Chương 104: Brother and Sister

Without the leadership of Ferris at the front, the Teilgcheárta forces were quickly overwhelmed. In moments, the remaining seventeen Crockern were disarmed, lying with their stomachs against the cool stone. Ferris glowered at the Séarlait forces as the rest of them filed in, swords and spears at the ready. Róise's hand trembled against the purple stone of the Heart of Iron. She'd been foolish to send the Iron Dead away. She should just call them back. Caolán pointed at her.

"Speak one word while holding that stone, girl, and your lucky friend here will find his luck very much turned." Róise looked to see Cormac shrugging helplessly as three spears poked into his chest. She growled and ripped her hand away from the gem. Caolán frowned at her.

"Where did you come from? I've been spying on Ferris Einion for the last year. I know everyone in his entourage. And I know everyone associated with Eoin Daithi. Miriam, the Dryad. Sol, the artificial man. Cormac. It's impossible that I wouldn't know you." Eoin laughed.

"You've encountered the limitations of the Vigilance Adept class, Mr. Séarlait. It's powerful, but has a few key drawbacks." Caolán narrowed his eyes.

"I've asked you before not to speak openly of my Adept class, Mr. Daithi." Eoin shrugged.

"Cat's out of the bag now. It's an Adept class built around paranoia and tribalism. It's a favorite of spymasters in every kingdom in the Tír, no matter the Ring. It's like my Analysis technique but… wide, instead of narrow. It allows you to surveil anyone you consider to be an out-group. A pixie for example, would easily be able to spy on a group of Crockern. The differences are stark." Caolán's face was reddening.

"Quiet, Mr. Daithi. I want your knowledge, but I will not buy it at the price of my secrets. Your life I view to be far cheaper than they." Eoin rolled his eyes.

"Caolán, I am not scared of you. Nor Onóra, if she's skulking around out there somewhere. I've lived for two thousand years in the highest density reaches of the Fifth Ring. I don't know how this conflict is going to end, but I do now that when it's over I will walk out of this cave, regardless of who wins. I'll spill any of your bloody secrets I want to." Caolán gestured and Onóra appeared in a spray of mist. Around her throat was a fading scar.

"He's right," Onóra admitted reluctantly.

"Backed into a corner, no one is more dangerous than Eoin Daithi. It wouldn't be as easy as he's making it sound," she said, making a face at her former teacher.

"But he will escape. No question. His talent for running away is legendary."

"I take that as a compliment," Eoin said.

"But I am trying to tell you what you want to know, anyway, Mr. Séarlait. I'm willing to bet you've never met anyone you couldn't spy on, have you? Crockern might be easy, but pixies aren't much harder. That's because you're one of the most arrogant sons of bitches to ever walk the Tír. Your rock-solid belief that you yourself are a unique individual, more cunning, smarter, more innately talented than anyone you ever met is unassailable.

Who out there in the entire world could be even remotely similar to a man of your singular gifts?" The pixie scowled.

"And who are you to say I'm wrong? I'm the most powerful pixie in the outer Rings. The only Shirrenite to hold back the Shorinu. Architect of a merchant empire to rival nations! I'm not even three hundred yet." Eoin shrugged.

"It doesn't matter how I see you, sir. It only matters how you see yourself. You wouldn't be familiar with this little exception - after all, everyone who had this particular similarity to you is dead." Caolán's eyes widened in shock.

"Family?" He turned to Róise.

"Who are you? I feel recognition on the tip of my brain, but I just can't make sense of it." Róise looked at her brother. He was smaller than she'd remembered - which made sense. It had been a long time since they'd seen each other. He would have aged, of course. Otherwise his face, which had always seemed so boyish to her, was more filled with lines. His hair splashed with hints of gray.

"Been a long time Cao-Cao," she sneered.

"I had hoped that by the time you recognized me I'd already have your blood on my hands." Caolán dipped in the air, as if unable to hold his hover." Róise?" This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Róise bowed with teeth clenched.

"In the flesh, big brother." Out of nowhere Caolán exploded towards her. Róise was almost as fast as her brother, but he was a Fifth, though she didn't know how he'd achieved that. He'd only been a Third when she was a girl. She summoned her fórsa blades, too slow to even consider starting up a technique. This would be reflex vs reflex. She remembered her mother armed with nothing but a tiny filigree sword, charging the men determined to end her daughter's life.

Róise needed to pay off the debt she'd incurred that day. And now was the time. Her blades came down. He batted them away as if they were nothing and got deep inside her guard. Róise tried to twist away, but his strength was monstrous. The leap from Fourth to Fifth was greater than Third to Fourth. He wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his muscles tense. Was this a throw? Was he planning to just crush her spine? These seemed like moves far too rough for someone as refined as Caolán.

Hate surged in her heart as he pinned her arms - she had to bring her knives to bear. All the daydreaming of revenge, the nights filled with dreams of how this man would die - all withered on the vine of reality as he simply overpowered her. And what was that noise? Caolán Séarlait, the President of the Séarlait Consortium, richest man in Innushi and would-be Overloard of Teilgcheárta, was openly weeping.

"Róise! Oh Gods, I never thought you'd still be alive! I prayed for years that I would find you. After that night I searched and searched…"

"What?" Róise struggled to shrug off his embrace.

"Let go of me you godsdamned murderer! Are you so delusional that you think I'd welcome you? It was at your hands Father died. Your order that sent those thugs into our house and killed our mother. Our Aunt, dead in the street!" Caolán stepped back, a horrified expression on his face.

"That's what you think? You think I betrayed the family?"

"Of course you did!" Róise hissed, holding her blades out.

"When Séarlait family blood had finally cooled in the street it was you sitting pretty in the House of Lords. Shorinu had their patsy and you played your part to a T." Caolán looked at the floor, as if confused. Róise held her knives at the ready, but impossibly, she hesitated. Of all the reactions she had fantasized about when she finally confronted her brother, this hurt and sorrowful confusion was not even a possibility she had considered.

"The night of Pixie's Dance," he began slowly, "I was with Father as he walked the steps of the House of Lords. I was to learn the rituals. He told me in less than five years he was planning to step down and promote me in his place. I was beginning to understand what it meant to run the Séarlait family and…" he swallowed.

"I was not ready.

"The betrayal came from one of our allied business partners. The Finbar Concern. Do you remember them? Their heir was about your age - they were Banshees, but he spent a Dance night or two with us as our guest in the house from time to time""No," Róise said heatedly.

"Since that time I have found my childhood memories largely tainted by blood and an insatiable desire for revenge. I don't remember any Finbars."

"Just as well. The Finbars killed Father outright, but me they kidnapped. I didn't even learn about our Aunt until later. Or… or mother. Or you." He held out one hand - she hadn't noticed before, but he was missing his last two fingers.

"They tortured me for days, Róise. Days. They didn't even ask me any questions. They just hurt me and hurt me until they saw that I was broken enough to comply. Thus, in a only a few days the Finbar Concern had bought themselves a puppet Consortium and another seat at the table, just as the Shorinu were consolidating their power in Shirren." Caolán paced back and forth in front of the altar. It was like the words were bubbling out of him, unstoppable.

"I learned what had happened and… something in me… unbroke? Is that a word? I felt a resolve arise that I had never felt before. I would play their game - but not as their pawn. I wormed my way into the system during the day while building relationships with the shadier aspects of Shirren at night. One night a minor Finbar noble died in a brothel, drowned besotted in a bath. Two weeks later, a vassal house lord thrown from a horse, dead with a broken neck." He turned to her, a familiar bloodlust in his eyes.

"I devoured House Finbar, Róise. Bit by bit. And when I was done I turned to their masters, the godsdamned Shorinu Invasion Council. I know… I can't blame you for thinking what you did. It was the show I put on.

'Shorinu's favorite Shirrenite.' That's what they called me. But sister… I can tell you this. In the halls of Shorinu's High Council? They don't call me that anymore." Caolán turned to the captive Ferris.

"Einion! What did you have to give Shorinu when you traded this place away for a handful of men and empty promises?" Ferris sat tied up, blanketed in his own blood. Sol sat near the big Crockern - probably using a Róisín Dubh technique material on him. Ferris spat.

"Your head on a platter. That's all they wanted." Caolán cackled.

"Róise, I couldn't care less about the Iron businesses. Teilgcheárta can rot for all I care. What I wanted was the Iron Dead." Róise blinked.

"The Iron Dead?"

"I want to set them loose into the Shorinu countryside," the pixie said, his eyes blazing.

"I want them to tear this country apart. They'll make their way to Shirren and we will take it back from the gods-forsaken Shorinu Invasion Council! An unstoppable army, toxic to the touch and horrifying to the eye. This is how I want Shorinu to die, Róise. Ground to dust beneath the feet of poisonous monsters. I want nightmares to be the last thing they experience in this world.

And when I've torn this country apart I want to mount the heads of every last member of the Shorinu Invasion Council on pikes outside their festival hall and perform the Pixie's Dance covered in their blood." Róise couldn't breathe. Her jaw shook and her knives faded. Tears came unbidden to her eyes.

"Caolán… I want that more than anything in the world. More than anything."