Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (38 page)

“I’ve placed Tiarna Mac Ard’s name in nomination,” Mas Sithig said, “and I see no reason to withdraw it.” He groaned as he shifted the huge bulk of his body on the granite seat of the throne. “And I see no reason to prolong the agony of my backside here in this Óenach. I say we vote and then return to the keep and supper.” He lifted his trebled chin with its thin gray hairs. “Infochla says ‘Aye,’ ” he said.

“Gabair says ‘Aye,’ ” Torin Mallaghan spoke quickly, still glaring at Fearachan.

“Connachta says ‘Nay,’ ” Fearachan interjected immediately. “Not that it matters. It seems that this ascension was planned from the start.”

“Airgialla says ‘Aye,’ ” Morven Mac Baoill spoke loudly. “And we believe that it matters very much who is Ard. We already have trouble on our borders with the damned Fingerlanders.”

Caitrín Taafe, Banrion of Éoganacht, nodded agreement. “Éoganacht also says ‘Aye.’ The Tuatha will need to work together, not against each other.”

Doyle’s gaze was caught by movement. Edana had risen from her throne, even as the brown-haired, slight man to her left tugged at his clóca and cleared his throat. “And ‘Aye’ is also Locha Léin’s vote,” agreed Eóin O Treasigh, Rí of Tuath Locha Léin. He realized that no one was listening to him, that all of the Riocha in the gallery and the Ríthe on their thrones were staring at Edana.

Doyle saw Torin lean over to Mas Sithig and touch the old Rí’s arm with a warning shake of his head, but Mas Sithig had already started to speak. “And Dún Laoghaire?” Mas Sithig asked Edana.

“The Óenach doesn’t need Dún Laoghaire’s vote,” she answered. She looked up at Doyle, and he saw nothing but glacial ice in her eyes. “I can count as well as the rest of you, and you already have your Rí Ard. And I hope your lives with him end up happier than mine.”

With that, her gaze dropped away from Doyle and she walked out of the Halla.

“I’m sorry, Mam. I truly am.”

Edana turned from the window to find Padraic—dressed in the green clóca of the Order of Gabair, and with his new Cloch Mór lying there on its chain—standing at the door to her inner chamber. “Your maids tried to announce me, but I just came in,” he continued. “Da’s really upset, you know.”

Edana lifted a shoulder. She made no attempt to hide the blotches of red on her cheeks or the trails of moisture from her eyes. “Your da is hardly the only one,” she said.

“He wants what’s best for the Tuatha, Mam,” Padraic said. “He’s also doing what he must do to protect us—you and me and the rest of our family. I believe that, even if you don’t.”

Edana tried to smile at her son. He sounded so much like Doyle. Looking at him, she could see a reflection of the Doyle with whom she’d fallen in love nearly two decades before. Padraic had the same brilliant red hair, the same intense eyes, the same way of standing with his weight shifted to one foot, the same unconscious presence. “I know you believe that, Padraic,” she told him. “And I’m glad that you’re so certain about your da’s intentions. I truly hope you’re right.”

“But that’s not what you believe.”

“No.” She said it more sharply than she intended and she saw him flinch. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

“Da cares very much about you, Mam. He loves you still.” Padraic tilted his head slightly to the right, lifting his eyebrows as if inviting her to believe him. It was a gesture she’d seen Doyle make a thousand times over the years, and she found herself smiling softly in answer. “I’ve heard him say it,” Padraic continued. “Just today at the Óenach, in fact. I’ve seen his face when he talks about you. It’s just . . .” Padraic shrugged. “Da says that good rulers are married first to their Tuath. That’s why they often have trouble in their other marriage.”

So I’m to blame for us being apart, because I was Banrion and abandoned him . . .
She thought it, but resisted saying it to her son. “You’ve grown up so much,” she said instead. “Your voice, the way you stand and walk . . . Sometimes I forget that you’re not the little boy who used to hold up a pebble to the mage-lights at night and pretend he was a Holder.”

“Mam . . .”

“I’m sorry, Padraic. It’s just . . .” She went to him, putting her arms around him. She felt him resist for a moment, then allow her to embrace him. Their clochs lay together, a hard barrier between them. “I always loved your da and our children first,” she told him, whispering the words into his hair. “I always loved you. And your Aunt Meriel . . . I knew that it was the same with her, that she loved Owaine and her children ferociously, without any excuses or reservations.” She stepped back slightly, holding his head in her hands so that they gazed in each other’s eyes. “Aye, sometimes a ruler must put her duties first. But that doesn’t mean she can’t love or that any affection she feels toward someone else is doomed.

“Do you still love Da?”

“I don’t know.” She saw the hurt in his eyes at her honesty. She kissed his forehead and then hugged him once more before stepping back. “The truth is that your da has a jealous and demanding mistress.”

Padraic shook his head. “No, Mam. I’ve never seen him with anyone else. Ever.”

She smiled at his defense of Doyle. “She’s not a person,” Edana told him. “She’s his Ambition, and once I thought that I was stronger than she was. Once I thought that I’d driven her away. I was wrong. I underestimated her determination and her influence and the lengths to which she would go, and because of that, Meriel and Owaine and Jenna and all the others are dead.”

Padraic shook his head. “I don’t like that either, Mam. Aunt Meriel was a good woman and I loved her also, and Kayne and Sevei . . .” He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “That act wasn’t Da’s doing, Mam. Aye, he attacked Aunt Meriel’s mam, but in that there wasn’t a choice. The Mad Holder would never have given up Lámh Shábhála voluntarily.” If Edana had closed her eyes, it could have been Doyle speaking. “You know that. But even so, Da
didn’t
kill them, Mam. I was there when he confronted the First Holder, remember? It was all so chaotic, with all the clochs fighting. The Holder threw
herself
into the sea, and then poor Sevei leaped after her . . .”

He stopped. She could see the pain and grief in his face, and she remembered, a few months before Sevei left for Inishfeirm, finding Padraic and Sevei laughing as they sat and talked with one another, their hands intertwined, and walking away softly before they noticed her. Edana could well imagine how conflicted and confused and hurt Padraic had been, being there when she’d been lost to the waves. “You can’t blame Da for everything, Mam. You can’t. This wasn’t his doing or his plan. He had no choice.”

Your da used the same words, and I didn’t believe him either.
He touched his cloch, and Edana realized that it was no longer a clochmion her son wore, but a Cloch Mór: the one named Snarl, which had once belonged to Máister Kirwan. So there was yet another casualty.

We always have a choice,
she started to say to him, but swallowed the words instead. She lifted her hand to his cheek again, feeling the downy stubble there. “I don’t entirely blame Doyle,” she told him. “You can tell your da that. I don’t blame him for all that happened.”

She hoped it was true.

“I KNOW THIS PLACE,” Sevei said. She stared up at the gigantic statue perched on the edge of the sea cliff.

The trees of Thall Coill moved well away from the cliff here, as if the oaks themselves were somehow afraid to approach too closely to the statue of black, glossy stone, a material unlike any Sevei had ever seen. She couldn’t quite decide what the huge carving was supposed to represent: the creature it depicted—four-legged and sitting like a cat perched on a sunlit ledge, contained feline elements but also seemed part dragon, part dog, or perhaps winged creature, since there were long broken ridges alongside its spine that might have been the remnants of long-lost wings. The stone was weathered and eroded from long centuries, the features blurred by time, and it looked as if the entire statue, rearing thirty or more feet above her head, had been ripped from the ground and then smashed down again at an angle. Its back legs were buried in the earth, the front paws resting on air, and a jagged crack stuttered along its haunches.

Far below, she could hear waves crashing in foam against the rocks and the barking cough of seals.

Whatever the statue was intended to be, it was impressive. Staring up at the distant head, Sevei shivered though the day was warm and the sun glinted on the polished stone. There was a sense of hidden power, something greater than mere mortality.

“I know this,” Sevei repeated, her voice hushed with awe. “Or rather, I’ve heard of it. This is Bethiochnead. This is the place of the Scrúdú, the test that Holders of Lámh Shábhála have taken. That my gram . . .” She blinked, unbidden tears rising at the name.

“That your gram underwent,” Beryn finished for her. “And that she, like all the rest of you Daoine who have tried, failed.”

Sevei’s eyes narrowed in annoyance at Beryn’s tone. “She didn’t fail. She
passed
the Scrúdú. She must have. Those who fail the test die. That’s what I was taught.”

“Aye, all the others who failed perished here. I don’t know why Jenna lived, but I know that she didn’t succeed with the Scrúdú. I would know. We would
all
know if that had happened.”

“But Máister Kirwan said—”

“Did the First Holder herself claim to have succeeded?” Beryn interrupted gently.

Sevei thought back to the conversations that she’d had with Jenna. Her gram rarely discussed the time surrounding her rise to Banrion of Inish Thuaidh, but on a few occasions, usually when she’d had more wine or ale than usual with her supper, Jenna had talked about those days. But even then, Jenna had remained reticent to talk about what had happened in Thall Coill. Sevei recalled the time that Máister Kirwan had spoken to one of her classes about the Scrúdú.
“Our First Holder underwent the Scrúdú, which few holders of Lámh Shábhála dare to even contemplate,”
he’d said.
“We don’t truly know the histories of the Bunús Muintir holders, but we do know that of our Daoine ancestors. Caenneth Mac Noll in 241, Heremon O Laighin in 280, Ioseph MacCana in 333, Maitiú O’Doelan in 517, Garad Mhúllien in 662, Peria Ó Riain in 671: they all died undergoing this test. Only once has a Daoine survived the Scrúdú, whatever it might be—and that person was Jenna Aoire who is now Banrion Jenna MacEagan, the First Holder . . .”

She realized now that Máister Kirwan had never said Jenna had passed the test, only that she, somehow, had managed to live through it.

“It was Jenna who broke the statue, years ago,” Beryn said. “I was a young man, then, and I watched her lift Bethiochnead with the power of Lámh Shábhála and bring it crashing down again. I felt the ground shudder underneath me as it struck.”

“That was the Scrúdú, then?” Sevei asked. “She would never tell us what it was. Even Máister Kirwan didn’t know for certain.”

But Beryn shook his head. “No. I know that wasn’t the test. Whatever the Scrúdú might be, it’s something that the holder of Lámh Shábhála faces inside. What they struggle against, we can’t see with our eyes. And they die. They have always died. Except for Jenna. Your gram.”

“Even the Bunús Muintir who have tried?”

Beryn gave a small smile at that, his brown, wide face creasing. “Most, aye,” he said. “Bethiochnead—the statue—was here even when we Bunús Muintir first came to this land long, long generations before you Daoine arrived. We found Bethiochnead already here where we also found Lámh Shábhála, and it seemed immeasurably old even then. It’s said that Carrohkai Treemaster, who was the third Holder of Lámh Shábhála, passed the Scrúdú though she lived only a few years more afterward. But in that short time, she performed wonders: it was she who brought the eldest trees to full life and gave them the voices that they keep even today. It’s her magic that allowed the old forests like Doire, Foraois, and Thall to remain alive and vital through the centuries when the mage-lights vanish, that keep them active even now. Who knows what she could have done had she lived longer. But she was old when she underwent the Scrúdú, and the ordeal weakened her body. She was buried here, where she could be near Bethiochnead. See—that faint rise there, near where the trees start? That’s her barrow, though it looks hardly different now than the rest of the land.”

“She was the only one?”

A shrug. “Not the only. But one of the very few.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Sevei stared back up at the blank, towering creature. “Bethiochnead,” she whispered. She walked up to its enormous flank and placed her hand on a glassy paw, then withdrew it abruptly, sucking in her breath. “It’s
cold,
” she said, glancing up at the sun.

“Bethiochnead is always bitter cold, even on the warmest days,” Beryn told her. “It always has been.”

The mage-lights are always cold, and Gram always complained at how frigid her poor scarred arm was.
Sevei put her hand gingerly back on the stone. The coldness was deep and surprising, like plunging her hand into an ice-crusted stream in the mountains. And with the touch, she thought she heard laughter.