“Did you?” she asked, at last. “Lose it.”
“I lost it a long time ago. And I fear it is not something that easily returns, even if I wanted it back.” I stood. Sinéad stood with me. “Iwillkill my sister. Soon, I hope. And the only regret I will have is that I did not do it sooner.” I hesitated, then added, “You saw her, did you not? At the Hazel Gate.”
She gave a brusque, unhappy nod.
“Do you think she meant it?” The words bloomed dark with all my unspoken fears. “When she threatened the lives of Chandi and Rogan?”
Sinéad’s eyes yawned dark as hollow graves. “Not only did she mean it, Fia, but she meant it as a… benediction. She believes what she’s doing is holy. I dread the toll Eala’s magic will take. I only hope those I once called friends will survive her reign of death.”
We wove through the labyrinth of the Cnoc in search of Laoise.
“You slept a long time,” Irian said, from a step ahead of me. “I had begun to worry.”
I glanced at the changeless rocks. “How late?”
“Well into the afternoon, I fear.” Irian paced in silence before adding, “It was good of you to speak to Sinéad. She has been troubled.”
“It was good of you to train her,” I responded. “If not speak to her about her troubles.”
“Mo chroí.” The glance Irian threw over his shoulder was faintly amused. “You should know talking is not my greatest talent.”
“Yourgreatesttalent?” I laughed. “No, I daresay it is not.”
He turned on his heel, walking backward as he lowered his gaze to mine. He opened his mouth, but whatever he might have said was drowned out by the sudden sound of arguing.
“… Are you mad?” Wayland’s usually merry tenor was tight with irritation. The hair on the back of my neck lifted—I was not used to audible aggression from the prionsa of Emain Ablach. “That is the last thing we should wish to do!”
The response was quiet, but I thought it must be Laoise’s cool, accented voice. I widened my eyes at Irian; we both walked a little faster.
Unlike the rest of the Cnoc, the forge was still rough-hewn. The stone bore the divots of chisels and hammers, and scorch marks where draig fire had smoothed the masonry. Wayland and Laoise faced off over a workbench. Behind Laoise, a large red draig hovered, her pellucid wings glowing faintly in the silver glow permeating the walls; between them on the table, a fat little baby draig rolled around, her soft tummy a strange counterpoint to whatever conflict was winging between them.
“Nothing has changed!” Laoise was arguing. “Unless you simply do not know how?”
“My knowledge is irrelevant. I am not my father.”
“Oy!” My voice’s harmony joined their discord. Both turned toward me, faintly guilty. “What’s the problem?”
“Why have we built this forge, if not to forge things?” Laoise swept her arms broadly. “We all agreed it was the best path.”
“That was two months ago.” Wayland pointed to one of the veins of silvery mineral threading through the dark rock. “Nowsheis here. It changes things.”
“How?” Laoise’s screech of frustration rattled the draig at her back. The creature stretched its wings, the hard ridges nearly touching the roof of the cave.
“Because I am not my father!” The repeated words scraped abrasively. “He kept her enslaved for a thousand years. Now that she is here, I will not use her in the same way!”
“It is metal, Wayland. This is a forge. You, presumably, are a smith. Albeit an inept one.”
Wayland glowered. “Do not try to shame me into abandoning my values.”
“A convenient value indeed. For I have not heard you voice it before.”
“That’s enough.” I wasn’t sure I understood the argument, butit was clear Laoise and Wayland were going around in circles, and both were likely to hurt themselves on the barbs they were slinging. “Surely there is a way to resolve this without shouting at each other.”
“There is,” Laoise said, with sharp impatience. She turned to the draig at her back—bigger than a horse, with fiery red-gold scales and wings scraping the sides of the forge—and pointed at a dense vein of silver-gold metal bisecting a wall. “Blodwen, melt!”
Wayland lunged around the table. “Blodwen, don’t—!”
The draig—Blodwen, I gathered—had already reared onto her hind legs, fanning out her wings as she inhaled deeply into her barrel chest. A blaze sparked deep in her gorge, shining between her rufous scales like light through chinks of armor, then rose swiftly along her sinuous neck. She opened her delicate muzzle, studded with distinctlyundelicateteeth. Snaked her neck. And breathed fire.
