Gerard ground the butt of his spear against the ice, coming to a stop near the cliff’s edge. “My lady.”
The figure didn’t move, not for a long few minutes. Jono heard her voice before he ever saw her face, like the crack of ice breaking on a frozen-over river in the middle of winter.
“Long has it been since this land felt your steps, Cú Chulainn,” the Cailleach Bheur said.
Gerard ducked his head, whether out of respect or to ward off the wind, Jono didn’t know. “Home is where my people are. I make of it what I can as the years pass me by, butÉirewill always be the place of my birth.”
“The wind still carries your name here.”
“I hear it stronger on other shores these days.”
The goddess straightened up to her full height, her stooped form larger than life in a way Jono couldn’t explain. She turned away from the storm on the horizon to finally greet them face-to-face. Even from a distance, Jono could see she wore no clothes beneath her cloak, but the lack of coverage in the cold didn’t affect her at all. The goddess’ wrinkled skin was a dark blue, and her hair was as white as the snow around them. It took Jono a moment to realize that the large shape in the middle of her forehead was a single eye.
The Cailleach Bheur climbed off the rocks she stood on, using her staff for support as she came to meet them on the cliff. The closer she got, the colder it became, and Jono’s breath puffed out of his nose and mouth in soft white clouds. When she finally stood before them on the same level of land, Jono could see her single eye was dark gray and streaked with white, like the waves pounding the shore below.
The Cailleach Bheur curled both gnarled hands around her staff and leaned her weight against the ancient wood. Jono’s gaze dropped to where the end touched the ground, noticing how more ice spread around where the goddess stood.
“Brigid called you home,” the Cailleach Bheur said.
Gerard’s expression never changed. “You heard her.”
“Pah. I always hear, whether I am stone or like this. Brigid rules her seasons, and I rule mine.”
“Then you know the Summer Lady was taken to complete a bargain with Medb.”
The Cailleach Bheur’s mouth curled, revealing teeth smeared red with blood. Strangely, her lips remained pale, pale blue, with not a hint of red staining them. “There are war games and there arewar games, and that one’s trickery does her no favors.”
“Gwyn ap Nudd said you could help us find where they are hiding Órlaith.”
The Cailleach Bheur tapped her staff on the ground, sending more ice cascading outward. “I am capable of many things, Cú Chulainn. Capable does not mean willing.”
“Let me guess. You want payment for your help,” Patrick said.
The bitterness in his voice had Jono taking a step closer. In doing so, he drew the Cailleach Bheur’s attention, and her regard was harder to face than Brigid’s. That fact seemed to amuse her.
“I bled for his dagger, wolf. I chose my side. My payment in this fight was already given.”
“Then what do you want?” Jono asked, carefully ignoring the way Fenrir roused at her pointed remark. The god stayed quiet though, content to listen rather than speak through Jono.
“What our kind all desire in this modern world.” That single stormy eye cut back to Gerard, the shrewdness in her gaze that of the long-lived. “A life remembered.”
The wind howled over them, the only sound for minutes on end. The tip of Jono’s nose grew numb, as did his ears. His hair, damp from falling snow, sent droplets of water trickling down his neck to seep into the collar of his shirt. He tried not to shiver, knowing that he’d probably never stop if he started in this supernatural cold.
“If my father wants me home, tell him to ask me himself,” Gerard finally said, the words coming out from between clenched teeth.
“You have tales that have yet to be told, carried on voices of the Irish diaspora. Come home and speak them to new ears.”
“And if I don’t?”
The Cailleach Bheur shrugged, her cloak twisting around her hunched, naked form. “Then you must live with the echo of silence as the years pass all of us by. Your life cannot escape our pantheon despite the bits of mortal blood that run through your veins. You are immortal in the eyes of our kind, in our stories. No amount of distance will change that. You go by many names, but only one has ever mattered.”
“Órlaith matters to me.”
“If you want her, then you will come home, Son of Lugh. You will bring the prayers that sustain you and the worshippers who remember you back to this land they left behind.”
“It’s not his fault none of you figured out how to be worshipped as the world changed,” Patrick said.
“It is not our fault those of your blood seek our destruction, and yet, here we are.” The Cailleach Bheur shuffled forward, ice paving the way for her. “Nothing of worth is ever free. There is a price for all things, and we gods are not excluded from that give-and-take.”
