"Domhnull."
The voice was high and clear and urgent, from the steps above him. He looked up at Meadhbh and Ceallach.
"Go inside," he said. A dread was on him because of the clouds. He felt the whole of Caer Wiell defenseless, naked to storm and lightning. "Get back inside!"
The thunder cracked. They flinched together and looked up. He took the steps, reckless of the pain, and suddenly saw another sight but Caer Wiell stone—saw the border hills all shadowed, tangled figures locked in battle, men in route and dying in the black hail of arrows. Lost, he thought, between two steps; and like a thunderclap remembered that he had dreamed this once before, in early morning. The north is fallen. Ruadhan!
"Domhnull—" Small hands gripped his, thin arms embraced him at the stair's crest. He swept the pair up with him, carried them both, aching with the pain and stumbling. An icy wind rose; it battered at them, carried dust, smelling of rain. He thrust them inside the door way where there was some shelter, and looked back again.
"They're going north," said Ceallach. "The clouds are going north."
They were: the gray mare's-tails streamed off the cloudwall above them, all tending in the same direction like strands of black wool all drawn by some invisible hand.
"Like weaving," said Meadhbh. "Look!—there are more coming from the north below them."
The lightning cracked. Wails of dismay came from the yard, the screams of children. "Get inside," he shouted at them. He went out onto the wall and yelled at the men who were running down the steps to safety, to the folk who were hurrying in the yard. "Get everyone within walls! Go to the Old Halclass="underline" go to the barracks! The doors are open!"
Wind whirled up sand from where it gathered by the stairs. Lean nan came out of nowhere, clutching his harp like a babe before him, rushing up the steps. The awning of the scullery ripped loose; a stack of pots overturned and went racketing about in the wind. A stray horse bolted through the yard, shying from the pots and running children.
"Domhnull!" It was Muirne's voice behind him. He stood staring outward. The sun was going. Shadow covered them. The winds howled. If he let himself he could see dark and flickerings of light ning, like that night at Donn.
"Domhnull!" A hand seized his arm. It was Leannan who pulled him back inside shelter. The door slammed: Muirne dropped the bar. Meadhbh and Ceallach hugged him as if they feared he too would fade; he hugged them blindly to him and went up the stairs inside with them, while thunder shook the stones.
Branwyn waited there, sitting by the fire.
"It's happened," Domhnull said. The children were mute beside him, too prophetic, shivering. He held to them. "Lady Branwyn, the border's fallen."
She was unamazed. She stared at him. Her eyes were dry. She was stone, ice, immobility. "So Beorc will come home now," she said. "If he can free himself. Rhys with him."
"No," said Leannan. "Likeliest they will be at Hlowebourne by now. And if Ruadhan retreats Beorc will stand there, Ruadhan's shield."
"He mustn't," said Meadhbh. Her teeth were chattering. Domhnull clenched his arm about her. "It's coming. Something dark —dark on your path, he said; he told me."
"Hush," said Ceallach, "Meadhbh, don't."
She grew cold a moment. Domhnull felt it, as if some winter wind had chilled her skin, even beneath his hand. "Meadhbh," he said. "Stay, stay here."
Eald quaked. The silver trees shed gold in the darkness, a cascade on the hill, an ebbing of their light even with the first glimmering of dawn.
There was silence for the moment. Then the wind began, driving more leaves before it, and the day hesitated, whether it could dawn at all.
The night's cold lingered. Arafel sat still within the grove, head bowed against her knees, her sword embracing them in her hands.
The moonstone's light was dimmed, murked with shadows, and she could not bear to look at it.
Darknesses crept close among the trees, regaining courage in the fading of her spell. They whispered there.
Then she lifted her head and clenched her hand on the sword hilt, and the silver light gleamed.
"Where is the horse?" one mocked her. "Do you know that, Duine Sidhe? Has it run away like the Man? Or has something caught it?"
"There were two," said the other, whose eyes were lamps in shadow, "but she has lost them both."
Her heart grew cold. She rose with the sword held before her. "What mean you—run away? Be plain, wight."
They edged back into darkness. Others were there, tall Sidhe, slim and pale of face. They were armed and armored, and the rising day shone through them.
"Begone!" she cried. "Dun Gol hold you! Begone from Eald!"
They vanished. They were prudent still. Her wound ached. The sword sank point against the earth, impaling golden, once-silver leaves. The leaves still fell, spiraling about her, gentle and desolate; and a longing was on her—how fair they had seemed, even as they were, how fair and how proud and how much what the Sidhe had been.
"Fionnghuala," she whispered. And aloud: "Fionnghuala."
Rain began to fall, cold as death, hazing the struggling day, mak ing the leaves one sodden carpet and sending shivers to her bones. It heralded change, like the falling of the leaves. Even Miadhail, the youngest of trees, had green only in his uppermost leaves; a dozen at least fell to the onslaught of the wind.
"Fionnghuala."
There was a breath near her. The elf horse stood drenched in rain, her bright head lifted, nostrils wide.
"So you are here," Arafel said, and shivered at the doubt that had been so easily sown in her heart; like the rain, like the death of trees, it was the waning of her strength. And Fionnghuala hesitated, as if that doubt had come between them.
She went to the horse, offered her hand. Soft breath came against it in return, trust and faith. The night was past; elvish day had come, even a murky one and dim. And time—mortal time—how much of it had fled?
Ciaran—Ciaran—Ciaran!
Run away, the voices had whispered. She felt something, but it had changed, vastly changed. She felt another presence when she strove to reach through the mist, the prisoning, black trees.
"Aodhan," she murmured. The stone pained her, went cold. "What of Aodhan—Fionnghuala?" She stroked the damp neck, felt the shiver, brisk and impatient. A fey dark eye regarded her, full of dread and madness. Come, it said. Come. There are things yet to try.
She sheathed the sword, seized the mane and swung up, and Fionnghuala began to move, in a muttering of thunder, shifting through here and now with increasing swiftness. In the long night she had lost much. The day promised to be brief and dim—but it was her day, all the same, when the drow must wane.
Ciaran, she thought, and shivered at what the stone brought her, a lost and lonely grayness, far from any sun. "Aodhan!" she called, and the names wound together inseparable in their fate.
She rode even into mortal Eald. But here there was no sign or touch of them. "Lord Death!" she called.
But even he was gone.
One touch of Eald remained in this world. For memory, she had said once, for memory that Eald is true.
And again: I have set a virtue on them of finding.
Thunder rumbled in the night. Meadhbh wished to be brave, but she shivered, even wrapped as she was in warmth, in the hall and the glow of fire and the presence of those she loved.