After she’d long lost count of her attempts, she touched the tendril of energy to Adhna’s hand, deep in the earth. He cried out, but not in pain this time. An exultation of joy and strength which turned to a sobbing grumble when it, too, snapped back to the living earth.
However, her one success just bolstered her fortitude. Clíodhna tried again and Adhna held onto the tendril this time. He pulled, yanking her from her own feet. She fell onto the dead earth, but the energy didn’t snap back. He drew it into himself, creating a lattice of energy to shield him from the evil blackness.
He climbed this lattice, step by step, out of the grim pit. When he reached the cage of dead branches, he raised his arms with a triumphant cry and shattered the desiccated limbs into a thousand pieces. The shards rained over them both as she hugged Adhna with gentle glee. His bones jutted through his thin body. He’d been starved of more than magic in his prison. Clíodhna worried she might snap him if she gripped too tight.
He held her at arms-length, searching her eyes. “Clíodhna, why didn’t you flee when I bade you to?”
“Did you truly expect me to leave my teacher to such a place?”
His eyes darted into the gloom surrounding them. “I suppose not. But we must leave. He could return.”
“He? Who did this to you?”
“Bodach.”
She shivered again at the sound of the bark-skinned Fae’s name. They hurried down the glinting path to the mortal forest glade at the bend of the river.
Dawn threatened in the east, and Clíodhna gasped, covering her mouth. “The Fae! The Abbot is coming here to kill them!”
Adhna’s eyes turned dark, glittering in the twilight. “How dare he do such a thing?”
She swallowed and turned to her lover. “He’s trying to trap me by hurting them.”
With a slow nod, his anger faded. “Very well. We’ll just have to take care of this before he arrives.”
He turned and cut the air with his hand. The air opened with fire, a line burning vertically where he drew his finger. Chittering behind her made Clíodhna turn, only to find five Fae watching Adhna.
She addressed the audience. “Who else lives here? We must run to safety, before the sun rises. Will you gather the others?”
They backed away several steps, but Adhna turned. “Listen to the human woman. I am making a passage into Faerie. You must escape.”
The closest Fae, a sídhe with knobbly green skin, bowed her head, fidgeting with her fingers. “But we live here. We are of this place. We can no easier move than our tree can.”
Adhna cut another line, perpendicular to the first, at the level of his head. Without turning from his task, he said. “My magic can move you safely, though it may hurt. However, waiting for what the other humans might do to you would be much more painful. You might even perish.”
She turned to another sídhe with white birchbark skin. “Go fetch our kin.”
A third line, parallel to the first, and then a fourth line as a threshold, formed a doorway. Clíodhna peered through the opening, but only saw a dim light, a light unlike the dawning sun behind it. This was a diffuse glow, as if a hundred candles had been scattered across the green, rolling hills. It flickered with life and magic. She shuddered in memory of the dead place, holding that flutter of light within her heart.
The birch sídhe arrived, with a line of Fae behind her. A tall, willowy water nymph, several rock gnomes, and a sprite stood in miserable caution, eyeing Clíodhna with suspicion and silence.
Adhna turned, his doorway complete. “Follow me. I will keep you safe and find you a home on the other side. You might not return to this world for some time, but you will be alive. Come, now.”
Clíodhna grasped his arm. “Wait, Adhna! What about you? Will you be back?”
His smile faded. “Tonight, I shall return. Wait for me by the stones.”
One by one, the Fae winked out of view into the fiery entrance. As each one disappeared, a bit of the magic of her world died. When the last one had gone, her heart felt smaller, somehow, as it had within that dead zone.
A clamor on the other side of the glade made her jump. Pátraic had arrived with his helpers. He swung a metal object with sweet-smelling smoke drifting from tiny holes, chanting in his harsh language. Another monk flung water from a small mallet, back and forth on either side of the path. Clíodhna snuck into the still misty trees, seeking the shelter and solace of the living things, and escaping the evil of men.
As she trudged home in the mid-morning fog, Oisinne’s cries reached her before she even saw the roundhouse. He screeched at the top of his lungs, the sound echoing in the mist. Etromma yelled back at him, telling him to shut his mouth and no one had hurt him.
Clíodhna considered leaving now and escaping to the stone circle, to spend her day in quiet solitude. She ached from the night’s magic and every muscle in her body felt like Oisinne had spent the night punching it. However, to leave her own daughter to mind her husband wouldn’t be fair. She forced herself to enter her chaotic home.
He’d gotten free of most of his ropes, but one still tangled around his leg. It worked as a tether, keeping him in a precise radius from the roof pillar near his bed. He struggled against the restraint, trying to pull it off by sheer strength, but the rope remained tight. The more he strove against it, in fact, the tighter the tangle became. Etromma and Donn stood just
