She caught her breath. For many moments she did not speak, merely ran her hands down his arms, soothing, and over his heart.
“Are ye certain o’ this?”
“Aye, Bradana. I know ye were the one who wanted to leave there—”
“Hear me, and hear me well. I did no’ want to leave. I thought it might save ye. My fear o’ losing ye is such that I would do anything, give anything, to keep ye from harm.”
“Aye,alanna, but there is fear, and there is destiny.” And a man must endure the latter, no matter what it cost him.
Bradana drew another breath. He felt her pull hard on her courage. “If this be what ye want, love, then I am with ye.”
“Ye will return to Alba with me, despite your fear?”
“Wherever ye may be, I am also.”
He kissed her deeply.
Would they arrive back in Alba to find the dream’s prediction come true? Would they step into battle? Would their time together be cut short?
Life was indeed about the choices one made. Adair hoped he made the right choice now.
*
They left forAlba on a day that hinted of autumn, with a bit of a cool breeze from the north. One of Adair’s friends, Oisin, was to accompany them to the coast so he could bring the ponies back once their company of three set sail.
Caomhán wept when Bradana parted from him. He made her promise to keep playing music and weaving tunes, and she whispered to him in parting, “I am carrying a child. Tell no one. Maybe he will be a grand harper someday.”
“Be sure and teach him well,” Caomhán returned.
Adair did not receive as fond a farewell from his father or brother. Baen said nothing. Bradana got the feeling he was glad to see the back of his brother se. Poised to marry and come into his own, he did not need competition from his father’s supposed favorite.
Gawen told Adair only, in parting, “Make something o’ yourself. And send word whether or not Daerg is still alive.”
“I am naught to my father but a third son,” Adair said to Bradana bitterly as they sailed away, “and of no value. They speak o’ the son returning home joyfully—he will no’ want to see me again.”
“Ah, but my love,” Bradana said, and kissed him, “ye are—ye are returning home.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
That voyage seemedlike a dream, one that ended as a nightmare. The little boat ferrying everything for which Bradana cared sailed with mystical ease over a smooth sea between the sleeping dragon islands. When they approached her grandfather’s settlement, Alba lay swathed in a bank of mist, her dark land banked like a fire. A place of magic and imaginings.
Not till they passed through that mist to the shore did the truth become apparent. For the mist cloaked even the din of the battle taking place.
She stared in horror, and Adair abandoned his oars to lean over the gunwale of the little boat. Even Wen picked up his head to stare. Bradana felt the blood drain from her head so rapidly, she went dizzy.
Nay. Nay!
Most of the settlement appeared to be aflame. Indeed, the smoke from the fires mingled with the mist to obscure the horrors before their eyes. Even a few of the boats on the shore burned.
Men fought everywhere. In the settlement itself, near to the hall. On the heights. On the shore.
One thought broke through Bradana’s dismay as she took in the terrible scene, her mind flailing. Their departure from this land she loved had spared her grandsire nothing.
Och, by all the blessed gods, where was he? That valiant old man who had been so ill when she left. Did he live or die?
“Mican?” she breathed, and reached to touch Adair, seeking to ground herself. “Are they his men?”
“Aye.” Adair did not move, frozen in his dismay, his eyes narrowed upon the throes of battle high and low.
