Foxfire

THE GROTTO REEKED of blood: soaking Mam’s clothes, staining Rigat’s hands, dripping down his brother’s legs. More shocking still was Rigat’s smile.

“A clever plan, Keirith. Your idea or Fellgair’s?”

“It was hers,” Hircha shot back. She was holding Mam’s wrist, fumbling for a pulse. She settled back on her haunches, her expression dazed. “She’s alive. I didn’t think . . . with all the blood . . . but she’s still alive.”

Something—someone—brushed past him. Fellgair, he realized, as he watched the Trickster kneel beside Hircha. And then Rigat said something about “a family reunion.”

He was leaning against the wall of the grotto, grimacing as he wiped his bloodstained palms on his khirta. He looked up long enough to say, “Pull yourself together. You’ve seen sacrifices before.”

All Keirith could do was shake his head—just as he had when Fellgair told him what Mam intended. The Trickster’s face had been so sad, his voice so gentle, even kind—like a father patiently explaining something to a child too young to understand.

When he had finally willed his body to move, it was like wading through the sea, every step slow and awkward. And suddenly—the way the world abruptly shifted in a vision—he was running, stumbling on the uneven ground, slipping on loose pebbles, careening from boulder to boulder, unable to pray, barely able to think. The only thing that kept going through his head was “Nay.” Just that one word.

He repeated it now, his voice as thick and choked as if he were strangling. An errant thought struck him—Fa telling him what it was like right before he loosed an arrow at a deer, of being in the moment, but standing apart, observing everything from a distance. And so it was now, his body shaking, but his mind cataloging random observations: the firelight dancing across his mam’s still face; the frenzied blur of Hircha’s hands upending Mam’s healing bag and digging through the contents; Fellgair’s eyes, watching him, watching Rigat; and Rigat, still leaning against the wall of the grotto, looking impossibly bored. Despite the graceful slouch and the impatient sigh, the folds of his brother’s khirta shook.

Not bored. Barely able to stand.

“So now what?” Rigat asked. “We fight to the death? Play out your vision of the two eagle chicks?”

Before he could answer, Fellgair asked, “Did you use all your power?”

Rigat’s laugh made Keirith wince. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes,” Fellgair replied. “I would. That’s what she wanted. That’s why she was willing to sacrifice her life.”

“And that’s why you pretended to be so weak when you came to fetch me. You wanted to be sure you could reduce me to an ordinary mortal.”

“I wanted what Griane wanted. To stop you and Keirith from fulfilling that vision. To save the world that she loved. To save you from yourself.”

“By robbing me of the one thing that makes me myself?”

Keirith finally shook off the enveloping numbness. “You’re more than just your power.”

“Just my power?” Rigat shook his head. “You’ve never understood. My power is everything.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t have saved her.”

“I didn’t.”

Keirith shot a glance at his mother. Hircha was kneeling beside her, needle darting like a minnowfly as she stitched one wrist.

“Oh, she’ll live. For a day or two. But she’s lost too much blood. Without another infusion of power, the healing will fade. Just as Darak’s did. So you can kill me and save the world. But if you do, Mam will die.” Rigat grinned. “Quite a choice, isn’t it? The world or Mam. Which will it be, Keirith?”

“He’s lying,” Fellgair said.

“I love her.” For a moment, genuine emotion tore at Rigat’s voice. “Would I squander my gift knowing that would doom her?”

“Then go,” Keirith said. “Take Mam and go.”

Rigat’s face went blank.

Fellgair began speaking in a low, urgent voice, but Keirith cut him off with an impatient gesture, still watching Rigat. His brother’s head drooped. A trembling hand covered his face.

“I don’t know whether you have power or not,” Keirith said. “But I won’t risk Mam’s life to find out. Open a portal. Go to Zheros. Go anywhere. Just keep her alive.”

“That’s not what she wanted,” Fellgair persisted.

“She didn’t want me to kill my brother, either!”

Rigat slowly straightened. “A noble gesture,” he said softly.

“I just want—”

“Gods, you make me sick.”

Keirith’s head snapped back as if Rigat had struck him.

“You have a gift, Keirith. Puny compared to mine, but still a gift. You might have been great if you had been willing to use it. If—just once—you’d actually done something other than fly with your damn eagle. I’m half your age and look at all I’ve done.”

“Like killing your sister?” Keirith demanded, and had the savage pleasure of seeing Rigat wince.

“Like ending wars.”

“And abandoning your people.”

“Didn’t you just tell me to walk away? But you would say that. It’s what you’ve always done. Walked away. Given up. Your power. Your position in the tribe. Hircha.”

“Leave Hircha out of this.”

“Don’t tell me you finally convinced the chilly widow to open her legs?”

“That’s enough!” Keirith shouted.

“Nay, I didn’t think so. Well, thank the gods, I won’t die a virgin. Too bad we won’t have more time together. I could share some of what I’ve learned from my queen.”

Keirith bit back a retort. Why was Rigat deliberately goading him? Why didn’t he just leave?

“I won’t fight you, Rigat. Though that’s what you seem to want.”

“You wouldn’t like to test your power against mine? Just once? The odds are as even now as they’ll ever be. Or perhaps, you’d prefer a more old-fashioned test.”

Rigat lurched forward, fists clenched. Hircha cried out. So did Fellgair. But their voices were drowned out by another.

<Take him. End this.>

Xevhan’s voice whispered inside Keirith, as soft and seductive as a lover’s.

<You’re the strong one now. Prove it.>

He didn’t have to prove anything. All he had to do was let Rigat walk away.

<Coward.>

He was keeping his mam safe. Honoring her last wish.

<Her last wish was to stop Rigat. She was willing to die to accomplish that. Will you fail her as you failed your father?>

He would not fight Rigat. He would not kill his brother.

<But you have to. You’ve Seen this battle.>

That didn’t mean it was inevitable.

<But it is. It has been. From the moment he was conceived. >

I won’t condemn my mam to death!

<She condemned you first.>

Nay.

<She chose Darak.>

It’s not the same.

Keirith clutched his head, as if that would shut off the insidious voice. Instead, others crowded his mind.

Mam’s voice, gently scolding. “You were never a killer. Perhaps because you could sense the pain of others.”

Fa’s voice outside Hua’s hut: “You’re a healer. Like your mam. Only you heal spirits. That’s your gift. And you must use it.”

Rigat’s voice, so young, so eager: “I think we’re like Fa and Tinnean. It took both of them to save the world.” And a more somber Rigat: “If someone has power, there must be a reason.”

The soft voice assured him there was a reason, the same reason he had survived his ordeal in Pilozhat: to kill Rigat. He was the only one who could. And this was the only chance he would ever have.

The air in the grotto seethed with unseen energy. The rocks vibrated with it. As if Rigat were calling on the remnants of his power, preparing to strike him down.

And all the while, the seductive litany continued, a ceaseless whisper that ebbed and flowed inside Keirith’s spirit, now hissing like foam on a beach, now crashing against him like a mountainous wave, taunting him, beating him down, urging him to yield.

<You must kill him.>

Half his life, spent in thrall to that voice.

“Why do you cling to him?”

Rigat was his brother. To destroy him was to destroy part of himself.

“Until you understand, he will never leave you.”

Keirith’s breath caught. He staggered backward and slammed into the wall of the grotto. Natha had known. His spirit guide had tried to show him the truth. But he had been too frightened to face it.

Not Xevhan’s voice. It had never been Xevhan’s voice. That was simply the name he had given to the shadowy parts of his spirit where the lingering shame of rape lurked, the doubts about his gift, the fears about his manhood. The hidden places he had tried to ignore until they emerged in nightmares. The dark places he had never wanted to acknowledge.

Far easier to believe it was Xevhan who ruled that side of him, a foreign taint that stained his spirit. But they were all part of him—the dark places and the light, the fear and the courage, the cruelty and the mercy.

Foolish hatchling, Natha had called him. And so he was if he could look into the spirits of others, but fail to see the truth inside his own.

Rigat stood a few paces away, studying him intently. The dancing flames cast harsh orange light on one half of his face. The other was bathed in the soft glow of twilight that spilled through the entrance of the grotto. His hands were fisted at his sides, but to Keirith, it felt as if they were clenched around his heart.

His brother’s face was as ravaged as Fellgair’s, his body shaking with exhaustion. He was little more than a boy, but he was as old and ruined as the god who had fathered him.

Keirith eased along the wall of the grotto. He could feel the energy spiking, that same unsettling shift in earth and air that he had felt moments before the wood pigeon screamed. He had to escape before he was drawn into the death struggle he had foreseen.

A wave of revulsion twisted Rigat’s face. “Dear gods,” his brother cried, “what do I have to do?”

Rigat walked toward him, one slow step at a time. “Shall I describe how Faelia’s spirit screamed before she died? Or the way Conn made love to Hircha? Or how our mother would always choose me over you? Just as she chose Darak all those years ago?”

“You can’t make me fight.”

“Not even if I told you that Darak’s last words were about me? That with his last breath, he whispered my name? In the end, even he chose me.”

Rigat was so close Keirith could see the sweat on his forehead, the lines of strain that bracketed his mouth. But his brother’s eyes were veiled, fixed on something else.

Rigat’s right hand darted out, pinning him against the wall. His left fumbled at Keirith’s hip. But only when he looked down and saw Rigat’s fingers clenched around the hilt of his dagger did he realize what his brother had been staring at.

He grasped the skinny wrist. Braced to combat a thrust to his midsection, he was unprepared when Rigat’s arm jerked him away from the wall. Locked together, they both staggered. Keirith regained his footing first, staring transfixed at the dagger between their bodies, the lethal tip pointed not at his belly, but at Rigat’s.

The blue eyes—so like their mam’s—met his, fierce and bright and shining with unshed tears. The ravaged face—so like his father’s—tightened as he forced the point closer.

Keirith planted his feet and threw his weight backward. Rigat’s breath caught on a sob, but he swung his forearm around their locked hands to give him added leverage. It was terrible and inhuman, the strength of those thin arms and the determination on that straining face.

He had Seen this battle again and again, but he had never imagined that he would be fighting to save his brother.

She was drifting, insubstantial as a cloud. Not like the first time. She had been flying then. Soaring skyward into peace and freedom. She’d heard Darak’s voice, faint but clear. And Rigat’s, pleading with her.

The voices she heard now seemed familiar, too. But they were quarreling. Childishly, she had assumed that people never quarreled in the Forever Isles, that they spent their days frolicking on the sunlit shores. But people were people, after all. And spirits—whether or not they had bodies—probably didn’t change much after death.

The voices grew louder. Men’s voices and a woman’s, querulous and shrill. Her disappointment grew; instead of Darak, she was apparently fated to meet some sharp-tongued stranger.

The quarreling voices shredded her pleasant cloud. Or perhaps it was the sharp thing that kept stabbing her wrist. Briefly, she fought, seeking the delicious weightlessness and peace. But her will was as insubstantial as the cloud she had once been, and reluctantly, she surrendered to the voices and allowed them to carry her earthward.

Her body felt weighted down now, as if trapped under dozens of woolen mantles. Yet they offered as little warmth as the sun, although she could sense it flickering somewhere in the darkness.

Disappointment gave way to despair. Had the Maker denied her entrance to the Forever Isles? Was it the uncertain light of Chaos she saw behind her closed eyelids? And the voices those of the doomed spirits imprisoned there?

Griane opened her eyes. She saw neither the brilliant blue sky of the Forever Isles nor the ocher-colored light that Darak claimed filled the sky of Chaos. There was only rock. It was rather pretty—filled with sparkling bits of orange and white that winked at her—but rock, all the same.

Something soft and spiky beneath her hands. Something cold and wet in her lap. And a woman’s voice shouting, “Let me go!” so close that Griane flinched.

Slowly, she turned her head. Hircha was struggling in Fellgair’s restraining arms. Griane blinked, uncertain if she was dreaming. But when she opened her eyes again, Hircha still fought and cursed, and Fellgair still strained to hold her.

She turned her head away. Firelight dazzled her eyes. Above it—beyond it—two men shuffled back and forth, clumsy as bears.

A moan formed in her throat as the truth slowly dawned. Keirith and Rigat, her firstborn son and her youngest, locked in a death struggle.

Helpless tears leaked down her cheeks at the enormity of her failure. Why had she imagined that she could save the world? She should have thought only of saving her children. She should have waited for Rigat and left with him and used whatever influence she possessed to work on him later.

She had thought the greatest sacrifice she could offer was her life. Now she would pay a far higher price—the life of one or both of her sons.

Her lips framed the word “Stop,” but only a whistle of breath emerged from her mouth. She turned her head toward Fellgair, willing her hand to seize his bare ankle. All she managed to do was flex her fingers.

A muffled grunt made her turn her head again to see Keirith pinned against the wall of the grotto. She could hear his hoarse gasps as he struggled with Rigat. But he was going to lose. Even drained from the healing, Rigat was stronger.

A soft whimper escaped her. She had abandoned Keirith once. She had promised the Maker her life for his. She could not watch him die now, nor allow him to shoulder the guilt of killing his brother.

That was her responsibility. To strike down Rigat before Keirith could. To destroy him just as she had tried to do before he was born. To kill the child of her heart.

Her gaze fell on the bloodstained dagger next to Fellgair’s grimy heel. She took a deep breath, then another, and dug her fingers into the fur. With terrible slowness, her hand crawled across the wolfskin. Her fingertips brushed rock, then crawled forward again to curl around the hilt of her dagger.

The worn leather thongs were as familiar as the tiny imperfections on the narrow flint blade. This dagger had made the incisions in Darak’s back. It had taken Faelia’s finger. It had sliced open her wrists. Not as pretty as a Zherosi blade, but just as keen when making a sacrifice.

Maker, help me.

They were only a dozen paces away. And her will had always been strong.

Griane rolled onto her side. She heard Hircha’s shocked cry. Fellgair’s voice, calling her name. But she ignored them, gathering the strength she needed to reach her sons.

Something brushed her shoulder. A hand covered hers. She turned her head. Golden eyes filled her vision, huge in that wasted face.

“Are you sure?” Fellgair asked.

She nodded.

“Then I’ll do it.”

She shook her head. The grotto tilted. Black dots swarmed before her eyes, obscuring Fellgair’s face. She clutched at the dagger, but it was already gone.

Hircha’s arms, helping her to sit. Hircha’s tears, warm and wet against her neck. She wanted to look away, to blot out Fellgair’s figure walking toward her boys, but if she could not perform the deed herself, at least she could witness it.

Oh, Rigat.

Rigat slammed Keirith against the wall of the grotto. Keirith’s legs buckled, and he slid slowly to the ground.

“Nay,” she heard him gasp. “I won’t let you do it.”

Rigat tensed. Then Fellgair called his name and he whirled around.

He stared at the dagger in his father’s upraised hand and the tension drained from his body. His head turned. His eyes met hers. She tried to shout, “I love you.” Perhaps he heard her whisper, for a smile of pure joy lit his tired face.

My dearest child.

Fellgair held out his arms as if to embrace their boy, the flint blade of her dagger as black as a Midwinter night.

Forgive me.

Still smiling, Rigat threw himself into his father’s arms, flung himself onto his mother’s dagger. His body went rigid, his eyes suddenly wide. But it was Keirith who screamed, an animal howl of grief and rage that echoed through the grotto and through Griane’s spirit.

He charged Fellgair and battered him with his fists. Fellgair staggered, but made no attempt to ward off the blows. Only as Rigat slid from Fellgair’s arms did Keirith abandon his assault. He caught his brother, dark head bowed over the bright one.

“Please,” Griane whispered. “Please.”

“Keirith!” Hircha cried. “Keirith, bring him here! Your mam . . .”

Keirith lifted Rigat, swaying with the effort. When Fellgair tottered toward him, he snarled at him to keep away. But even if he had wanted to bear his burden alone, he was not strong enough. It took both of them to ease her boy into her waiting arms.

As she brushed the tangled hair from his face, his mouth twisted in a grimace of pain. “It hurts, Mam.”

“I know, love. But not for long. Hircha will give you something.”

“Callie . . .”

“Hircha will bring him, too.”

Fellgair and Keirith supported her so that Hircha could slide free. As she ran from the grotto, shouting Callie’s name, someone slipped behind her, cushioning her back from the hard stones. It must be Fellgair, for Keirith crouched beside Rigat and took his hand.

Rigat looked up at him. “Don’t be mad, Keir.”

Keirith’s eyes squeezed shut, but he opened them immediately and shook his head.

Rigat’s gaze drifted to Fellgair. “Thank you. I didn’t . . .” The spasm of pain that silenced him rippled through his body into Griane’s. After it subsided, he fell back in her arms, his breath coming in short, hoarse pants. “I didn’t want it . . . to be Keirith.”

An unearthly moan escaped Keirith, abruptly cut off as another spasm seized Rigat. Griane closed her eyes, unable to watch his agonized face. She felt Keirith’s arms, straining to hold Rigat until the convulsion passed.

She heard the splash of water. Felt someone touch her arm. Griane opened her eyes to find Hircha emptying the contents of the tiny jar into a cup. Callie stood behind her, his face as white as Rigat’s. Griane took the cup from Hircha. Fellgair steadied her hand as she held it to Rigat’s lips.

“I’m sorry,” Rigat whispered.

“I know, love. Hush, now.”

His teeth rattled against the stone, but he swallowed obediently.

As his head lolled back against her shoulder, she whispered, “Help me. Help me turn him.” She did not want the cold rocks of the grotto’s ceiling to be the last thing her boy saw.

Callie helped Keirith roll Rigat onto his side. Griane lay back in Fellgair’s arms, her face close to her son’s. His mouth moved, but already the numbness would be setting in, making speech impossible.

A few grains could kill a rabbit within moments.

“I love you,” she whispered. She kissed his mouth. Her lips tingled. Before Ardal’s mantle could numb them, she whispered, “Sleep, my beautiful boy.”

She breathed in his breath, his eyelashes brushing hers. The fire crackled once and was silent. Outside the grotto, she heard the liquid trill of a wren. The sacred bird of the Holly-Lord, offering a final glorious salute to the dying light of day. But her boy could not hear it.

In a trembling voice, Keirith began reciting the ancient words that would open the way to the Forever Isles. Griane’s mind formed other words, equally ancient: I seek but cannot find you. I call but receive no answer. Oh, beloved, beloved. Would I had died for you.