My companion and I wasted the following day in dozing silence until much later that night. I woke to find an unexpected visitor invading our peace.
“Daire, we’ve got a—woah!” Maya barged through my mirror. Upon seeing my company and our state of undress, she clapped her hand over her eyes. Her disgruntled frown remained.
“Is that Riona’s human changeling?” Aoife turned up from the crook of my neck, her thin pupils growing round and curious. “I heard about her at the feast. I sense she has a small bit of Eire’s blood coursing through her, but she’s so brown and her language is so strange.”
“This plain, particularly wide young woman is indeed the changeling Riona brought back with her. She goes by Maya.” I sat up and my muscles were numb from laying in one place for so long. “And this is Aoife, a lovely Bean Sidhe of Mumhan. You would know her as a Banshee, a fearsome harbinger of death and destruction.”
“They really think of us like the Morrigan now?” Aoife asked, tone full of enchantment rather than offense. “Why does she shield her eyes? Do you think us hideous, Maya?”
“I’m sure it’s quite the opposite.” I stroked down Aoife’s side. “One look at your lovely thighs rendered her blind with awe.”
“I so missed that generous tongue of yours.” Aoife ran her fingertip over my bottom lip.
“He doesn’t have time for anymore X-rated territory, lady.” Maya staggered forward and groped her way around edge of the bed until she found the covers. When she tossed them at us, they landed atop Aoife’s hind quarters and little else. “I don’t want to be a killjoy, but I’ve got to talk to him about something private.”
“It’s no trouble. This was an entertaining ending to the evening. You should come around when next I visit.” Aoife swung her legs over the side of the bed. She skimmed her palms over her shoulders to her knees, her glamour manifesting an ashen gown. “Shall we do this again come Samhain?”
Odds pointed to no, either on account of me being dead or gone to the mortal world with Mother and Maya in tow. I would hate to disappoint her. “Let’s leave that a surprise.”
The Bean Sidhe offered me a teasing wiggle of her hips as she glided past Maya and stepped through my looking glass, back to her home in Mumhan.
“Put some damn pants on, Daire,” Maya barked. “My arm’s getting tired.”
“Should I care about your prudish sensibilities, in my own quarters no less?”
“Do you have pants yet or not?”
I willed my glamour to cloth my lower half, and a pair of forest green, linen trousers took shape over my legs. “I have covered my magnificence. How goes convincing my sister to campaign?”
“I spent the rest of last night trying to make her feel better after you embarrassed her.”
“Not well, then? Give it a few days. She’ll come around. If not, we will have to arrange something else.”
“That’s the other issue.”
“There’s another issue?”
“She threatened your uncle, that Bodb jerk.” Maya’s bunched shoulders fell and she pressed her eyebrows together in concern. “She broke up with him that night and said she’d tell everyone about their secret relationship if he didn’t let me stay with her.”
“Wait.” I rose to my feet. “Her and the High King were lovers?”
“Oh yeah. He’s been stringing her along for years.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. She left to nail down the rest of the deal they made, but she hasn’t come back yet.”
“She has to know what this will do to his reputation if it’s made known. And the timing couldn’t be worse this close to the end of his rule.” I rubbed my temples as I thought through the ramifications of that offense. “Aos Si value appearances above all else. With any other woman, even one connected by blood, the threat wouldn’t have meant much. Riona, however, is Fomor-touched. This ongoing affair would besmirch every single mention of him in our recorded history.”
“What’s he going to do to her?”
“He could have been upfront with his meaning. They could still be negotiating the finer points of the contract.”
“I checked on the mirror she went through.” Maya pointed behind her at my mirror leading back to Riona’s abode. One of my sister’s chain bracelets rattled on her wrist. “The glass part was blank.”
“That means he’s trying to eliminate the problem.” I started to pace, to plan, no longer able to remain stationary. “He can’t kill her. He made everyone, including himself, vow that they would not kill another Aos Si. She cannot touch him because of the thorough oaths the family forced her to make so that she couldn’t act on seriously harming us for any reason. With her at his mercy and hidden away, the possibilities of what he could do are endless.”
“We have to get her back.” Maya turned turned on her heel and charged for my mirror.
“Where are you going?” I grabbed her arm, stopping her progress. “Bodb is in Tara, and you cannot go there from here.”
“Rio’s got a mirror we used to get to the feast, which I’m pretty sure was in Tara. I’ll use that.”
“You can’t march on the gates of our capital alone.”
“Then start throwing out ideas.” Maya advanced on me instead and jabbed her finger against my breast. “Your plan depends on her gunning for Bodb’s job, and she can’t do that if she’s trapped with him doing God knows what to her. She’s in trouble. We have to help her.”
“I realize that. But this situation is more delicate than you realize.” I goaded her toward my mattress. “Sit and we’ll think of a way that will not get you killed and her in even more trouble. Does anyone else know about this?”
“Of course not.” Maya lowered herself onto a pile of cushions. “I wasn’t even supposed to tell you.”
“That could be an asset. What we need is an alternative way into Tara that leads inside the fortress itself.” I resumed pacing as my thoughts swirled. “We need something only my family has access to.”
“That idea’s out. Your family hates her.”
“Aunt Brigid doesn’t! She might be able to grant us access and persuade Bodb to release my sister.” I nipped my lip. There was an inevitable complication. “But she’s the only one watching my mother.”
“Of course she is.” Maya glowered at the nearest pillow and struck it. “You guys don’t have a treatment center or a hospital she can stay at for a few hours?”
“There aren’t any other healers Father trusts to handle her.”
“You don’t have to be a doctor, not for everyday stuff. Mom’s nurses taught Abuela and I a lot of easy techniques to help her, and basic ways to restrain somebody if she got violent.” Maya sighed, hunching over and holding her forehead as if a weight of consternation fell upon her. “Damn it. I could supervise her while you and your aunt go for Rio, but it means I can’t go help.”
“Then you’ll have to trust me to do it in your stead.” I gulped at our impending meeting with Aunt Brigid, at seeing my mother. What state would Mother be in? How lucid? What possible effect would Maya have on her? We had to know, though. I had to face her. “Let’s be off.”
*
I led Maya through my home’s domed common areas, halls, and rounded courtyards until we came to the modest wooden door to my mother’s cell. I approached it first, reaching for the handle. The last time I’d entered that way was the visit where Mother tried to kill me. Would I find the same blind panic in her sallow face, an identical desperate edge in her pleas as when she closed her fingers around my throat?
I balked and jerked away. “You go first.”
“Why?”
I merely tilted my chin at the door.
“Fine.” Maya nudged me out of the way and rapped her knuckles on the wood.
“Who calls?” Came my aunt’s muffled reply.
Maya glanced my way, seeking direction. I waved toward the door, eyebrows up with expectation. She rolled her eyes. “Daire and I need to talk to you, but he’s scared to come in.”
“Then he may state his business himself.” Brigid’s tone shifted, stern for all its cordiality. “Your voice was strange at first, but now I recognize it from scraps I heard at the feast. My nephew knows he doesn’t need to send his sister’s human changeling to deliver messages.”
“You hear that?” Maya asked under her breath. “Stop being a chicken.”
I wet my lips to speak, but any words caught in my throat. Brigid wouldn’t keep Mother in a deep, unaware trance in the privacy of her room. In that state there was no telling what she would do if she heard me. She hadn’t recognized me since I stopped visiting in the few times I had encountered her. Had Mother forced herself to forget me? Would my absence make me fade from her memories?
“He’s not listening.” Maya tried pulling the handle. The door stayed stuck in place. Brigid must have locked it. “It’s about Riona. She needs help.”
“I’m sure she needs a great many things, including for me to leave my post for such a farce. Bodb has already told me that she manipulated him into allowing you entry to Tir Na Nog.” Clearly the High King had spoken with his sister since the night before. “It stinks of a greater scheme.”
“Yeah? He tell you how and why?”
“I couldn’t believe anything you said differently, child. He cannot lie to me, unlike you.”
Maya kicked the door with her fists tight and trembling. The start of frustrated tears winked in the whites of her eyes.
“Return to your mistress before I summon her sire. He won’t be so merciful.”
I should have known better than to send a stranger to Brigid instead of myself, a beloved and trusted family member. If Mother made me so paralyzed, I couldn’t rely on her as an alternative to Maya for help. Riona ferrying Maya to each of the treasures was my only solution. And what of when I wanted to escape to the mortal realm? My intention had always been to bring Mother along. I swallowed my hesitation and found my words. “She speaks the truth. Riona didn’t send her. I did.”
“So you’re with her?” My aunt’s mood lilted up with interest. “And this is not some elaborate ruse so you may visit Etain?”
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“I swear that the sole reason I brought the changeling to you was to ask for your aid in rescuing Riona from a dire fate.” My Aos Si blood tugged at my words as I labored over my phrasing. Only something explicit would convince my aunt I had no ulterior motives, yet I couldn’t hint at my true intentions for seeing Riona safe.
The handle clicked as my aunt’s locking mechanism shifted out of place.
Brigid opened the door a crack and peered through. “What trouble is my niece in, and who got her into it?”
I waved toward Maya. She launched into her tale, recounting in her crude way how Bodb and Riona had carried on as secret lovers for years. The end came in a rush: Bodb’s refusal to make the relationship public, the confrontation at the feast, Riona’s ensuing threat, and that the mirror to the High King’s quarters being sealed off.
My aunt listened, stone-faced, keeping her stoic vigil on the other side of the door. Her aura stayed a warm glow with its orange color never shifting. Once Maya’s story concluded, Brigid turned to me. “This girl makes many outstanding claims, things that could taint the whole of the Dagda’s Brood if true. Do you stand behind her testimony?”
“I stake my life on it.” More literally than she knew.
“Then I see why you came to me,” Brigid said. “Midir and Aengus would have left Riona to Bodb and cut down the changeling where she stood. By far the neater solution, but it would be disastrous in the long term.”
Maya rubbed her neck. “Lucky me.”
“This poses a perplexing conflict.” Brigid’s nose wrinkled as she checked behind her, no doubt at Mother. “I must address this, but I have vowed to to take care of Etain, and she should not come to Tara. Likewise, you shouldn’t be alone with her, Daire.”
“We figured that out, already.” Maya raised her hand. “Leave her with me.”
Brigid’s nostrils flared at the idea, and her aura darkened to red.
“Maya has experience caring for a relative with a similar condition.” I stepped between her and Maya. “We can trust her with this task.”
“If you’re vouching for her, I suppose I can risk it.” Brigid stepped through the rest of the way, filling the small doorway. She crossed her arms over her chest as she addressed Maya. “Bodb will not be fond of you after this, and it would be best that you avoid him whenever possible from now on if you value your life. Is that understood?”
“I figured,” Maya said. “What do I need to know to take care of Etain?”
“The calming spell over her is less effective the longer its duration, or if she becomes startled by something. This one should last through my absence, longer even.”
“If it wears off?”
“That’s hard to predict. I have taken away her loom and anything she could use as a weapon. She might prefer to sleep. Should she engage you, play along, but do not provoke her.”
Maya offered her thumb to Brigid, a common enough gesture from her culture meaning “affirmative” in that case.
My aunt lofted a perplexed brow.
“Sounds good.” Maya let her arm fall. “Hurry back.”
Aunt Brigid moved aside and Maya edged through to take her place. I leaned over further and peeked in. The room was supposed to be cluttered with half-finished tapestries and bundles of thread piled about the floor. All that remained inside was a chair, a bronze wash pitcher, and the bed. Brigid hadn’t left a single project left to occupy Mother. It made the room seem larger, barren, hollow. Mother lay in her bed, despondent with her hair already forming tangles.
Memories still tugged at me. She loved to dance on feast days, gathering flowers from my gardens to weave herself a crown. We had schemed together to orchestrate my favorite prank. It should have ended in the two of us dumping a bucket of water on Aengus as he walked into a room. However, Father walked in first. She’d run at my side as we escaped to the grounds.
Aunt Brigid shut the door behind her. She clasped the handle and her magic emitted a soft click.
“Are you sure you need to lock it?” I asked, too low for Maya or Mother to hear. “What if they need to get out?”
“We won’t be gone that long.”
“I hope you’re right.” I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “Shall we liberate my sister?”
“Yes,” Brigid replied as she led me down the hallway, “and hope she has learned her lesson about tangling with our High King.”
*
Aunt Brigid and I used my mirror to travel to her seat of power, Cill Dara, in the province of Laigin. While Bri Leith had its rolling hills and underground estate, Cill Dara was a place of interlocking trees and high climbs. My aunt designed her domain to be something lofty. The largest trees weaved around each other into a palace crowned by leaves caught in eternal autumn. Open hallways made from intertwining branches stretched across one platform to the next. Furniture grew from the floor itself and every metal decoration or tool hung from a stick. Anywhere a wall or ceiling might be was open so nothing kept out the light of the heavens or a crisp breeze.
Brigid moved from platform to platform, ever upward to the topmost boughs of the central oak. The chamber we headed toward was her personal sanctuary and workshop. It had a massive stone hearth built into the trunk of the tree where smoke rose from the fire that burned within. So long as that flame stayed lit, her magic protected the whole of her estate. Beside the hearth lay her tools: hammers, tongs, a water trough for smelting her projects. Her medicinal nook had a shallow garden for herbs and crisscrossing shelves for the scrolls that held her collected knowledge.
We stopped at her mirror whose frame bore her emblem of smithing hammers over a wreath of her favored element. My reflection made me seem haggard with a crimped tunic, sunken cheeks, and extra creases under my eyes.
I turned away from it and adjusted my glamour. “What’s our plan going forward?”
“I will pay our patriarch an impromptu visit and distract him while you busy yourself exploring Tara.” Brigid slicked a few stray hairs I’d missed away from my forehead and pressed them into my braids. “How well do you know its inner workings?”
“I found ample time to study them while the family gave Bodb counsel.” When I had come of age to wield the Key, Bodb insisted that I attend those meetings so that I could learn my duties. More often than not, they debated about topics beyond my reckoning and Mother had led me on merry adventures about the capital grounds.
“Search for Riona then, either in his quarters or the prison.” My aunt pressed her glowing hand to the surface of the mirror, making the rest of the glass shine in kind as she opened the portal. “I hope this is a trick, for Riona’s sake.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll conceal you from his sight while I question him.” Brigid took down her favorite crafting hammer, her chosen tool of creation and destruction. It had a plain bronze head and a grip with a handsome farmer and a young warrior carved into it. “Perhaps pummel some sense into him, depending on how he answers.”
“Will it come down to a confrontation?”
“Bodb aspires to diplomacy, but a brute’s heart still beats in his breast.”
That didn’t bode well for my sister. While my eldest uncle couldn’t kill her, his rage might drive him to punish her to the brink of it. “What do I do if I find Riona?”
“Free her, of course. Then deliver her back to me. Once we reach that point, either I cover your escape or the bargaining begins.”
“Is there any way I can stall this longer?” I stared into the shining portal before us, sweat gathering on my brow. I had faced the Lady of Irons’ foul disposition plenty of times, but never the High King’s wrath.
“Would you rather leave this task to me, little nephew?” Aunt Brigid offered my shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Tend your gardens, have a lesson with Aengus, pay Midir a visit. You did your part by bringing this problem to my attention.”
She wasn’t wrong. Brigid was the strongest woman I had ever known in mind, body, and spirit. She had a lingering fondness for my sister despite years of being scorned by that niece. If anyone could dissuade Bodb from his course and rescue Riona, it was her. Even with those qualities in my favor, they may not be enough to overcome her love for her kin and king. Her sense of honor bound her to Bodb as much as Father and Aengus. If it came to an ultimatum between her cherished brother and her estranged niece, my fate would be sealed.
“No.” I forced my trembling hands to still. “I will see this through.”
The two of us emerged from the first of four mirrors at the head of the chamber—the other three bore the crests of Uncle Aengus, Father, and Tara itself. My uncle had chosen what equated to the throne room to conduct his affairs. A massive domed ceiling rose above a room that sloped into the main seating area like a Grecian amphitheater. Long tables framed the open center, which had once hosted dancing and impromptu war games. Red and gold banners warmed the imposing walls, and antler-made chandeliers cast jovial flames over the hall. The atmosphere befit a warband’s homecoming celebration. In the dawn of Bodb’s rule, it had hosted many such events. In the twilight, it served as a cheerful mask for a maze of abandoned rooms that ran deep under Tara’s sacred hill.
Bodb waited at the highest backed chair in the room, the only one made of solid gold and draped with luscious pelts. The Dagda’s club rested inside his belt, a stone behemoth as large as a grown man, whose dormant magic rumbled at the whim of violence.
“Dear, beautiful sister!” Bodb strode to meet Brigid, his club dragging along the floor and scraping with each step. He closed his massive arms around my aunt in a great embrace. She returned it in kind and clapped him on his back loud enough to send echos through the room.
I hadn’t seen my aunt notify Bodb of our visit, yet there he was. Had he been monitoring the mirrors?
“I thought to surprise you.” Similar suspicions flashed across Brigid’s puzzled frown as she parted from her brother. “Are you expecting someone?”
“Awaiting an important delivery, actually. What brings you to my humble domain?”
“A matter of great import. Disturbing accusations have reached me about liaisons between you and Midir’s eldest.”
My aunt’s spell had wrapped about me like a cloak during a chill, concealing me as she’d said. None but her would have caught my lip curling at one possible implication of her phrasing. Could she have been more vague?
“Perish the notion.” Bodb cringed. “That child has never been my lover and never will.”
“Which surviving spawn of Midir’s is it you have never lain with?” Brigid pat her hammer, smaller than Bodb’s club, but no less thrumming with power. “Do indulge me with their name.”
“So someone is spreading rumors of me laying with the Fomor-touched.” All humor drained from Bodb’s expression, his eyes hardening to resemble clay chunks. “Who? Is the changeling running loose?”
“I have taken care of Riona’s human lass, for the moment.” Brigid approached the High King, not bothering to bow or lower herself before him. “Her testimony may raise questions. You can confide the truth of it to me, brother. Remember, the Dagda’s blood is thick…”
“…but his brood is thicker. I do trust you, dear sister.” Bodb stooped as he sighed. For a moment his broad body seemed gray and frail as if it were too much effort to hold up his glamour for that single span of time. “They aren’t unfounded. The walls were sealed, my wife had been lost, my pledged and natural children either snuffed out or spread to the winds. I saved as many of the Aos Si as I could, yet the survivors spurned me for what they lost. Then there Riona was, this young thing desperate for anyone’s kindness and completely alone in a world not her own. For that blink, I saw her need and it took me in. The more attention I paid her, the more she conformed to please me. That kind of desperate affection is a heady thing.”
“Brother, we all felt that way at one time and took different measures to alleviate it. Even the wisest among us has their vice.” Brigid wrapped her arm around her brother’s fallen shoulders. “But this dalliance with Riona has grown too volatile for you to continue. You summoned a human into Tir Na Nog to please her. The outburst at the feast will be the first of many. Release her into my care and free yourself.”
“Then what do I have?” Bodb flinched away from his sister and took a step back as she mentioned taking Riona away. “I showed her such favor, but in the end she refused to show any gratitude. She humiliated me and had the gall to demand more. If Riona or her changeling goes free, this hangs over my head for the rest of my life.”
“Did you make a deal to guarantee her silence?”
“Of course I did,” Bodb replied. “That changeling is not bound by any oath, though, and now I cannot bind her without binding Riona. No, letting them go is too risky. She has told you already. How long until her testimony spreads?”
“Then I vow to dispatch the changeling, should she try to tell anyone else.” Brigid kept her words low, crooning, as if she were taming a cornered boar. “I will keep a watch on Riona as well. I am your family, the kinswoman who turned against my own beloved husband when I saw you oppressed. I have fought at your side through countless conflicts. Even after the masses have shown how fickle their devotion is, I remain at your side.”
Bodb contemplated Brigid, his murky irises shifting between warm amber and rigid umber. “I still have no certainty that the changeling will not let the secret slip. My ever crafty sweetheart may even orchestrate such a scheme to use that. I have no choice but to keep them both close to protect myself.”
A cold dread prickled up my spine. If my uncle held Riona, it only made my plans to fetch the items far more difficult. If he had his mind set on imprisoning both her and Maya, though, it became impossible. My best chance lay with them being free.
With my aunt’s initial tactic going awry, I had to find the way to Bodb’s quarters and the prison before the situation escalated to violence. The banners about the hall stretched from the ceiling to the floor. One of them concealed the entrance to the lower levels, but which?
“And what of when Riona escapes you? Vengeance will fester in her heart even more and she will ruin us.”
“The closer she stays to me, the more her heart will soften until it’s mine again.”
“This obsession will be your downfall.” My aunt curled her hand over her hammer’s grip and the aura surrounding her flared a deep crimson. “If you won’t liberate yourself, then I must step in.”
I edged away from the siblings as the tension in their mutual stares mounted. How had I remembered where to find the secret door as a child? Three hops from the throne and seven around, then find the stairs that go deep down. That would make it behind the fifth banner on the eastern wall.
Brigid’s cloak unfurled with her skirts into a massive span of wings. Her glossy hair melded into the rest of her garb as she sprouted a fine layer of orange and gold feathers. One flap sent her up among the many antlered chandeliers. The former goddess whose followers had worshiped her for her forge loosed a stream of flame from her mouth with white hot edges.
The fire surrounded Bodb, seeking to engulf him. He hefted his enormous club over his head as an impromptu shield. The burst parted to either side of him.
“Fetch your sister!” My aunt screeched down to me before resuming her onslaught, held aloft for as long as the attack spewed forth.
Bodb’s battle cry made the benches and tables stationed throughout the hall tremble. He swung the club in one great arch and a wave of pure power crashed from it at my aunt, cutting her inferno in twain.
Brigid thrust her minuscule hammer upon the empty air. A barrier shimmered before her. The force of the club’s swing slammed against it, forcing her back. She winced with the strain it took to hold the protective spell.
I rushed toward the eastern wall to its middle banner and the door I knew waited behind it. Waves of heat and magic radiated from their battle as it raged. The glamour Brigid had used to conceal me fractured as the energy shifted into her attack. From there, I was on my own.