The Fifth Cycle by Dan O'Mahony

Author:Dan O'Mahony
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dan O'Mahony
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Everyone made such a big deal out of me back at camp, you’d have thought me and Alaynna had fought actual Fomorians, not some of Scathach’s guards in disguise. Then again, it’s not like we knew that at that time. I mean, those charms they’d used did a real good job of making them seem like the real thing.

I felt bad for Niall. He was still beating himself up for — well, getting beaten up and knocked out so easily. I was more worried about Alaynna though. She still looked upset when I saw her later that day. At dinner time, the three of us were supposed to receive the Hero’s Portion. We were going to sit at the big table with those comfy chairs, have people wait on us, get fancy desserts and drink mead. I didn’t even really know what mead was or what it would taste like — but I still wanted it really bad. Mead was legendary. All the big-time heroes drank mead.

Niall didn’t want to go. He said he didn’t deserve it. I did my best to try to talk him out of it. No luck. I asked Kian and Kelan to join me. We waited for Alaynna — but she never showed up in the dining hall.

Word got back to us she wasn’t feeling too well and was skipping dinner. I thought about how she’d reacted during the fight with — what we thought were Fomorians. The way she went from petrified with fear to straight-up psycho had me worried. And now she was hiding away from everyone, that had me even more worried.

I tried enjoying my meal, trying to convince myself Alaynna would be fine. She was as tough as they came. Whatever was troubling her, she’d get a handle on it. That turned out that wasn’t the case. What Alaynna was going through was even worse than I could’ve ever imagined.

Over the next few days, in training, Alaynna was either really distracted or overly aggressive. Nothing in between. It took me a while, but I finally worked up the guts to confront her.

Niall had beaten me to it. I spotted the two of them standing near the outer wall. Alaynna was leaning on him. Her head was almost on his shoulder. I hope that meant she was finally going to open up about what was troubling her. It made sense she’d tell Niall. Like she’d said before, their families were close. They’d known each other since they were little. And who knows maybe they really would be betrothed someday.

I headed back to my cottage to clean up and chill for a while. At dinnertime, I decided to pass by Alaynna’s cottage on the way to the dining hall, hoping I’d run into her. I got there, just as she was stepping out of her cottage — flanked by four of Scathach’s guards.

They were in armor and helmets, carrying spears and shields. They walked Alaynna toward Scathach’s villa at the center of the camp.

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