“They are well,” he said, holding the stone at his heart to ease the ache in it. “Your lord is home. You are safe. But Scaga is dead.”
He wept in telling it, not having wished to weep, and began to fade. But Branwyn called his name and held him by it. She tried to come to him, a mortal yearning. He reached and took her hand to help her, but she could not come the way he could. He kissed her fingers, and kissed her brow, and stayed a time in the room with them.
Lord Evald came, and the King with him. To the King, Ciaran knelt, while Laochailan’s young eyes regarded him with that dread others turned on him.
“Welcome sight,” the King he had loved said of him; but with the lips, not with the heart. And Evald, lord Evald, who was Eald’s near and knowing neighbor, gave him a look as bleak and unwelcoming—then came and offered him an embrace.
No other human dared, not his own father or brother, when they had come up the stairs into the hall, all clattering with armor. “Ciaran,” his father said, and gazed on him with a bleak, hag-ridden stare. Donnchadh started a step toward him, but his father held his arm and prevented him. Then Donnchadh’s face became like a stranger’s to him, grim and mournful.
They have always known, Ciaran thought, both of them have always known what is in our blood. He recalled the elvish moon which had been Caer Donn’s banner for years out of memory, and was heartstricken at such a look as Donnchadh gave him.
“We are going back,” his father told the King then without looking at him, as if he had not been there. “We have our own cares, too long neglected.”
“Go,” the King bade him; so his father and his brother went their way from the hall, not to linger long near Eald, and never looked back.
Ciaran stood wounded, looked last at Branwyn, who looked at him, and in his pain he wished himself away, in the cold air, in the mist, the deserted shadow-ways.
He came back into the mortal night in the courtyard after some time had passed, where all was quieter than it had been.
He walked outside the riven gates, where the horror of the field was honest and undiminished. “Aodhan,” he said quietly, and a wind gusted as the horse moved out of the night toward him, slow peals of thunder, a blazing like the noon of elvish sun. He stroked the white neck and thought of his home in the hills, at Caer Donn. He might go there, might—once—go there, greet his mother and his kin, see the things he had known, bring them word days before his father and Donnchadh and the men could come and tell them—before that place was closed to him forever, before—so many things. Aodhan could carry him.
He touched the stone at his throat. “Arafel,” he said.
It was another presence which came to him instead, which touched his heart far more gently than it had ever done, with elvish brightness. There was pride—always that; but this time the touch was warm. “Man,” it whispered; and there was the roar of the sea and the cries of gulls. “Man.”
Only that he said, the elven prince, and it sufficed.
NINETEEN
The End of It All
He came, but not alone, and that surprised her—in plain good clothes, and with Branwyn tramping along with him through the brambles, her golden hair tangled with twigs. He wore the sword and carried the bow and a pack which clearly burdened him. She watched them, and would have reached out to help them, but she sensed the fear in Branwyn, and could not have helped, no more than he could: Branwyn was doomed to the thorns.
They reached the dancing-ring. He called her in his mind, and she came, smiling sadly at the pain in his eyes, and looked then at Branwyn, who managed to look back at her.
“I have brought Aodhan back,” Ciaran said.
“Swiftest to have ridden,” said Arafel.
“Branwyn tried.”
“Ah,” she said in pity, and again met Branwyn’s blue eyes, “You might have.”
Fear looked back at her, but something like the child struggled behind it. “I wanted to.”
“That is much,” said Arafel.
A wind had risen. She sensed Aodhan near, but it was Ciaran who had the summoning of him. Ciaran held out a hand, and the horse stepped into mortal sunlight, aglow with the elvish moon. Small thunders rumbled in the glade, and lightnings flickered. Ciaran stroked Aodhan’s neck, and whispered his name and bade him go. The thunder clapped and the horse was gone, that swiftly, and perhaps something of Ciaran’s heart went with him; he had that look.
Then Ciaran knelt down and unbound the pack which he had brought, and took the sword and bow and laid them atop it all the shining armor at her feet.
“Thank you,” Arafel said, and the gifts faded.
“I thank you,” Ciaran said. “I must thank you. But—do you understand?—I have carried them as far as I can. I have seen things—I shall always see them. They are enough.”
“I know,” she said.
He rose, and reached last for the chain about his neck.
“No,”’she said. “That, you must keep.”
“I cannot,” he said. He drew it off, and offered it to her hands, his own hands trembling.
“It is your protection.”
“Take it.”
“And Branwyn’s too. Do you even hope to get from out this forest without it? Would you see her hunted too?”
That struck deep. Ciaran’s hands fell; but Branwyn took his arm.
“I knew that too,” said Branwyn, and there was more of sense in her blue eyes than there had ever been. “But I am here. And we will walk out again.”
“Please,” Ciaran said, offering the stone yet again. “I am a Man, and when he comes, that is the way of Men, is it not? But if I keep this, there is no hope for me.”
Arafel took it then, unwilling, and her lips parted in shock at the strength that had come to it, and the presence in it which was indeed almost beyond bearing.
“Ah,” she said, folding it to her heart. She looked on him with tears. “You have given me a gift, o Man. And now there is nothing you have left me to give you.”
“A blessing,” he said, “for us. That I will take.”
“Few Men have ever asked it of the Daoine Sidhe.”
“I ask.”
She kissed him then, and kissed Branwyn. “Go,” she said.
They went, hand in hand, and she walked behind them, the shadow-ways, unseen. They had trouble in the going, took scratches of the thorns, and climbed high places and limped on unexpected stones; shadows hissed at them, but fled quickly when she bade them gone.
And at last it was New Forest, and Arafel stood upon the flat rock and watched them down the slope, toward the Caerbourne, and Caer Wiell.
A blackness settled near her. She frowned at it.
“Give them a little,” she asked. “Only a little time.”
“We were allies,” Death said. “Should I have so short a memory? I shall wait. As for Branwyn—she was always mine.”
Again she frowned.
“I have another face,” he said.
She drew herself up and laid a hand on her sword. “Beware of me, Lord Death; I know your name; and the day I see you as you are, you are yourself in peril. Do not tempt me.”
“You have asked a favor,” he said.
“Aye,” she said more softly, anger fallen. “That I have.”
“He may come here if he wills; and she may. He will die abed, years hence. That, I give to him.”
“Then I forgive you,” she said, “other things.”
She left him then, and walked her own way, from Airgiod’s quiet rim, to the moonlit grove.