Twixt Firelight and Water Read Online Free

small face when I told him we were kin, and died when I bade him farewell.
     
    ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Ciáran’s father asked.
     
    ‘I might ask you the same question,’ I said. ‘But I will not. I think the two of us want the same thing: for the boy to be safe. Where would you take him? How could you keep him out of danger?’
     
    He looked at me. I saw the strength written in his face, and the suffering. ‘If I tell you,’ he said, ‘those who seek to harm him can get the answers from you and hunt him down. So I will not tell. But there is a place where he can be protected, and I will take him there. His father and his brothers will keep him safe.’
     
    ‘Brothers?’ I echoed, somewhat taken aback to think there were more of us out there.
     
    The stranger glanced towards the unglazed window of the inn. I had thought this a solitary journey, a father’s lonely quest to claim his lost son. But this man was no fool. He’d brought reinforcements. The two of them were standing out the front waiting for him, youngish men made very much in his own mould, with pale, intense faces, keen eyes, unsmiling mouths. Weaponry of various kinds hung about them. The father hadn’t needed to carry a pack; each of his sons bore one. His sons, but not hers. There was no touch of the uncanny on these hard-faced warriors.
     
    ‘Half-brothers.’
     
    It was not a question, but I thought it needed an answer. ‘I only have one half-brother,’ I said. ‘Promise me he will be safe, and I will show you where he is.’ Fear dripped through me like ice water. ‘But understand the danger, for all of us.’
     
    ‘Oh, I understand.’ His voice was like iron. ‘You are her son?’
     
    I would not answer so direct a question. ‘I will show you,’ I said. ‘The best time is early morning, not long after dawn. You must be prepared to leave quickly and travel swiftly. At present she is not here, but she may return at any time. Weapons such as those your sons bear will not help you in this struggle.’
     
    ‘Come,’ he said, rising to his feet.
     
    The two sons were wary; everything about them spoke distrust. I bore some resemblance to my mother, and while I did not know their story, I imagined she had wrought havoc amongst their family. Unsurprising, then, that they did not warm to me. But they did their father’s bidding and a plan was made. We would camp out in the woods overnight, close to the cottage. We would move in before dawn and take him. They had horses stabled nearby, and could travel swiftly. And they had one or two other tricks, they said, but nobody told me what those were.
     
    I prayed that my mother’s visit to the south would be a lengthy one, though I knew Ciáran’s training would call her back soon; her methods required that the student not be allowed time to mull over what she was doing to him. If she discovered this plan, all of us would be caught up in her fury. By Danu’s sweet mercy, it was a risk indeed.
     
    ‘We must make a pact of silence, Conri,’ the nobleman said when the four of us were out of doors, under the trees, working out how it would unfold. ‘Neither I nor my sons here will mention your name, whatever pressure is applied to us. None of us will say how we found the boy. In return, you will not speak of what happened. You will cover our tracks as best you can. You will do all in your power to avoid laying a trail. If you love your little brother, and it seems to me that is so, you will do what you can to ensure he is not hurt.’
     
    Not hurt? Ciarán had already been hurt so badly the scars of it would be with him all his life. ‘I will honour the pact,’ I said. ‘As I said, I’m to be married at Lugnasad. We won’t be making our home here.’
     
    ‘I wish you joy,’ he said quietly. ‘Now take us close to the place. We must remain in cover until it’s time.’
     
    I wondered what Lóch would think when she came home and found the cottage empty. I’d