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She took the wine, sipped, then told the tale.
At the Capital, Keegan took a meal with Brian in his quarters.
“You give me an excuse to have a meal in peace instead of the banquet hall. Even if bringing the Troll means it’ll be another day or two until I can go back to the valley.”
“I’m sorry for that part of it.”
“You’ll bear witness at the Judgment, and we’ll wait for that until Loga comes. You think he’s well enough to travel?”
“He was on his feet and holding his own when I left. I don’t think the wound was a mortal one—the single wound Odran’s assassin put into Loga before Breen stopped him. And stop him she did, sending him six feet in the air. Made it easy for me to grab him up and hold him.”
He washed down a bite of rack of lamb with ale. “She had the right of it, Keegan, when she said they’d trust her. Sul did just that, or I might’ve found myself dodging Troll arrows.”
“Thar’s father fought with Eian against Odran and fell as Eian did. I remember this, though I didn’t know him well. So I remember Thar was at the lake, and in it, the day I lifted the sword.”
“And hopes to take it from you.”
Though Keegan’s lips curved, humor played no part. “Well now, he’ll have to keep hoping, won’t he? There’s only one Judgment for an attempt to take a life. You’ll have your say, as will Loga and any other he chooses to bring. As will Thar himself.”
“Three now, well, four with the one from Samhain, and there’s Toric and his like. How many more like them, I wonder, living with us?”
“I’m hoping not many. You said the raven came through the portal.”
“I came straight from the Troll camp to the Capital,” Brian told him. “As you needed to know about Thar’s attempt on Loga’s life. It was Breen who saw the raven, so Duncan could follow and learn.”
“How is it she saw and none of you?”
“Yseult, she said.”
As Brian went through it, Keegan rose, paced, threw open doors for air, sat again. Drank again.
“I’ve never seen anyone do what she did. Well, no one without wings,” Brian clarified. “Can you?”
“I’ve never tried it. It’s a simple enough matter, with focus, to rise a few inches, a foot perhaps. But it’s been more of a giving. To the air. To merge with the element. Not as much a purpose. It would’ve taken power, will, and purpose.”
“And how she spoke, Keegan. Full of that power, will, and purpose. In herself and out of herself at once, if that makes sense.”
He’d seen it in her before. “Sense enough.”
“When she spoke the last words, in Talamhish? I swear to you they shook through me. And I confess here to you, if they’d been meant for me? I would fear.”
Misneach, he thought. It meant both courage and spirit. She had both.
“And the breach is sealed. We’ll check all the others for this crack she saw. One that opens and closes.”
“Even when I was beside her, in the air, I didn’t see what she saw.”
“Yseult’s magicks, but knowing that, and them, I’m forewarned. We won’t close the others should we find them.” He lifted a brow when Brian nodded. “You think as I do.”
“If we close them, a raven can’t get through, and we can’t follow as Duncan did today.”
“Aye.” Sipping his ale, Keegan considered. “We could prevent a message getting to a spy—by that means in any case—but we wouldn’t find the spy so easy. Or stop a plan such as the one to take Loga’s life and point at another for murder. Odran hopes to set us on each other, that’s clear enough now. And this tells me he’s not so sure he can defeat the Fey as we stand together.”
“We will stand together.”
“That we will, aye.” Keegan lifted his tankard in toast. “For one and all.”
Later, well into the night, and alone, Keegan roamed his rooms.He thought of calling Cróga, a flight to break this confinement. But he knew himself, and knew once on Cróga’s back, he’d fly west.
