Gavin walked up to the fire and dropped some chunks of meat into the pot that hung above it.

“Venison, compliments of the landowner,” Gavin said.

“What exactly did you do for him to warrant this?” Finn asked.

“I’d rather not say,” he said. “I promised to share no information at all. What were you three talking about?”

“Our plans for Kilmacrennan,” Siobhan said.

“And did you not want to wait for Donal?”

“I’m not sure we need Finn for this conversation,” Maeve said.

She ignored Siobhan’s glare and peered into the pot.

“To answer your question,” Siobhan said, “we’re going to get Donal—by carrot or by stick—and then head straight for town.”

“Sounds fair,” Gavin said.

“Now for the uncomfortable part,” Siobhan said. “Niall’s not awake yet. Even if he were, he’s in no shape to be heading into battle right now. Anyone disagree?”

Finn, Maeve and Gavin looked down at the fire.

“I didn’t ask if anyone liked it. I asked if they disagreed with my assessment.”

Finn and Gavin shook their heads.

“I’m not ready to agree with that last part yet,” Maeve said. “But go on.”

“Regardless, it means he stays behind,” she said.

“Which means someone else stays behind,” Finn said.

Siobhan pursed her lips and nodded. She pointed in the direction of the cabin.

“If they won’t give us their names, they’re not going to give Niall cover,” Siobhan said. “I don’t fault them for it.”

“But you are correct,” Gavin said. “Apologies for being presumptuous but I indeed asked them if they would take him in. This meat is a token of their regret. We can keep camp here for a few more days, though.”

“So who’s staying back?” Maeve asked. “Donal?”

“Why would he be the one that stays back?” Siobhan asked.

“For the same reason he’s not here with us,” Maeve said. “Don’t get me wrong, the young lad has grown on me. But what happens with that thing in his head starts to poke at him in the middle of a battle?”

“Aside from that argument earlier, he’s gone along with every plan and acquitted himself well,” Finn said. “He’s taken to Niall’s training, Faelan’s too.”

Finn paused after seeing Siobhan wince at her uncle’s name.

“Point is, I don’t think he poses any more risk to the group than I do. Maybe I should stay back?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Maeve said. “Not entirely, anyway. The numbers we faced at that pond will be joke to what’s ahead of us if we don’t play this right.”

She pointed toward the pond, the spot of this afternoon’s argument.

“This is what happens when his mentor loses a hand,” she said. “Imagine the result if he loses you, Finn. Or Siobhan, who’s as good as an older sister to him. Even if we beat Breaslin, that thing inside will break him for losing any of us.”

“I don’t know the fella well,” Gavin said. “But if he didn’t go and something happened, he’s not going to go any easier on himself. Answer me this: is he a good enough fighter?”

“Still raw, mind you,” Maeve said, “but he is.”

“You two agree?”

“We do,” said Siobhan.

“Grand. How’s his heart?” asked Gavin. “Is he one to shy away from a fight?”

Siobhan chuckled.

“He’s more likely to start one than run from one,” she said.

Maeve nodded.

“On that note, dya’trust him?” Gavin asked. “In the heat of a fight, has he ever been a liability?”

“He’s come through for us,” Maeve said.

Gavin nodded and let Maeve’s answer linger for half of a minute.

“Then it seems to me that you need to remind him of this,” he said. “There’s three voices between you and, by my count, you got this thing in his head outnumbered.”

A graveled voice called out from the side.

“Your count’s off by one, O’Roarke,” Niall said. “Though I’m likely not the one to go after him.”

Maeve ran over to Niall.

“You buck eejit!” she said. “How long were you listening?”

Niall’s eyes wouldn’t fully open and his voice wavered on random words.

“Enough to get caught on and save myself from asking,” he said. “The argument really was that bad?”

“I’ve never seen him like that,” Siobhan said.

“He’s convinced what happened is his fault,” Finn said. “How’s the pain?”

“I won’t lie to you, so I won’t tell you,” Niall said. “How long since he left?”

“Two hours or so,” Siobhan said.

“Bring him back,” Niall said. “If he’s not on his way back already.”

“We still haven’t determined who’s staying with you,” Siobhan said.

“I’m fairly certain one of you already has,” he said.

Finn and Siobhan looked at each other with furrowed brows and tilted heads. Maeve looked in another direction.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Gavin?” she asked.

“It makes sense that I stay behind,” he said. “My views haven’t changed. I didn’t set out for Gartan because I was itching for battle. I came down because you were right. Breaslin’s dangerous, and I was worried about you. If I had to fight somewhere along the way because of it, so be it. I’d make peace with that later.”

Maeve’s cheeks turned pink.

“You’re throwing too many words around this… thing,” she said.

Gavin took one step toward Maeve.

“Why can’t I speak of it?” Gavin said.

More color flooded her cheeks. She scratched the area behind her ear and looked away from camp. In this moment Finn envied Donal’s unknown location—though not as much as Maeve, he supposed.

Siobhan leaned into Gavin’s eyeline. With her back turned to Maeve, she shot him a sobering look and carefully mouthed the words “bad time.”

“I suppose this isn’t the time for that,” he said. “Perhaps someday.”

Maeve cast her eyes on the ground, turned her head back towards the group and bobbed her head in agreement. She raised her head and smiled as she glanced at the smithy.

“Perhaps,” she said.

The pained expression on her face faded but her grin held. Siobhan winked at Gavin and turned back to Niall.

“If that holy show has finished, we can move on,” Niall said. “You have to track down your brother, Finn, and go straightaway to wherever it is you think you’re going.”

“Kilmacrennan,” Siobhan said.

“How did you work that out?” Niall said.

“Breaslin let it slip after you agitated him,” she said. “It was you, in fact, who worked that out.”

Niall’s laugh was interrupted by a cough.

“So I did.”

“We forced him the long way around here, but they’re traveling lighter than we are.”

“If you’re going to have any chance, you’ll need to get to the real cauldron before he returns.”

“You’re saying leave now and travel overnight,” Siobhan said. “You think he’s going straight through?”

“I do not, but you can’t take that chance,” Niall said. “I think he’ll take over some poor scut’s home for the night. But he’s arrogant, not foolish. He won’t linger there. Get to town tonight. Worst case, you can thin their forces right before he returns. Best case, you get there with enough time to get in and grab the cauldron and leave without running into him at all. We’ll figure out how to reverse his curse and then see to him afterwards.”

“There’s nothing else for it,” Siobhan said. “Finn, Gavin, get our three horses ready. We’re taking Gála without the wagon. Cáemaid is staying here.”

“There’s four of you,” Gavin said. “Take my horse—I mean, Niall’s horse.”

“If Breaslin’s folk do come round, you’ll need a quick exit,” she said. “And I’m thinking three horses might be easier to hide that four, if it comes to it.”

“We won’t be able to carry as much,” Finn said.

“Win or lose, it’ll be done in a day and a half,” Maeve said. “Don’t need to dedicate one horse to supplies.”

Siobhan held a finger over her mouth and looked around the camp.

“What am I missing, Niall?”

“Just the obvious,” he said, “but you’ll track him down on the way east.”

“You really think so?” she asked.

“If his initial thoughts were about running away he’d have returned already, mortified over what he did,” he said.

“He’d want control of something,” Finn said. “He probably thinks that spear is as good as any means of getting it.”

Gavin finished the transfer of food and other supplies into smaller sacks and fastened them to the saddles. The trio mounted their horses—Siobhan atop Airgid, Finn riding Gála—and looked back to the men on the ground.

“Take care of him,” Siobhan said to Gavin. “We’ll be back with good news in less than two days.”

“I have no doubts, lass,” Niall said. “I couldn’t be more proud of how the four of you have come to rely on each other in such a short time, complimenting each other’s strengths. You’re so close to it now; go get our lad and finish the job.”

The three turned their horses in the direction of the main road.

“Oi! You three,” Niall said. “One more thing.”

Niall pulled himself up to a seated position.

“If you see that big fella, be sure and send my regards. Be as impolite as possible.”

****

Donal didn’t need Maeve around to tell him to stay on the main road to avoid getting lost. He strained his eyes, searching for any last bit of twilight through the trees overhead but all traces of sunlight had gone. If not for the sound of windswept leaves the dense cover above could pass for an overcast night sky.

Reality set in nearly two hours ago, after he had walked a quarter of a mile down the main road. There was nothing he could accomplish in Kilmacrennan by himself, especially after trudging three miles on foot without sleep.

He spent the past hour hoping to stumble upon an unexpected vantage point, a messenger wearing the proper colors or anything else he could take back to the group. After how he left things, he could not stumble back into camp empty-handed.

One more hour on the road and he’d have no choice.

Occasionally he wondered why Finn or Maeve hadn’t already caught up to him on horseback, but he dared not dwell on it. The reason always settled somewhere around Siobhan and Maeve interchanging him with Gavin without a second thought.

He was ready to duck into the hedge and assess any passing groups larger than two people, but each encounter was with a single rider upon horseback. A faint rumbling emerged in the distance behind him. It would be the first traveler heading in the same direction. Could it be Finn?

The noise grew louder. Donal realized that it was more than one person on horseback. His friends wouldn’t send two people out to retrieve him. He slipped into the copse with his spear ready.

Even with the lack of ambient light, Donal could make out the silhouettes of three horses as they rounded the bend. No wagon. Likely not them. Did Breaslin find a way over the river for a chance at the shorter route?

As the horses neared, Donal caught the shapes of armor and weapons. It wasn’t until they passed in front of him that he could make out the recurve of Maeve’s bow holstered below the outline of her wavy hair. He jumped out into the road once they passed.

“Oi! Finn!”

“It’s him!” Finn yelled.

The trio yanked on their horses’ reins.

“You were hiding there this whole time?” Finn asked.

“I was not!” Donal said. “I couldn’t get this far by hiding.”

“Were you ever planning on coming back?”

“I wanted to at least bring back information to make up for what I’d done,” Donal said.

“How’s that working out for you?” Maeve said.

“I’m still out here, aren’t I?” Donal asked. “Where’s Gavin?”

“Tending to Niall,” Siobhan said.

“You guys looked like you were making your move,” Donal said. “I thought maybe you’d be taking him into town.”

“We were not,” she said. “We were going to grab you on our way in. We’re trying to get an even bigger jump on Breaslin’s crew coming out of Gartan.”

“So no sleep tonight?”

“Only if you can sleep sitting up leaning against one of us,” she said. “Climb on.”

The three pointed their horses in their original direction.

“Stall it,” Donal said.

“What’s the matter now?” Maeve said.

“You’re not going to say anything about it?” Donal said.

“What would you like us to say?” Finn said. “And how many times have you told it to yourself these past two hours?”

“C’mere to me,” Siobhan said. “It was extremely poor timing. But you had just gone through something terrible to cap off a week most lads your age couldn’t imagine. It affected us all, albeit to different degrees.”

“I’m just so tired of all,” Donal said. “I know Maeve and Finn think this sílrad stuff isn’t the reason or the cure for me. When I held the stone back in Niall’s house, though, for that brief moment I felt like me again. This shadow in my head was gone, just like the times before I got sick.”

“Lately I’ve had longer stretches without these episodes, I’ve even had a few nights with no nightmares. Finn, could you imagine? And each time I can’t help wonder if that might be the last episode, that I’m done with the nightmares and the visions. Then the next one hits like a puck in the gut.”

Finn slid out of his saddle and walked up to his brother and pointed to his head.

“None of us know what’s going on in there. We can guess, but we’ll never understand fully.”

He patted Donal’s chest with the back of his hand.

“I think we have a pretty good idea what’s going in there, though. Maybe you need a different approach. Instead of getting your hopes up that each one of these episodes will be the last, maybe just accept that it won’t be.”

“That seems bleak,” Donal said.

“Hear me out,” Finn said. “Look around: we’re approaching the middle of the night. But we all know the sun’s coming back. It’s not ‘if’ but ‘when.’ We’re in the middle of summer but we know at some point it’s going to get cold, and no matter how cold it gets this January, summer always returns.

“As bad as the next episode gets, try to remember it will pass, as it always does. When it’s gone, accept that another one will come at some point. Not because you did something wrong. Not because you’re a bad person. The next episode will come because that’s how it works.”

“You’re not going to lose the people close to you over one of these episodes. One day, you may be able to remind yourself during these episodes to trust the judgment of Siobhan, Maeve and myself over that voice beating you down.”

Donal canted his head and wrinkled his nose.

“Fine. Siobhan and Maeve’s judgment, you arse,” Finn said. “Maybe even your own judgment as well.”

“I understand you now,” Donal said, “but I think it’s much easier for you to say it than is for me to do it.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Donal’s eyes cycled through the three people before him. He inhaled deeply and nodded his head before stepping toward Finn and squeezing his brother before he could react.

“Thank you, Finn.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Is your conscience clear?” Siobhan asked.

“As clear as can be,” Donal said.

“Grand,” she said. “Lots to do. You’re riding with Finn.”