LXXIX
I WAKE ON A BED OF FURS. SUNLIGHT STREAMS IN through a window. I am in a hut, not dissimilar to the one I was first kept in when I arrived at Caer áras, but more spacious. I am alone.
I groan. Slowly, cautiously, prod at my body.
Bruised but not broken. Wounds still there, but bandaged.
I am in fresh clothes, and wrapped in a pure white cloak that suggests my claims during the battle have not been disputed, though I see no sign of Lir's staff.
Whoever treated me left the scarab medallion around my neck, tucked against my chest. Fortunate.
I cannot imagine I would have survived any other way; I can still barely believe that I am breathing.
I even, briefly, check my own heartbeat, admitting some relief when I feel its steady thumping against my palm.
And then I bring my silver arm up in front of my face.
It is still attached. Still works. I close the hand into a fist and open it again, waggling the fingers, marvelling at how it feels just like the real thing.
Partly as if I was using the nasceann, my sense of it intimate, a true extension of myself.
Partly as I was taught it should work in Res, with complete mental command over it and its moving parts.
I still don't understand how it's possible. How and why I was able to unconsciously imbue it as I did.
But it seems that I may, at least, still have the opportunity to try and find out one day.
I lie there for a while, then summon the energy to move. Slowly, stiffly rise to my feet, grasping the nearby table to prevent myself from simply falling straight back down. I hear voices from outside. Light and laughing, relaxed, and perhaps some children farther in the distance.
I open the door. A couple of warriors are lounging against the wall of the hut opposite, but the one facing me cuts short his conversation as soon as he spots me. His eyes go wide and he mutters something to the woman with him before hurrying off.
I stand there as the woman, and several others on the street, stare at me. Saying nothing. I sway a little, and bring up my silver hand to grasp the doorframe. Their eyes all go to it. It shines in the light of the winter sun.
"Deaglán!"
I turn, a hopeful, joyous smile creeping across my face. Tara is striding down the street. Smiling too, a broad, genuine thing that lights up her face in a way I haven't seen before. The warmth is so foreign on her that I almost laugh.
There's movement past her and I can see Conor charging behind, grinning fiercely. Fearghus and Seanna flank him. Miach just after them. They are all whooping and hollering like madmen. All of them.
I do laugh, this time. Loud and joyous.
"Tara, I—" I cut off with a grunt as I'm enveloped in an entirely too rough embrace, first by Tara and then immediately followed by the others, the group turning into a happy, bruising, laughing, jumping clump of excitement that I am powerless to escape.
Eventually my pained protests make it through to them and they stop, albeit with a series of jibes at how weak I must be to not even withstand a gentle hug.
"The siege?" I ask it first, though I think I know the answer from their presence, not to mention the light feeling in the air here.
"Broken, four days ago. Fiachra's men fled.
Terrified of you. The great draoi nasceann.
" Tara's eyes shine as she looks at me. "And the Grove has been forced to distance themselves from Fiachra as a result. Draoi Uallach, from King Nuadha's lands, was here during the attack and has gone to speak with them on behalf of Caer áras.
He departed yesterday with your staff"—I open my mouth to indicate dismay—"but gave his oath it would be returned. He was a friend of Lir's, and according to some of my father's men, another critic of the Grove's deal with Fiachra.
He left your cloak as an assurance that your status is not to be challenged. "
"Except by Ruarc, I imagine," I observe with a weary grin. Tara seems confident this Draoi Uallach is to be trusted. I am content to trust her.
"That will not matter anymore. Ruarc has surrendered."
"What?"
"This morning." It's Conor jumping in, clapping me on the back far too firmly before realising what he's doing and giving an apologetic wince. "Came to the gates and gave himself up."
"Why?"
"He hasn't said, but we're assuming the Grove has turned on him." Miach, quiet as usual.
"But he did have one stipulation." Tara again, some of her initial excitement fading to seriousness. "He said he had to talk to you before anything was done to him."
I frown. "Did he know I was like this?" I gesture broadly to the swathes of bandage.
"He knew. He just believed you would survive." Tara eyes me, her smile returning. "I was with him on that much."
"We all were," says Seanna quickly. The others immediately roar their dissent at her, and she holds up her hands, blushing even as she laughs. "I have never been more happy to be wrong, Deaglán. Truly."
I laugh with them, painful though the motion is, their infectious enthusiasm impossible to not be swept up in.
I am glad, too, I realise. Everyone else on the street is gathering, peering, straining for a glimpse of my silver hand.
Of me. Some part of me was already worried my friends would see me differently too.
I am ushered back inside, made to sit.
"I assume you want to know about the arm?" I ask, once we're all comfortable.
"No," says Conor immediately, shaking his head.
Fearghus sighs. "Why would we want to know that?"
"Dull," adds Tara.
I look around at them, not saying anything for a second, then, "Alright, well what about—"
Their shouts drown out my words, insisting I tell them all about the gods-cursed arm immediately or they would finish the job Gallchobhar was too incompetent to do.
So I tell them. Everything that happened since we parted, the whole truth, with the exception of my time in Fornax, which Tara carefully steers me away from. I wasn't going to go into that part, anyway. I know Lir wouldn't have wanted me to.
I fall silent after I explain about my father.
He must have overheard that Gallchobhar intended to sacrifice me to the lake, and so hid himself underwater.
Probably waited there for hours. Knowing what would happen to him.
Knowing that if I was thrown in, it would be because I had ignored his warnings.
"We found his body, I think," Tara interjects gently into the quiet. When I look at her, she nods. "He floated ashore downriver. White robes."
I swallow. "Has he been given the rites?"
"Not yet." She fidgets. "Most of the funeral arrangements have been centred around my father, these past few days."
I nod. Sympathy and pain and understanding in the look I give her, though I know she will not want words to accompany them.
"Tonight, though. You should farewell him tonight." She moves on brusquely, and I nod again. A lump suddenly in my throat, but she's right. It has been four days. It cannot wait longer.
"I need to see him." My heart suddenly cannot take it anymore and I stand, ignoring the dizziness that sweeps through me.
Conor grips my arm. Steadies me.
"We will take you," he says.
As we walk at a staggeringly slow pace, me leaning on Tara and Conor in turn, they tell me how Gallchobhar had decimated so many of the surrounding villages that it had made King Rónán's attempts to find support near impossible.
About their own mad dash for the caer to arrive barely ahead of Fiachra's siege, a desperate final fight just to reach the gate with a dozen other surviving warriors they had managed to collect along the way.
Conor and Seanna do most of the describing of the latter, making it sound a grand, glorious epic full of near misses and impossible bravery. I believe every word of it.
As we walk through the caer, conversation fades as we pass. Twice, I move to conceal my silver arm beneath my cloak. Both times, Tara gently pushes it back into view. Whispers follow us, and I hear the name "Silverhand" more than once.
My father's body is interred in a cool, dark cave. The torchlight enough for me to see his features and know it is him in the stillness of the tomb.
I press the medallion against his cheek. Five seconds. Ten.
He never stirs.
I swallow tears, and lean down and kiss him on his cold forehead.
When we return to the caer, a small crowd is waiting. At first I pay them no mind, knowing that most of them have come only to see the curiosity of my arm. But then there is motion, waving from their midst, and I catch sight of the blonde-haired form pushing her way forward.
"Gráinne?" My heart leaps as I run forward to greet the woman who saved me all those months ago.
Her smile is wide as she reaches the front of the mob.
An instant later, Róisín and Tadhg are there too.
Bigger in size, older around their eyes.
But still with a childlike joy as they rush at me with smiles that split their young faces, gazes inevitably and unabashedly fixed upon the oddity of my arm.
I smile back, even as it's tinged with the sadness of realisation as I take them in.
"Deaglán Silverhand. The great hero." Gráinne comes to a hesitant halt in front of me, brow furrowing as she sees my expression. "What is wrong?" Still speaking in that same careful way she did six months ago, though I no longer need it.
"Onchú," I say gently.
She frowns at me, confused.
"What about Onchú?" comes a gruff voice from my side.
I turn. Onchú stands a few feet away. Hale and whole. Arms crossed as he assesses me.
"Onchú!" My smile broadens into pure delight, and I wrap the man in a fierce, jubilant hug, lifting him off the ground. He groans and struggles, taken aback, as the others laugh; a moment later I'm embracing them too, laughing as well. Dazed. Delighted.
"I was at Didean," I explain. "I saw the cairn outside your hut, and I thought …"