The druid scoffed, turning away. “I will not hear more of this. Of false gods and prophets—”
“Faith is a matter of choosing, but divinity… that is not to be denied. Your people have held to their guiding spirits for thousands of years. But it is not by chance, the emergence of gods.”
The druid said, “Æon’Righ is strong because men made him strong. They needed a sword to wield undue power. So, they gave their delusion a throne.”
“And what if you could have a throne of your own?” said Hirí.
“I desire no such thing.”
“Desire and destiny are two separate forces,” said the Oracle. “That choice may be out of your hands.”
The yoke clasped around his neck tightened.
“Those who would profit from our power are the same men who subjugate you now. We are not so different, druid. Your ropes be at our throats, too. For centuries we have been bedeviled by the An’Atherin; the Moon their chattel, the woodfolk their prey. Together, we could do great good forbothour people.”
“Then I am sorry your Mistresshas steered you poorly,” said the druid, the heat inside him surging. “I will not be badgered into alliance.”
“Would you deny your kinship with us? Look at you. It is written in your blood! My dear boy, you carry Her pale mark—”
“You are mistaken!” The druid tore himself from the moment, leaving both questions and answers to fester in his mind. He returned to the castle, his footsteps beating in time with his racing heart.
He would not—could not accept some far-fetched story of divine intervention. It was nonsense. It was mischief.
When men first awoke, there was only the land, the sea, and sky.
Hispeople were the walking memory of that world. The druids honored the earth—not in prayer, but recognition. They took what was offered. They wasted nothing. And they returned what was taken.
These were the teachings he had been given since birth; the foundations on which he had built his life. To be told now that he was somehow indentured to a fallible deity behind a veil…
Up the back staircases and through the dark halls he went.
The druid had fled a calling once, long ago, and as he ran, he repeated his words from twelve years before.
Do not listen.
Chapter eleven
Faith
In a túrgaine cottage on a sea-beaten cape, lived a fisherman and his wife. She had come to carry in the winter, and a great burden it was. The weather was cold and unforgiving, and ice gathered along the shore. The man could not take his skiff beyond the bay, nor did the ground give up its ware. But as the days passed, and the woman grew swollen, an uncanny thawing came about. The frost pulled back from the land, bearing fruit as early as Úth Taig. Then, the ice went out, and the man could fish again.
And there was much to be found.
Each day their baskets were full and their hearth warm. By Túrna, the larder was overflowing, and by Sólarch, the fisherman’s wife had become most ripe.
“Our bountiful blessing.” They called it, and a woodsingr on a passthrough had told them it was a boy.
A son of summer.
On the fourteenth night of Ain Níne came the midwife from the village north, and thus began a fearsome labor. The woman was near to break and had succumbed to a terrible fever. She was thick with sweat and red from heat. Her work was long and excruciating. At the tenth hour, the door to the cottage opened.
“Who comes here at this hour?” cried the fisherman. “By gods, will you not have mercy?”
“It is by the gods we have come.” The woman who stood there was young and beautiful, with ebon hair and deep, dark eyes. She and her cohorts were dressed in black veils and adorned with gold. “I come in service of the king of gods, the Rider of Suns—Æon’Righ.”
The fisher’s wife wept because she knew their purpose.
“You have come for the boy! You cannae take him!” said the man, but the priestess was not deterred.
