"Maybe," said Domhnull, "you caught it from me, something I had seen or imagined."
"Doubtless so," their mother declared and came back again, sweeping past Muirne who hovered near the fire with large, fright ened eyes. "I've held the stone. It was like that. One remembers things."
Their mother wanted it to be so. Meadhbh looked at her, under standing now and wishing for once the same thing her mother wished, that what she had seen could turn out to be something past, something of Domhnull's rememberings and nothing yet to come.
"Meadhbh," her father said, "give me your hand, and you, Ceal lach."
She did that, and for a moment thought he only meant to tell them something; but then he shut his eyes, and the world turned gray and full of mist.
"Ciaran!" their mother called.
The hold was burned and the land was waste, with smoke over all the hills, that spread to the forest; and there was a hill of bones, and a shallow lake with something coiled at the depth of it, and deep places under the hills that had cracked open like eggs, empty in their darkness.
"No!" It was their father's voice. He let go of their hands, a fierce shove, and for a moment Meadhbh was lost and breathless in the mist.
But it was her mother's arms she felt, smelled the lilacs and herbs of her skirts against her face, and her mother was shouting at her father.
"It's going to be true," Meadhbh said, "it's all going to be true."
"They are children," their mother cried.
"Yes," their father said. Meadhbh blinked him clear, and there were tears on his face. That won her silence. She wanted not to look at him but there was no other place she could, not now. Her father reached out quite calmly and ruffled her hair as he had not done since she was very small, and tousled Ceallach's after. "Domhnull."
"Lord," Domhnull answered quietly.
"The Sight can mislead. Sometimes it is not quite what it seems. But all the same, with the Bradhaeth roused, with all our enemies combined—and Rhys not here—well, I have no kinsman, Domhnull; and where I go, Beorc is like to go. My lady's kin—something unto ward has delayed them, or Rhys would be back by now. Be in a kinsman's stead to her and Meadhbh and Ceallach—if need should be, stand by them."
"On my life, lord," Domhnull whispered. Meadhbh felt her mother's arms tighten about her as she rose. Her mother smoothed the hair her father had ruffled. Let me go, she wished, wanting to shout it, and turned instead and hugged her mother, thinking that someone ought to.
"Caer Wiell will never fall," her mother said without a doubt in her voice. "This nonsense comes of meddling with the Sidhe gifts, that's what it is. Or listening at doors where they shouldn't."
No one said anything. Their father only sat still and gazed at all of them with that look he had when he was far away, and then he got up from his chair.
"Domhnull, go rest. Muirne, see he gets a pot of cool ale—I dare say it would come welcome. Maybe a bit for Meadhbh and Ceallach too if they would like."
"A very little," said their mother, measuring with pinched fingers and frowning at Muirne. She combed Meadhbh's hair then with her fingers and held her face steady, looking in her eyes. "You are too old to be riding about the country, do you hear? You will not be doing such things again."
It would have galled Meadhbh even if she thought it would come to no more than the other threats, but now it had the sound of doom, louder than any intent in the words. Not again, not again, not again.
She pretended she had not heard; saying anything to it might seal it like the magic of true names. "May I go?" she asked instead.
"Go. Comb your hair." Her mother was distracted. The hair was something she said without thinking. Meadhbh went with Muirne, beside Ceallach, and Domhnull came after, but Meadhbh cast a backward glance where her mother and her father were, her mother standing with her arms hugged about herself, her father standing staring off toward nothing at all and with a grimness about his mouth that tokened words to come.
Not be doing such things again, Meadhbh thought, and her hands were cold. It was not the riding, but the country that would change, no more sun, no more green fields, no more of foals playing and them laughing with Domhnull outside Caer Wiell. She held to her gift and tried the while she went down the stairs after Muirne, to foretell where she would ride and to what, but even Floinn was lost to her, and there was darkness, everywhere darkness and mist and only the stone of present Caer Wiell under her fingers to remind her where and when she was.
Ceallach, she thought, o Ceallach.
"I shall be gone awhile," Ciaran said quietly to Branwyn. "Don't fret for it."
"Ciaran."
"Hush. I know." He pressed a kiss on her brow and held her a moment. "Forgive me."
"What did they see?"
"Desolation. Give them comfort. They have need of it."
Her hands caught at him and clenched. "Ciaran, Ciaran, if Rhys would come—He will come. He's too clever for anyone to have stopped him—"
"Things may happen; he may have had to give up his horse and go afoot after all, if the road was watched, and that would have taken a great deal more time."
"If anything were amiss, if what they saw—Ciaran, we were de stroyed before and burned and here we are. If we had had the Sight before the King came to Caer Wiell, we would have lost all our hope. Those were dark days. But they were not the end of us."
"Tell them so. They need hope."
"I need hope. Ciaran, do not you leave me! Do not you go any where, not unless you leave that thing behind and take your sword, hear me? What can the men think, that you go empty-handed and moon-eyed with that stone—Forgive me, listen to me now. What good has it ever done? None. Love, love, you should have had all the men about you up at Lioslinn, o gods, and gone up there armed in the first place and taught that brother of yours how to treat his guests."
"So would your father have done?"
"So would I do if I could wield a sword."
He took the reproach he had not looked for and stared at her a moment, then let fall his hands and turned toward the door, patient because there was nothing else to be.
"Ciaran." Heartbreak was in Branwyn's voice. He stopped and looked back with hope of her.
"So would I do," he said quietly, "if I could wield a sword."
"Put off the stone. Will you kill us all, and the children too?"
He brought a hand to the stone and felt it cold as it had been cold for days, like ice against his heart. He had nothing to say, nothing that would not give Branwyn more to fear than already she had; anger was better than anguish.
"Answer me."
"No, Branwyn."
"O gods!"
His cloak was on the peg. He gathered it up. "I shall not be going far. No riding off."
"Take me with you."
He shook his head. "No."
"Into Eald. Into Eald, is it?"
He put the cloak on, pretending he had not heard. "It may be cold."
"O gods, Ciaran, don't go."
He managed a little smile, not an easy one. "Back by supper," he said, as if he were only going out to the fences.
And then he stepped away, not a little parting, but a great one, so that he caught at the stone and held it clenched in his hand, lost for a moment in the chill gray mist.
"Arafel!" he cried, "Arafel!" but he did not call the third time, not daring that. He listened a long time, hoping for any small sound, searching with his heart for any trace or hope of her. "I am here," he shouted into the gray mist, in the green of the forest with the mois ture dripping off the bracken and glistening on black bark. "You said I should not call your name—but that you would always know what I was doing. You said that I shouldn't walk here—but the world isn't as safe as it was either. And I do need you."