Eight – 03

I sat by the fire hours later, a mug of tea cradled between my palms as I kept the mid-watch, the watch between post-dinner and the graveyard shift. Thom wasn’t happy about it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep despite the excitement of the day, so he went to bed and I lingered, keeping the fire going and listening to the sounds of our village by night. That’s what it was now, really—a village. Our village.

Home.

“You could have taken him to task, you know. For the way he was behaving.”

I startled at the sound of Leinth’s voice, twisting to look at her as she came into the light of the fire. She looked pale and drawn, dark circles beneath her eyes. I frowned.

“You look like hell,” I told her.

“Only tired,” she said, settling on the ground an arms’ length from me. “He’s still sleeping the sleep of the dead. No change.”

I nodded slowly. “You want some tea?” I asked, gesturing to the pot over the flames.

“I can get it,” she said, sitting cross-legged and arranging her sleeveless robe around her. Her attire was caught somewhere between early Roman chic, hippy flower child, and 90s grunge, but somehow she made it work. “I mean it, though. You could have reamed him out for the way he was acting. He deserved it.”

“Who?”

“Seamus,” she said. “He would have listened to you and you’d have been utterly right to say something.”

I shook my head. “He didn’t do anything to deserve my chewing him out. We’re all a little overwrought and what little he’s said about this whole mess have been far less alarming and far more kind than some of what the rest of us have been thinking. Trust me on that.”

She stared at me for a long moment before nodding slightly. “If you say so. Still, should it ever come up…you can do it and he’ll listen.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t.” She offered me a faint smile. “He used to speak of her fondly, you know.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stirred. “Of who?”

“Brighíd of the Imbolg.”

My blood went cold.

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One Response to Eight – 03

  1. uh oh …. trouble around the corner.

    This book is never boring. Another twist to stir the masses.

    Thanks for the updates.

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