Morrigan's Cross (Circle Trilogy 1)

Prologue

It was the rain that made him think of the tale. The lash of it battered the windows, stormed the rooftops and blew its bitter breath under the doors.

The damp ached in his bones even as he settled by the fire. Age sat heavily on him in the long, wet nights of autumn—and would sit heavier still, he knew, in the dark winter to come.

The children were gathered, huddled on the floor, squeezed by twos and threes into chairs. Their faces were turned to his, expectant, for he’d promised them a story to chase boredom from a stormy day.

He hadn’t intended to give them this one, not yet, for some were so young. And the tale was far from tender. But the rain whispered to him, hissing the words he’d yet to speak.

Even a storyteller, perhaps especially a storyteller, had to listen.

“I know a tale,” he began, and several of the children squirmed in anticipation. “It’s one of courage and cowardice, of blood and death, and of life. Of love and of loss.”

“Are there monsters?” one of the youngest asked, with her blue eyes wide with gleeful fear.

“There are always monsters,” the old man replied. “Just as there are always men who will join them, and men who will fight them.”

“And women!” one of the older girls called out, and made him smile.

“And women. Brave and true, devious and deadly. I have known both in my time. Now, this tale I tell you is from long ago. It has many beginnings, but only one end.”

As the wind howled, the old man picked up his tea to wet his throat. The fire crackled, shot light across his face in a wash like gilded blood.

“This is one beginning. In the last days of high summer, with lightning striking blue in a black sky, the sorcerer stood on a high cliff overlooking the raging sea.”

Chapter 1

Eire, the region of Chiarrai

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There was a storm in him, as black and vicious as that which bullied its way across the sea. It whipped inside his blood, outside in the air, battling within and without as he stood on the rain-slickened rock.

The name of his storm was grief.

It was grief that flashed in his eyes, as bold and as blue as those lightning strikes. And the rage from it spit from his fingertips, jagged red that split the air with thunderclaps that echoed like a thousand cannon shots.

He thrust his staff high, shouted out the words of magic. The red bolts of his rage and the bitter blue of the storm clashed overhead in a war that sent those who could see scurrying into cottage and cave, latching door and window, gathering their children close to quake and quail as they prayed to the gods of their choosing.

And in their raths, even the faeries trembled.

Rock rang, and the water of the sea went black as the mouth of hell, and still he raged, and still he grieved. The rain that poured out of the wounded sky fell red as blood—and sizzled, burning on land, on sea, so that the air smelled of its boiling.

It would be called, ever after, The Night of Sorrows, and those who dared speak of it spoke of the sorcerer who stood tall on the high cliff, with the bloody rain soaking his cloak, running down his lean face like death’s tears as he dared both heaven and hell.

His name was Hoyt, and his family the Mac Cionaoith, who were said to be descended from Morrigan, faerie queen and goddess. His power was great, but still young as he was young. He wielded it now with a passion that gave no room to caution, to duty, to light. It was his sword and his lance.

What he called in that terrible storm was death.

While the wind shrieked, he turned, putting his back to the tumultuous sea. What he had called stood on the high ground. She—for she had been a woman once—smiled. Her beauty was impossible, and cold as winter. Her eyes were tenderly blue, her lips pink as rose petals, her skin milk white. When she spoke, her voice was music, a siren’s who had already called countless men to their doom.

“You’re rash to seek me out. Are you impatient, Mac Cionaoith, for my kiss?”

“You are what killed my brother?”

“Death is…” Heedless of the rain, she pushed back her hood. “Complex. You are too young to understand its glories. What I gave him is a gift. Precious and powerful.”

“You damned him.”