I ran to Mother to inspect her well being. She looked upon me like an attacker, a stranger, and bolted away. She’d recognized me before. Then just as quickly she’d forgotten and lumped me in with Father’s lot. The revelation slammed into me like a herd of cows on full stampede.
Father flew in front of her with his arms spread open to catch her and cut off her path of escape. Mother diverted her course away from him and turned on her heel toward my waiting aunt. She didn’t hesitate to charge into Brigid’s protective embrace, pleading with her as she had Maya only moments earlier.
Brigid stroked my mother’s hair and nodded wordlessly along with her. A calming power passed over the weeping woman.
Mother’s eyes began to gain that passive, glassy sheen once more, but all wit and sharp intellect did not subside with her wild fear. She jerked in Brigid’s embrace and struggled against it.
My aunt placed her hand on Mother’s forehead and forced more power through her. Mother collapsed into a deep sleep.
“Everyone gather round and take a seat.” Bodb clapped and four clay mounds rose up from the rubble of what had been his earthy cocoon. They were shaped as seats and made a semi circle in front of his grand throne. “We have much to speak about.”
“And much to lay to rest.” Brigid handed my limp mother over into Father’s waiting arms.
I took the curved mound beside my uncle Aengus and slouched against my knees. He patted my shoulder as he sat down. Father set himself on my other side, cradling Mother in his lap.
“We could have avoided this entire mess had you only kept your paranoia in check and let Riona keep her changeling.” My aunt chose to stand at the end of the row. She gripped her hammer even after she tucked it into her belt. “Better still, that you never took her as a lover and given her permission to fetch a human to begin with.”
“Cease your harping, sister,” Bodb spat. “You had your turn to reign and we became slaves. You have no place criticizing my rule.”
“Enough from the both of you,” Aengus said. “Riona is running and now there is nothing we can do to keep her from it. Brigid was right to call this a mess. Now it falls on us to clean it up.”
“Finally, a voice of reason.” Bodb set his club against the arm of his throne.
“Nevertheless, she is still right.” Aengus glared at the eldest of the four.
“None of this explains why my wife was caught up in this,” Father said, his tone even once more. He tightened his protective hold on Mother as he cast a questioning gaze to Brigid. “Daire should not have been here either.”
I raised a brow at my father as if something had addled his wits. Concern from him without a single reprimand?
“I stored the changeling with Etain for leverage, should the situation go awry.” My aunt’s eyes flared bright red and her body stood out like a beacon as the remnants of her battle frenzy faded. “Then, of course, an agent of Bodb must have retrieved the girl, and Etain latched one of her fantasies to her. Is that what you witnessed when you fetched them, Daire?”
“That’s about the sum of it,” I confirmed with a quick nod. My vow to Fergal remained unbroken, since I was only confirming Brigid’s conjecture.
“You have an agent in my household?” Father scowled at Bodb.
“I had to keep a watch on the Key.” Bodb’s guiltless expression didn’t flinch. “You’re the one who should check the quality of those who serve you better.”
“So that means Fergal was conspiring with you all along then,” Father muttered. “I’ll take care of that snake in my household when I return.”
“As Aengus said, these oaths have rendered us helpless to directly stop the Lady of Irons.” Bodb tugged at his beard and his unsettled mustache quivered. “We are assembled as a council, not bickering siblings. There is no question that Riona won’t curry enough support to defeat Midir in the election. However, there is still the possibility she will stir up enough old grudges to undermine his rule for her petty revenge.”
“She will certainly win Connacht if she dangles that girl in front of Finvarra.” Aengus folded his fingers together in his lap. “She has already proven she can use her changeling to slip through her oaths as well. No telling what else she could use the human for.”
“Like slipping secrets.” Bodb dug his nails into the handle of his club. “The girl cannot be bound by her word. She is dangerous.”
“Much as it could have been avoided, I have to agree. It is worse if Riona has gained so much of the girl’s loyalty.” Brigid gestured to my mother. “She showed a promising compassion to Etain when they met. Yet, mere hours after, played accomplice in a ploy to kill her.”
“That was not done with Maya’s consent.” I bit my lip when all four of their intense attentions turned on me. My stomach churned with nerves as I hurried for an explanation. “I have interacted with her before when Riona has left her alone to wander. She is willful, with a very strong sense of modern morality. Riona has more than likely lost what progress she made in taking control of her body, especially for those ends.”
“You sound very sure of the girl. Did you make a little friend in hopes that you could study her up close?” Aengus teased with a smirk, though it did not make his eyes twinkle as they should.
“I had to take part in retrieving her for Riona. Maya sees me as a familiar face.” I flicked the implication away. “I saw no harm in entertaining her. Nothing more than that.”
“We could use that.” Bodb bent forward with interest. “If the changeling’s loyalties are truly shaken, as you say, then you can prey on that. Persuade her to confide Riona’s next moves so we may subvert them.”
“Neither of them are that dim.” As much as a vengeful part of me longed to foil my sister, playing spy might sabotage my own plans for Maya. “Surely that strategy would only work once before one of them caught on.”
“Riona’s fondness for the changeling will blind her to the possibility of betrayal. Her affections make her overlook most wrongs,” Bodb said, his tone final. “As for the changeling, if you play your role right, then she will go along with the scheme.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“I really don’t—”
“It’s not a request.” Bodb shushed any further protest on my part with the way his pupils narrowed to slits as his aura spread out from his throne. He turned that penetrating gaze on my father next. “Now, the only question that remains: how to undermine Riona? Midir, since you are my successor and it’s your blood putting that in jeopardy, lend some of your good sense.”
“This would be so much easier if we could kill her and be done with it,” Father grumbled. “What’s wrong with taking the changeling as a royal hostage?”
“Were you listening to the oaths you just swore?” Aengus rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
“The four of us could devise a way around them,” Father said. “Trick her into giving the changeling into our hands of her own free will, only implying than outright stating ‘if you displease us, your human dies.’”
“Do you suggest we arrange this by possessing Etain’s body in the same manner as Riona used her human?” Brigid proposed, a motherly warning.
“That is a viable option,” Bodb said.
“No!” Father and I said in unison. That softened my aunt’s stern expression some. Father continued speaking after a pause. “The only reason she didn’t die today was because I plead with you for her. You and your agents are not welcome anywhere near my wife until my election. As for ideas, with Daire acting as our spy, the best choice left to us without breaking our vows is to expose her weaknesses. We need to prove that her words are meaningless by provoking her true nature.”
Bodb nodded along. “Go on, Brother.”
“One of us will have to lead the offense.” Father glanced at each of his siblings with consideration. “The one who elicits the strongest reaction.”
At first, all of them turned toward Bodb. He shook his head. “My oaths forbade me from coming near her.”
“With good reason,” Brigid added.
“Too recent,” I said. “She cannot even bear to hear Uncle Aengus’ name without her chains twitching.”
“Very true, Daire,” Father said with a note of impressed surprise. “He also has a superior ability of creeping under someone’s skin and finding the perfect place to prod. It made him especially troublesome to raise.”
“How else could I guilt our father into providing the means to secure your wife?” Aengus snickered Father’s way. “As Daire said, I qualify for the task. Since my old foster parent and future liege wishes it, I’ll do it without complaint. Looks like my protege and I will be teaming up again, eh Daire?”
“I welcome the chance.” I lifted my head and smiled a bit. My prior nerves settled some because of my notions that my uncle had left me the Key’s book. I would continue to keep my dealings to myself, but it was reassuring to know I had an untold ally among the other men in my family.
“Call me when you’ve pried something out of your little friend then.” Aengus winked at me before making a flourishing bow toward Bodb. “Is that enough of a plan, your majesty? May I retire back to my bed and the company I was entertaining before Midir dragged me away? If I stay gone much longer, I fear they will wear each other out before I can rejoin them.”
“Yes, I’m satisfied.” Bodb thumped his club against the ruined floor while shooing his siblings away. “This council is dismissed. Be gone.”
“Aengus’ philandering aside, I must settle Etain into her room before she wakes.” Aunt Brigid sighed as she approached Father. “It will take longer to work her through this until she is stable enough to receive the trance.”
“You take some time for yourself, sister.” Father rose and readjusted Mother’s position in his arms. “Make sure Cill Dara is in order, perhaps even finish one of your blades. Danu knows I am indebted to you enough from all the days you spend keeping Etain for me.”
“She will likely be violent,” Brigid said, though she glanced to the mirror that led back to her domain with its twin hammers wreathed in flames. It had been some time since she had stayed the night there. “Are you sure?”
“I will be gentle in restraining her.” Father gave his sister a self-effacing smile that made his mouth lean to one side more than the other. “It isn’t my first time dealing with her anger, after all.”
“If you insist. I will return tomorrow to relieve you.” Brigid offered Father a grateful nod and hurried away to her mirror.
I pushed myself to my feet. How would I balance between my family’s demands, my own urgent agenda, and Maya’s unknown loyalties? My accomplice would never willingly place a knife to my mother’s throat. Riona did also have considerable influence over her. It would be reckless to ever forget that.
I began to go toward the appropriate mirror that had Father’s ram-headed sigil atop its gold frame surrounded by a small army of chariots.
“A moment, Daire,” Father said to my back, more of a soft demand than a request. He came up beside me in a few long strides. “You have observed your mother’s deteriorating condition enough to have a firm grasp of it, correct?”
“Moreso than you.” I did not stop to speak with him. He kept easy pace with me. “If you seek to know her state, ask her caregiver. Believe it or not, Aunt Brigid has stood behind your order to bar me entry.”
“I cannot trust all of her observations.” Father tucked a tangled clump of Mother’s hair behind her ear and ran his thumb over her rosy cheek. “Brigid believes Etain should be allowed to pass on. Aengus stands with her. Bodb allows me to keep her alive from pity. You are the only other who desires to keep her here, even in her present state.”
“So what is the goal of this inquiry?”
“To ascertain how to settle her.” Father peered away from me to his mirror as he stopped in front of it. “She has never complained of loneliness or darkness before.”
“She’s never had to deal with those,” I said, halting with him. “Company always kept the worst of it at bay.”
“She has Brigid to satisfy that, along with all of her other needs.” Father shifted his weight from foot to foot as if he longed to pace in place. “There is a window for the sun to shine through. She has a loom to keep her mind occupied.”
“I have only ever seen her come back to herself when she walks with me in the open. The change in atmosphere seems to stimulate her. It brings out parts that room and Brigid’s spells suppress. Surely you have noticed before while watching our strolls.”
“Yes, but without those safeguards she makes attempts to escape, to hurt herself, to hurt you.” Father’s right eye twitched out of place, out of sync with the other. That old injury tended to act up when he became restless. He rubbed it back into place with the heel of his hand as much as he could with Mother’s head resting on his arm. “She will only become worse.”
“She seems no better for your precautions.” I didn’t resist sneering. It figured the moment he showed a hint of uncertainty, his pride would send him running back to his original conclusion.
“Do you understand how much more risk she might be under if someone were to back Riona now that she is running?” Father pushed.
“That’s what Brigid is there for, is she not? To protect Mother? Perhaps you might even take over that mantle if you were not so ashamed of the woman you call wife.”
“I witnessed the Aos Si in our prime and have watched us wither to the pittance we are now. You didn’t feel family, friend, and foe alike screaming and scraping at the walls of Tir Na Nog as they sealed. Every child I ever raised, save you and Aengus, has died. I bore through it because I still had my hope, my Etain. And now she fades despite my best efforts.” Father stared at Mother with an expression so forlorn she might as well have been a corpse. “What you name ‘shame’ I call survival. ‘Tis better to numb yourself than try at such a hopeless cause.”
“Are you so caught up in your past that you can’t see what you still have? I too have watched Mother lose more of herself day after day. But she’s still here. Stop hiding from her and see. Something only becomes hopeless when you stop trying.”
“Oh to be young and under such delusions again.” He shook his head and turned away from me.
No matter how tired his dismissal, it still brought the familiar sting of his tone. The evident disinterest within it made my throat tight as a boy and my attitude bitter and biting as a young man. “Believe me when I say I no longer harbor such delusions about you.”
I stormed through the mirror ahead of him and didn’t bother to check his face to see if my remark landed. I had more important matters to worry about, like reconciling how my human ally in my fight for survival had so recently held a blade to my mother’s throat without flinching.