So she played for her own comfort and pleasure as she kept vigil.
She sensed him before he spoke, looked over as Fin came to sit beside her.
“You don’t sleep enough, or rest well enough when you do.”
“I’ll be doing both when this is finished. See how well he sleeps. Is that a saying? The guilty lose little sleep? Something of the kind, I think.”
“But he dreams, I know it.”
“Put it away, Finbar. There are five who stand against you there, so the one must bend to the five. I know the wish of it. I thought, well, I could give him a troubled night, by only sending my music into his dreams. But why? What we do, what we send, it can be turned back on us. And we know what we will do, when March winds down.”
“What will we do? There’s something in here.” He tapped her temple. “Something you’re not saying to the rest of us. One not bending to five, Branna?”
“Not that at all. I haven’t worked it all through yet. I promise you I’ll tell you, and all—however I find I stand on it at the end. I only want to be sure where that is first.”
“Then come back to bed. He’ll give you no name tonight, and cause no harm. He sleeps, and so should you.”
“All right.” She laid her violin carefully in its case, took Fin’s hand. “Kathel goes out again tomorrow. He’s been out with Connor, with Meara, Iona, Boyle, and with you as well. You’ve all seen the wolf. I see it through Kathel. But all he—or I find—in the mind is a rage and a... caginess,” she added as they moved through the kitchen, toward the stairs. “That’s a different thing than active thought, that caginess, that rage. But it knows its name, as creatures do.”
“I’ll join Connor tomorrow, with the hawks, and with Kathel. It may be having me with your hound, and Connor to add more power, we’ll find what we need.”
“It should be you and I,” she realized. “He confuses me with Sorcha from time to time, and covets her still—covets you. The two of us, with Kathel. And the two of us who can join with the hound. I should’ve thought of it.”
“You think enough. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.” He drew her into bed, wrapped around her. “You’ll sleep now.”
Before she could understand and block, he kissed her forehead, and sent her into slumber.
For a time he lay beside her in a stream of pale moonlight, then he, too, began to drift into sleep.
And from sleep into dreams.
Baru’s hooves rang against the hard dirt of the road not yet thawed. He didn’t know this land, Fin thought, yet he did. Ireland. He could smell Ireland, but not his home. Not his own place in it.
The dark night, with a few pricks of stars and the wavering light of a moon that flowed in and out of clouds all closed around him.
And the moon showed a haze of red like blood. Like death.
He could smell smoke on the wind, and in the distance thought he saw the flicker of a fire. Campfire.
He wore a cloak. He could hear it snapping in the wind as they galloped—a dead run—along the ringing ground. The urgency consumed him; though he didn’t know where he rode, he knew he must ride.
Blood and death follow.The words echoed in his head so he urged more speed out of the horse, took Baru up, into flight under the red-hazed moon.
The wind rushed through his hair, whipped at his cape so the song of it filled his ears. And still, beneath it, came the bright ring of hoofbeats.
He looked down, saw the rider—bright hair streaming—covering the ground swiftly, and well ahead of those who raced behind him.
And he saw the fog swirl and rise and blanket that rider, closing him off from the rest.
Without hesitation, Fin dived down, taking his horse straight into the dirty blanket of fog. It all but choked him, so thick it spread, closing off the wind, the air. The light from the scatter of stars and swimming bloody moon extinguished like candlewicks under the squeeze of fingers.
He heard the shout, the scream of a horse—sensed the horse’s fear and panic and pain. Throwing up his hand, Fin caught the sword he brought to him, and set it to flame.
He charged forward, striking, slicing at the fog, cutting through its bitter cold, slashing a path with his flame and his will.
He saw the rider, for a moment saw him, the bright hair, the dark cape, the faintest glint from a copper brooch, from the sword he wielded at the attacking wolf.
Then the fog closed again.
