I look up as Conor slides to the wood of the causeway beside me, dangling his feet so that they almost touch the water. He’s trailed by Seanna, Miach, and the burly form of blunt-faced Fearghus, who are chatting cheerfully about something, fast enough that I’m having difficulty following the conversation. None of them hesitate as they join me, despite the embarrassment of training this morning.
“Not at all.” Conor grins at my denial, dimples showing, and I can’t help but reflect some of the annoyingly irrepressible expression back at him. “Perhaps a little.”
It’s dusk. The waters are silent and mirror smooth as the lake stretches away for hundreds of feet, reflecting both bruising sky and the thickly forested slope to the west. Everywhere else surrounding is rolling hills that are green and tipped gold in the last of the light. From our small, artificially created island out here, we can see every part of the shore; while the large hut farther along houses a long table as well as mats of straw and fur for our nights, most of us prefer to eat out here. Sitting out above the water like this feelsright, somehow.
It’s windless this evening, still and quiet. This place has an ethereal beauty to it that’s hard to put into words. A natural calm that I can’t quite decide comes from the place itself, or just my own mind. There are no towering structures or bustling cities or conquered peoples. No outward signs of Will, no matter what I saw this morning. Suus was like that, as well, but there was always the crashing waves, always energy and light and warmth and motion. My heart remains there, of course, but this … this is appealing, too, in its own way.
I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders. Still gods-damned cold for summer, though.
“At least you were not the one used to set an example,” grumbles Miach as he slides onto the wooden slat on the other side of me. His face is swollen and bruised from Tara’s strikes. Despite the words, he seems to hold no particular grudge over it.
“You know what you are doing,” chimes in Fearghus, rubbing at his squashed nose. “But your technique needs a lot of work.”
“You have to be faster. Put your opponent on the defensive,” observes Seanna.
“And adjust your footwork to account for your arm,” adds Conor, offering me a bowl of some kind of fish stew. “Tara may be adeamhan, but Pádraig’s right—you were protecting your left too much.”
I look around at them all. They’re just being honest. No sense that I might be offended and because of that, it’s hard to be. Especially because I know they’re right.
“Thanks.” I scoop some of the stew into my mouth, pleasantly surprised at the taste. “Did you think she would beat three of you at once?”
Seanna grunts, while Fearghus rolls his eyes. Miach flips the silver coin he seems to constantly keep on his person, catching it with an absent, practiced motion and barely looking at the result.
“Tara always wins,” says Conor ruefully.
I nod, keeping my expression and voice carefully casual. “Her eyes,” I note between taking mouthfuls from my bowl. “They looked strange.”
“Thenasceann.” Seanna nods.
“Nasceann?” I don’t know the word.
There’s silence as they glance at each other and then screw up their faces, trying to come up with a proper translation for me.
“It is one who has a battle-fever,” says Miach eventually, his coin glimmering as he flips it again. Expression indicating dissatisfaction at the description even as he says it.
“But not one of anger,” adds Fearghus.
“The opposite,” agrees Conor, “at least according to Pádraig. He says it is a calmness. A clarity. Communion with the fight.”
“Draoi Affraic says it is a strength given by the gods to only the greatest warriors,” says Seanna.
I focus on her. “There are druids here?” I haven’t seen any of the white-cloaked men since I arrived. Not since Caer Áras, actually. My impression is that they’re the educated class among these people, and part of me still wants to see whether someone else has heard of Caten or the Hierarchy. To understand exactly where I am. But the more cautious side of me knows that it is their apparent leader Ruarc who wants me dead, too.
“Not here. But they visit. Teach us lessons, from time to time.” From Seanna’s tone, those lessons tend to be boring.
I try to make it look as though the information is only vaguely interesting. “When will they next come?”
“Dia Saol alone knows. Thedraoido not keep to normal people’s schedules,” says Conor cheerfully.
“Ah. And what are the lessons they teach?”
“They train the mind,” says Fearghus.
“Where they can,” adds Seanna lightly, with a conspicuous look at Fearghus.
“Do they teachnasceann?”
There’s another silence at that. Not quite uncomfortable, but an unspoken communication between the group as they decide what to say.
