“I’m not the one in dire need of saving. Now go, or must we hurl you off the ledge?”
Egan glanced up at the hawk sailing overhead. He wanted to believe the bird had come to guide him, and he dared not keep him waiting. He walked to his wing, and while his cousins lifted and held it in pl
ace, his uncle fastened him into the harness.
“Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” he said. “Now, you had better move out of the way. I don’t want to knock anyone over the edge when I jump.”
“Aye, we’ll start down the mountain right now and meet you in the valley,” Yowan promised, and he and his sons hurried along the path past Kieran and his friends.
“Last chance,” Egan called to Kieran, but his brother’s menacing scowl made it plain he would not withdraw. Egan again sighted the hawk and adjusted his position to face directly into the wind. This was either going to be the most extraordinary adventure of his life or a glorious death, but he was ready for either. He leaped from the ledge with a graceful dive.
Oriana had also drawn courage from the hawk’s presence, but she still had not been prepared to watch Egan fly. She stifled a scream as he left the ledge and stared wide-eyed as he angled his wing and fell not straight down the mountainside, but away from the rocky slope into a gentle glide that carried him out over the valley.
He leaned into the wind to mimic the hawk’s slow, circular path and soared above the crowd as though he were suspended from the clouds by silken threads.
While intricately woven for beauty, the Dál Cais’ tapestries had failed to capture the mystical grandeur of flight, and few in the awed crowd remembered to mark the time. Those who did struck an easy rhythm but their numbers were lost beneath a chorus of ecstatic shouts. When Egan floated safely back to earth and landed smoothly on his feet, the crowd rushed forward but Oriana reached him first.
Egan slid out of his harness as she jumped from her mare’s back. He ran to lift her off her feet and spun her around. “Did you see your hawk?” he asked between hungry kisses.
“Aye, but you’re the hawk now,” she exclaimed.
Thinking one of them should have his wits about him, Albyn rode in a wide circle around the loving pair to prevent the enthusiastic crowd from crushing them or the finely crafted wing. “What about Kieran?” he shouted. “Can he match such a superb flight?”
No cheering came from the ledge, but rather a hushed stillness broken only by a restless man kicking pebbles off the path. Most of the men were related to Kieran. Their own fortunes were closely tied to his, and they had just seen his chance to become king blown away in the wind.
Kieran grew increasingly angry as he watched the crowd swirl around Egan as though the coronation celebration had already begun. He had hoped his brother would crash on the rocks, or failing that calamity, produce no more than an awkward flight that would end with him too badly injured to survive. Instead, Egan had flown as though he had been born with a magnificent pair of wings.
His companions were equally astonished at Egan’s stunning success, and the bravest among them shuffled to Kieran’s side. “I thought we’d built a fine wing, but ours is no match for Egan’s. No one will call you a coward if you end the challenge now and walk down the mountain.”
Kieran had done his best to kill Egan in the sea, and he was too furiously angry to hand him the crown. “Our wing is of the same design,” he spit out through clenched teeth, “and I intend to use it.”
His friends exchanged horrified glances, for none wished to see him killed. “There was a rumor,” one interjected slyly, “that if Egan won today, the challenge would shift to his bride. Let him win this. He’ll still not rule.”
Ula had hinted that Egan would be doomed by his arrogant choices if not a disastrous flight. She and Garrick were constantly conspiring against someone who had done them a real, or even an imagined, insult. It was a game to them; but could they actually turn the whole tribe against Egan because he had chosen an outsider as his wife?
He raised a hand in a plea for silence while he considered the matter. He had known his kin to be a fickle lot, and on more than one occasion they had cheered a noble one day and turned on him the next. It was possible that despite Egan’s triumph, he would be despised by nightfall, but Kieran still had to prove he was the better man.
“If I walk down the mountain,” he explained, “I’ll always be the man who refused to fly. Which of you wishes to be known for what he’s failed to do? Come, help me don the wing.”
Once Kieran had secured the harness, he stood poised on the ledge and waited to draw sufficient attention to make the leap worthwhile. He had observed Egan’s flight closely, and though he believed the immense wing had accounted for the brilliance of his success, his brother had also been remarkably adept in handling it. Now all he had to do was follow his stunning example.
Egan held Oriana in an easy embrace, but he was prepared to swiftly shield her eyes should Kieran splatter himself against the rocks. “If he had any sense, he’d walk down the mountain,” he whispered against her curls.
“I imagine he’d rather die,” Oriana responded, but she was unable to suppress a chill of dread. She searched the sky for the hawk, but he had again disappeared, and when Kieran jumped from the ledge, he would be entirely alone. She had urged Egan to spare his brother’s life, but when Kieran chose to throw it away, she felt powerless to intervene.
“He’s waiting until he’s captured every eye,” Albyn observed with a weary sigh.
“There he goes,” Egan shouted, but his words were lost in the approving roar rumbling across the valley.
Kieran had lunged into the wind, but rather than fly, he felt himself falling. He stretched to send his wing out over the jagged rocks below, but the wind screamed like a banshee in his ears. He thrust his head up to tilt the wing and caught what wind he could, but it was barely enough to carry him beyond the treacherous base of Mount Royal.
He then fought to lean back and swung his legs forward as birds met the land, but a sudden gust of wind from the side knocked him off balance. The right tip of his wing struck the ground and dug a long furrow, then caught on a rock and spun him around before it came to rest. He choked on the dust, but shed his harness unharmed. Elated, he leaped into the air to wave his arms and cheer.
Egan laughed at the sorry spectacle, but he was more than merely amused. “Kieran has courage if little sense, but clearly I’ve won the day.”
“That you have,” Albyn agreed. “Make him come to you.”
With one last lingering kiss, Oriana left Egan’s embrace, but she remained at his side and took a firm grip on his arm. His kinsmen jostled against one another as they pressed forward, but Albyn still sat his horse behind them to protect them and the wing.