“And not proven.”
The Vaich clicked his tongue. “I preferred when you were mad.”
“I wasn’t mad. You just thought so.”
A low chuckle and the Vaich shook his head. “By the flame… very well. There is Clan Odhain from Slúin.”
“Slúin?”
“Near the central west. Here…” The Vaich went and pulled a scroll from the cabinet and brought it to spread across the table. The druid had never seen such a map before and his fingers moved delicately, tracing the shape of each region.
“And here,” pointed the Vaich, “is Dunwych. Here is Aonachmar… Sgeirnua…”
The druid listened, but his eyes and fingers trailed to the north and east. His skin brushed the ink…
Arran Fáoth.
The eastern green where the first men had woken. Where was born the primal root and where the people of the wood still walked and wandered. It was where he had come of being, come of age, and left behind, wishing to be free. The bone of his nails grazed the parchment, till the Vaich placed a hand atop his.
The druid drew still.
“It’s your home,” muttered the king.
Home?
He had never knownhome. Not the way men did. He had thought, once, it was naught but a tether. Did he think that now? It was a place far away. A place that was familiar. A place where once he had belonged.
It was… sorrowful.
The Vaich laughed—an empty sound. “Suppose, at least, you might point to yours on a map.”
The words stirred him. His gaze crawled up, seeing the Vaich’s attention far away. “Is Rhyd-hal not your home?”
“Rhyd-hal is everyone’s home.” The Vaich shook his head. “And no one’s.”
“We all leave our wood,” the druid said quietly. “I left mine many years ago.”
The Vaich’s gilded gaze slid over him, but whatever conclusion he came to, he kept it, pulling his hand away. He pointed again at the ledger. “The riders from Annath.”
“Annath?”
“The river flows from the north sea here”—the Vaich showed him on the map—“all the way down to Dunn Kennigh. Those who mind the river do so in the shadow of the Border Clans—the Dúnan Toor—and the mountains of Fír. The final gate between us and Escgalia.”
Escgalia was a vast kingdom to the east. The druids had said that after the Awakening, some of the first men wandered through the mountains and laid claim to the tundra there. And those men became feral fighters who worshipped gods of iron and ice.
“Is it not possible to make alliances with the ones beyond the mountain?”
The Vaich laughed again. “An alliance with Escgalia? Such a thing has never been. It has not even been considered.”
“You could consider it.”
“This you don’t understand.”
“No,” he replied simply. “I don’t.”
“Even if I could bring every son of Cullach under my banner, the beasts beyond the border are at no one’s behest. The Strider himself could not bring them to heel.”
“Is it so impossible?”
