One by one, the mourners approached the grave and placed offerings on the coffin’s lid. A knife from Cormac—his own, not Ronan’s, given freely. A bundle of dried herbs from Maeve, tied with red thread. A hand-carved wooden sword from one of the older members. Thomas placed a single bullet. Henry, a folded letter.
Then it was Duff’s turn.
He reached into his coat and withdrew his father’s hunting knife. The handle was worn smooth from decades of use, the leather wrapping dark with sweat and age. The blade was immaculate—Ronan had maintained it with religious devotion, honing it every evening by lamplight while telling Duff storiesabout the hunts it had been part of. Ronan’s first dragon kill. The O’Connor they’d killed in the Swiss Alps. The Fitzgerald family they’d found vacationing in Iceland, which had taken three slayers to kill.
Duff had carried this knife since the moment his father’s hand had gone limp around it.
He kneeled at the edge of the grave and set the knife on the pine lid. His fingers lingered on the handle for a breath longer than they should have. Then he pulled his hand back and stood. His throat was tight. He swallowed against it, hard. Not here. Not now.
“The oath,” Cormac said quietly, looking at Duff.
Right. This part was his now. As Ronan’s son, as the last direct descendant of the original Duff Bás, the oath was his to lead. His to carry. He’d recited it a hundred times at gatherings, always following his father’s lead. This was the first time he would speak it first, and the weight of that nearly buckled his knees.
He straightened. Shoulders back. Chin up. His father’s posture.
The words were old—older than the church, older than the village, older than anything in this wet, wind-scoured landscape. He spoke them in Irish, the original tongue, the language that connected them to the first hunters who had made this sacred vow.
“Mionnaimid ar fhuil ár sinsear.”We swear on the blood of our ancestors.
The others joined, their voices weaving with his. “Go seasfaimid idir an domhan agus an dorchadas.”That we will stand between the world and the darkness.
“Go leanfaimid an fiach go dtí go dtitfidh an ceann deireanach.”That we will continue the hunt until the last one falls.
“Nó go dtí go stopfaidh ár gcroíthe ag bualadh.”Or until our hearts stop beating.
“Tá an sealgaire tar éis labhairt.”The hunter has spoken.
Duff meant every word. Every syllable had the weight of absolute conviction behind it. This was who he was. This was what he was for. His father had known it, and his father’s father, and every Bás stretching back to the one who’d started it all. The dragons were evil. The hunt was righteous. The oath was sacred. He would not falter. He couldn’t.
The rain still streamed down on them, and the wind was picking up again, moaning through the gravestones like something alive and sorrowful. The small group of mourners now moved toward the church hall, shoulders hunched against the rain. Cormac clapped Duff’s shoulder as he passed, a hard, wordless squeeze that said more than any eulogy could. Maeve pressed a warm hand to his cheek and looked at him with kind eyes.
Inside the church hall, Maeve had laid out a simple spread—fish stew, dark bread, strong black coffee. The room smelled of wet wool and smoke from the cast-iron stove in the corner. People ate and talked in low voices, sharing memories of Ronan.
Duff moved among them. Cormac pulled him aside and gripped his arm. “Your father was proud of you, lad. He told me so every chance he got. Said you were the best of all of us—better instincts, better tracking. Something almost supernatural about it.” The older man’s eyes were red, but his gaze was steady. “He said you could find a dragon in a snowstorm, blindfolded.”
Duff managed a nod. “He taught me everything I know.”
“He taught you the craft, aye. But the gift? That’s in your blood. That’s pure Bás.”
The ember in his chest flared at the words.Pure Bás.He held on to that.
Thomas and Henry approached, eager and young and trying too hard to hide it. They wanted to join Duff on his next mission. Their eyes shone with the fervor of new converts, the kind of untempered zeal that could get you killed in the field. But Duff saw himself in them—a younger version, burning to prove himself, desperate to be worthy of the lineage—and he agreed. He’d take them on a training run. Teach them what his father had taught him.
As the gathering wound down, Duff noticed a man he didn’t recognize—middle-aged, well-dressed in a dark overcoat that was too expensive for this village, standing in the shadows like someone who didn’t want to be noticed. He’d been at the funeral too, hovering at the edges. Duff was certain he’d never seen him before.
The man caught Cormac’s eye as he slipped toward the exit and passed him a thick cream-colored envelope. It disappeared into Cormac’s coat in one smooth motion.
Duff’s hunter instincts prickled. “Who was that?” he asked when the man had left.
Cormac barely glanced up. “Friend of your father’s. He sent condolences and a donation to our cause. Generous one too.” He patted the pocket where the envelope had vanished. “Ronan had contacts everywhere, lad. More than any of us knew.”
The explanation was reasonable. His father had maintained a vast network of sympathizers and informants—people who believed in the cause but couldn’t or wouldn’t participate directly. Financial support from anonymous donors wasn’t unusual. It was how they funded operations, maintained safe houses, and procured equipment.
And yet, something felt off. How expensive that overcoat had looked. How slick that handoff had been. How the man hadn’t made eye contact with anyone but Cormac. Duff would have toponder it later. He didn’t have the mental space to process it now.
The hall emptied slowly. Maeve kissed his cheek and made him promise to eat properly. Thomas and Henry shook his hand with too much enthusiasm. Cormac lingered, wanting to talk more, but Duff gently extricated himself. He needed to be alone.
The rain had eased to a cold drizzle when he returned to the grave. The earth was fresh and dark, already settling under the water’s weight. Duff kneeled in the mud. His trousers soaked through immediately, the cold seeping into his knees, but he barely noticed. The sky was clearing to the east—a pale band of light between the clouds and the horizon, promising stars.
