The Last Days of Magic (3 page)

Two of the four guards who had thundered into the clearing with Liam and Aisling wheeled and charged the tree line. The others, swords drawn, surveyed their surroundings while reining in their horses, whose nervous hooves sprayed more mud across Aisling’s body.

Liam sat calmly, turning his mount to scan the woods, then walking it over to where she lay, the shaft protruding from her back. He had inherited his muscular build from his human father, who was of a warrior clan, while his dignified stature came from his mother, a Sidhe—a Celtic term for those the Irish Christian Church called Nephilim or, more casually, faeries. Leaning a forearm on his horse’s neck, Liam studied Aisling. The splattering of rain mixed with the sounds of branches snapping as the guards zigzagged their horses through the undergrowth in a futile search for the second archer.

“Are you going to get up?” demanded Liam. “The high king’s waiting for us. We can’t dally here all afternoon. You’re going to make us late for the full-moon ritual, and I don’t want to miss the feast. You have to be stronger than this.”

Aisling dragged one arm under her chest, then the other, and struggled up to her hands and knees. Water trickled from her deep red hair, leaving pale streaks down the side of her grime-soaked face. Liam could not see her eyes but knew they would have gone from light gray to vivid green. He also knew that she should be on her feet already—something was wrong.

“Poison,” Aisling gasped. “In . . . my . . . heart. Spreading. Burning.”

“Great Mother Danu!” exclaimed Liam in frustration. “I told the king that we should have you in mail already, even if you haven’t been enthroned yet.” He reached down and tore the arrow out. She grunted and collapsed back into mud that was beginning to take on a red tint—her red.

“He thinks if one of you is safe, then the other is too. Well, now he’ll grasp that he has too narrow a view of ‘safe.’”

As a warrior, Liam had to admit that the shot had been remarkable. The archer had to adjust for a target galloping away in the rain.
At that angle the bowman had to miss the shoulder blade and hit the gap between the seventh and eight ribs to catch the only part of her heart not protected by bone. Shot too softly, the arrow would not reach the critical vessel, too hard and the tip would pass through the heart, taking the bulk of the poison with it. He knew of no human archer with such skill.

Aisling was back on her hands and knees, head hanging limp. She reached out and fumbled for the dangling reins of her horse. Raising her head, she climbed the reins with both hands until she was standing, clinging to the bridle, shaking.

Liam studied the unusual arrow, making no move to help her. It had been carefully constructed to be undetectable even by a crossbreed such as himself, whose senses were inhumanly sharp. There was nothing unnatural or even animal to draw his attention, to differentiate it from the wooded background. A hawthorn shaft, he noted; a Celtic assassin would have used elm. No human would dare to cut a hawthorn tree, sacred to the Sidhe, not in this land and suffer the curse that was sure to follow. Instead of feathers, ash leaves, meticulously sliced lengthwise along their stems, were used for flights. The head was made of oak, hardened by centuries buried in a bog and then polished razor sharp. The Sidhe archer had to have been a member of an old-line assassin clan or the arrowhead purchased from one at a high price. Few could afford such a rare thing. Sniffing, Liam was surprised that he could not identify the poison, but there had been a lot of it, judging by the warren of small channels drilled into its head.

But why bother?
Liam wondered. Whoever had staged this attack would have known that Aisling could not be killed, not so long as her twin sister, Anya, was safe. And Liam always made sure that Anya was protected in a secure room while Aisling was traveling.
Were they trying to send a message?
He shook his head. No, there had been too much effort and expense; there was serious intent to kill here. Then it hit him: Anya must not be safe. They must have found
a way to get to both twins. Liam jumped from his horse, reaching Aisling just as she began screaming.

As he held her, his chest too tight to utter any words of comfort, he feared that he must have failed in his duty, his oath to protect the Morrígna twins. He picked Aisling up and carried her to his horse while her screams faded into sobs.

E
ARLIER
THAT
MORNING
the courtyard of Trim Castle was full of wagons being loaded with barrels of ale and wine, casks of fresh-ground flour, bushels of vegetables, and whole sides of beef. Tender piglets crowded into cages squealed high-pitched above the low grunts of their older cousins as all were loaded alongside stacks of the iron roasting spits with which they would soon be intimate.

There were shouts of “Careful! Careful! Quick, grab the other end!” as long banners bearing the emblem of the Morrígna—three strands intertwined in a complex knot—were lowered from the high windows where they had hung for the last year. Folded and wrapped in oilcloth, they were packed into the last of the wagons about to depart for the Irish capital city of Tara, where they would be rehung. Trim was the birthplace of the current incarnation of the Morrígna twins and so was sponsoring much of their coronation ceremony, to be held in the capital four days hence, on their fourteenth birthday.

Punctuating the hubbub came the rhythmic
snap, snap, snap
of pendants on their poles above guard towers, being tested by the wind rolling gray-black clouds overhead. A gust swirled down into the courtyard, whipping the white robe about the old, wiry body of Haidrean, the high druid. He stood with Aisling and Anya, frowning as he took note that tradespeople and nobles alike, hurrying to finalize preparations, either rushed their bow to the twins or forgot altogether. As if the pending coronation festivities were the important thing, instead of the twins themselves. Two handmaids walked up carrying identical coronation gowns.

“Why aren’t those packed?” barked Haidrean, causing the handmaids to cringe.

Anya came to the rescue. “Because I wanted to see them first. Aren’t they beautiful!”

“They’re fine,” replied Aisling, giving the dresses—white silk elaborately embroidered with gold and silver thread—little more than a glance.

“Get them in their trunk,” ordered Haidrean, and the handmaids rushed off.

Though Anya and Aisling were identical twins, few had trouble telling them apart, due to their different countenances. Anya, older by minutes, was as joyful and mischievous as her sister was serious. Aisling bore the tight mouth and often furrowed brow of a young woman who had already watched a man die on her sword. Even though it had been a training accident, she knew that more deaths would follow, which would not be accidents but the cost of her destiny. And there was their hair, thick red against pale skin; Anya let hers fall free over her shoulders and down her back, while Aisling kept hers in a long plait, swept up and out of the way. Tall, even for their family, and slender with light gray eyes. They would walk into rooms full of kings never knowing what it felt like to bow, thirteen-year-olds who had not been allowed to have a childhood, trained since birth to unlock their Goddess nature and source enough primordial magic from the spirit realm—drawn by way of Anann in the Otherworld—to rule over both Sidhe and Celts.

With a cry of “Yeeup!” a driver snapped the reins on the back of his pair of horses, and the first wagonload of provisions rolled out the castle gate, followed by others. They would return the next day to load up the tents, great ones for parties and smaller ones for lodging, and soon afterward the castle and village would empty out as people flocked to Tara for the once-in-a-lifetime event.

Liam, imposing in a mail tunic, a battle-ax strapped to his back and a brace of daggers and a claymore hanging on his belt, made a
straight path through the bustle leading two horses. People instinctively moved out of his way. Reaching Aisling, whose face had brightened at his approach, he handed her the reins of one of the horses.

“Is everything prepared?” he asked his counterpart, Haidrean.

Over the years they had become surrogate parents to the twins, Haidrean as tutor—primarily to Anya—and Liam as fighting instructor—primarily to Aisling, though foremost among Liam’s duties was that of bodyguard. Anytime either or both twins were not with him, he took great measures to ensure their safety within the strong walls of the castle keep, which were fortified with incantations.

“I renewed the enchantments myself. Anya will be fine,” said Haidrean. A drop of rain fell heavily at his feet. “You two better be on your way.”

“The high king sent word that he will be coming to the full-moon ritual as well. We will stay overnight with him there—”

“So Liam can sleep off the ale,” broke in Aisling.

“So he can escort us to Tara,” corrected Liam.

Anya threw her arms around her sister. “Can you believe it? Next time I see you will be at our coronation. We will finally be Goddesses!”

“One Goddess,” corrected Haidrean.

“In four days, then,” said Aisling. She kissed her sister on the cheek and slipped from her embrace.

Haidrean ushered Anya into the keep, knowing that Liam would not ride out until she was secure inside.

“Breakfast before studies,” declared Anya, taking the corridor toward their private dining chamber. The guards followed closely behind them.

When they eventually moved to the library, Anya was laughing at a comment Haidrean had made about the bishop of Rome’s being unable to read or write.

“It gives him an excuse to keep a stable of young scribes he calls
into his bedchamber to read to him at night.” Twitching his ample eyebrows, Haidrean added, “Young male scribes.”

Anya leaned toward him. “So you’re smarter than the pope?”

“They don’t seem to elect popes for their intellect,” Haidrean responded, and Anya slipped into laughter again.

As he had done in the dining chamber, Haidrean took a large iron key from his pocket, so large that it would not have fit the lock if he had tried. Instead he touched it gently to the door, which shuddered as if it had been struck with great force, indicating that the room was sealed. Anya plopped into a chair at the heavy wooden table, which was ornately carved with intertwined foliage and fanciful animals in the Celtic La Tène style. Screens constructed from stretched sheep intestine, scraped almost clear, were set into the tall, narrow windows, keeping the increasing rain and wind out of the stone chamber on the second level of the castle. What little light entered from the exterior gloom was reflected off the lime-washed white walls and supplemented by four candles in a silver holder on one end of the table and three simply stuck into a mound of wax on the other end. Expensive wax candles, because Haidrean refused to subject his books to the smoky animal fat of cheaper tallow. “The king may grumble, but he can afford it,” said Haidrean as he lit another candle and stuck it on the mound.

“Perhaps he can also afford a second candle holder,” Anya offered, rolling a ball of fresh wax between her thumb and forefinger.

A large fire radiated heat and a warm glow. On this gray day, it was the only operating hearth in the castle without dogs sleeping in front, as druids do not keep dogs. Books were stacked in large piles on shelves and chests around the room. Hadrian placed two books on the table, the title
Rome
written across their buckskin covers, and opened them to reveal vellum pages dense with script.

Crossing her arms, Anya gave one of her rare frowns. “Aisling gets to ride around with Liam, learning to fight, while I’m confined here with you, learning the ways of these Roman Christians.”

“Before you were born, the Morrígna designated you as her sage aspect,” said Haidrean, tired of repeating himself on this point, “and Aisling as her warrior. You can’t change that.”

“That may be, but Aisling’s aspect is more fun,” replied Anya. “And she’ll get to stay up here in the sun.”

“Sun?” asked Haidrean, looking at the window.

“My point is that after our coronation I’m meant to reign from a damp underworld. But I have decided that the day I’m crowned, I’ll decree that forevermore both Morrígna twins are allowed to live out in the light of the human world.”

“The Sidhe need an aspect of the Morrígna in the Middle Kingdom for your rule to be recognized. That is your duty and your destiny and why there are two of you. You and Aisling will be Goddess of both lands. Besides, your new palace won’t seem like a damp underworld to you after the coronation.”

“You really think I’ll feel different then?”

“Of course,” Haidrean assured her. “Already you feel Aisling as part of yourself. Concentrate and try to describe it.”

She turned her focus inward. “It’s like she is sitting right here with me, only more so. She fills half the very essence of who I am. I can’t think of myself without thinking of her. She brings strength to me, as I know I bring knowledge to her.” Anya shut her eyes. “At the same time, I am also with her. We are galloping through the woods, I feel the wet and cold she feels.” Anya shivered and gave a little laugh. “We are urging our horse to run faster, trying to outpace Liam.”