The horse from the dream, Breen realized. The sturdy-looking white with the black dappled hindquarters.

“Can I help you?”

“Best to watch and learn this time around.”

Marg led the horse to a two-wheeled cart, where she stood, tail switching, while Marg fixed some sort of harness over the horse’s chest and withers. It ran under the belly, along the flanks, and the way Marg managed it all told Breen she’d done it countless times before.

All the while, the horse stood patient.

“It’s all padded, you see, the breast strap so it won’t rub her. And you have this that controls her head, but you watch you don’t put it so high it pushes her windpipe. You buckle it up with the traces. And you have the saddle—not like one for riding—and the braces. They’re for stopping, the brakes.”

Marg gave the horse a rub. “Then the girth, and that you need good and tight. And here the harness and the bit—there’s my girl.”

While Breen watched, fascinated, Marg strapped and buckled, checked all was as it should be. Then stepped back to lift the cart.

“Let me help.”

“All right then, the shafts on either side have to go into the togs. The loops, you see? The leather loops.”

She explained it all, step by step—a lot of steps—before they had cart and horse ready for the trip.

“All that,” Breen marveled, “every time you want to go somewhere with a cart.”

“It takes a bit of time, but why hurry through the day just to get to the next?”

As agile as a teenager, Marg climbed up to the seat, waited for Breen to do the same.

“In the back with you,” Marg told Bollocks. He leaped in, then rested his head on the seat between them.

With a little click of her tongue, Marg sent the horse and cart forward.

Breen caught movement out of the corner of her eye, turned to see a cat, polished coin silver, wind around the side of the house.

“You have a cat.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As an experience, Breen decided her first horse-before-the-cart ride might have rattled some bones and teeth, but the exhilaration outweighed that.

The quiet—just the roll of wheels, the mare’s lively trot on the soft dirt—meant she could hear birdsong and the lowing of cows as they traveled.

She sat in sunlight, with a breeze smelling of grass wafting around her, and she could see other farms, other cottages—and a man with a thick walking stick who tipped his cap as they passed him on the road.

She saw children playing, clothes flapping on lines, horses actually frolicking in fields.

“Was that a fox?” Breen asked as she watched something red and sleek streak across the road.

“It was, aye. Have you never seen one?”

“Not really. There’s a round tower over there. What’s it for?”

“For remembering now. In the long ago, the Pious took to them for safety, as they were persecuted. Then again, they did some persecuting of their own in that time.”

“That’s the name you used before—for the place where you said my father’s buried.”

“A place it was—or was meant to be—for prayer and good works and contemplation. But there are always some, aren’t there, who believe what they believe is the only. And will do whatever it takes to force that belief on all. For me, those who would kill and burn and enslave in the name of a god, well, they don’t hear the god they claim to worship. Or the god is a false and cruel one.”

She turned the horse and cart onto another road, steeper, and when they topped a rise, Breen saw it.

The spread of gray stone, the turrets, the battlements. And the high grass around it, with headstones, and sheep that grazed.

And there, on another slight rise, the stone circle.

“You dreamed this.”

“I did. That place, and you, and the horse. Not the cart, you rode the horse, and wore a brown cloak with a hood. I can’t get used to it,” Breen murmured. “I don’t know if I ever will.”

“It’s sanctified, this place, a holy place, as it was meant to be. Any blood once shed here, any sins committed, are long forgiven.”

“Why is he here, instead of closer to where he lived?”

“He was taoiseach, and this is his honor. When my time comes, I will lie here as well.”

“What does it mean, that word? Teesha?”

Marg spelled it out. “It means ‘leader.’ Our Eian was leader of the tribes, one and all. Chosen and choosing, as I was once as well.”

“Are you, like, elected?”

“Chosen and choosing,” Marg repeated. “As I chose to pass the sword and staff of the taoiseach to another when I had failed, when I had allowed myself to be used and deceived. I’ll explain,” she added, laying a hand on Breen’s. “I promise you. Your father was but a babe when I abjured, and but sixteen years when he took up the sword and staff himself.”

She stopped the horse. “Would you fetch the flowers for me?” she asked as the dog jumped out to investigate the sheep and the stones.

As she climbed down, Breen got the basket. Marg took them out, circled a finger in the air. Their stems pulled together as if with twine.

“I think with you here now, we’ll put these in the ground so they grow and thrive.”

“But they’re cut flowers, not plants.”

“Fresh they are, fresh enough for this.”

She took Breen’s hand, walked with her over and through the grass to a stone carved with her father’s name and the symbol of a sword crossed with a staff.

“He’s really gone. Part of me didn’t want to believe . . .”

“He’s in you, as he’s in me.” Marg slid an arm around Breen’s waist. “Never forget that. He’s with the gods now. Only his ashes and our memory of him lie here.”

“You . . . he was cremated?”

“In our tradition, the dead is placed in a boat, on a bed of flowers. The candles are lit, the songs are sung as the boat sails on the water. Then the fire takes it. The ashes come back through the air and into a stone jar, and the jar is placed in the earth. And the dead is one with the five.”

“The four elements, and magick.”

“Aye. Do you want me to leave you for some time?”

“No. No, he was yours, too.”

“Then together, we’ll give him the flowers.”

“I don’t know how to do what you’re asking.”

“Kneel with me. We hold the flowers together, just beneath the stone. Think with your heart now, open it.

“In this place of peace and rest,” Marg said, “we offer our gift to one loved best. Flowers bright, grow day and night. For father, for son, from her, from me. As we will, so mote it be.”

Breen felt something, a change in the air, in the ground beneath her. The stems of the bouquet simply slid into the earth. And they spread, wild with color, until they formed a blanket.

“It’s . . . it’s beautiful.”

“You were part of it.” Tears glittered in Marg’s eyes, but didn’t fall. Just gleamed like light over a misty blue sea. “It’s in you, mo stór. If you choose, I’ll teach you what you need to know. Now take your moments with him. You need them whether you think it or not. I have others I knew and cared for here, and will pay respects.”

“All right.”

Sitting, Breen brushed her hand through the blanket of flowers. She didn’t believe she’d had any part in creating it, but she couldn’t deny she’d felt something pull inside her, and open inside her.

But for now, she just wanted to be.

“I miss you so much.” More keenly now, she realized, than she had even as a girl. “I should’ve tried to find you sooner. I should’ve broken away somehow, and tried. You’d have already been gone, but I’d have known. I’d have come here.

“It’s beautiful, the old ruins, the hills, the fields. And so quiet. Peace and rest, she said, and that’s true. I’m not sure what I believe about after death, but I hope that’s what you have now. Peace and rest. There’s so much I need to remember, but I never forgot one thing. I love you.”

She got to her feet, blinked and swiped at tears.

The horse let out a sharp whinny, and rising up to paw the air, nearly overturned the cart. Without thinking Breen started running back to grab at the bridle, to try to steady her.

She heard a whoosh, like a strong wind sweeping the trees.

Struggling with the horse, she looked up.

A man dived out of the sky. His gold hair streamed back, his dark wings spread. She had only a moment to wonder at the strange beauty before she realized he came straight at her.

And the look in his eyes was as dark as his wings.

She ran, zigging, zagging over the uneven ground to avoid stones. Something grabbed her hair, yanked her back. When an arm clamped around her waist, she kicked, struggled, and pulled in her breath to scream.

“Nan! Run! Run and hide!”

The chuckle came close to her ear. “Hiding’s done. Odran waits for you.”

And she kicked the air as he lifted her off her feet with the ground spinning beneath her.

She heard a roar, thought it was her panicked heart beating in her head. Then it dived out of the sky, gleaming emerald and gold and impossible. Its long, sinuous body streaked through the air with the man on its back, black hair flying. The sunlight struck the sword raised in his hand.

What held her let her go, and as she fell, too stunned to scream, she saw him draw a sword of his own.

She hit the ground, lay dazed and dizzy, as the clash—blade against blade—shook it beneath her.

“Breen!” Marg dropped down beside her. “I’ve got you. Let me see where you’re hurt.”

“It’s a dragon.” Breathless, Breen wheezed out the words. “It’s a dragon.”

“And thank the gods for it.”