playmates of her childhood.

Surely, Elimyer would take some time, Trása hoped, to grieve her beloved human husband before consigning the memory of him to history, and moving on?

The sacred trees of
Tír Na nÓg
were full of hollowed-out caves and broad boughs wide enough to act as platforms. When Trása reached the branches belonging to her mother, high among the magical leaves, there was a young man sitting cross-legged on the wide branch, painting feverishly, using a thick brush to dab paint across a large canvas. She watched him for a moment, recognised the intense, almost obsessive look in his eyes and sighed. Elimyer, it seemed, hadn’t waited long at all.

‘
A Stóirín
!’

She looked up to see her mother emerge from the dark entrance of her quarters in the sacred tree. She was as beautiful as Trása remembered. Like Trása, Elimyer had long, white-blonde hair and eyes that seemed carved from emeralds, but the points on her ears were far more pronounced than her daughter’s. Naked like Trása, she held out her arms to embrace her daughter.

Trása moved forward cautiously. She looked at the young man as she approached her mother. Instinctively, her eyes filled with tears. Whoever he was, the man was not destined to live long. His end was so near, Trása could taste it like the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. She wondered if she should say something to him, but she never got the chance. Elimyer was smiling, revealing her tiny pointed teeth. ‘Trása, my darling! You’re home!’

Trása stopped just short of embracing her mother. Elimyer glanced past her daughter at the young artist working so intently and smiled even wider. ‘You’ve nothing to fear, daughter. As you can see, I’m not starved for affection.’

It wasn’t her mother’s need for affection Trása was worried about. She loved her mother, but Trása was half-human. Elimyer was
leanan sídhe.
That made her just as capable of consuming her daughter’s life force as she was of consuming the young man’s.

‘Who is he?’

‘His name is Éamonn,’ her mother told her. ‘I found him in the markets of Crúachu. He’s very talented.’

Trása smiled. ‘With you as his muse,
Máthair
, how could he be anything else?’

Elimyer laughed. ‘I trade inspiration for life force, Trása, not talent. And I’ve known many a
leanan sídhe
who didn’t understand the difference. Are you hungry?’

Trása nodded, wishing she’d eaten before she arrived. Faerie food was often as ephemeral as the magic from which it was conjured. After using the energy of a bird to get here, she was famished. ‘There’s no need to fuss, Mother. I can find something myself.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Éamonn, caught in a trance so inspirational that he would stay that way until he fainted from hunger and thirst. ‘And you’re feeding at the moment.’

‘It’s all right, darling,’ Elimyer said, waving her arm in Éamonn’s direction. ‘I’m sated for now.’ The young man suddenly looked up, as if he’d just woken from a deep sleep. He stared at his half-finished canvas blankly, and then looked over at Elimyer. When he saw her, although drained and pale, his face lit up.

‘Rest now, Éamonn,’ she told him. ‘Eat. And don’t forget to bathe. You can finish it later.’

He nodded, put the canvas down and climbed to his feet, stumbling so close to the edge of the branch, Trása feared he might fall. He righted himself and staggered toward them.

‘This is my daughter, Trása,’ Elimyer told him as he stopped and stared at her suspiciously. He would be jealous, Trása knew, of anybody who might compete with him for Elimyer’s affection.

‘You never said you had children,’ he complained, eyeing Trása warily. ‘Will she be staying long?’

‘Not long, dear,’ Elimyer assured him. ‘Now run along. We have family business to attend to.’

Still glaring at Trása, Éamonn pushed his way past them into the tree cave.

‘You’re draining him too quickly,’ Trása accused her mother, recognising the signs of obsession that came with an artist utterly consumed by his muse. That had never happened to Trása’s father. Elimyer had restrained herself out of genuine affection for Amergin. As a consequence, he’d lived until he was in his mid-forties, before the strain of sustaining a magical muse destroyed him. This young man was doomed to die. Sooner, rather than later.

At the rate Elimyer was draining Éamonn, he’d be lucky to see his next birthday.

‘He’s a snack, dear,’ Elimyer said. ‘Not a life-long commitment. Have you been back long?’

Time meant little to Elimyer, so the question was more out of politeness than real interest. Nor was her mother concerned
about anything she might have seen or done in the reality where she’d been living these past few months. A world without magic was inconceivable to a pure
Daoine sídhe.
Trása would have no luck explaining it, and Elimyer wasn’t interested, anyway.

‘Not long,’ Trása said.

‘And your mission for your uncle was successful?’ Elimyer asked, waving a hand to produce a magical bowl of fruit that was pretty and perfect but hardly enough to sate Trása’s appetite. This question was also asked out of politeness. Elimyer had no interest in politics. Even after living for fifteen years in the inner circle of the Druids, she had little or no care for their business — a source of endless frustration for her brother. Her mother’s lack of interest in human politics was what had caused Marcroy to turn to Trása, of this she was certain. As helping her uncle gave her a purpose in life, Trása was silently thankful Elimyer was only interested in artists, and what they could do for her.

‘Very successful,’ Trása said, taking a perfect apple from the bowl. She bit into it, the taste sublime, but the meat of the apple dissolved almost as soon as she began to chew. Elimyer had forgotten, apparently, that her daughter was half-human and, when in human form, needed human food to sustain her. ‘In fact, that’s why I’m here. To report my success.’

Elimyer nodded. ‘He’ll be glad to hear of it, dear,’ she said, ‘but he’s not here.’

‘Where is he?’

Her mother paused thoughtfully. ‘He did tell me, I’m sure … but you know how I am with things like that.’

‘Mother,’ Trása said firmly, taking her by the arms. ‘Concentrate. Where did Marcroy go?’

The
leanan sídhe
paused for a moment, her face creased into a thoughtful frown. Then she smiled. ‘I think he went to
Sí an Bhrú
. Something about a meeting with Álmhath and Darragh.
Do you remember Darragh, dear? You and he used to be such good friends when you were smaller.’

Trása nodded. ‘I remember, Mama. Did he say when he’d be back?’

‘Who? Darragh?’

‘No, Marcroy,’ Trása said patiently.

‘He might have, darling. But I don’t remember.’ She gasped as if suddenly struck by a grand idea. ‘Why don’t you go to
Sí an Bhrú
and find him? I’m sure Darragh would like to see you, too.’

‘I’m not allowed to visit
Sí an Bhrú
, Mama. Don’t you remember?’

‘Why not?’

Trása stared at her mother for a moment and then let it go. If Elimyer didn’t remember the reason Trása was sent away from
Sí an Bhrú
, she wasn’t going to open any old wounds by reminding her.

‘Perhaps I will go,’ she said, wondering why she ever expected anything more from her mother. She was
leanan sídhe
. There was no fighting her nature. No trying to change it. No point in lamenting it. ‘Will you tell Marcroy I’m back if you see him before I do?’

Elimyer looked at her blankly. ‘See who, dear?’