Daughter of Lir Read Online Free Page A

mouthless,
noseless. Their eyes were slits of darkness.
    They were mortal women, living and breathing, flawed and
foolish. They stood in the open air, under the clear eye of heaven. And yet
Rhian’s hackles rose.
    The girls and young women of Long Ford had found their way
to the open space between the gathering and the stone. Rhian took a place at
the farthest end, the eastward end. As she stood there, for a moment she
swayed, dizzy. The earth shook as if with the rolling of countless wheels, the
pounding of hooves, the onslaught of red war.
    She gasped and steadied. There were no terrible battle-cars.
There was only the sun and the grass, the river, the sky; and the gathered
people of Long Ford, waiting for the priestess to choose a new servant for the
Goddess.
    The priestess came down from the stone. Two of her acolytes
bowed before her. One set a shallow bowl in her hands, a bowl as plain as the
earth underfoot. The other poured clear water from a jar as plain as the bowl,
filling it to the brim.
    The priestess trod slowly down the line of girls and women.
Her mask revealed no expression. There was no sound. No chanting, no sacred
words. Only the silence.
    Her coming was like a fire on the skin, like a drumbeat in
the earth. It was not the same as the dream of war, and yet in its way it was
as terrible. Here was power. Rhian had never known its like.
    Never, in the waking world.
    She wanted—she felt—she could—
    The priestess’ advance slowed. Rhian forgot to breathe. The
earth thrummed beneath her. She saw the water in the bowl, how it stirred and
shimmered. She met the eyes behind the mask.
    They were dark. They glittered. They saw her—knew her. Read
her soul. She laid it bare to them. She gave it the dreams, the wind. She gave
it all her secrets that she had kept since she was small. All the
strangenesses. All the things that her kin had taught her to hide. They filled
her as water filled the bowl. They brimmed over as the water surged and
spilled, pouring out at the priestess’ feet.
    She turned away, turned her back on Rhian. She walked again
down the line of young women, then paused once more. She poured out what little
water was left in the bowl, a thin stream upon Cara’s elaborately braided head.
    Rhian did not remember leaving the field. She did not know
if she walked or ran; if anyone spoke to her, or if she fled in silence. One
moment she was standing in blank astonishment, knowing surely, to the very
bone, that the priestess had betrayed the choosing. Cara had nothing about her
that befit a priestess. She dreamed no dreams. She knew nothing but the world
that simple eyes could see.
    There was no one in Dura’s house when she came to it. She took
off her beautiful dress. She put away her ornaments. She put on her plain and
work-scarred trousers, that she had almost outgrown: they strained across her
hips. But they were of good leather, and they were not quite threadbare.
    She was not thinking at all. She had had no clear thought
since the priestess turned away from her—deliberately, coldly refused the
Goddess’ own choosing. She gathered certain things from Dura’s house, and
certain others from Bran’s. She made a pack out of them, as a hunter would. She
had her bow, and a filled quiver.
    They were celebrating on the field by the river. There was
music, laughter. She fancied she heard Cara’s high sweet giggle.
    She turned her back on them, just as the priestess had done
to her. She left them to their falsehood of a choosing.

3
    Emry’s world had always been a bright and splendid place.
He was a prince in Lir. His father was the king, the warleader of the city. His
mother was the Mother, Goddess incarnate. His brothers were tolerable, and some
he even liked. He did not want to kill any of them. The people loved him. And
everyone knew that when the time came, Emry would be king in Lir.
    Then came this terrible year. The wasting sickness began to
eat at the Mother from within. A sickness very