They all had finished and the eyes turned again to her. She stepped forward, Práta and Rún keeping their place. The quiet came and her mind filled with words, with apologies, with regret. Those words were not the ones that came out.
“I am not Deifir. I can never be. She was kind and gentle and wise. She was a comfort to us all, as a mother’s bosom. I will never be those things. I will never be soft nor am I as kind as I could ever wish to be. I am not gentle and I doubt if I will ever be wise.” She swallowed hard, the feel of a million expectant eyes tearing at the edges of her composure. “I am not a Goddess, though I have been given the name. I am young. Young and stupid and full with hate for an enemy I barely know. My mouth turns bitter with every mention of them. With every thought they pollute. Whatever I do not know, I am sure of that. I will drive the hippocamps from this land. For those of us they have killed… for my loves and for yours, I swear to you… to all of you.” Silín and Doiléir showed their faces somewhere behind her eyes. She could not stop the tears. “So long as I breathe, they will not know peace. There will be no borders to save them. I will drag their corpses back across the strait and lock them there forever.”
Somehow the noise was louder than it had been. She heard some of the words now. “Sister!” “Goddess!” “Treorai!” She turned away from the courtyard and Meirge eyed her toward the Bastion. The screams died as she took her leave of them, replaced with song again. A song about Abhainn. In it she brought the Bastion up from the Rith itself and put walls around the land, bringing the river elves their only sanctuary from the horsefolk so many thousands of years before.
When she passed the doors, she heard Práta and Rún behind her.
“I told you she would find the words.” Rún sounded satisfied at that.
Práta gave a labored sigh. “I did not doubt it. Must you be this way?”
“How else would I be?”
The Binse dispersed when they came to the grand hall. Meirge had told her before that they would no longer be allowed in the Bastion. None said a word to her as they took their leave to empty the rooms they had occupied. The Binse of Quarter stayed behind, a look of utter contempt on his face. He came to her.
“Socair—”
“You will call her Treorai, ungrateful little—” Rún took a step forward, Socair put out an arm to stop her.
“Preposterous harpy, you dare…” He caught himself, remembering that Socair was his target. “You… I do not know what spell you cast on Deifir, but I will never acknowledge you beyond what tradition demands. Know that. You have said it yourself in your pathetic appeals to those yowling fools outside. You are young and you are stupid. And for me, that is the end of it.”
Rún began to speak again but Socair again raised a hand.
“I am uncomfortable in this place, in this title, Ataim.” Socair’s voice was calm and steady. She stepped closer to the former Binseman and looked down at him. “But I know of hierarchy. The soldiery taught it to me well. And I know well enough my place in it. Do not misunderstand that.” She drew a breath, her eyes intense. A quiver came at the mouthy elf’s lip as she towered over him. “Those things said, I will say this. Should the corpulent sack of waste you call a body ever darken these halls again, I will remove those greasy lips from your face with my own two hands. Your things will be sent, so leave. And if you choose to speak another word in doing so, make them ‘Yes, Treorai’ and ‘Thank you, Treorai.’”
He huffed as though he meant to be the first elf to die of feelings of indigence, muttering a few half words but deciding his battle was lost. He stomped away, licking his hand to slick the thin hair over his scalp. Guards came to his side having heard the words exchanged.
Rún spoke as soon as he had been seen out a side door, flanked by guards.
“I am not sure what I witnessed.”
Práta smiled. “You’ve underestimated your Treorai, Rún.”
“I’ve fallen in love all over again.”
Práta took Socair’s hand in her own, coming to her side, the noise of singing from outside echoing around them. “What will we do, then? You have made a bold proclamation, love.”
“When I was a girl, my father took me to a river, I’d thought to fish. He lifted me from the ground, walked me to the end of a small dock, and threw me into the current.” Socair looked across the vast room, at its dark walls, the tops showing drops of milky white, and at the subtle beauty of the throne in the center of the far wall. “I expect this will not be so different.”
v
Óraithe
Borr burst into the alehouse, frantic. Óraithe heard his shouting before she bothered looking up from her meal to see him.
“Mistresses! Come! They are at the Palisades!”
Scaa seemed more annoyed at the noise than concerned with his words. “Who? Has it fallen or something? Why are you shouting?”
Borr came to the table across from Óraithe, bent over trying to catch his breath. “They are
