Chương 106: Away

They had only spent two days in Teilgcheárta, but it felt like another lifetime. Miriam sat quietly in the snow, letting the world around her be still. Snow was piling up on her horns again but this time she didn't mind it. She was present in a way that had eluded her the last time she had taken the time to be still, while scouting what they had assumed to be an advance Shorinu patrol. They had climbed the mountain on the other side of the valley which sheltered Teilgcheárta when the snow had begun again.

Looking back at the city they were leaving behind, Miriam couldn't help but feel sorrow.

"Don't feel so sad for Teilgcheárta," Eoin said quietly, sitting next to her in the snow.

"The iron that place produced was put to no use but suffering. I should know - I put in my fair share of orders there when I was building the Long Si ships."

"I know," Miriam said.

"It just feels like wherever we go, destruction follows. Cianán's Walk stood for how many thousands of years? Then we show up and it's gone. We're in Teilgcheárta one day and it falls apart." Eoin laughed.

"I think you're giving yourself too much credit. Teilgcheárta was already dead. It just hadn't finished twitching yet. A sad thing. Not your fault." His tone shifted more somber.

"Still, you're not wrong. There's something in the wind like I've never felt before."

"What do you mean?" He sighed, silently inspecting his fingernails for a moment before continuing.

"Things in the Tír change erratically. In many places that change is abrupt, violent, like in the Golden Swamp. In others it's slow - but unstoppable, like the degradation of the Heart of Iron. What I have yet to see is what I'm fearing may be happening. An avalanche.

"Something is changing. Maybe it's another whim of Cianán's, like what happened when he created Cianán's Walk. Maybe some natural wind blowing ways it never has before. But what I fear is that this change has been prepared for some time and set off by just a pebble."

"A pebble?" Miriam pointed at herself.

"Me?"

"Or your friends. I don't know. Every day with you all I see something I've never seen in my two thousand years. Maybe it's because you're from the Realms Above! Like the iron Teilgcheárta used to produce, your very nature foreign to this world gives you power beyond what we can see. Or maybe we're just pawns in a game played between a king and a tree. Who can say?" Miriam didn't respond and just looked out at the sunset, which shone down the valley, lighting up the smokestacks of Teilgcheárta in a bright halo.

For the first time in hundreds of years, the forges were left to die. No smoke filled the air. Snow was falling again in the marketplace where a deadly staircase had been left as a terrible monument to one man's self-sacrifice. As the sun sank below the far edge of the valley, lowering nighttime upon them, she finally turned again to Eoin.

"Is there any change from Sol?"

"He's alive," Eoin said bluntly.

"How he's alive I have no idea. Though to be fair, I hadn't gotten the chance to examine him before this happened, so… I wasn't really sure how he was alive in the first place."

"He really absorbed the Heart of Iron?" Eoin shrugged.

"When Cormac picked him up, I noticed that the Heart was gone. I didn't see it in his hand, so I have to assume that he absorbed it, or broke it apart somehow. I'm guessing he'll be able to tell us when he wakes up." Neither of them pointed out the omission in that sentence. That he might not wake up at all. As they walked back to the camp they saw Róise and Cormac huddled around the fire, talking intently. Their packs were bundled up next to them.

As Miriam entered the camp both of them stood hurriedly, as if they'd been caught. Miriam looked at them askance.

"Something you want to say?"

"We're leaving," Cormac blurted out. Miriam gasped.

"What? What do you mean?" Róise walked forward and took Miriam's hands in her own.

"This… this was horrible, in so many ways. But it's opened my eyes to a few things that I don't think I really wanted to face. The idea that Caolán… might not be a traitor at all, but that I must still oppose him. That the hate I've been harboring… it could easily turn me into him. So sure that any means are justified by the ends I seek." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Why does that mean you have to leave?" Miriam said, grasping Róise's own hands tightly.

"We've been through so much together. Just… give me a little time, I can make it to Third in no time, you'll see. Eoin?"

"No," he said.

"I'm sorry, Miriam, but you're not even close to Third yet. I can get you there, but it will take a long time. If I'm being honest, perhaps more time than you have left in this Ring. I can promise nothing." Miriam turned back to Róise, trying and failing to stop the anger in her voice.

"And what will you do while I'm out here training in the woods? What is so urgent that you'll leave me alone?"

"You won't be alone," Cormac said.

"Sol will be with you. And Eoin. There is no one better to help both of you than him."

"I'm going to do exactly what Caolán says he wants to do," Róise said.

"But I'm going to do it right. I'm going back to Shirren and build the revolution Máirín never could. I'm going to use the new power Cian gave us to strike back at Shorinu." She looked at Cormac.

"And it won't just be Pixies. It'll be Bodacs. Banshees. Crockern." She smiled, running her hands lovingly along Miriam's green hair.

"And before you know it, even Dryads." Miriam hated that she felt so angry at Cormac and Róise for leaving her. Ever since arriving together on Cianán's Walk they had been a constant in her life, one she adored. She never doubted that they could do anything when all of them were together. To be left behind, with Sol, who might never wake up - and who had Solas in his mind even when he did. In the care of Eoin, who was already sworn to kill her eventually.

It was like the days after Thomas had been captured in Marybel. Her own life felt out of her control, beset by enemies on all sides, and her only friends were gone.

"I'm sorry," she said curtly.

"Just give me a moment." Miriam could feel their eyes on her as she stalked off into the woods. She made sure she was well out of earshot before she sat down on a log and let herself start crying. She had never been the sort of woman to cry in distress. Even when her children and grandchildren would come home from war in boxes, she had not shed a drop. She funneled her emotions through anger more than sorrow. But then it had been easier - she'd had her family around her, a family who needed her to be strong.

A family who wouldn't be helped by an old lady collapsing onto a teary puddle. Here she had no one to be strong for but herself. She was sure that Cormac would have followed her, to reassure her in the way that he had where he was absolutely confident everything was going to be fine. He wasn't convincing - you never left those conversations thinking he was right - but it was always comforting somehow to know that he thought so. But no footsteps followed her.

They had respected her request for time and she was both grateful for that and longing for their company at the same moment. After a while her tears dried and she felt better. She'd been able to vent her frustration and her fear and was left with a clear head. She even found herself smiling a little as she thought about what might come next. They all rose to meet her again as she entered the camp but she waved them to sit down.

"I'm fine, everyone," she said, and she meant it.

"I guess I just assumed we'd be together all the way to Shirren, but you're right. There is no sense in me holding you back. And you!" She said, pointing at Eoin. He pointed at his own chest quizzically.

"Yes, you, Eoin. I won't hear any doom and gloom about how long it will take me to get to Third. I'm Miriam Callihan, and I've never set a goal I couldn't accomplish. Give me six months and I'll be walking into Shirren." Eoin smiled broadly.

"That is what I always liked about you, Miriam. Even in the worst circumstances - the situations in which you and I always seem to meet - you are relentless. I won't go easy on you. I'll train you as hard as I can until you break, then wake you up the next day and do it again." She grinned back.

"Won't happen. And you two," she looked at Róise and Cormac.

"Be safe. Hit them hard. When you need me, I'll be there, with Sol in tow." Róise and Cormac were determined to press on tonight - another reminder of how Miriam had been holding them back. They could be back in Shirren in less than a week if they were able to use the full extent of their Fourth strength.

"You should keep this," Cormac said, pressing something into her hand. Miriam looked at what he'd handed her - the Drop of Cian, an opal-white apple in the shape of a teardrop.

"I don't know what'll happen when we get to Shirren, but best that not fall into the wrong hands." Cormac nodded at Eoin.

"And maybe this degenerate can help you figure out what we might be able to do to save him." So with a pair of goodbyes more determined than sorrowful, Róise and Cormac disappeared into the night, walking slowly at first, but then quickly gone, running in light almost as good as day under the twin moons. Eoin touched her shoulder.

"Are you all right?" Miriam nodded.

"I'll be fine. There were just a lot of things catching up to me. Róise and Cormac leaving seemed like just one more thing to add to the pile of things weighing on me. But I'm good. We need to put some more distance between ourselves and Teilgcheárta, and then we'll start training." He nodded.

"Good. We have a lot to do."

"Thanks, Eoin," Miriam said. She sighed.

"I don't always respect the choices you've made to get here, but I do understand how you made them. And at the end of the day, you've always helped me. So, just… thanks. I'm going to check on Sol one more time before I got to sleep." Eoin bowed, unable to hide a pleased smile. She could see Sol breathing where he was laid, not far from the fire, so Eoin was right - still alive, thank the gods.

His skin had changed as well - where before he'd been the color and pattern of a ship's deck, now he was run through with silver lines, like elaborate tattoos - incredibly thin, but incredibly straight. She didn't get the sense of radiating cold as she would from iron - she honestly felt nothing from it, as if it were just a normal part of his body.

"Good night Sol," she said softly. Sol opened his eyes, each black with now a bright purple iris. He grinned wickedly and said "I thought they'd never leave. Miriam, my dear! Solas so does love his happy reunions."