TWENTY-SEVEN
Diarmid
Patrick’s voice rang in his ears. The Fomori. The summer solstice. Tomorrow. Balor of the one poisonous eye and Tethra, the treacherous sea god. The beautiful, terrible Lot . . .
Sweet Danu, there was so little time. He raced through the streets, aware of nothing but getting to Finn. When he finally reached the tenement, the yard was full of young men training. Diarmid skidded to a stop, raising dust, his breath rasping.
Oscar looked up. “Derry? What in the name of—”
“Where’s Finn?”
Oscar jerked his head toward the side yard, and just as he did, Diarmid spotted his leader at the water barrel. Finn’s golden-red hair shone in the sun. His gaze seemed to pierce Diarmid before he looked away.
“What have we here?” Finn asked.
It was a moment before Diarmid realized that Finn was looking at something behind him and that the others had stopped fighting to look too.
Diarmid turned.
Grace’s brother stood there. Aidan was sweating, his shirttails untucked, his hair falling every which way, hands braced on his thighs as he tried to catch his breath.
Diarmid would have sooner expected to see a kelpie. “Aidan? By the gods, what are you doing here?”
Aidan tried to straighten. He wavered, squinting; it seemed he might collapse. And his eyes were a strange color. Blue and . . . purple, too, so bright they looked unreal. They struck a familiar chord.
Aidan said, “I wanted to talk to you. About Grace. I was waiting . . . outside Patrick’s. I tried to stop you, but you’re very fast.”
“He’s the swiftest of all of us,” said Finn, walking over. “He should have slowed to give you time to catch up.”
“I didn’t know he was behind me,” Diarmid said. “And I wouldn’t have waited for him anyway. Finn, there’s much to tell you. I spoke with Devlin this morning—”
Finn held up his hand to stop him. “Who is this?”
Diarmid felt he might burst with all there was to say, and Aidan was just wasting time. “He’s no one. The veleda’s brother. Aidan Knox. There’s more important news—”
“More important than a stormcaster?”
Diarmid foundered while his brain—focused on Patrick and the Fomori—scrambled to catch up. “A what?”
“He’s a stormcaster,” Finn said.
With Finn’s words, Diarmid suddenly felt the hum in the air, and his skin quivered. He remembered now where he’d seen eyes like that before. Neasa calling down her purple storms. Tethra summoning his eerie blue lightning.
Electricity radiated from Aidan Knox.
Aidan looked from Finn to Diarmid, blinking and obviously confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Derry, is there someplace private we can talk? I don’t feel well. But I have to speak to you about Grace.”
“You didn’t see this in him?” Finn asked Diarmid. “The brother of the veleda, and you didn’t think to look?”
Diarmid didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen it. Not until this moment, and now he wondered how he had missed it. He’d been with Aidan all last night. How had he not noticed?
Aidan swiped a hand across his brow. He was perspiring so heavily his shirt stuck to his skin. He looked ready to swoon. “You’re . . . it’s too bright.”
Finn took his arm. “Come, sit down. Ossian! Some water for our good friend Mr. Knox!”
He led Aidan to the step of the building, and Aidan sat gratefully, taking the ladle of water Ossian handed him. He gulped it and then raked his hand through his hair. It stood on end. The day rumbled with thunder, and Aidan put his hand to his eyes. Diarmid recalled last night—Aidan’s complaints about the screaming in his head.
“Go on home now. Nothing here to see!” Oscar dismissed the boys. Diarmid heard their grumbling as they left the yard, one or two trying to linger until Finn gave them a warning glance, and finally, they were left alone.
Aidan looked at Diarmid. “These your friends, Derry?” It seemed to take all his effort to get the words out.
“This is Finn,” Diarmid said, gesturing to his leader and then to the others in turn: “Ossian, Oscar, Goll, Keenan, and Conan.”
Aidan stared at him. Then he laughed. “You’re joking, right?”
“No.”
Aidan’s laughter died. He looked confused, and then afraid. “Patrick called you Diarmid. Not Derry. Diarmid.”
“Aye.”
“Diarmid Ua Duibhne. Like the legend.”
Diarmid watched as the truth dawned in Aidan’s eyes, and he thought of Grace. He wondered if Patrick had summoned her. If even now she was learning what she was.
“I don’t understand.” Aidan started to rise.
Finn put his hand on Aidan’s shoulder to keep him in place. “Oh, I think you understand very well, stormcaster.”
“You keep saying that. I’m not—”
“You carry the power of storms within you,” Finn told him. “Like your ancestor Neasa, the great Druid priestess. You can command thunder and lightning.”
Aidan laughed again, but weakly. “That’s impossible.”
“Tell me you don’t feel lightning in your fingertips, or hear thunder in your head. Does not fire rage in your blood?”
Aidan stared at him. “You mean . . . you know what this is? Dear God, I thought I was going mad. Or dying.”
“Not mad, no. Nor dying. You are only untrained. We can help you, Aidan Knox, if you wish it. We have had many dealings with stormcasters before, and Neasa was a very strong one. Her blood runs in your veins.”
Diarmid saw the relief—and dread—in Aidan’s eyes. “You can cure me?”
“’Tis no sickness but a call to power. There is nothing to cure. But we can help you to control it.”
“And you know how to do this because you’re the Fianna,” Aidan whispered. “Truly the Fianna?”
Finn bowed his head in acknowledgment.
“So all the stories are true.”
“Stories?” Finn asked.
“My grandmother told us stories for years about Druids and sidhe. About the Fianna. Finn MacCool and Diarmid Ua Duibhne and . . . and all of you.”
“Did she tell you about the veleda? About what she is called to do?” Finn pressed.
Aidan said, “I know the prophecy, yes. The veleda has to decide if the Fianna’s fight is a worthy one.”
“The veleda blooded the horn, and we have been awakened to serve Ireland. We believe it was the Fenian Brotherhood, and your friend Patrick Devlin, who called us. What we don’t know is why.”
“We do know why,” Diarmid interjected. “’Tis what I meant to tell you, Finn. I spoke with Devlin today. He’s admitted it. All of it. ’Twas the Fenians who called us. They want us to fight with the Irish rebels against British rule.”
Finn’s pale eyes lit. “Against the British?”
The other Fianna murmured. Diarmid heard their excitement with a sinking heart. “There’s more,” he said, and then he told them about the Fomori, finishing with “They arrive with the solstice.”
“That’s tomorrow,” Finn said.
“The Fomori?” Aidan echoed. “But Patrick knows the Fianna and the Fomori are enemies.”
“So I told him,” Diarmid said. “And I told him, too, that we wouldn’t fight side by side with them.”
“By the gods, I’d rather slit my own throat,” Oscar said.
Finn asked, “Does he not understand what the Fomori are?”
“He thinks they can be reasonable,” Diarmid said. “The Brotherhood spoke to Daire Donn and offered them shared power when British rule is overthrown.”
Finn laughed in disbelief.
“But that makes it an easy choice for the veleda,” Aidan said. “Surely any priestess would choose the Fianna over the Fomori.”
Diarmid felt Finn’s gaze. Deliberately, he avoided it. “Maybe she would. If she wasn’t betrothed to the leader of the Fenians.”
Aidan froze. “It was the dord fiann. Grace’s horn.”
Diarmid nodded.
Aidan said, “But Grace wouldn’t choose them. No matter what Patrick said.”
“No? What if he tells her he can find a way to save her life?” Diarmid asked.
“Save her? What do you mean, save her?”
“There’s a part of the legend that seems to have been forgotten,” Diarmid said.
“What part is that?” Aidan asked warily.
“She has to die,” Diarmid said, hearing the harshness in his voice. “To release her power, she has to die. Devlin didn’t know that. I don’t think Grace knows it either.”
Aidan looked stricken, which made Diarmid like him a little better. Thunder rolled. Aidan’s hand went again to his head. “Grace doesn’t know what she is. And everything . . . it’s all a jumble in my head. Pieces I can’t grasp. Like a dream . . . or a memory . . . and there’s all this screaming.”
The air seemed to grow heavier. Just breathing raised a sweat. They all looked to the sky, which was growing darker.
“Tomorrow,” Finn said. “We must prepare for the fight.”
“Is Patrick right? Is there a way to save my sister?” Aidan asked.
Diarmid didn’t trust himself to speak. He didn’t know what Finn might hear in his voice. Despair, or fear, or something worse. No one else answered for him.
Aidan looked at each of them. “Well, that’s honest anyway.”
“I’m afraid the Fomori cannot help her either,” Finn said. “You’re free to ask them and hear their lies, but we could use your allegiance.”
“And my sister?”
Finn said, “I won’t lie to you, stormcaster. We need her. She must choose us. And in the meantime, we can keep her safe. You do not want the Fomori to have her.”
“No, I don’t. I want to trust you. You were once honorable men, while the Fomori have never been.”
Finn inclined his head in acknowledgment. “We would be honorable again, stormcaster.”
Diarmid made himself say, “At the ritual, I’m the one who has to kill her.”
Aidan’s eyes riveted to him. Diarmid felt as if Grace’s brother could see inside him.
Aidan said, “Is that the reason you look at her the way you do? Do you mean to seduce her into wanting death?”
Diarmid’s anger leaped. “The geis has nothing to do with it!”
And then he remembered the others were there, watching.
Oscar laughed. “He likes your pretty sister. He’d kiss her even if she wasn’t the veleda.”
Diarmid wanted to groan, but he knew Oscar had said it to help. The yard was silent, broken only by the grumble of thunder.
Finally, Finn said, “So now you know the truth, stormcaster. Do you still wish to help us? We need your sister here safely before the Fomori arrive.”
“Yes,” Aidan said. “I followed Derry to tell him to stay away from Grace, but everything’s changed. I don’t want her in Fomori hands, even with Patrick there.”
Finn nodded with satisfaction. He glanced again at the sky. “We’ve a great deal to teach you in a short time. We’ll have much need of you before the end.”
“You’ll keep Grace safe? You promise it?”
“She has nothing to fear from us,” Finn vowed.
Which was true enough, at least for now. The one thing Diarmid knew for certain was that Grace would be more than safe here. She would be a queen. There would be nothing she couldn’t ask of them, nothing Finn wouldn’t grant her. Until it came time to kill her.
Finn ordered, “Ossian, get Cannel. We’ll see what we can teach our stormcaster in the next few hours. Then Aidan and Diarmid will go fetch the veleda. ’Tis Tethra’s thunder we hear. I’d know it anywhere. The Fomori are very close. We can waste no time. Are you ready to do what must be done, Diarmid?”
The ball seirce seemed to burn on Diarmid’s forehead.
“I am.”