“It’s spirit you have, so that’s fine and well. Come avenge then, the dead father, the dead witch who whelped you. I will have what you are, and then I’ll make your sisters mine.”
“You will never touch what’s mine.” Eamon circled, tried to think. The fog rose and rose, clouding all, the woods, the path, his mind. He gripped air, fisted it, hurled it. It carved a shaky and narrow path. Cabhan laughed again.
“Closer. Come closer. Feel what I am.”
He did feel it, the pain of it, the power of it. And the fear. He tried fire, but it fell smoldering, turned to dirty ash. When Cabhan’s hands reached out for him, he lifted his fists to fight.
Roibeard swooped like an arrow, claws and beak tearing at those outstretched hands. The blood ran black as the man howled, as the man began to re-form into the wolf.
And another man came through the fog. Tall, his brown hair damp from the mists, his eyes deep and green and full of power and fury.
“Run,” he told Eamon.
“I will not run from such as he. I cannot.”
The wolf pawed the ground, showed its teeth in a terrible smile.
“Take my hand.”
The man grabbed Eamon’s hand. Light exploded like suns, power flew like a thousand beating wing
s. Blind and deaf, Eamon cried out. There was only power, covering him, filling him, bursting from him. Then with one shattering roar, the fog was gone, the wolf gone, and only the man gripping his hand remained.
The man dropped to his knees, breath harsh, face white, eyes full of magicks. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am Eamon son of Daithi, son of Sorcha. I am of the three. I am the Dark Witch of Mayo.”
“As am I. Eamon.” On a shaky laugh, the man touched Eamon’s hair, his face. “I am from you. You’re out of your time, lad, and in mine. I’m Connor, of the clan O’Dwyer. I am out of Sorcha, out of you. One of three.”
“How do I know this to be true?”
“I am your blood, you are mine. You know.” Connor pulled the amulet from under his shirt, touched the one, the same one, Eamon wore.
And the man lifted an arm. Roibeard landed on the leather glove he wore.
Not Roibeard, Eamon realized, and yet . . .
“My hawk. Not yours, but named for him. Ask him what you will. He is yours as much as mine.”
“This is . . . not my place.”
“It is, yes, not your time but your place. It ever will be.”
Tears stung Eamon’s eyes, and his belly quivered with longing worse than hunger. “Did we come home?”
“You did.”
“Will we defeat him, avenge our parents?”
“We will. We will never stop until it’s done. My word to you.”
“I wish to . . . I’m going back. I feel it. Brannaugh, she’s calling me back. You saved me from Cabhan.”
“Saving you saved me, I’m thinking.”
“Connor of the O’Dwyers. I will not forget.”
And he flew, over the hills again, until it was soft, soft morning and he sat by Brannaugh’s fire with both his sisters shaking him.