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January winds blew cold, and they blew damp. Breen spent the mornings of the new year snuggled in her office. She blogged, then toggled between Bollocks’s second adventure and the adult fantasy novel. She felt confident—and how she loved that sensation—she’d have Bollocks’s book ready by spring.
She second-guessed the fantasy every time she sat down with it, then found herself just falling in until it was time to change gears and leave for Talamh.
And there, she filled her afternoons with magicks and training, with flights on Lonrach and rides on the ever-dependable Boy. In the evenings, she had the cottage and Marco, often Brian.
She might take an hour or two in her room, with Bollocks sleeping by the fire, to work a little more.
She couldn’t say the nights were lonely, though they stretched long and she missed knowing Keegan slept beside her.
She took time for herself, visiting with Aisling and her boys, with Finola and Seamus, walking with Morena and watching the flight of the hawk.
She thought about her future, even set aside thoughts of Odran and war, and considered what her life might be like after.
After.
At the end of the first week of the new year, she walked with Marg, Tarryn, and Minga through the ruins.
Echoes, she thought, the echoes remained, but not the dark.
“It will stand,” Tarryn said. “A memorial of a kind. What you forgetto remember, you too often repeat, I think. So we remember what was done here in the name of faith, and we remember never to allow it to happen again.”
She turned a circle, a woman in tall boots with her sun-kissed hair in a simple tail that flowed down her back. “More will walk here now, and remember.”
“In my world, history speaks.” Minga, wide-legged pants flowing, stepped out on a colonnade. “And it speaks of a time when those who ruled, and those under that rule, were judged by color.”
She ran her fingers down the golden skin on the back of her hand. “This color would study and rise, would own the land and whatever riches they wished. This color would work the land and pay a portion to the rulers. This color would sew and craft and build. And this color would toil as slaves. So year by year this was law and custom.”
She wandered up the curve of stone steps, looked out through an opening. “Then many, of all the colors, said no, no more. We share blood and heart and world and land. There were wars across Largus, and blood shed. Red blood, all the same under the skin. So the laws and customs changed. Some learned and remembered, others never do.”
She walked down again.
“In every world, I think, all who can must learn and remember and stand against those who never do.”
“This,mo dheirfiúr, is why you’re on the council.” Tarryn took her hand, then turned. “What do you feel here, Breen?”
“A lingering sorrow for wrongs done, but clean air. And… relief that what was done is finished.”
“The spirits we freed,” Marg added, “to the light and to the dark are on the next journey. As it should be. And if their time comes round again, there will be the fresh, the new, and that journey offers more choices.”
She smiled, nodded, took Breen’s hand and Minga’s as Tarryn took Breen’s other hand.
“We did good work, work of justice, of kindness. Work of the light. Blessed be to all,” Marg said, “on this new journey, in this new year.”
Bollocks trotted ahead, and the women walked out together.
Breen wondered she hadn’t felt him, or known. Keegan sat on the big black stallion, who cropped at the tall grass in the graveyard.
Her heart gave a quick leap, and however foolish, the day seemed brighter. He dismounted, leaving Merlin to graze with the other mounts. He bent to greet the happy dog.
The winter wind stirred his hair, flapped his duster as he walked through the stones.
He greeted his mother first, as was proper, with a kiss she turned into a quick embrace.
“Welcome home,mo chroí. You made good time.”
“The roads are hard and dry all the way west.”
He kissed Marg, then Minga, in turn, before staring at Breen.
