“We have known battle and blood, joy and sorrow, and we will know more as nights pass and days dawn. And we will know peace, as we vowed, as those before us vowed, a thousand years and more to take it, keep it, hold it. What each knows, so all know. We are one. We are Talamh.”
They cheered him; he waited.
“This night, we are here, in this place. We are in the hills and the valleys, the forests and the fields. We are in the caves, the cliffs, the shore, and the sea. We are one. We are Talamh. And as one we welcome Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh, granddaughter of Mairghread, daughter of Eian, child of the Fey, of men, of gods.”
He lifted his tankard, turned to her. “Pick yours up now,” he murmured.
He spoke first in Talamhish, then translated. “As you are ours, we are yours, you are home. And so a thousand welcomes, Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh, daughter of the Fey.”
He tapped his tankard to her goblet. “Sláinte. Drink,” he added under the calls of “Sláinte!” from the rest.
They cheered again when she did. As she stood, her throat closed, but not with nerves. With gratitude.
“I—”
Marco took her free hand. “You can do it.”
“Okay.” She breathed out. “Thank you.” The room quieted on her words, so she repeated them. “Thank you for your welcome, and your kindness, and your patience …” She glanced at Keegan. “Well, patience from most.”
It surprised her to hear the shouts and laughter. Maybe it shouldn’t have, she realized.
“I’ve come back to Talamh, and though I have family on the other side, I have my brother with me.” She lifted her hand joined with Marco’s. “I have family among the Fey, and with them, through them, I found myself. I’ve come back to Talamh. I’ve come home.”
“Well done,” Keegan told her under the cheers. “Now sit, or they’ll only want more.”
Relieved, she sat, laid a hand on Bollocks’s head when he rested it on her knee. “What now?”
“We eat,” Keegan said simply.
They ate. Platters of meats, boards of breads, tureens of soups, and more. Music and voices rang out again, and Breen used them to keep her words only for Keegan’s ear.
“Shana? Have you found her?”
“Not as yet. She has few resources,” he said almost to himself. “And as she’s rarely gone beyond the village, she doesn’t know the land, the people well. She can’t hide long.”
“When I was teaching, I’d always have a handful of students who’d been overindulged at home, and who thought rules and consequences for breaking them didn’t really apply to them. And a few of that handful would always find a way to slide away from consequences or strike out, enraged, when they couldn’t.”
“You taught children. She’s not a child.” Then he shook his head. “But you’ve the right on this. In many ways, a child is just what she is.”
“And that’s why you’re worried.”
As she spoke, she saw Kiara slip into the room, a man with ginger hair beside her. He led her to a table where those sitting immediately stood to embrace her.
So many good hearts, Breen thought, so the cold one chilled more deeply.
She started to turn to Marco, so saw Brian come in through a side door before he did. Brian touched a hand—one with Marco’s gift on his wrist—to Marco’s shoulder, and moved on to Keegan.
He bent over, spoke quietly.
Keegan nodded. “Sit. Eat.” Absently, he tossed a bite of beef to Bollocks. “No one’s seen her as yet,” he said to Breen. “Everything that can be done is being done, so put it aside for now.”
He leaned toward his mother when she spoke to him, then took a long drink of wine.
“I’m to start the dancing.” When he rose, held out a hand to Breen, she just stared at him. “With you.” Rather than wait, he just took her hand.
A heart could sink into the belly and freeze there, Breen discovered, as he pulled her around the table and into the wide, clear space.
“What kind of dance? I don’t know how—”
“Left palm to my right, and your right on your hip, then switch when I do, three times. You know how to dance. I’ve seen you. Eyes on mine.”
It helped to look at him, only him, and not think about anything else. She heard the music, heard hands clapping and feet stomping to keep the beat, but if she looked at only him, she didn’t think about how many eyes watched her.
He talked her through the steps, even when the tempo quickened. A turn, a touch, and with that quickening tempo a turn became a spin, a touch an embrace. And with her blood beating in time, she wished for more.
The wishing made her breathless when, his hands firm on her waist, he lifted her up, into a half circle, brought her down so their bodies pressed together for just one aching moment.
He stepped back, but brought her hand to his lips as he did so. He kept her hand as he led her back to the table. Others flooded out to dance when the music picked up again.
“I need to dance with my mother, Minga, others. I would rather with you. This is a problem for me.”
“A problem for you?”
“Aye.” He pulled out her chair. “You should sit, as you won’t be given many chances to be off your feet now.”
“I don’t know all the dances.”
“You’ll figure it out.” He hesitated, then leaned down, spoke quietly. “You’ll dance with others, as you should, and you’ll enjoy. But I’ll ask you don’t look at any of them as you looked at me. I want that for mine.”
He straightened, turned to his mother, held out a hand.
Marco leaned over to Breen. “Sexy dance!”
“Stop.”
“I see what I see, know what I know.”
“Go dance with Brian.”
She’d barely said the words when Morena’s brother Phelin came up to her. “Let’s dance, shall we, to spots of rain and leaping frogs.”
“You weren’t always annoying.” She smiled at him as she rose. “I remember you made up games when you lowered yourself to play with—you called us girl babies.”
“Well now, I was, I think, all of six at the time, so far superior.”
Her big brother. That’s how she’d thought of him then, and how, she realized, she felt now. “I don’t know the dance.”
He winked at her. “I’ll talk you through it then. Girl baby.”
Shana watched Breen dance. She watched those who’d professed to be her friends fawn over the witch from outside. The despair she’d begun to feel as she’d found Keegan’s lackies guarding Loren’s house, keeping her from seeking shelter and help against this horrible betrayal, had hardened, had heated into a burning rage.
They searched for her in the forest, from the skies, in the village. As if she’d broken laws instead of defending herself, her place, her rights.
And when she’d come back, so tired from hiding herself in trees and stones and high grasses among the sheep, she’d had to sneak into the castle like a thief in the night only to find the door of her own room barred to her.
The door to her parents’ room guarded against her.
And with her own kind searching the castle, the grounds, with empaths searching for even a whisper of her thoughts, her feelings, she would soon find herself unsafe in her own home.
And all because the one from the other side, the one who didn’t belong, had somehow turned the taoiseach against her.
Had turned so many so now they feted her like a goddess.
But Shana would break that spell, she would retake her rightful place. When the other from the other lay cold in her own blood, they would thank her for ridding them of that false goddess. Keegan would pay, just as the usurper paid.
Then she wouldn’t be wife of the taoiseach.
She would be taoiseach. And everyone, anyone who turned from her, like Kiara, would live in misery in the Dark World.