[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
The distraction was all whatever had been attacking me needed.
Phantom claws dug into my flesh and my head rang like a bell, like I’d been knocked from the wall and banged it hard against the ground. My vision doubled but I could still see the field in front of me, so I knew that hadn’t happened.
“Marin?”
Phelan’s voice sounded like it was echoing through a tunnel before it ever reached me—and a long tunnel, at that. My breath came shallowly and I couldn’t find voice enough to answer him. His fingers suddenly closed around my arm and the sudden attack stalled. I sucked in two breaths even as he stiffened beside me, his gaze jerking away from me and focusing on something I couldn’t see out on the field, out in the storm.
“Déithe agus arrachtaigh. Seamus!”
My head was still ringing, but at least I could breathe again. My bow slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering against the stones of the wall. I was shaking.
“What’s happening?” I managed to whisper. “Who’s doing this?”
“Fight back, Marin,” Phelan said, his fingers digging into my flesh. “Fight back, dammit.”
“It’s not Thesan.” I’d have recognized her—at least I thought that I would. Red nibbled at the edges of my vision. I sucked in another breath. Phelan wrapped both arms around me and hung on. Comforting warmth swept through me and for a second, I fought against it, thinking it was a new attack.
“Stop,” he whispered. “That’s me. Fight her.”
“Who is it?” I asked again.
“Cyhyraeth,” he breathed, the name so quiet I could barely hear it over the sound of my heart in my ears and the storm.
“What?”
“Cyhyraeth,” he repeated. “Come to claim the vengeance she swore a thousand and a thousand yesterdays ago on the soul that once belonged to Brighíd of the Imbolg, who drove her from the shores of Eire when the world was young.”
