There wasn’t a barrier that he could see in front of them, but he could feel it—feel it like a real, physical thing, like it was an object he could reach out and touch, run his fingers along its surface. Gray imagined it to be like a seamless stone wall, ivy-draped at the top, smooth and cold as if it was made of polished marble. Whatever it was, it felt solid, felt like safety.
“Who put together your defenses?” he asked quietly.
Aoife looked at him sharply, a glance he ignored in favor of watching Seamus’s shoulders stiffen. A dozen yards away, Phelan stood with a blonde woman just shy of where Gray could sense the invisible barrier, apparently waiting for them.
Seamus’s shoulders relaxed slowly. “A little of Phelan,” he said quietly. “But most of it is Marin.” His gaze flicked toward Aoife. “Teague’s line, by way of Mairéad.”
Aoife swore under her breath in her native tongue and Gray’s arm tightened around her. He thought of the stories she’d told and shook his head slightly. So her brother found his way to family after all—generations removed, but family nonetheless. Maybe she didn’t need to worry as much as she did.
Still, he was glad they’d come—at the very least, he’d get to meet someone who could build invisible walls like the one he felt.
Seamus looked amused by whatever Aoife had said, shaking his head as he grinned over his shoulder at them. “You’ll like her well enough, Aoife. At the end of the day, I think her line got the best of them both.”
Gray frowned slightly, but didn’t ask the question that rose to the front of his mind. He’d find out what that meant soon enough. “I take it Marin is part of ‘the rest’?”
The blonde with Phelan barked a laugh, apparently having heard his question.
“Marin leads the rest,” the woman said, grinning. “Whether or not she believes it yet, she leads them as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.”
“Well,” Gray said, forcing lightness into his tone. “I look forward to meeting her, then.”
“As well you should,” Phelan said, his staff braced against the side of his foot. “If we don’t hurry up, though, they’ll be meeting us halfway across instead of by the fire and no one wants or needs that.”
His staff moved, touching the invisible barrier. Gray sensed a ripple, heard a clear, bell-like tone echoing through his head.
Then it was gone, like the memory of a dream carried away on waking, like dust in the wind.
Phelan turned and stepped through the barrier, the blonde and Seamus a step behind.
Gray took a deep breath and followed with Aoife at his side.
This is really coming to a head soon. Good read. Thank you..