“I would urge that if this be your hill… then go and set your stones.”
“Hill?” he asked, puzzled.
“Aye. Find a place amongst the rolling green. A place where you can see the sun. Where it be warm, and strong against the wind. And there you must build.”
“And what if I do not choose the right hill?”
She said, “When those stones be lain, you guard them, come whatever may. Many a man should die at his door, but agoodman dies on the hill hechose.”
Maybe he could still be a good man.
“Máta?”
“Aye, Mirín?”
“Will you sing to me the Odes, like you used to?”
“Aye,” she said, with a smile in her sound. And she sang, the words lulling him back to a time of ease, a time of no wrong, when all his hope was golden and all his smiles sure.
Chapter fifty-seven
Cerys
The inn was a smoky contrast to the vibrant green of the Fáoth. The usual revelry was once again absent, even amongst the villagers who seemed nervous in the company of the Féin. The men mulled about in the morning, sending the druid furtive, angry looks.
It wasn’t just the news of the Oracle’s passing that had driven down their smiles. Their faces were stone and ash; their eyes shifting shadows. It was unease, yes, but also suspicion.
As disheartened as he had been on their ride south, it was nothing compared to what he felt in the absence of the Moon.
The Oracle was dead, and now there was no authority on which he could call. All his hope had gone with her, all his proof of what he had seen in the mere. Without the Oracle, he would need to rely on his voice. The one thing that had so often failed him.
He was on his own—a feast for crows.
“The passing of a Seer is met with somber.” It was Nacht. Despite his gargantuan size, the druid hadn’t heard him come up. His question must have been clear on his face, as the holler nodded towards the muttering throngs. “Oracles are the mouth of Nythis. And only they have the power to see the Sun.”
“That is why they name the Vaich,” said the druid.
“Mm. But when she passes, that thread is cut. For a moment, we’re alone.”
If it was true or if it wasn’t, it hardly mattered. Men needed to believe that somehow, something tethered them to the divine. Now, that tether was broken.
Maybe he was not so different as he thought.
“The conclave shall decide on a new Oracle,” said the druid. “Then, will their moods be lifted?”
“Aye,” said the holler, “in time. But for such a thing to happen suddenly… it makes a man question.”
It wasn’t natural what had happened to the High Nytherí. The druid doubted anyone had forgotten, but the matter was returned to their thoughts. Perhaps Old Borrach was right.
It was ill omen.
Flickers in his mind… visions of fire and blood. He had dreamt it in the night. Now, he feared it there beneath the sun. All those men come to ruin… a ravaged, bloody field, and the bodies…
He shook the thoughts away.
“The healer comes,” said Nacht, “I shan’t bother you anymore.”
The holler bowed and departed, and the druid followed the healer upstairs. Her name was Litha—a woman who spoke little, out of fear or respect, he did not know. She had been mute when tending to him the day prior, and seemed content not to meet his gaze again today.
