CHAPTER TWENTY

After days of confinement to Carraigmór, Eoghan wondered if perhaps his flogging had only been an excuse for his real punishment. It wasn’t that he minded scrubbing floors and fetching water and beating the dust from tapestries. He had been raised taking his turn in service at Carraigmór. It was being banned from the practice yard that rankled, not being allowed to take anything more dangerous than a mop in hand.

Eoghan lifted four buckets on a wooden yoke. Today’s task was changing the soiled water in the guest chambers’ tubs and replacing it with fresh. Normally this would have been an easy task, but the war had sent an influx of young boys and men into the forest. Two more had arrived this morning, their eyes filled with knowledge far too heavy for such a tender age. Personally, he couldn’t blame them for seeking refuge at Ard Dhaimhin. If these young men would be called upon to fight, wasn’t it better to send them to the Fíréin, where they would be properly trained and cared for and raised in the ways of Comdiu?

Eoghan might have hinted to Conor that he wished for a different sort of life, but the brotherhood was all he knew —the grueling training, the strict obedience. That obedience was being tested with each new task Master Liam and the Conclave found for him at the fortress. To a man who’d had a sword in hand since childhood, the restrictions on his practice felt like having a limb amputated.

Eoghan rolled his shoulders experimentally, feeling the tug of healing skin on his back as his muscles flexed. At least the enforced “rest” combined with the healer’s effective poultices had reduced the weals to faint marks, even if he would bear them for the rest of his life. That hardly bothered him. It was an honor to be punished for doing Comdiu’s will, and the scars were a reminder of how much trouble he could get himself into when he didn’t act in faith.

So you’re willing to endure a lashing for My will, but you’re not willing to endure some scrubbing?

Eoghan could swear he felt a hint of amusement in Comdiu’s words.

He nudged open the chamber door with his foot and headed down the corridor to the garderobe sewer. “It’s not the scrubbing that I mind; it’s the time away from my training.”

Comdiu didn’t need to say anything for him to know He was less than impressed by the excuse.

And that was another reason Eoghan did not tell anyone of his gift. More often than not, Comdiu spoke to him like a doting father to a beloved child, with no small measure of amusement. To some, portraying their great and powerful God in such a way would be blasphemy. This was the Creator of the heavens and earth, the judge of the wicked and defender of the righteous. Why would He bother Himself with the activities of one insignificant man scrubbing tubs and stone floors in the far corner of the known world? And why would He bother to speak directly to such a man?

It sounded, even to Eoghan, like madness.

“Then what do You wish me to do, if it’s not to wield a sword?” Talking aloud made him feel less insane, though it probably looked the opposite.

Obey.

Very well. He would obey, even if Comdiu didn’t give any more direction on whom he was meant to obey.

He was heading back to the other empty chamber to perform the same service when Brother Daigh approached in his usual measured stride. The elder brother’s expression did not reflect that he had recently delivered an extreme punishment to the Ceannaire’s successor.

“You’re wanted in the hall, Brother Eoghan. The Conclave has been called.”

Eoghan’s stomach did an acrobatic twist. He had never been included in a meeting of the Conclave. Either it was a sign his punishment was going to be lifted, or it was a sign of changing things to come. He left the buckets and yoke in the chamber —no doubt he’d have to go straight back to this task —and followed the stern brother through the winding corridors into the great hall.

Rather than the semicircular arrangement of chairs used when a brother or apprentice requested an audience, today they were placed down both sides of a long table in the center of the hall. An extra chair had been pulled up on the end.

“Brother Riordan! You’re back!” The words escaped before he could restrain them.

Riordan didn’t smile. The layer of dust upon his cloak said he had not even spared the time to bathe and change before he convened a meeting of Ard Dhaimhin’s leadership. What could be so urgent?

The other Conclave members filed in and took their seats. Eoghan folded his hands atop the table so he wouldn’t fidget. He was a grown man, but this gathering of elders still made him feel like a young boy waiting for chastisement. At last, Liam appeared from the direction of his private chamber and took a seat on the far end, facing the Rune Throne.

“Brother Riordan has brought us some disturbing news,” Liam said. “You all must hear it. We have decisions to make.”

Riordan cleared his throat and launched into an account of what he had seen in Faolán. Eoghan just stared. Fergus dead, the druid gone, and Mac Eirhinin claiming the throne? He would have been less surprised to find that the sorcerer had sprouted wings.

When he finished, no one spoke. Finally Eoghan asked the question that filled the room like a silent specter. “Where is the druid?”

Riordan looked at him. “He’s there. I can feel him.”

“In hiding?”

“In a sense.”

“He’s taken another body,” Liam said.

All attention shifted to the Ceannaire, and Liam sighed. “Thus far, I have not shared all I know. This druid is neither young nor a stranger. You know that part of the reason the wards were established was to limit the activities of the sorcerers, particularly the ones known as the Red Druids. Ceannaires relied upon the wards for centuries. But what the brotherhood did not anticipate was the potential for corruption from within.”

Eoghan’s heart beat harder. This information was something no one, outside of the Ceannaire himself, had likely ever known.

“One of my predecessors was a man by the name of Niall. At least, that’s the name recorded in the rolls of the brotherhood, though we have no way of knowing whether that was the name to which he was born. He was extraordinarily gifted. He could sense magic in others and instantly identify the type. He could fade in front of someone looking directly at him. But he was not satisfied with the power Comdiu gave him, nor with the small realm he led at Ard Dhaimhin. He called on the darker arts of our forefathers, communed with the sidhe, and gained unimaginable power. When his Conclave suspected he was dabbling in forbidden magic, they attempted to remove him. Instead, through dark magic, he killed his old body and took a new one, that of a young apprentice. Through the years, he has cheated death, changing bodies at will when the old one no longer serves him.”

“And you believe Keondric is simply Diarmuid or Niall or whatever you wish to call him, in a new body,” Eoghan said.

Liam glanced at Riordan. “I do. There is no other explanation of how Keondric commands Fergus’s and Diarmuid’s loyal men.”

“That explains why Conor thought they had killed the druid but Beagan still sensed a sorcerer at Glenmallaig.” Eoghan should have known it. Keondric was the man who had kidnapped Aine and taken her to Glenmallaig as bait for Conor. If he’d already been under the druid’s control, it would have been that much easier to take his body.

“What happened to the real Keondric, then?”

“Gone, most likely,” Liam said. “Two souls cannot reside in one body. The druid, through magic, would have forced his soul to flee and then taken over the space it left behind.”

“I would not have thought it possible,” Gradaigh said quietly. One of the younger members of the Conclave, he’d only recently become a dominant voice on the council. “This is the work of faerie stories, not reality.”

“Where do you think faerie stories come from?” Liam asked. “The world is an ancient place, and there is evil beyond these walls that you cannot even imagine. What Niall —or Keondric —controls is only the smallest fraction of the dark power the Adversary has at his disposal.”

A chill raced over Eoghan’s skin. “How does this affect us?”

“He wants to eliminate all who might stand against him,” Riordan said. “First the Balians in the kingdoms. Next will be Ard Dhaimhin. We must prepare to defend Carraigmór.”

Dal let out a scornful laugh, drawing attention to where he sat at the end of the table. He was another Conclave member emboldened by the changes in Ard Dhaimhin, and if Eoghan were completely honest, he didn’t care for him. “No army can defeat the brotherhood. Even with sorcery, those men are no match for the Fíréin. He will never take the Rune Throne.”

“He does not come to rule,” Liam said. “And it is not the throne that he desires.”

A sick, sinking feeling crept into Eoghan’s middle. Somewhere deep down, he knew what Liam would say before he said it.

“He wants to wipe every last trace of Comdiu’s gifts from the earth.”