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As if speaking to children, Cait slapped her hands to her hips.
“Sure I’ve stood before him, haven’t I? In his world, in the black castle that shines with jewels, and the thunder claps when he calls it and the sea boils at his whim.”
“What portal, and how would you pass through?”
She sighed now. “You with your guards and your weak minds. Torian took me through. Dig the potatoes, pick the cabbage.” Shespoke in singsong as she glanced back with a sneer at her grieving family. “Feed the chickens. Always the same, then Torian came and said there was more, and showed me, and flew me through the portals, one by one, to show me. And all the way to Odran, who blessed me and promised me all the more, and I would be wife to Torian when Odran ruled, not to some mewling one from Talamh. But you killed him.”
“Whom did I kill?”
“Torian, you bastard! When he flew, strong and brave, and grabbed the mongrel witch, who could kick and scream and nothing more, from her weak father’s grave. You severed his head, and I cursed you. Your dragon turned him to ash, and I cursed him. I curse you now.”
The dark faerie, Keegan remembered, the one he’d fought the first time he’d met Breen.
“Torian was with you when he saw Breen at her father’s grave?”
“With me, and we would have been rewarded for delivering her then. He should have killed you, and this would be done. I would have avenged him and served Odran, but the witch’s magicks were small, too small. I pledged to Torian. I am pledged to Odran, and you will pay, Keegan O’Broin, I swear it. You will all pay.”
She whirled to face her family and all the others.
“You’ll be slaves and sacrifices, and I will dance to the music of your screams.”
“Oh, enough, Taoiseach.” Cait’s mother fell to her knees. “I beg you, enough.”
“Aye, it’s enough. Caitlyn O’Conghaile, by your own words and your actions done willing, you’ve damned yourself. You have broken sacred trusts. You have broken sacred laws.”
“I spit on your laws.” And she did, literally, on the floor at Keegan’s feet, drawing gasps from the onlookers.
“You are banished to the Dark World, where you will be taken and sealed for all time. This is the Judgment.”
He brought down his staff.
“He’ll crush you, and he’ll free me, and all you’ve sent to that place will rise against any and all of you.”
“You’ve betrayed your family, one who loved and cared for you. I feel nothing but pity for you now. Take her now to the dolmen.”
Feeling that pity, he brought down his staff again and got to his feet. “So it is done.”
“You’ll all bleed and burn,” Cait shouted out as Flynn pulled her from the room. “Odran will drain the Daughter of the Fey dry, and rule.”
Ignoring her, Keegan went to Cait’s mother, lifted her to her feet.
“You’re not to blame for this, your family is blameless in this.”
“She’s my child.”
“No longer, and I’m sorry for it,Máthair. He took your child, and I swear by all I am I’ll make him pay for it. I ask that you not come to the dolmen but go with your family. Go back to the valley, and I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”
“She was lost,” her mother wept. “She was lost.”
“Aye, she was lost. I grieve with you for this loss.” He signaled two dragon riders. “Take them home. See them home safe.”
And he’d use the mirror to speak to his mother so she’d be waiting to comfort them.
But now he walked back to the chair. He didn’t sit but stood as the family left the room.
“There is no blame,” he repeated. “If any light a candle tonight, let it be for those grieving and broken hearts. Go now, to your own families, to those you love, and give thanks for them. The Judgment is done.”
He did his duty and sent the defiant woman to a world of darkness and misery. Then he called Cróga and flew into the high thin air above the clouds, where he could simply be, where he saw nothing but the startling cold blue and the layer of white below.
