***
The night of Midsummer, Collun and Brie climbed the highest tower of Cuillean's dun to view the bonfires that blanketed the hills.
As they gazed out at the blazing fires, Brie was reminded of a night from her childhood when her father had carried her up to the ramparts of their dun and showed her the Midsummer bonfires for the first time. His strong arms held her as she stood barefoot on the cold stone of the parapet. She had been awed by the sight of all those glowing, leaping flowers of flame, stretching as far as her eye could see. The brightest one blazed at the foot of the hill that bore the White Stag of Herge, illuminating the enormous figure. The Stag had been etched into the hillside long ago by people who cut away turf to expose the white chalk of the cliff.
Brie had told her father she wanted to dance around the bonfire and feel the fire's heat on her face and arms. He had said she was too young. But even when she grew older, Brie didn't dance. She would gaze enviously at the abandoned twirling forms of the dancers, but her body felt hemmed in, awkward. And there was the unspoken word that it was somehow unseemly for the daugher of the hero Conall to join the bonfire dances.
"Brie?" Collun broke into her thoughts. "Where have you been?" he asked with a smile.
"At the bonfire dances, long ago," she said musingly. She shivered slightly. Brie did not often think of Dun Slieve. Her uncle and aunt lived there now. She had left the day after her father's burial—to seek his murderers—and had never returned.
"Perhaps we should go inside?" Collun asked, trying to read Brie's face in the darkness.
"Not yet. I was thinking of the last time I saw the dun where I grew up." She paused. "And the pledge I made when I left there."
Brie felt Collun's eyes on her. "It has been two years, or more, since then..." She trailed off.
Then she turned to Collun with a ghost of a smile. "I have been wondering of late if I oughtn't leave my father's murderers to their own fates."
Collun let out a breath, smiling broadly. "I'm glad," he said simply.
***
As they made their way down the inside stairway, a loud crack of thunder echoed in the tower. "If we wish to remain dry, we'd best stay inside tonight," Collun said.
They had to rummage about to find bedding, and it took some time to sort out where to sleep in the long-deserted dun. But finally Brie lay on a pallet, Collun in the room next to hers. It felt strange to be separated by walls. She listened to the rain, glad it had held off until after the bonfires. She dozed, thinking again of her childhood in Dun Slieve.
***
Brie was in the Ramhar Forest, crouching beside her father's body, her heels skidding in the blood-slick grass. Hatred raged inside her, roaring in her ears. The three men stood before her, like ghosts: one with wide shoulders and thick pale arms; another tall, with yellowish eyes; and the last, the most evil, with his arrogant, coarse face and black eye-patch.
As she stood to face them, they disappeared. Then there was darkness. A throbbing, quiet stillness. And suddenly out of the silence plunged a blazing yellow bird of prey. Its talons were extended and it dived at Brie. She raised her hands to fend it off.
***
There was a pale face hovering over her and the faint sound of a voice speaking. But the features of the face were blurred, black smudges where the eyes should have been, and she could not recognize it. Panic filled Brie, as if she were falling backward into darkness, nothingness. Her hands flailed; she didn't know if she should be trying to catch hold of something or to push it away.
"Brie?" Collun caught one of her fluttering, cold hands in his. She tried to snatch her hand away, hating the feel of his warm skin. But he held fast, keeping his voice low, soothing.
Her racing heart began to slow. She was able to focus on Collun's face, on the comfort in his voice. But for some reason, she still wanted her hand back.
"Let go," she croaked, pulling away, and suddenly her hand snapped loose of Collun's grasp. She cradled it against her chest. Collun drew away slightly.
"A bad dream?" he asked, his voice neutral.
"Yes. My father," Brie replied indistinctly. And a bird, she thought. She didn't understand about the bird. It had been familiar, yet not like any live bird she had seen. Its yellow feathers were overvivid, unnatural. Perhaps she had dreamed it before.
"Can I bring you something? Water or...?"
Brie forced her lips into a smile and shook her head. "I'm better now. It was probably all the peach mead we drank." Collun's face relaxed. They had discovered an overgrown orchard of peach trees and for the past week had eaten little else but peaches: peach pie, poached peaches on toast, guinea hen flavored with peach juice. It was Kled's idea to make several barrels of peach mead for Midsummer.
"It was rich," Collun agreed. He paused. "This is the first of those nightmares you've had in a long time."
Brie nodded. "The first since coming here." They were silent for a moment. "No more peach mead for me," Brie added with a thin smile.
Soon Collun left the room, and Brie rose, crossing to the heavy tapestry that covered the window. She pulled it aside. It had turned into a wild night. Through lashings of rain she could just glimpse the sea.
***
The next day as she and Collun labored to rebuild a stone wall separating pasture from crop-producing land, Brie felt edgy, her eyes prickly from lack of sleep. She worked hard, hoping to sweat out her unease. Collun tried several times to start a conversation, but Brie's responses were perfunctory. At midday, Kled came by to share their meal. He offered Brie a cup of peach mead, which she refused with a frown. Kled raised his eyebrows, then turned to Collun.
"You'll never guess what Renin came across this morning," he said, munching on a peach tart.
"What?" asked Collun, trying to coax some damp kindling into a fire for brewing chicory.
"A wyll."
"A what?"
"A wyll. A kind of witch-woman or fortune-teller. Haven't you heard of them? You find them mostly in the north, closer to Dungal. That's where they come from. Dungal."
Dungal was a small kingdom north of Eirren, separated from it by the Blue Stack Mountains, a formidable, almost impassable mountain range that began practically at the Western Sea then swept inland, curving northward until it crossed over into Scath and became the Mountains of Marwol. The mountain range provided a natural boundary between Dungal and Scath as well.
To the people of Eirren, Dungal was a place shrouded in myth. Dungalans were said to have more than a little Ellyl blood running in their veins, and it was not unusual to find at least one person in a village with the ability to perform magic of one kind or another, be it the curing of ills or weather-working. They spoke their own language and worshiped their own gods. Traditionally they were ruled by a queen, but in recent years a prince named Durwydd ruled the small kingdom.
"She's a tiny thing, the wyll; Renin thought her a child when he first came upon her. He found her sheltering in that broken-down dovecote," continued Kled. "She knows all sorts of things you can't figure out how she would. The others are all worked up. Renin has already given her his favorite torque because she told him he was going to marry the girl he fancies back in his birth town. The wyll knew the girl's name and everything. You two ought to come, have your fortunes told."
Brie was skeptical and her head ached with fatigue, but Collun was curious, so they accompanied Kled to the soldiers' quarters in what had once been the dairy barn.
When Brie and Collun entered, the soldiers were listening raptly as the wyll told a story.
She was indeed small and had long coppery gold hair. It was woven into dozens of braids that fell past her waist. Her forehead was broad, unusually broad for such a small face, which—coupled with her large amber eyes—kept her from being beautiful. She wore colorful clothing that seemed to consist of many layers, and bright earrings sparkled at her ears. The wyll took note of the new arrivals but did not pause in her storytelling. She spoke with a lyrical, accented voice, and Kled whispered that her name was Aelwyn.