As they rode north, Bee felt sure someone was following them, but when she looked back, she saw nothing. The raised elevation of the King’s Highway gave her a clear view of the terrain for leagues around. The road from Dun Ailinne was as magnificent as the city. Built by Eterscel, it was another of his marvels. It took little imagination to understand why they called him The Builder. That said, Bee could not take her mind off the visitor in the night.

  How could Marbh be in the Kingdoms? she asked herself again. She was convinced the apparition had been there physically, but logic said it was impossible. Death’s Demon was locked away in Tech Duinn, or in the Arena at least. It was frustrating, because logic told her there was no other explanation for the red eyes and near alabaster skin. Nor the sense of evil that seemed to shroud the dingle in the same way as the mist.

  Only the demons of His inner circle have red eyes, she repeated. The words had become something of a mantra since they’d rejoined the road and continued their journey.

  Turning to the rebel, she considered telling him what she’d seen, but his lackadaisical, I don’t care, grin put her off. Instead, she wondered how they would remember him in their scéal. His ancestor was known as a great builder, but so far, Ruirech had shown petulance and a willingness to risk all, but not much else. His driving need to exact revenge for something that happened three centuries ago didn’t give her much hope. Men and boys. Stupid codes and vengeance. One thing she’d learnt through watching the humans was, they didn’t learn. The rebel would remove Balor and then begin repeating the usurper’s—in Ruirech’s eyes—mistakes.

  He’ll end up with a name like Ochall the Mad, for sure. Ruirech The Ravenous has a ring to it, she thought, and then grinned.

  In some ways, she understood his drive.

  Balor made a mistake by giving lands to his loyal soldiers—lands that were not his to give, at least in Ruirech’s mind. Despite the honour in Balor’s sentiments, his methods were not the best, and had stirred up a hatred that might have been best left undisturbed. The adage that she heard so often repeated, Let imprisoned demons sleep, could not be more apt. Bee had no doubt, even with what little she knew of the man beside her, that he wouldn’t stop until Balor was dead. She suspected he was the type who would put the man’s head on a spike over Dun Ailinne’s guardhouse, too. Stick it up there and ask his people to rejoice. In fact, when they’d been riding towards the city, he’d practically admitted as much. She was almost sure that Ruirech’s future citadel would be adorned with the heads of his erstwhile enemies.

  But ye can’t be sure. Give the boy a chance.

  Which some might consider a sound way to go forward, except in Bee’s experience, giving boys too much leeway usually ended in disaster. Even as old as Finn had been, boys tended towards the wrong decisions. They kept their brains in their pants or their sword arms, or both.

  “A copper for your thoughts,” Ruirech said. She wanted to knock the grin off his face. To her, it spoke of an arrogance similar to Danu’s Three, except he was far too young to be so convinced of his own superiority.

  It’s a front, she suddenly realised.

  “What makes ye think I’ve any?” she scoffed. “They can be such a pain in me hole.”

  “Ah, Bee. You’re putting yourself down. Just because you’re a woman, doesn’t mean you have no thoughts.”

  Bee was about to react, when the flag hanging limp from Caisel’s flagpole caught her eye. Running a finger along her scar, she wondered what would be waiting for them in the palisaded settlement. The message said they were waiting. She assumed the signature D was Dorn. But who were they? Dorn, obviously. Bren, she expected. But were there others?

  Digging her heels in, she rode ahead of the youth who was on the verge of having a dagger inserted into a very unwelcome orifice. A front or no, patronizing her was not a good idea.

  Caisel, although nothing compared to Dun Ailinne, was a sizeable town. Riding through the gate, Bee dreaded having to search the place for Dorn and Bren, and whoever else might be waiting. The stables were just inside the settlement, and Bee was out of the saddle, ready to hand over the reins, when Ruirech caught up with her.

  “Why did you run?” he asked, confusion clouding his face.

  “Nothing. Just needed to get this done.”

  “Your man is in the western hostel,” the stable lad said as he arrived before them.

  “Me man?” Bee asked with an eyebrow raised.

  “Aye. The ring fighter. He’s expectin’ you. Told me to watch for a witch with a scar. You can’t miss the drinkery. Fast against the western wall.”

  “I look like a witch to ye?” Bee asked. The lad just shrugged and held out his hand. “Ye want money, now?”

  “No, mistress. I want the reins.”

  She looked at Ruirech, who shrugged. Handing over the reins of her mount and the packhorse, Bee followed the boy into the stables and ensured the stalls were good enough. Once satisfied, she took her pack and the bow from her saddle holster and swung them over her shoulder. At any other time, she would have left them with the horse, but with her overriding sense of impending doom, she wouldn’t take the risk. Adding a quiver of twenty arrows to her belt, she nodded at the rebel, and they walked out into the wan winter sunlight.

  “Do I look like a witch to ye?” Bee asked as soon as the stable hand was out of hearing.

  “What’s a witch supposed to look like?”

  “Old. Haggard. Warts and crooked noses.”

  “What, like the Faerie tales our mas used to scare us?”

  “Aye, just like that, so.” Instead of answering, Ruirech laughed and walked on.

  Damn the man to Darkness, so.

  Reaching the west side of the settlement, Bee scanned an open area, a little like a central square in a badly laid out village. The place seemed deserted, except for a man sitting outside a roundhouse whittling a stick. The western wall hostel was less than inviting. It was a squat blockhouse with a turf roof and had steps down to the front entrance. Smoke billowed from a metal tube sticking up through the turf near the ramparts. Any guards on this part of the palisade would find it challenging to keep an effective watch with so much smoke. Anything at ground level with steps down struck Bee as somewhere she’d rather not have to enter. Anything underground struck her as the domain of Darkness, and she wondered why any God would use such a place. Frowning, she led Ruirech down the steps and through the heavy wooden door. The interior was a pleasant surprise. A roaring iron stove under an iron pipe, which she assumed was the source of the smoke smothering the palisade, bathed the place in warmth and light. In most hostels, the smoke would be inside, trying to find a hole, but this room was clear and warm, welcoming.

  Scanning the room, she found Dorn sitting at a table in the back, Bren beside him. They were alone.

  Bee strode over, dropped her pack, and put her hands on her hips.

  “Why did ye run?” she demanded, not caring that her stance and the scowl on her face were giving away her anger.

  “When I saw Credne sitting at the map table, I had no choice,” Dornalai said, holding up placatory hands.

  “Ye ran from yer brother?”

  “Credne has been on the wrong side of this from the beginning. Only we brothers knew about the dagger and the compass. Only we knew where they were. One of us had to have told the thief, and I knew it was not Luchta when I found him in the tower protecting your brother.”

  “And he lied to me,” Bee said. “I knew something stank about his tale, so I did. He told me ye three were playing fidchelland were together when the safe was broken into. Ye sensed the breach, he said. Only ye were already here. Ye’ve been here for many summers, best friends with the rebel, Ruirech said. So, ye saw him and ran.”

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  “Yes. I had no choice. He wants Bren. He’s been hunting him. He thinks Bren is the key to this.”

  “Ye’ve got me ears, Ring Fighter,” Bee said, pulling out a chair and sitting.

  “I am now convinced that my brother needs your brother to succeed.”

  “How’s that?” she asked.

  “I must admit I don’t know. It’s not making much sense. I understand his giving someone the location of the dagger and the compass, but I do not understand where Archu and Breshlech come into it. Nor do I know who his ally is and what their relationship might be.”

  “Credne knows that Bren has no idea where Lia Fáil is. Ye don’t do ye?” she asked her brother, who shook his head. “So, that ain’t it. He told me it was a ruse to flush out the thief of the compass and dagger. Something Danu planned.”

  “I do not believe Danu would have dreamed such a ruse. I think Credne was trying to dirty the bathing water. I think he’s been trying to divert you, and I mean you, Bee, since this began.”

  “Aye, I can see that, so I can, but it doesn’t explain him hunting Bren. Why d’ye think?”

  The ring fighter looked away. Bee saw fear etching the skin around his eyes. The icy grip on her spine returned because anything that instilled fear in one of Danu’s Three had to be horrific.

  Like Marbh, she thought. “Because his mistress is here, watching,” Bee answered her own question.

  “Why do you say mistress?” Dorn snapped.

  “She came to us on the plains this night just gone, an apparition in the mist. Well, maybe not an apparition. It felt too real, so it did. Felt like she was here, even though she can’t be.”

  “She did,” Ruirech said, confusion etching his face.

  “Aye. Ye were in some sort of hex.”

  “Describe her. Leave no detail out.”

  When she finished the story, Dorn sat rubbing his gnarled face for several moments. If anything, her words had deepened his concern. Bee sat with her hands in her lap, waiting. Her anger had seeped out of her when she saw Dorn’s worry.

  “It is as I feared,” he finally said.

  “I’m still all ears,” Bee said.

  “I suspect you have been wondering why she did not order you killed. I know you have been asking why Dagda sent you.” Bee nodded. “The answer to both questions is the same. It is difficult to put into words.”

  “Try,” Bee hissed.

  “You described Marbh to me, but apart from the red eyes, it might have been another.”

  “Who?”

  “You are Rhiannon’s children—”

  “What?” Bren and Bee interrupted together.

  “The children of the moon Goddess. Rhiannon.”

  “What’s this horseshit?” Bee demanded. “It’s absurd, so it is. Ye said it yerself, Rhiannon doesn’t have red eyes.”

  Bee sat fingering her scar, before noticing and gripping both hands under the table. “She’s…”

  She trailed off as she recalled the red-eyed demon telling her she didn’t know her mother. If Dorn was telling the truth, then so was the dream demon. She’d always thought her mother was a witch called Upthog.

  The demon has red eyes! That was Death before Caisel.

  “The red eyes might have been nothing but theatrics, I am sure,” Dorn said.

  “Why would Rhiannon need theatrics?” Bee hissed. Dorn shrugged. “Besides, the wind change revealed her, and that was accidental…”

  “Which might also have been designed. Believe me when I say it is Rhiannon’s power you use when you perform magic—her immense power. And I think it explains why Dagda woke you. I mean no insult, Bren, but Bechuille’s presence was much more likely to draw her out into the open. You are her favourite,” he answered Bee’s raised eyebrows. “Her favourite twin,” he finished.

  “If she’s me mother, why didn’t she just say so?”

  “I suspect she is not yet ready.”

  And then Dorn’s words breached her turmoil. “We’re twins. I thought Bren is older.”

  “Aye, but only by half a day.”

  “Why didn’t we know?” Bren asked.

  And who is our father? Bee wondered, something that suddenly seemed poignant. Your father orders you to do your duty.

  “I am not sure why, but Danu said you needed to be reared apart. Bren to Danu and you to Dagda.”

  “Who is me father?” she asked. Again, Dorn shrugged and gazed into the flames.

  He remained silent for many moments, but eventually said, “Whoever it is, I now think that Rhiannon and he are trying to take over the Fae Realm.”

  “Why not Rhiannon and Credne?” she wondered.

  “She will need power behind her. Power my hapless brother can only dream about.”

  He’s hiding something. Or maybe they all are.

  Bee was about to demand what, but Bren interrupted her by asking, “If she’s so powerful, why doesn’t she just take the realm from Danu and Dagda?”

  “It is not so simple, Bren. The fact remains that no one wants Rhiannon as the Mother Goddess. She is too dangerous and unpredictable. Following the last Scourge, divisions have begun to emerge. Many see Dagda’s fixation with the Kingdoms as a waste of time and investing a stone with his Earth Power as dangerous. Rhiannon is not alone in her desire for a change of leadership. Before she can make a move, she must have the Higher Tuatha behind her, or a demon horde to command, at least.”

  “Which other Higher Tuatha?” Bee asked.

  “Morrigan, for one. It is luck that Morrigan and Rhiannon hate each other, because if they united, it would mean the end for Dagda and Danu. There are many others, which is why we had no idea who was behind it.”

  “Morrigan was married to Dagda before Danu,” Bee mused.

  “Aye, a reason for jealousy, I feel.”

  “I still don’t understand why she didn’t just kill me in that dingle?” Bee said.

  “She is your mother. I expect she wants you by her side. I doubt she will harm you unless forced to do so by the others.”

  Which others might there be? And how many of them? Bee wondered. It was evident that Dorn was not going to answer, so she was about to ask about her father when the thunder of horses galloping up The King’s Highway interrupted her. A few moments later, the lad from the stables ran into the hostel and stood panting with his hands on his hips.

  As soon as he had sufficient breath, the boy blurted, “A troop, twenty horse. They’re searching for you.”

  “Wait here,” Dorn said as he slipped through the door.

  “You believe him?” Ruirech asked. Bee thought for several moments before saying that she did. Much of what he said made sense, finally. She’d been unable to find the sense in it all until the ring fighter’s explanation.

  The Gods are bickering, and we’re in the middle.

  The revelation that Rhiannon was their mother was surprisingly less upsetting than it should have been. No doubt her dream had played a part. Besides, Bee had known there was something strange about the apparition standing in the mist. As well as the fear, she’d felt something else. Now, with the advantage of Dorn’s insights, she thought there had been a connection between them. What she’d felt, strangely, was longing.

  Or am I adding feelings with the advantage of hindsight?

  “It’s Credne,” Dorn said on his return a short time later. “They are searching in groups. It will not take them long to reach us here.”

  “How did he find us?” Ruirech asked.

  “He has trackers with him. I would say he has been following you from the outset.”

  “Are the trackers Maidens?” Bee asked.

  “No. Human.” Those words made her feel better in some way. If they were battling the Maidens in all this, she would give them less than a drop of moisture’s chance in the Western Wastes in the middle of summer. Even though the Goddess was fearsome and, according to Dorn, more powerful than any other of the Higher Tuatha, Bee feared the Maidens as an enemy. She’d witnessed the way they drove the demons back into their hole with burning whips and no mercy.

  “Come out, Goibniu, and stop being such a bore,” stopped Bee’s thoughts. “I saw you watching us, so I know you’re in there. You know I mean you no harm.”

  “Is that you, Credne?” Dorn called. “Why are you out here in the grassy wastes?”

  The words elicited no response. Bee was sure Credne was ordering his trackers into the hostel and suspected they were wary because they knew there was a God and two witches inside.

  “Can’t we just attack them and fight our way clear?” Bee asked. Dorn shook his head.

  “Rhiannon will be close. Quick, you must leave.”

  “Can’t ye cut a hole like before?” Bren asked, and Bee wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself.

  “Credne has a dagger and a compass. He will already have Tuatha warriors in the void waiting for us to try. It is possible that Rhiannon will also be there. From what you told me, she too has a dagger and compass. I am at fault. We should have used the Paths as soon as you got here. I must admit, I thought they were not so close. The last thing they will suspect is you running in the old-fashioned way.”

  “But how?” Ruirech asked. “There’s only one door.”

  Ignoring him, Dornalai walked to the back of the room and ducked behind the bar. The barkeep nodded and stepped aside. “Quick,” the God repeated, before vanishing from view.

  Bee ran over and was surprised to see a hatch open in the ground. Dorn’s head rose from the hole, and he said, “I will occupy him,” as he pulled himself up. “There are supplies at the bottom of the steps. I lit torches. The exit is half a league to the west. There are many side passages; ignore them. Keep going straight.”

  “Won’t they just follow us?” Ruirech asked.

  “I will ward the hatch, and they will not find it. However, I cannot keep Credne for long, so get as far away as you can as quickly as you can. The hunt won’t start until they have searched the town, which will give you more time. My brother must hunt you; it is his only chance to escape the hole he has dug for us all—”

  “The horses are in the stables,” Bee interrupted.

  “You will be on foot, but the grass will keep you hidden. Do not rely on it. Overconfidence will be your downfall. And remember, wolves are also Rhiannon’s children.”

  “Where will we go?” Bee asked.

  “Head for Ceathru Rua. I will meet you in the hostel called The Sailor’s Rest. We can take a ship to North Kingdom and decide what to do.”

  “Why North Kingdom?” she asked.

  “There is a friend who can hide us.”