He grit his teeth. “What good is running from myesteemed lairdand his holy prophecy? You would chase me into the sea before failing your gods.”
“I willnae have to go that far now, will I?” The rider yanked the druid after him.
Back at camp, he was shoved in front of the company, now rousing in the twilight. Some rubbed their eyes, blinking at him irritably. They seemed unbothered by the dissipating mist and more annoyed at his disturbance of their sleep.
“I ought to ken better than to trust a druid,” the rider spat. “Next time you try it, I’ll put you in irons!”
“Rask,” warned the sun priestess. There was nothing comforting about her tone; rather, the druid suspected it a matter of self-preservation.
He looked about the camp. When he did not find the moon priestess amongst them, he settled, until one icy drop of sweat slipped down his back.
“Best keep a better eye on the wee pet.” Hirí’s voice was like thunder in snowfall. She came from behind, dressed in white shawls. Her hair and skin were dry.
Impossible.
The druid met her silver gaze.
She smiled—a cat toying with its meal. “We wouldnae wish to incur our Moon Mistress’ wrath.”
Chapter five
The Storm
It was two weeks before the company reached their final roost: a grand castle saddled across dark cliffs.
Rhyd-hal.
It rose from the earth like a sword, piercing the grey sky. A fortress of stone built to house flame. And for the druid… his fated prison.
The grass-laden cape upon which Rhyd-hal sat jutted out boldly into the tide. The white-capped waves battered the stone like a smith against ancient ore. The wind was full of salt, and it lashed against them, gathering tears in his tired eyes. But through his haze, he saw it: the endless black sea and the unsettling churn of that great storm across the horizon. The druid had never met the sea in all his life, but he had seen that storm roiling his mind in the nighttime. He, like all Cullain, knew its name.
The Quell.
It had come to that land ages ago, never dispersing, but looming steadily over the water. The castle lingered beneath a pale cloud, but at its back, the Quell raged eternally.
Rhyd-hal itself was an impressive feat, one that nearly awed the druid to the ingenuity of man. Its curtain walls were stern but smooth, high enough to rival giants. Their earthen eyes might have sentenced the boldest foes, and as their convoy passed beneath the city gates, he felt as if he, too, had come before judgement.
The fortress made no qualms about its brutality. It was built by warriors, and its imposing presence across the landscape was nothing short of an intimidation.
The city at its feet—built of the same thick stone—clambered in its shadow as if beggars gripping the skirts of their king. Narrow houses crawled upon the mount, half-built into the rising castle walls. Its crooked streets were busy with merchant carts and littered with hay. Sellers and tradesmen mingled beneath wooden signs as plump fowls clucked underfoot. The roads were pooled with rainwater, and smelled of petrichor blended with raw odors of the body.
As the convoy ascended, an audience of curious citizens gathered, but the druid was well-hidden behind the horses. They reached the citadel gate where a worn portcullis was heaved up by a cumbersome rope. Once within, the bannermen circled the bailey in neat formation.
The druid’s mind worked to make sense of it. The size and scale of a single structure rivaling even the towering pines of the Fáoth. He could smell it upon the air; the heft of its age.
Its dominance.
The old rider said, “Does it bewitch you, druid?”
“My kin denounce the industry of men.”
“You are man, too.”
“We bleed of the same earth, but the treads we leave could not be more different. The land will remember your incursion. It should not remember mine.”
“How one could delight in being forgotten… that is some cockshit I’ll never understand.”
“Our differences are plenty.”
