FOURTEEN
Daireann was white-faced with shock.
“What do you mean, leave off ? We are to be married!”
Far shook his head. His eyes were tender and sad.
“No longer, I fear. Your father and grandfather have set themselves against us.”
“Oh, and what of it?” She tossed her hair back with a sniff. “They were against my mother’s match as well, but she made her own decision and is the happier for it. Do we need their approval to live our lives?”
“Daireann, stop.” The voice, still gentle, held a hint of the cold iron will at its core. “I will not show our great ones such disrespect as to defy their wishes for their family. And I will not cut you off from your own people.”
Daireann flung herself at him, clinging to the blue silk of his tunic, stroking his chest, trying desperately to spark in him the love she thought they shared.
“I don’t care about that! I don’t care about them! Far, I love you and you love me. The rest doesn’t matter.”
But he was prying her away from him, holding her back with a stiff, locked arm. His expression cold, the iron unsheathed.
“Leave me.” The words were flung at her like a blade, and she flinched as if they could actually cut. The green eyes bored into her, held her like a vice. “I do not love you. I will not marry you. You will leave my sight and never approach me again, or I will take up my rod and compel you.”
She backed away slowly. Now she saw the sorcerer that others feared, and yes, she was afraid, so afraid her legs drained of their strength and could hardly hold her. But she was also, more than ever, attracted to his power. She had been his chosen one, his love, and now he cast her off as carelessly as a cloak.
Suddenly she was released from his gaze. The handsome face became dreamy and faraway. His hand clutched at the pendant at his neck.
“She stirs,” he murmured. “She reveals herself at last.” His lips curled into a small, private smile. “And where have you ended up, my pretty one?”
Finally Daireann understood. Her fear was subsumed in her rising anger. The blood rose hot in her face, her legs grew strong again with rage.
“It’s her!” She fairly spat the word out. “This has all been about her! You never gave her up at all.”
The green eyes locked on hers once more. His smile was cruel and careless. “And yet you proved to be of little use. A waste of time, in fact.”
Red with humiliation, Daireann could hardly wait to be rid of the sight of him. But she had never been one to give up the last word.
“Go to her then,” she snarled. “Spend your life chasing after your precious Sive, for all it is to me.” She turned, trying mightily to sweep grandly out of the room when everything in her wanted to run.
And as she went through the door, talking more to herself than to Far, she said, “I hope she has gone to Finn. Better him than you.”
THE HOUNDS' STEADY baying changed to a sharp, urgent barking. Good—they had found it at last. Finn and his men broke into a jog, hurrying after the dogs’ call. A lone wolf was no easy prey. This one, lacking a pack to hunt with, had come out of the wilds to rampage through the herds instead. Judging by the string of sheep and calves it had killed, it was no sickly, feeble outcast.
It would be well dark before they returned home. The dark came earlier now, and with it the cold. It would be Samhain soon, the night the spirits walked abroad and the barriers between Eire and Tir na nOg dissolved. Finn felt a hard knot tighten in his belly at the thought. On that night, he would not leave Sive’s side, nor the gates of his dun.
He was anxious to get back to her now. Thinking logically, she was even less likely to venture beyond the gates at night than on a fine sunlit day, but fears are not always logical. Finn did not like to be away after nightfall.
He did not, in fact, like to be away from her at all, and it was only her urging that had persuaded him to rejoin his men on their hunts. He would not roam the country with them, as before, but took his grudging place with those who remained behind to hunt the bogs and hills surrounding the Hill of Almhuin.
Finn’s thoughts were interrupted as they came upon the hounds, ringed around a bristling gray wolf. It was a scene of furious noise and vicious threat, the dogs all hackles and teeth, the quarry red-eyed and desperate. As they approached, it broke and rushed at the smallest of the dogs. Finn knew the other men felt the same jolt of nerves as he did—up close, the sheer power of a full-grown wolf was stunning. His heart swelled with pride as Bran and Sceolan flew in, throwing themselves like projectiles at the wolf ’s flank and dragging it back. Brave hearts both, they were, and as dear to him as any two-legged friend.
Finn took little pleasure in the rest, though he did not allow himself to lose focus. Caoilte got the kill, but a hunt is a group effort. Just as on a battlefield, a moment’s inattention can get a man, or his comrade, killed. It was not until the long hike home that Finn allowed his impatience to surface.
Finn had not needed Sive to point out that the men were restless and uneasy that he stayed at home. He saw it well enough, and it annoyed him. Were they not grown men, well able to manage a hunt on their own? Did they, the most skilled and hardened fighters in Eire, need him to be their nursemaid, when he had a more important task before him?
Of course, they did not have the knowledge he had. To their eyes, he was simply captivated by his little love nest.
They should know and trust him better. For it was given Finn to see beyond what normal eyes could see, to sense truths that were veiled from other men. And he knew the Dark Man watched his wife. Finn felt the man’s brooding presence, lurking beyond his gate. The Dark Man watched and waited.
Finn fell back to relieve the man carrying the front end of the pole that sagged under the wolf ’s weight. He hoisted it onto his back, taking the brunt of the burden, and quickened the pace. He needed to get home.
DID IT NEVER STOP raining in this infernal land? Far hunched his shoulders in irritation against the rivulets that wormed their way between his cloak and the back of his neck, and shrank farther under the yew that was supposed to be sheltering him.
He grew weary of this chase. At first the surprising stubbornness shown by that timid slip of a girl had amused, even pleased him. Nothing wrong with a challenge, and she was, after all, a prize worth some effort. Now, as the end drew near at last, he resented every additional hour he had to spend here. But if she thought he could be deterred, she would soon discover her error. Each day that she eluded him made it more imperative that he succeed. It was personal now, his need to prevail a greater spur than the interesting weapon she would become for him. He would not be thwarted by a mere girl.
His chance would come. He had only to keep a grip on his patience a while longer. He would not risk an encounter with Finn mac Cumhail, though it pained him to give way to a mere mortal. The blond giant was clearly more than he appeared, for he had once withstood the magic of another great sorcerer of the Sidhe, a man by the name of Aillen, and killed him.
But Finn could not stay locked in his white hovel forever. One day he would leave, and when he did, Far would be ready.
Meantime, there were preparations to take care of. Far pulled his cloak tighter and continued to follow the pathway Finn and Sive had taken just that morning, his sharp eyes examining every outthrust branch and muddy footprint. The dogs were easy. The dirty creatures left gobbets of gray fur behind wherever they went. But men shed too. A thick yellow hair, a drop of blood on a bramble thorn. Even a clump of fibers from Finn’s cloak would serve, if he had worn it often enough.
Far continued on his methodical path. No one, not even the magpie winging over the trees to Finn’s white dun, noticed his presence.