Day 14 of Midwinter, Sunrise

  Brú na Dallta

  Annwn

  The hallway was quiet back to Father’s chamber. He would be awake after the coming of the Bodach. There would likely be none sleeping in all of the town after the host of Old Powers invaded. My brothers, Ethadon and Caicher would be staying nearby, likely in adjacent rooms. They would be flanked by numerous changeling guards and a handful of Ellyllon.

  I wanted to be sure my family had not been rested from their sleep by the clawed demons that plagued my nightmares as a child. I needed to be sure they were safe. Thinking that, I immediately scolded myself for still caring about their fates. After all, they had been the ones to imprison me with Bren.

  It was my declaration of friendship with Bren that had sealed my fate. Bren’s brother, Cai, was the new warlord of the Fomorian horde, and my father’s sworn enemy in that war. He saw my release from the Deep Realm as suspicious, and my allegiance to Bren as an act of a traitor. Yet he didn’t know the conflict in my heart. Father was strong, and I sought out his approval at every moment of my life, but Bren opened my eyes to the dangers of his absolute power.

  My family had declared war on the Fomorians, but we had also turned our backs on the fae. Father had killed his nephew, stolen his domain, and attempted to take the Four Treasures for himself. Lastly, he had captured the Breo-Banríon, and in this I was complicit. The former Fiery Queen was beloved in the land, not only in her home of Gorias. She was my kin, and I had willingly marched her into the proverbial lion’s den.

  I had thought of nothing else since my time in the Deep Realm. And though I had done many regrettable things, seemingly, for the good of the realm, marching Brigid info Falias was the deepest wound inside of my heart. Father kept her in that tower, in a forced torpor, one she might never wake from. Was it only from the power of her domain that father didn’t kill her like he had her partner? Or did he simply kill Bres because he had the blood of the Fomorians running through him?

  With those thoughts, something inside me changed. I stopped in the dark hallway and thought about my actions. Just ahead, I would find my father surrounded by his loyal subjects. I would find my proud and envious brothers imbibing our father’s worst qualities. My heart would drive me to protect them, but in return, they would lock me up again, just as we had done to Brigid. I felt my feet turn and face the front of the building, my back to the familiar voices of my family.

  Ahead, beyond the maze of hallways and corridors in the compound, the harbor bell was ringing signifying the coming of the Fomorian fleet. Father would answer this call to arms. I could hear him yelling, behind me, for someone to lash on his armor. He was nearly ready. They would exit the building using the hallway I was standing in. I should have been worried about being discovered, but instead, I felt numb. My body felt like a sea-going vessel without wind or wave, lacking momentum and bearing.

  A flash of light caught my eye near the floor, resting near the doorframe. It was a scabbard containing a handle that I was very familiar with. I looked down at the blade I was carrying. It was bloody and well-worn from battle. I had taken it off of one of the fallen soldiers who had died fighting the Bodach, but it was mundane in nature. The sword on the floor was one of the renowned King’s Guard sabers. It had a short crossguard, and the scabbard mirrored the curved tip of the one-sided blade inside. The pommel read, Gealltóir. I smiled. That would do.

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  I left my bloody blade next to the door so those behind me would find it and I took “Vowkeeper" with me, exiting my father’s section of the building. Instead of heading toward the harbor, I hooked back around to the rear of the building, once I cleared the king’s suite. There were no guards at the rear entrance. All of them had rushed toward the sound of battle. I knew I would eventually run into someone possibly loyal to my father, but where I was going I would also find friendly faces.

  Popping out into the morning light, I took in the landscape of the partially walled-in pasture. To my left were the stables of the king. Before I could find him, I heard a whinny that was music to my ears, and I focused in on the source of the swift thunder. Gaoth, the fastest warhorse in all of Annwn, halted his cantor just steps from where I stood. Behind him, I could hear the hearty laugh of the stable master follow slowly behind.

  “I knew you must be near,” Bairic said. “Old Gaoth here has been inconsolable since last evening.”

  The man was an old friend. He was charged with tending the mounts of the king and his immediate family. My brothers and I had spent countless hours in the stables tending to the horses and in the saddle, posting according to Bairic’s instruction.

  He was the only man I knew, other than Morias, to have ever openly disagreed with Father and kept his job. That disagreement was about who should ride Gaoth. Father wanted the warhorse to go to my eldest brother, Caicher. Bairic insisted that Gaoth would only let me ride him. And up until Bren had stolen away on Gaoth from the Heart-shaped Pool, he was right. Unfortunately for Caicher, Father had insisted he try to ride the stallion named for the wildest part of nature. A few broken ribs later, Caicher convinced Father that perhaps Bairic had been right all along.

  I clasped the giant forearm of the man, “You are a sight for weary eyes, my friend.”

  “What? Has your old man not included you in his war?” Clearly, he thought that I was bothered by not being on the front line with the Overking and my brothers.

  “I’m afraid I may have permanently fallen out of Father’s good graces this time.”

  “Nonsense lad,” Bairic said, stroking the side of Gaoth’s muzzle. “Your father loves his family more than anything else in this here crazy world of ours. And there ain’t nothing you can do about that.”

  “Even if I oppose his war?”

  The big man paused at that and appeared to be studying me. More time passed, and it became clear to me that he wasn’t just thinking about what I had said, he was weighing the outcome of his next words. “So, one of ya has got some sense after all.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that statement and he tensed. Then I smiled and slapped him in the arm. “You are going to get in trouble if you let me take Gaoth out of this pasture.”

  Relaxing, he returned my smile with his own sad grin. “Where are ya heading?”

  “I need to get back to Falias before Father returns.”

  “Don’t go through Murias,” he said. “It’s faster to go through Deepwater, but someone will recognize and detain you there.”

  I thought about that. He was suggesting that I take Gaoth the long way around Tech Duinn, through the Midlands. “Mag Mell presents its own challenges.”

  “If ya can stay away from the fachan and the trow, Gaoth should get ya there in under two moons.” He looked at my mount with pride in his eyes for what the horse was capable of.

  I wondered how long the battle would rage here in the harbor, and if father would choose to stay on another night in Brú na Dallta. Not likely, after the events of the past evening. “It will be close,” I thought.

  I noticed Bairic studying me again. He was looking at me in a manner that I was unaccustomed to seeing. “Something is different with you my boy. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  “That makes two of us,” I quipped.

  He laughed at me and led Gaoth closer to the stables. We both began getting my mount ready to ride. “What’s so pressing back in Hightower, if ya don’t mind me asking.”

  “There is a sin I need to atone for,” I said, intentionally trying to keep it vague. The less he knew the better it was for his own wellbeing.

  He nodded and handed me the reins. I climbed up and rested my weight upon the familiar saddle. “Be careful with our beautiful boy here,” Bairic said, resting his palm on the side of Gaoth reverently. “And be careful with your own arse. War changes a man. Just make sure it is changing you for the better.”

  I turned and Gaoth spirited me away at a full cantor. As the world passed by me at impossible speeds, Bairic’s last words echoed in my mind. I wondered, not for the last time, how this journey would change me.

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