“Aye, master.” Home. Had Conall’s hut become that? Not truly. Not yet.
Liadan, though, was there. His heart insisted that counted for something.
He raised his eyes and studied the expression in Dornach’s. “I will be ready to fight, Master Dornach, whenever ye summon me.”
“See that ye are.”
He walked back to Conall’s hut slowly through the rain, not certain what he would find there. The folk he passed still stared at him, but a large measure of their animosity had flown, consumed by a wider misery.
Would he find acceptance in time, for this thing he had not done? Forgiveness? Dornach, at least, believed in him. That meant much.
But this thing Dornach expected him to do, take first place among the warriors and without Conall at his side, seemed equally impossible.
What had he implied about Cathair? That what Ardahl had considered a friendly rivalry had turned into something else?
Something deadly.
He’d never liked Cathair, braggart and bully that he was. And aye, they had competed against one another for some time. But Cathair would never go so far as to harm Conall just to ruin Ardahl.
And if he had—how? It had been Conall who’d turned on Ardahl in anger, there in the sunny field. Cathair who’d been close enough to bear witness.
A cold chill chased its way down Ardahl’s spine, one not caused by the rain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Life, as Liadanknew it, had flown. She thought it had changed irreparably with Conall’s death, as it had. With Ardahl’s presence among them and Mam’s grief. Hard enough to bear, with all the feelings tumbling through her, and her need to make things right.
Now the entire settlement had been turned on its head, everything altered again. What had been personal grief became widespread and consuming. The hurt and terror touched everyone.
And she learned something about herself. She liked order and a quiet life. She liked knowing what was going to happen, and when. She could handle difficulties if she saw them coming.
This kind of unexpected, disastrous change felt harder. It threw her off her stride.
And then there was Ardahl.
Och, what to do about him?
The long night they had spent together and its accompanying terror had also brought a change. She might wish to deny that, but in all honesty could not. She had clung to him for comfort, and he had provided it.
She found it harder and harder to believe him a serpent.
And her heart—her treacherous heart began to react on its own. Whenever she saw him, when he came back from the war chief’s hut or some warriors’ meeting, it leaped without herpermission. Her eyes flew to him as if she needed to touch gazes with him for reassurance.
If only he were not such a handsome man. She liked everything about him, from the mane of red-brown hair to the way he moved. Living close to him as she now did, the desire—for she could not in honesty name it as aught else—rendered her helpless.
His presence lifted her. Intoxicated her. Threw her into despair.
Following the attack that Chief Fearghal insisted on calling a raid, there was a string of burials and so much grief it was hard to bear. The chief, who had himself lost his home, called frequent meetings, during which he spoke from the heart about recovery and revenge.
A good chief, was Fearghal. But rebuilding would be difficult and recovery long. Especially with the chief druid, Aodh, gone. Tamald, second in rank, had taken over for him, but as Liadan heard whispered when she went to the spring or elsewhere among the women, if such a holy man could be taken from them, had the gods themselves turned on the tribe?
Waiting for another raid, day by day, kept everyone on edge. Women wept for very little reason, and men lost their tempers without warning.
At least Mam was better, if Liadan could call it better. She had ceased with her endless grieving since the night of the raid and the flight up the hillside. Now she stayed quiet all the time. She sat in Conall’s sleeping place or beside the fire with idle hands and empty eyes, and had to be persuaded to eat. It was difficult to get so much as a word out of her.
Gone was the mam who had chattered endlessly over her work, showered affection on her son and two daughters, laughed easily.
It felt as if Liadan had lost someone else she loved, just a shell left behind.
