Queen Among the Dead by Lesley Livingston

Author:Lesley Livingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zando

XVIII

THERE WAS TO be no ceremony for Úna. No body. No funeral. No one had expected the princess to die and so there had been no barrow built for her, and Ruad Rofhessa refused to have her body raised on a pyre. Instead, the Dagda’s Druids would perform rites for the princess, Neve was told. And that would be that. Úna had failed their father by dying, she thought bitterly, and so their father would hold no celebration of her life, her spirit.

Instead, a smaller gathering than usual of Tuatha Dé lords and ladies trooped out into the drab fog of evening, hoods up, heads down, for the final Singing of the Stone. Neve had saddled one of her horses and ridden out on her own, leaving Sakir to gather with his own folk before they returned to the Golden Vale. At Brú na Bóinne, Neve dismounted and joined the rest of the gathering waiting for the ritual to begin, casting furtive glances at the Dagda’s chief advisers. She caught more than a few of them, heads together, muttering darkly to one another, and where normally they would have stood together behind their king, that night there were gaps and distance between the chieftains and the Lord of Temair.

The Dagda was an island. Until he caught sight of Neve.

With a jerk of his head, Ruad Rofhessa beckoned her to his side. Staring straight ahead, Neve walked slowly over to stand with him. It was entirely for show, she knew. Or maybe it was because, without Úna, her father truly was alone. Even if he didn’t really know it.

As she took her place at his side, the ritual commenced. The Druids began their incantation—an ominous dirge to Neve’s ears—and wisps of mist rose and gathered into a heavy, pearlescent gray fog. Thicker, it seemed to her, than what the Druids usually conjured up to disguise their fakery. As the last sentinel stone—Úna’s stone—started to lift, Neve added her voice to the singing, if only to honor her sister, in a way that a meaningless slab of rock never could.

The stone slid forward and dropped into the hole in the ground with a resounding boom that shook the very earth beneath their feet. An invisible force flowed outward from the circle of stones, slamming into the Tuatha Dé like a sudden gale-force wind and nearly knocking some of them from their feet. Cloaks and robes lifted and snapped like war banners streaming. The fog that cloaked the plain bloomed outward and vanished, revealing the Great Barrow of Brú na Bóinne, surrounded by the full, complete circle of sentinel stones.

And crowned with a cluster of shadowy figures.

Neve heard surprised gasps and confused murmurings from the gathered crowd. And then silence descended as, one by one, they noticed the band of women, dressed for war and still as statues, dark silhouettes against the leaden sky.

“Faoladh,” Neve whispered, her heart leaping in her chest.

The pale-haired Faoladh leader—Cliona was her name, Neve remembered—along with their seeress,

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