The Irish Warrior

They pushed through slowly, Finian holding aside the worst offenders with his mailed forearm and sword. The brush crowded back into place behind them with eager rustlings and clickings. They finally emerged, slightly scratched and breathing heavily, on a meadow near the crest of a ridge.

“We rest here,” he said shortly. “We have until twilight.”

A fervent orange glow pulsed along the edge of the horizon, bringing light and heat to their chilled fingers. Finian threw himself on the ground, absorbing the respite for all it was worth. He closed his eyes and flung out his legs and arms, letting the fresh air and morning dawn flow over him like water.

“When you look like that, Finian, I can see you as a boy.”

He opened his eyes and stared at the dark blue-black sky overhead, still pricked by a few stars, then shifted his gaze down. Senna sat, arms hooked around her knees, considering him.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so? A lad? In what manner?”

She smiled. “In the stubborn sort of manner.”

He snorted. “We’re two of a kind, then.”

Her smile faded. “No.” She shook her head. “Not so much.” He watched from beneath his lids as she got to her feet and stumbled, head down, to the edge of the ridge, one hand pressed to her spine as if for support.

Small birds trilled and chirped. Fresh pine scents filled the air. The weak but fiery sunlight warmed his bruised legs as he lay, arms crossed under his head. Sleep crept in, dragging his eyelids shut.

The sudden sound of pebbles kicking out snapped them open again, but it was just Senna. Although now her body stance was entirely different than a few minutes ago. Her chin was up, her shoulders back.

He pushed to his elbows. “What is it?”

“That”—she turned to him with a smile—“is a beautiful sunrise.” She gestured to the horizon. Though hushed, excitement carried her words clear across the meadow. She sounded like she’d made a discovery.

He glanced briefly at the sunrise, then back to her.

“Aye, beautiful,” he agreed slowly. “’Tis a powerful draught you’ve sucked on.”

The sun had expanded from a pulsing orange to a warm golden orb. Their shadows had shortened a quarter inch. Dew sparkled in flashes of green and sapphire in the chilled air. And she stood at the forefront of it all, a dark, curving figure, but the fiery glints of her hair picked up copper and gold from the sun.

She touched her cheek as if trying to feel what he might be referring to, then gestured to the horizon again. “’Tis a beautiful day.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “A mighty tonic, that fact.”

If Senna could see him as a lad, he could see her as a young lass, all wide-eyed and wondering, sending men into madness even at that age. The cliffs around her home were probably littered with the bodies of unsuspecting knights who came to find a wife and ended up hurtling themselves off bluffs to escape her bewitching, obstinate beauty.

“I admit, I don’t think I’ve been out for a sunrise in…” She paused, figuring. “Three years,” came the final report.

“Been hunched over a desk, have ye?”

She half shrugged. “Something like that.”

A good merchant. And yet…

Untutored passion practically pulsed from this woman. Their kiss on the ridge proved it. She was packed with something molten, and it spilled out in everything she did, from removing her hand from Rardove’s grip to flinging herself over boulders. To kissing him.

He frowned. What did that matter? He had no time for things of the heart. No interest. No capacity.

Women’s bodies, though, he had interest and ability there. But much as he could not live without their curving bodies and pretty smiles, they had never captured anything more enduring than his attention. Noble or peasant, dainty or voluptuous, he loved them all equally: not enough to matter.

He had nothing to give. He paid it little mind. For what reason dwell on the truth that he would always be alone?

Better than becoming what his father had: ruined by a woman.

That was not his path. His duties for The O’Fáil, foster father and king of the greatest tuatha in Ireland, were endless. Chief negotiator, councilor, and diplomat, Finian’s position occupied him constantly, by desire and design and great, pressing need.

At present, that need was simple and dire: find the secret recipe of the Wishmé dyes before Rardove did. Or else their lands, their lives, and possibly large tracts of Ireland would be lost to the English king, Edward I.